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Cable and Dish Options Thread


Craig H

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I switched to Comcast a month or so ago and I hate it. It's fucking awful. This X1 bullshit is totally half-baked. I'm kinda glad I didn't cancel with Directv yet, but I'm still weighing my options. In my area, I can choose from Comcast, ATT Uverse, Directv, and Dish Network.

 

I've been intrigued by Dish Network as of late because their Hopper sounds like the shit. Only problem is that I have no idea what their On Demand service is like. For instance, with Directv, I could go to just about any channel and be able to watch just about anything I wanted On Demand, as long as the channel was in my package. I thought Comcast would actually be better, On Demand content wise, but they surprisingly weren't. 

 

So for anyone that has Dish Network, what are their On Demand options like? Do you have to pay extra for stuff, or could you simply go and start watching all of the previous season of Doctor Who? I guess the same question applies for Uverse, although I remember their On Demand content being very sparse and limited to 5 minute clips.

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I am not too sure about the On Demand stuff for Dish, but I have the Hopper with Sling and it is great!

 

The Hopper is not laggy at all, which is one of the main reasons I switched from DirecTV. Also the gen 2 Hopper (the one they are offering now) has built in Sling, so you can watch live TV wherever you are - even on your iPhone or iPad or any computer with a browser. Anything you record on your DVR you have access to as well. The PrimeTime Anytime option is great - it records all the primetime shows every night (you can specify days not to record if wanted) and if you wait to watch them until the next day it will automatically hop over the commercials - no interaction needed.

 

Pricing wise it is probably the same as DirecTV. at least for me it was. The first year it is cheaper because of deals, and then it gets a bit more expensive after that.

 

I would never switch back to cable as their DVR is total garbage.

 

If you are interested in Dish let me know and I can give you a referral code that will get you an additional $50 off when you sign up.

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I am not too sure about the On Demand stuff for Dish, but I have the Hopper with Sling and it is great!

 

The Hopper is not laggy at all, which is one of the main reasons I switched from DirecTV. Also the gen 2 Hopper (the one they are offering now) has built in Sling, so you can watch live TV wherever you are - even on your iPhone or iPad or any computer with a browser. Anything you record on your DVR you have access to as well. The PrimeTime Anytime option is great - it records all the primetime shows every night (you can specify days not to record if wanted) and if you wait to watch them until the next day it will automatically hop over the commercials - no interaction needed.

 

Pricing wise it is probably the same as DirecTV. at least for me it was. The first year it is cheaper because of deals, and then it gets a bit more expensive after that.

 

I would never switch back to cable as their DVR is total garbage.

 

If you are interested in Dish let me know and I can give you a referral code that will get you an additional $50 off when you sign up.

 

I may have to do that. Good information, though.

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I am not too sure about the On Demand stuff for Dish, but I have the Hopper with Sling and it is great!

 

The Hopper is not laggy at all, which is one of the main reasons I switched from DirecTV. Also the gen 2 Hopper (the one they are offering now) has built in Sling, so you can watch live TV wherever you are - even on your iPhone or iPad or any computer with a browser. Anything you record on your DVR you have access to as well. The PrimeTime Anytime option is great - it records all the primetime shows every night (you can specify days not to record if wanted) and if you wait to watch them until the next day it will automatically hop over the commercials - no interaction needed.

 

Pricing wise it is probably the same as DirecTV. at least for me it was. The first year it is cheaper because of deals, and then it gets a bit more expensive after that.

 

I would never switch back to cable as their DVR is total garbage.

 

If you are interested in Dish let me know and I can give you a referral code that will get you an additional $50 off when you sign up.

 

I may have to do that. Good information, though.

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If you do switch to Dish be prepared for years of junk mail and phone calls from Direct TV begging you to come back. I cancelled their service almost 4 years ago and still get some sort of mail from them at least every 3-4 weeks. They called a couple times a week for almost a year before I finally got them to stop that at least.

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Man I have always been a huge believer in the American dream. Always. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to live in the US and find whatever I wanted to do and just do it. It used to be chasing aliens around for the FBI, now its living in Arlen, Texas and selling propane (and propane accessories).

But everything seems to be shit now. Healthcare is a nightmare, your political system is the worst in the world, and now I read this - you guys can't even have a non shit Cable system. What the fuck man, don't make me live in.Canada for the rest of my life!

