DirectTV vs DishTV

[zetta]

For those of you who have had both DirectTV and DishTV, which did you prefer and why? How does the user-interface on the DVRs compare?

Our cable has recently gone up $20/month (introductory rate expired after 1 year), and we hate the DVR interface anyway, so we're thinking of switching to satellite.

[Broken Arrow]

Hope this helps.

[MonkeyMama]

RUN RUN RUN from Dish.

Our parents have DirectTV and we find the DVRs much easier to use. (We used to have TIVO and so are used to the best. You may have seen me rant in my blog how our 10-year-old, first generation TIVO is 1000 times superior to this crap Dish calls a DVR).

DirectTV probably isn't MUCH better, but it is better. We've been paying particular attention to our parent's set up since we will switch soon. Their DVR is set up better.

Anyway, our cable company got bought out by Comcast and all we heard was BAD about them so we switched to Dish.

Blech. Nothing nice to say about customer service at Dish. Nothing. We will leave (waiting for DirectTv's HD TIVO next year). Dh has tried to talk to the retention department in the meantime and they say they don't have one. He has called various times on many issues and has been hung up on MANY times. When it comes to any product support they are just morons over there. He tried their online message boards and just got ridiculed for pushing the limits of the DVR (recording so many shows) and was told to manually set up recordings to get around our issues. You have GOT to be kidding me. Our 30-hour (10-year-old) TIVO sufficed. This thing is CRAP. It has 1000 hours but god forbid trying to record more than 50 shows. (We record more on this than TIVO since it is impossible to watch live TV. So you have to record enough to have a steady stream of TV if you have a sick day or something).

Not to mention it took them NINE hours to set up our Dish and then didn't get it right. I think it got blown around in the wind so they had to come back out right away to fix it.

Yeah, nothing nice to say.

We didn't go with DirectTv because it was more expensive, but we are switching now. Nothing is worth this aggravation.

[tripods68]

I personally would never go back to Satellite. I had Dishnetwork for about a year. They were cheaper most definitely, but the service sucks! Whenever I had problem with the satellite due to bad weather condtions (wind blowing, or hard rain) we would lose all the channels. When I called them for service, it tooks days sometimes a week to get anyone in my house for service. They contract a lot of their services, so you get new people all the time that aren't familiar with your set up. It got so frustrating (they put wrong chip, or cable box). So we decided to go back to to Comcast. We pay little bit more but we don't have nowhere the problems we used to have with satellites. Just stay away.

[Aleta]

We have had the same problem with service from DirectTV. We are also looking to change to Dishnetwork.

[noppenbd]

Originally Posted by zetta

For those of you who have had both DirectTV and DishTV, which did you prefer and why? How does the user-interface on the DVRs compare?

Our cable has recently gone up $20/month (introductory rate expired after 1 year), and we hate the DVR interface anyway, so we're thinking of switching to satellite.

It is worth a call to your cable to threaten to cancel and see if they can extend the introductory rate. I have heard this works pretty frequently.

[jIM_Ohio]

I have directTV and have no reason to consider another provider.

[jIM_Ohio]

Originally Posted by skins_fan

I have used both DirectTV and Dish, the service / reception is basically the same. Weather is usually the main issue and it will affect them both the same generally.

However I hardly have had any weather related outages over the past few years. Even in the harshest winters in Minnesota I may have lost my signal once or twice and that was always in the middle of a blizzard.

I currently am with DirecTV because I like the HD options better and I subscribe to the NFL package (can't get through Dish).

I also use the DVR and generally have no issues other than you are limited with satellite to 2 connections, with cable now some offer up to 4.

My dish has 4 lines (DirectTV) for 4 rooms. One room has a DVR. Exactly what do you mean "limited to 2 connections"?

[noppenbd]

Originally Posted by zetta

For those of you who have had both DirectTV and DishTV, which did you prefer and why? How does the user-interface on the DVRs compare?

Our cable has recently gone up $20/month (introductory rate expired after 1 year), and we hate the DVR interface anyway, so we're thinking of switching to satellite.

We just have had DirecTV and we like it a lot. I don't think we have ever lost the signal due to weather. For about $100 we bought a preowned DirecTIVO unit off of eBay which allows us to use Tivo with Directv, instead of the current Directv DVR.

[Bimmer]

We have had Dish Network for two years. It has been great, much better than DirectTV which we had for a year previous to Dish. It is faster than DirectTV (ie when you change channels, it changes almost instantly unlike DirectTV which had a delay). I prefer the Dish DVR to the lame and annoying DirectTV tivo.

Comcast cable is ridiculously expensive here.

I cannot comment on customer service, as I have never had a problem. The only time the satellite has been down has been during heavy, windy snowstorms (maybe three or four times in 2.5 years). And those down periods last an hour at the most.

Of course you'll hear some who like Dish, some who prefer Direct. I would say the two are close enough that you should go for whichever one provides the best deal.

[project15]

Originally Posted by jIM_Ohio

My dish has 4 lines (DirectTV) for 4 rooms. One room has a DVR. Exactly what do you mean "limited to 2 connections"?

I think he means that you can only record 2 shows at the same time or watch one show while recording another.