Dish or Directv? (1 Viewer)

Is their a reason to choose one over the other? I've had Directv previously and now I'm going to HD, which of these two would be the best way to go. Directv seems more expensive since you have to buy the HD receiver where as Dish is free equipment and setup..... would you make this choice on the $$$$ or is there a compelling reason otherwise?

DirecTiVO!

I have dish and love it. Their customer service has always been top notch. I have heard DirecTV is great as well but my decision came down to price and channel options.

DonnyD,

At this time as in Today, I would go with Direct TV.

My reason's for saying this is due to what Direct TV has already announced for the future. Dish has still not said anything about adding anymore HD, although at some point they will have too.

Direct TV has more HD channels right now than Dish as well. If you live in an owned and operated area for your local channels (CBS, NBC, ABC, FOX) you can also get those in HD through Direct without having an antenna. With Dish you can only get CBS currently. Direct has 2 new satellites going up this year which will help expand local HD channel coverage and add some National HD channels such as TNT HD or Starz HD, then they have 2 more satellites going up in 2007 which will give Direct enough space to add a ton more HD channels.

The only thing Dish has done so far is put in a bid to buy Vooms Satellite and uplink station. They have not bought any of Vooms programming. While it would seem to make sense that Dish would use this new Satellite (pending FCC approval) for adding a bunch of HD channels, they have kept quiet.

Both are fine options but at this time Direct seems to be moving forward a little faster with High Definition, in my opinion anyway.

Speaking of Voom, although their satellite is in the process of being sold, there still has not been any indication they are going to shut down. They currently have like 40 HD channels which is way more than anyone else. They have or at least had plans to bump that up to 70 channels very soon. I believe they are still doing the $1 installs which includes everything you need and they will also install an antenna for you for your locals if you can receive them over the air. It might be a short term deal but if you want a bunch of HD right away they have the most. A close friend of mine has Voom and from what I have seen I like it. Some of the channels are not my cup of tea but they do have some great stuff, the one channel they don't have that Dish and Direct has is HDnet. That is a channel I watch often.

Well, I guess I am intent on trying them all til I get one that I really like. Due to the "free" stuff and NO contract obligations, I am having Dish installed this week.......

I currently have Direct, although not their HD stuff, and have already tried cable which was a learning experience. Their sales fibbed and told me they had Fox HD which turned out to be false......The few HD channels they had were phenominal but the other channels were TERRIBLE......

Although I would like to stay with Direct, they currently offer no incentives or pricebreaks to upgrade me to HD..... so it is the "price" that moves me.........

Try calling Direct TVs customer retention. I had been with Direct TV for a number of years and they gave me a pretty good price break to enable me to get a HD box.

Thanks Richard.... I've talked to them once but maybe another call is in order.......

If you are close enough to Memphis to be included in the DMA, then you should qualify for the feed from NY. A lot of us are watching it.

-Robert

Yeah, Robert, perhaps I'll be in the area who can get the HD feed too...... We'll see thursday I guess.......I was so pi%%%%%%ed off when I found that Charter didn't have Fox in HD.... and I didn't know THAT until the installed told me...... guess I'm just a little disillusioned at t his point.... I've had a HD TV for 3 years!!!!

Like Richard said, DirecTV's retention department will reward loyal customers. Long time customers have been getting the HD upgrade for $99 for almost a year.

-Robert

Robert, would they upgrade the dish as well for $99? I'm assuming you're talking about getting a HD box as well.

Since I've been with DirecTV for less than a year and stuck in a contract for more year and a half more.. they may not give me the break.. though I can try. I only have the standard dish.. not the HD dish.

I was thinking of looking into Dish network, but DirecTV at the time seemed best for me.

A few years ago, I switched to Dish for HD. As soon as my contract was up, I switched back to D*. Now that I've seen the other option, I couln't be happier.

-Robert

>"My reason's for saying this is due to what Direct TV has already announced for the future."

You can't punch in a channel number for announced channels.

DirectTv is doing what is called "marketing." It is designed to attract customers by making promises of wonderful stuff in the future.

DirectTv has like one, maybe 2 more HD channels than Dish. They also charge more, for all their programming. And equipment.

DirectTv compresses both their SD and HD channels more than Dish, and it is a visible pic. quality difference. There are threads at AVS documenting bitrates.

HDTivo? Yeah right. I'm really going to pay $1000 for a hard drive and then pay $13/month for the privilege of using it.

Dish is a better value, any way you slice it or look at it.

Robert: Was it that big of a difference? In service or quality of picture, both?

Both. I bought a model 6000 HD receiver based on Dish promises. It would be upgraded to the new OpenTV operating system. Supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread. Even mentioned it on the box. After about of year of delays, they announced during a 'Charlie Chat' that the 6000 did not have enough memory to be upgraded and the whole project was scrapped. At the same time I was also using a Dishplayer 7100. This PVR sucked so bad it was the reason behind a class action lawsuit against Dish. They recently pulled the same stunt with the "name based recording" announcement. Starting last year there were announcements that they would add name based recording to their PVR's to make them like Tivo (well a cheap imitation). Delays and delays followed. On the most recent 'Charlie Chat' they announced that they are adding NBR to the model 522 and all future PVRs. The hundreds of thousands of current Dish PVR owners (models 50x, 721 & 921) were left out in the cold. Neither provider is perfect but I've used both and DirecTV gets my $120 month for programming.

-Robert

My parents been a dish subscriber for over 5 years and I just got a HDTV set for them. Was gonna go with VOOM but ran into problem with their service rep so I cancelled it and was glad I did from what I'm reading here didn't look like they'are gonna last very long.

Does dish offer a break for current subscribers to upgrade to HD ? How much will I end up paying if I were to upgrade.
I don't want to spend another $1000 dollars for dish and receiver.

I was a Directv subscriber before I decided to go with Dish. If I want to go back to Directv again will I get the same deal as a new customer or they don't give the deal to former Directv customer.

Voom will cease to provide service to existing customers on April 30, 2005.

I went with dish because of the free equipment.

I just saw in TPV, that DirecTV downres'es their "HD" content from 1960x1080 to 1280x1080 (or something). TPV said the resulting picture is "softer" than true HD.

I just got the Dish Network, and they put up the dish hardware I need for HD even though I went std def for now.

Dish's customer service is just OK. Every time I call, I have to wait 3 or 4 min to get to a real person. I never had that delay with Comcast cable.

Somewhere I have seen that the Dish Network has 2 or 3 satellites scheduled for launch over the next year for more HD.

There was a recent article in the local paper about HDTV. For now, they said that Comcast Cable here actually had more offerings than either DirecTV or the Dish Network.

Maybe you guys could help me find the info but last week, I caught the tailend of a news report that said with DirectTv's launch of their new sat. that current DirectTv HD boxes will need to be replaced as they won't be compatible.

Anyone have any info?

Thanks
~Mark