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Man I have always been a huge believer in the American dream. Always. Ever since I was a kid I wanted to live in the US and find whatever I wanted to do and just do it. It used to be chasing aliens around for the FBI, now its living in Arlen, Texas and selling propane (and propane accessories).But everything seems to be shit now. Healthcare is a nightmare, your political system is the worst in the world, and now I read this - you guys can't even have a non shit Cable system. What the fuck man, don't make me live in.Canada for the rest of my life!

 

This is a dark and terrible place.  Stay far, far away from here.

 

Unless you actually just tune out and live your life.  Then it's not so bad.  Although it should be said that I spent 10 days in Ontario in 2011, and I didn't really want to come back.

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Fios won't ever become an option here unless ATT goes out of business. Fios isn't allowed to be available in markets where Uverse is available, and vice versa. 

 

And I won't be signing on with Dish. I really, really, really think that Hopper tech looks sweet as hell, but the chat rep I spoke with ruined everything with his lack of integrity and dishonesty. He actually told me that the price Directv quoted me to stay can't be real because they don't price their current subscribers under the new subscriber price. He apparently knows this because he used to work for Directv before working for Dish. His comparison also came from the Directv website. How convenient. I haven't worked in a customer service role in some time, but even when I did, I would never say untrue shit about another insurance company. When I explained that it was a retention rep who quoted me the lower price, he said I was mistaken. I ended the chat conversation there.

 

Sometimes I feel like Marty McFly, whenever someone asks if he's a chicken. However, as much as I'd want a Hopper, the Genie looks just as good, it unfortunately just doesn't have that sweet gimmick where it records all primetime content, nor is it as large of a DVR.

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DVR size isn't that big of an issue, since just about all DVR hardware out now has a SATA port that you can hook up an external HDD.  

 

Whole home DVR is fucking kingsized though.  

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The price for Dish vs. Direct will end up being virtually the same for the parallel packages over the course of two years.  they will both play with words to make you think that's not the case, but it is.  I wouldn't hold the dishonesty against either one.  They both do it and the phone CSR's for both companies are all over the place.  If you want straight answers go to Satellite Guys forum and hit up one of the Dish CSR's who hang out there.

 

The general rule is:

 

The Dish tech is way better.  The hopper is so fast (like when I hit halftime at a futbol game, I hit the "30 sec. skip" button 30 times, like gamepad rate of button pushing and it reacts perfectly and it's 2nd half kick off almost instantly.  The Guide flies by.  External HD is seemless.  In every way the box is better and for some people that's a big part of bopping around the channels.  And Dish Anywhere is unmatched by anything on Direct.  Nothing like watching Redzone out in the backyard with a beer during early autumn.

 

For sports, go with Direct.  Dish goes cheap there.  Regional networks are only HD when a big game is on.  No New York regionals at all (Yes, MSG, SNY).  No NBC EPL overrun games on alternate channels.  No Olympics alternate channels.

 

For movies, they're close to equal now.  It used to be that Dish had a handful more movie networks and I think there might still be a slight edge to Dish...one or two movie networks that they have that Direct doesn't.

 

On Demand I'm not sure about on Direct.  The hopper search/menu system for Dish is eons better than what they had before and probably the best out there, but I've found that the actual process on Dish is laggy compared to when my dad had regular cable, since they are sending it to you over your internet connection rather than over their cable or through the satellite.

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Fios won't ever become an option here unless ATT goes out of business. Fios isn't allowed to be available in markets where Uverse is available, and vice versa. 

Really? I didn't know about that, and here I was hoping we'd eventually get FIOS in my area, bit we have UVerse here so blah. So many people have had bad things about it.
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And I won't be signing on with Dish. I really, really, really think that Hopper tech looks sweet as hell, but the chat rep I spoke with ruined everything with his lack of integrity and dishonesty. He actually told me that the price Directv quoted me to stay can't be real because they don't price their current subscribers under the new subscriber price. He apparently knows this because he used to work for Directv before working for Dish. His comparison also came from the Directv website. How convenient. I haven't worked in a customer service role in some time, but even when I did, I would never say untrue shit about another insurance company. When I explained that it was a retention rep who quoted me the lower price, he said I was mistaken. I ended the chat conversation there.

 

 

That reminds me of the situation I dealt with regarding DirecTV. I called them first to see if they would give me a deal for the Genie before switching to Dish. The girl I spoke with agreed to give me 1 genie, 2 of the "joey" type units (for my other 2 tvs) and the Cinema connection kit with installation for $100. For an existing customer that was a pretty good deal so I said sure I would like that offer.

 

So after taking down all my info and agreeing on that price for said equipment she passed me on to their "3rd party verification service" which would go over all the details with me. We he told me that I would get the Genie for $100 and have to pay extra for the 2 "joey" units and the cinema connection kit. So they basically went back on their offer and tried to change it.

