Recommendations: Dish Network or Direct TV?
Sunday, November 18th, 2007 - 6:53pm
Looks like I have to make a choice soon. AT&T has Dish as a part of their phone/internet/TV package, but some of the guys at work say Direct TV is much better. I thought I'd ask around here.
It used to be Dish for quality and DirecTV for quantitiy, but quality is subjective. DTV does have a crap ton of HD channels.
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I'm really happy with Dish. They have the Voom HD exclusive channels too.
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I just tried getting DishNetwork, but I've got too many trees. What are my chances of getting Direct TV?
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"Voom"?
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We have Dish as well. I'm not crazy about their DVR; Direct TV's was much better. Dish had our locals though, and a decent basic package for less than Direct. Maybe that has changed though, I haven't compared package pricing lately.
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I've been pretty satisfied with DirecTV, and there's a ton of options including Sunday Ticket which has been a necessity for me.
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I was a Dish Network customer for many years. We had a series of horrible customer service experiences with them. I mean, down right rude and just plain stupid on their part.
I have been an extremely satisfied customer of DirecTV for more than years now. Better channel selection, more HD and Sunday Ticket are all items in the PRO column. Also, based on recent items sent to me in the mail from DISH, my DirecTV fees are less than what I would be paying if I were still a DISH customer.
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Generally I had a good experience with DirectTV, but as soon as I was able I switched to cable. It wasn't the service--it's that we can have fairly harsh winters where I live, and when the dish is covered in a layer of ice, you don't get reception. Which of course means on the really nasty days, the ones when you just want to stay in & watch TV, you're out of luck.
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DirecTV all the way. We've had it for 2 years and been completely satisfied. Some of our neighbors got Dish and ended up switching to DirecTV.
What HD channels does DirecTV have that Dish doesn't? The only one I know of, maybe it's the only one I care about, is SciFi HD, but I've heard they don't have any HD content yet anyway.
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Happy Direct TV customer here. Had Dish Network since 99, droped them and got Direct TV last year and I'm loving it.
Glad you asked.
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pqSkLhRl_wme3oSpPNLfecQ
wordsmythe wrote:
We switch back and forth. We've tried getting the current provider of choice to back down their prices to match the first year offer from the other but it never works out.
We're on Dish right now, but I'm sure they'll refuse to match whatever crazy "First Year half price!" style deals DirecTV has running when we decide to go through it all again.
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Apologies for the thread resurrection, but I'm looking to call either DTV or Dish Network this week to establish service, and I'm curious to hear if any opinions have changed in a year or if any new opinions have been formed on the DTV vs. Dish debate.
We're looking for a decent HD selection (including Sci Fi HD and NFL Network) + local channels in HD. Not really planning on getting Sunday Ticket or premium movie channels. We also do have internet access through Time Warner that we'll either need to replace or keep and pay more for per month (because we're dropping cable service).
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Well Dish has majorly pissed my dad off after having him as a customer for 8 years and he's getting ready to switch. I'm still with Direct and haven't had any problems.
wordsmythe wrote:
I have DirecTV and am very happy with the HD service.
That said, even though DirecTV provides my locals in HD, I still use an outdoor antenna to get OTA broadcasts for my locals. The OTA broadcasts are just better picture and sound quality than any satellite or cable rebroadcast will ever be due to compression. My DirecTV DVR has an OTA tuner, so I can still record the local channels and I have the added benefit of being able to receive those channels during severe storms when all the satellite channels are out, which is a big deal in Iowa.
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That Google spreadsheet is out of date now. For example Dish has had Sci-Fi HD for some time now. No idea what else has changed.
I have no experience with DirecTv but I know they used to be referred to as "HD Lite" because of their higher compression on HD feeds. I don't know if they've gotten more satellites up or improved bandwidth but because the bandwidth is limited and they're adding feeds I doubt that they've improved. Hopefully they've stayed on top of compression algorithm changes at least.
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I had DTV for the last 2 years and have been very happy with it. I only know 1 person with Dish so I can't compare them so well, but DTV had a great high def line up but we also had it for NFL Sunday Ticket. Their customer service was also great, and each time we moved we had no problems getting it reinstalled for free.
bnpederson wrote:
I have had DirecTV for almost 7 years now, and I am happy with it. We have the HD DVR, and it works pretty well. Some of the software upgrades early on were a little flaky, but it has worked well for quite some time now.
One thing to note: when we first got the HD DVR, you could plug in an OTA antenna (for better HD from local channels). Our new HD DVR box (which is what they send out standard now) does not have a place for an OTA antenna. In our area (maybe everywhere?) PBS is not available on DirecTV in HD -- which is unfortunate, because they have some great HD programs. We used the OTA option with the old box to record PBS in HD. Now we can't do that. More of an annoyance than a big deal, but it is worth knowing about.
I have no experience with Dish, so I can't help with a comparison.
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I've been pretty happy with both DirectTV and my new Dish HD DVR. Since Tivo is out of the picture, the Dish DVR is probably the best.
But as a disclaimer I watch so little TV I'm thinking of turning off my service.
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I've had DirecTV in the past, and I really like it. As long as there's no thunderstorms or you get a good receiver that allows you to view programming while you check the whole guide. The sports package is what sways some people to DirecTV or Dish.
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