What is better Direct TV or Dish ?

[Zombie]

My comcast bill just jumped $30.00 per month after a 2 year contract and no other deals are being offered. So which company is better Direct TV or Dish.

I am looking for feedback on price, customer service, signal quality and equipment

 

[torpid]

I think they are pretty close now. I went with Dish a couple of years ago because their DVR equipment was marginally superior and the prices very slightly lower.

 

[sonicdrummer20]

Get netflix/hulu+ with cable internet and screw paying a contract?

 

[allthatisman]

I just switched from U-Verse to Dish about 7 months ago, and it was the biggest mistake ever... The cheap DVR is HORRRRRRIBLE. I've been through 3. The Picture quality is very average, and their installed installed the dish directly into the roof..... yes right on the shingles. Needless to say, that had to be repaired... I could seriously keep complaining about them in other ways... Don't do it.

 

[hclarkjr]

if you are a sports fan get direct if you like movies and such get dish

 

[hclarkjr]

direct is offering sunday ticket if you get them right now according to commercial running right now

 

[Luzah]

My girlfriend and I just switched from Mediacom T.V service to Dish (with the DVR upgrade) and we are happy with our decision so far. Mediacom was seriously nickle&diming us for whatever they could. They charged us $5/month for use of their damn -guide- on the cable box! They were sneaking it on the bill as "Digital Gateway"..

 

[Jeeebus]

Why not just call Comcast and tell them you want to cancel? That $30 increase will likely disappear and the previously unavailable deal with mysteriously materialize.

I've got DirecTV now, which is not terrible, but I would probably provide sexual favors to a large, hairy man if I could get Fios again. Damn you Verizon. Damn you.

 

[BoomerD]

We tried Uverse...and hated it.

Comcast isn't great, but IMO, the service is better than Uverse, billing is right every month, and we've had only one internet outage in almost a year. Uverse went out about once per month.

You could try Comcast's customer retention department...OR, try to find someone in your area who sells the Comcast Alchemy package. You might have to put the service in your wife's name to qualify...but it's a pretty damned good deal if you can get it.
Right now, the deal is 240 channels with HBO, Starz, and Encore, unlimited house phone service, and 16+ Mb internet for $89 + equipment rental. (modem and DVR) OR, add Cinemax, The Movie Channel, and something else for another $20/month. When we signed up, the deal was for 1 year with no contract. The salesman who hooked us up recently told me that they're now offering it for 24 months...so, come November, we're going to put the system in my wife's name. (not for current subscribers)

 

[ScoobMaster]

Get netflix/hulu+ with cable internet and screw paying a contract?

As an EX-DirecTV customer (after 9 1/2 years) I concur.

I had no Sunday ticket or premium channels and my bill kept creeping to $86/month. I finally had enough of paying so much for a service that I was using only 5-10% of the available channels.

I bought two Roku XDs for $80 each and now pay Netflix steaming and Hulu+ a combined total of $16/month. I get my locals in HD OTA with an antenna and will probably splurge for the NHL package so I can watch my Hockey. Even with the $160 for the NHL subscription, I am saving over $600/year.

 

[Newbian]

If you want more HD and sports get direct.

If you want a cheaper price for almost the same thing and a bit better dvr, especially if you want it for two tv's and get a duel dvr through dish while direct has you pay extra for the receiver and extra for simply allowing you access to do anything on that 2nd tv other then to watch live tv, then get dish.

Really they are so close it comes down to just a few things like that.

 

[lothar]

FiOS.

 

[hdeck]

We tried Uverse...and hated it.

Comcast isn't great, but IMO, the service is better than Uverse, billing is right every month, and we've had only one internet outage in almost a year. Uverse went out about once per month.

You could try Comcast's customer retention department...OR, try to find someone in your area who sells the Comcast Alchemy package. You might have to put the service in your wife's name to qualify...but it's a pretty damned good deal if you can get it.
Right now, the deal is 240 channels with HBO, Starz, and Encore, unlimited house phone service, and 16+ Mb internet for $89 + equipment rental. (modem and DVR) OR, add Cinemax, The Movie Channel, and something else for another $20/month. When we signed up, the deal was for 1 year with no contract. The salesman who hooked us up recently told me that they're now offering it for 24 months...so, come November, we're going to put the system in my wife's name. (not for current subscribers)

I've had no problem with Uverse service/billing and no outages in 3 years.

 

[1sikbITCH]

I voted for DTV but in reality you need to line up the packages side by side and see which one suits you the best. They ALL inflate their channel counts and they all claim to have something the rest don't. It all comes down to which one has the most things that you are looking for.

One thing for sure. They all have the potential for horrible customer service and good customer service. I haven't had a bad experience in 12 years with Direct TV but plenty of people have, and it's the same for every provider. Do not base your decision on any claims of great customer service. The grass is always greener on the other side.

Edit - if you do decide on Direct TV, find a family member or friend who has it and have them refer you. You will each receive $10.00 a month off for 5 months.

 

[torpid]

Changing my vote. After a couple of years of good service and a decent DVR with Dish, we ran into a pretty major DVR bug today. We opened up a group of recordings, manually checked the two of them, then clicked delete. Now the entire DVR is wiped permanently. No way to un-delete and no explanation as to why it decided that the two recordings within a group weren't the only things deleted. So my new answer is... anything that works with a Tivo (which has un-delete).

 

[shortylickens]

Thats like saying which is better: Republicans or Democrats?

Either way yur getting fucked.
I recommend Netflix, even with the price raise its still a better deal. See what you want, when you want.

 

[MotionMan]

if you are a sports fan get direct if you like movies and such get dish

Aren't they offering NFL Sunday Ticket for free, now?

MotionMan (<--- Time Warner Cable user. Keep thinking about switching)

 

[FoBoT]

if you have the $$$ then go directv, plan on $100+ per month

 

[Bryophyte]

As a former Dish and DTV customer (several years for each), I have to say that the best choice I made was to just cancel pay TV completely and go OTA. I don't miss it. I might have if there was no such thing as internet, I suppose, but there are only so many hours in the day and sitting in front of the tv long enough to justify the eighty bucks a month I used to pay for satellite service would be a huge fucking waste of life.

 

[xanis]

Why not just call Comcast and tell them you want to cancel? That $30 increase will likely disappear and the previously unavailable deal with mysteriously materialize.

I've got DirecTV now, which is not terrible, but I would probably provide sexual favors to a large, hairy man if I could get Fios again. Damn you Verizon. Damn you.

Did this for almost 2 years while I was living in Philly. The bill kept going up and we kept calling customer service and telling them that we were going to Verizon. Our bill stayed at the "promotional" price.

 

[thescreensavers]

If you are going to get DirecTV make sure to get the H24 or HR24(DVR) receivers and nothing else.

They like to send old referbished equipment. If they are offering a free receiver, and offer free installation make sure to ask the installation guy to give you a H24/HR24 and nothing less.

 

[bl4ckfl4g]

I'd go Hulu+ netflix only except then I can't get HBO. I wish they'd offer HBOGO where you could just pay like 10 a month for it without having cable.

 

[JulesMaximus]

Aren't they offering NFL Sunday Ticket for free, now?

MotionMan (<--- Time Warner Cable user. Keep thinking about switching)

Yes, they are. All season long in HD for existing subscribers and new subscribers. I checked my bill and they have the renewal on there and the credit to offset the renewal fee.

 

[MotionMan]

Yes, they are. All season long in HD for existing subscribers and new subscribers. I checked my bill and they have the renewal on there and the credit to offset the renewal fee.

I just signed up for another year of Time-Warner (and added the Triple Play).

MotionMan