 

That was the last straw and pushed me over the top to switch to Dish.

 

Who know - maybe in 2 years I will switch back to Directv. But like piranesi said - Dish's tech is way better. My parents just got the Genie and it is laggy compared to the Hopper.

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Who in the hell would drop DirecTV for cable? Get out of here.

 

GET OUT OF HERE!

 

It's been four months that I've been without my precious DirecTV and it has been agony. I'll probably hug my DVR/52" TV (being without HD sucks too) if we ever stay somewhere long enough for me to be able to get all of our stuff from storage.

 

I've had zero issues with DirecTV. I've put my account on-hold two separate times without issue, and I've had it installed three different times in less than two years without issue. I also pay for just about every channel they offer and at one time had three DVR's going - so maybe that had something to do with the up-tick in my service.

 

 

In fact, the only issue I have ever had was when we were moving out of Houston and Comcast harassed me about returning my internet modem - even though I (wait for it) returned it to their in-store location less than a week after cancelling. 

 

I will miss their agents calling me once a quarter though, to try to get me to "upgrade" my package by adding a phone line and their cable. At first I would just cut them off and say, "I don't need a phone line and you guys don't have NFL Sunday Ticket, NHL Center Ice or NBA League Pass." Then, if that didn't work, I would launch into a diatribe about how I wouldn't even have their awful company's internet if not for the monopoly they had with the complex we were living in.

 

I feel bad for whatever agent drew me when going down their cold-call list.

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I think one of the biggest annoyances with Comcast is their channel guide, or rather, the order of their channels. There is no rhyme or reason to it, and for that alone I want to never go back to Comcast. With Directv, all the news channels, sports channels, kiddie channels, movie channels, premium channels, etc. are all grouped together so I know that the 500s are where all of the premium channels are at, or the low 200s are where the sports channels are at. With Comcast it's all over the place.

 

So, with that in mind, how does Dish group channels together in their channel guide? Yeah, I may still switch to Dish, especially now that Directv did away with their Choice Xtra pack. Now there's quite possibly no difference in the price.

 

I'm also surprised at the people favoring the Hopper over the Genie. From what I've read, the Genie is the superior box and it can record 5 streams, while the Hopper is limited to 2 or 3. As far as lag goes, it's about the same.

 

Regarding tech, if Uverse's DVR didn't impact your internet usage and speed, and if it wasn't a laggy piece of crap, I would hop over to ATT, but I just remember the Uverse DVR always having a delay when changing channels.

 

One last note, the customer service with Directv has always been amazing. Outside of Wells Fargo, or the company I work for, they have the best customer service I've ever run across. I feel like I should give Dish a call just to see what that experience is like.

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The Hopper has 3 tuners - but one is dedicated to the primetime channels (abc, nbc, cbs, fox). So during primetime you can record 6 different things at once, but 4 of the 6 have to be on abc, nbc, fox and cbs. I think the Genie can do 5 of anything. I haven't run into a problem yet with recording on the hopper, but my kids are still small so I don't have to record much for them, and my wife and I watch all of the same shows.

 

Dish put alot of the channels together -  all the sports stuff -espn, nfl network, nba network, mlb network, hockey network are all together. So are the kids channels. Movie channels are all together as well.

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Good to know. Only reason why 5 tuners comes in handy for me is with how much kids programming is recording. Unfortunately, the stupid X1 and Directv DVRs don't understand to record one episode once and not do it ever again. It's only record all episodes or record only new episodes. Record only new episodes doesn't work because there is so much that is old. And recording all episodes causes the DVR to constantly run. Like, if you want to record Dora, then Dora is going to record at all times. You can prioritize your recordings, but I've found that to never be 100% fool proof.

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I actually like Comcast. Just seems like I'm paying waaaay too much...

I agree with you there, I have Xfinity as well.  Bill just just jumped up and became more pricey

 

Does DISH still have the promotion where you get a free IPad?

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Good to know. Only reason why 5 tuners comes in handy for me is with how much kids programming is recording. Unfortunately, the stupid X1 and Directv DVRs don't understand to record one episode once and not do it ever again. It's only record all episodes or record only new episodes. Record only new episodes doesn't work because there is so much that is old. And recording all episodes causes the DVR to constantly run. Like, if you want to record Dora, then Dora is going to record at all times. You can prioritize your recordings, but I've found that to never be 100% fool proof.

Have you considered a TiVo?  6 tuners, the season passes actually work, saves some money on HD equipment costs, etc, etc.

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