Dish or Directv?

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

Any satellite fiends in the house? What do you see as the pros and cons? Looks like I can get League Pass with either provider.

I'm going to invest in a new big screen TV, and the cable provider here at our apartment complex isn't gonna cut it with no HD programming.

The neighbors have Dish, which is what I'm leaning towards - can get ESPN's college football and basketball packages, and of course League Pass in the spring for the Spurs.

Thoughts? Pros/cons?

[GINNNNNNNNNNNNOBILI]

I have directv, and im going to tell you to go with dish, I heard they purchased VOOM, so dish's high definition will probably have a huge edge.

Directv really sucks, they make you pay for all your equiptment, a HD reciever will run you about 300-400 bucks, and if you want the reciever with HD and a Digital recorder the box alone cost 1000 bucks.

Not to mention directv's lack of HD channels, they don't have TNT high def, which shows the most of the spurs high def games throughout the year.

a positive about directv is the reciever picks up OTA, so you get all of your local channels in HD, I'm not sure if dish offers that or not.

[1369]

I have Dish and get locals (pay, of course) and haven't had any problems.

I'm not a league pass subscriber, so mo help there.

I will tell you that one thing I don't like is that with the DVR, you're cast back to the old VCR days in that you can't record one channel and watch another live channel without a high dollar dual tuner.

[Aggie Hoopsfan]

a positive about directv is the reciever picks up OTA, so you get all of your local channels in HD, I'm not sure if dish offers that or not.

I'm not worried about this, I've got about 6 models of tvs I've got it narrowed down to (just gotta spend more time staring at them first), all have internal OTA HD tuners.

[desflood]

We have Dish Network with DVR, which we mostly like, except that every once in a while the programming will freeze up, and when it does we lose everything we've recorded. That's happened enough now that we're thinking of switching back to cable, even though satellite's cheaper.

[N.Y. Johnny]

I see that so far i'm probably in the minority here, but I used to have DishNetwork and for me they were absolutely NOTHING but a in headache.
First of all I had local San Antonio Channels and this is good because I lived out in the in woods outside San Antonio near Comfort out there, of course I was happy getting the Local SA channels, but somewhere along the line DishNetwork decided I was closer to Austin's area and they switched me off my San Antonio local channels and then gave me no choice but to keep the Austin locals.

Thats one thing that pissed me off, for a long time when i was a customer since 99' and when they first offered up SA locals i had them, THEN later why the switch??? as always their customer service people gave me the in run around and I let it go.

Another thing that if it interests you at all is that the NFL Sunday ticket packages are ONLY Exclusive to DirecTV, which really clinches it for me because i have to have the NFL and the New York Jets being here in Texas sometimes, i really could in care less about the Cleveland Browns and Texans or no game at all sometimes. I had to have that and thats a Pro for me there.
As Far as HD programming goes, Directv doesn't have as many as Dish, but i'd rather wait it out as I had nothign but nightmares with in Dish.

also another thing that pisses me off about Dish, is if there is EVER a dispute with like a Cable Channel ...say like MTV or Nickelodeon or something like that...they won't hesitate to with the programming and yank it off and not tell you, here you can go someday to want to watch a channel and its gone!
ok, i can see a dispute like that goin that way, but they still charge you full ammount with like 10 or more channels missing? i don't care if you have beef with VIACOM and yank off all their , but please TELL US and don't CHarge us the whole month then?

Both Satellite companies suck ass, i only have them cause i'm out in the in woods here otherwise i'd have cable, but Directv has given me less than Dish so far, and they have the NFL, aside from that both offer up the same Sports packages, also for me living at times and being from the Tri-States, NY Area I get the YES Network so i can watch the Yankees stink it up all summer.

Its really up to you if you like Network go ahead, but either company will give folks headaches, some people i see complain here about Directv and I had problems with Dish, its never perfect, you'd probably be better off with just Rabbit Ears

[Kori Ellis]

DirecTV even if only for NFL SUNDAY TICKET!!

[Nbadan]

Dish Network with 2 DVR's and no problems. I especially like that I can check and pay my bill on my TV. Talk about easy. Just remember to buy a wireless phone jack before the installer comes so your not having to pay $50 for one from them. They run about $25-$30 on E-bay. You can get all the NBA and MLB games you want.

[Kori Ellis]

Honestly you'll probably hear some complaints from some people on both. But if you love NFL football, you really can't beat watching HD NFL Sunday Ticket games. It's really awesome.

[T Park]

I have a Samsung DirecTV TIVO reciever and its been fantastic.

Like Kori said, the swaying factor for me was that DirecTV had NFL Sunday Ticket.

Dish is OK, but DirecTV seems pretty nice...

[AlamoSpursFan]

Dish Network sucks. I'm switching to DirecTV as soon as they cut me off (you pay for a month in advance, and I'm getting what I paid for), because I ain't giving them bas s any more of my hard earned money.

Here's my story (and I'm sticking to it): We've been Dish Network customers for 7 years. When we moved out to Floresville to be next to Mrs. ASF's ailing (at the time) mother, the Dish came with us. Her mom decided that she wanted to watch something on satellite about, oh...every FREAKING night, so to get her the off of MY couch and back at her house where she belonged, I called Dish Network to see if they had any special deals for existing customers to refer new customers.

When I explained the situation to their customer service representative, I was told that I could buy another Dish and tuner, install them at her house, and activate it on my account as an extra tuner for $4.99 a month. Just like having another tuner in my house. THEY told me to do this.

Recently, they shut our service off even though I had just paid the bill. This puzzled me, so I called CS and was told that they did this because they needed to run a "test" on my equipment and I needed to have a cordless phone and access to all of the tuners on my account. Naturally, I mentioned that one of the tuners was next door at my mother-in-law's house. This apparently is now a problem for them because the lady went on a very snotty rant about how this is against the law and basically treated me (a 7 year loyal Dish Network customer, mind you) like a common service stealing thief. Not only did they cut off the tuner next door (which, again, THEY SUGGESTED IN THE FIRST PLACE) but they turned off the main tuner on the account which is my HD receiver in the living room leaving only the bedroom tuner working. This was a pain in the ass to get them to fix, and after activating the HD tuner, they deactivated the bedroom tuner saying that I had violated the terms of my service and would have to open another account to get the extra tuner activated. WTF???

Screw Dish Network. I'm switching to DirecTV ASAP.

[T Park]

god Alamo that is typical Dish.

DirecTV, activate the reciever, add it to your account, DONE. Thats it, thats all.

To with Dish Network.

[gophergeorge]

god Alamo that is typical Dish.

DirecTV, activate the reciever, add it to your account, DONE. Thats it, thats all.

To with Dish Network.

I will have to disagree....

I've had Dish since 96 and love it... my buddy HAD direct tv.... he now has cable... go figure...

NFL Sunday Ticket??? Why do you need that??? You get all the Cowboy games....


I got the baseball package last year... loved that as well...


Time Warner only gets my money for basic cable (upstairs and local channels) and for Roadrunner...

[AlamoSpursFan]

Cable isn't an option out here in the sticks.

And I want NFL Sunday Ticket because my Fantasy Football investment (addiction) is pushing $400. Must...watch...my...players...