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After 15 years, decided to bail on DTV. A few questions first!

6K views 110 replies 28 participants last post by  MysteryMan 
#1 ·
Unfortunately, I just can't justify paying $160 a month for Xtra Standard + HBO. Jumped ship to YoutubeTV and our Roku a couple of weeks ago and while it's an adjustment, it's so far doing everything we need it to do and it's total cost with HBO is $65 a month.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while reading the same experiences we've been having since AT&T took it over. Poor customer service, offshore support being a nightmare to navigate, the extra fees that now bug the hell out of me (HD access? DVR? "Whole Home"? Still charging customers for that in 2019?) stuff like that.

Couple of questions before I call and cancel if anyone has a moment to chime in:

  • I assume it's a waste of time for me to even bother trying their retention department to see if they can match $65/month all inclusive, including HBO? My guess is that's a bridge too far.
  • We moved to our current house about 4 years ago. I assume I'm not under any contract or obligation to DTV anymore. I see nothing listed on AT&T's "my account" about it, but that whole website is a bit of a cluster**** anyway and it lists nothing about a contract date anywhere. Just want to make sure that after 15 years of total service, and 4 years at our current home with 4 year old gear, I'm probably out of contract.
  • What do I do with my equipment? Just e-waste it?
Thanks for any tips!
 
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#2 ·
I think you need to look at what you're getting and what you got. If you're paying $160 a month I'm guessing you have like 4 or 5 boxes, and a dvr on nearly all of them, a bigger package, etc... If you want to get it lower cut it down to similar what you'll get with your new provider. Drop some rooms off, cut your package down, eliminate dvr, etc..... Are you getting the same with your new as what you were getting with DTV?
 
#3 ·
$160 a month gets us Xtra Standard + HBO with two four year old HD DVRs. That's it. No special streaming addons, no extra sports package, no home repair protection service. As I said, it's goddamn ridiculous.

Once a pon a time, lets say 10 years ago, it was all closer to $100. But every year it just crept higher and higher and now it's $157.

Cutting the package down unfortunately removes several of the channels we do watch, but those channels are available on YTTV. We're not going to downgrade all our modern HDTVs to the SD signal or get rid of the DVR to save a few bucks a month either. It's just the damn channel package that's the bulk of the expense. It's just so bloated, but downgrading the package keeps the bloat and removes the handful of channels we actually watch.
 
#103 ·
They did drop all those charges ages ago. [emoji23] Now there is one fee called advanced services for 25. The difference between this and my cable company is my cable Company charges about that per box rather than 7 a box and one bigger fee. DIRECTV wins as soon as I have a second box.

People with older accounts still have all the line items and that saves them 2 a month.
 
#104 ·
Cable boxes put additional drain on the infrastructure whereas Sat boxes don't. So cable companies gouge you more. See? DirecTV is a bargain :D. Streaming also puts a big drain on your ISP as well as your service provider. If I were a betting man, I'd bet that free additional streams will go away rather quickly and they'll start monetizing them. They already have with AT&T TV.
 
#5 ·
Unfortunately, I just can't justify paying $160 a month for Xtra Standard + HBO. Jumped ship to YoutubeTV and our Roku a couple of weeks ago and while it's an adjustment, it's so far doing everything we need it to do and it's total cost with HBO is $65 a month.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while reading the same experiences we've been having since AT&T took it over. Poor customer service, offshore support being a nightmare to navigate, the extra fees that now bug the hell out of me (HD access? DVR? "Whole Home"? Still charging customers for that in 2019?) stuff like that.

Couple of questions before I call and cancel if anyone has a moment to chime in:

  • I assume it's a waste of time for me to even bother trying their retention department to see if they can match $65/month all inclusive, including HBO? My guess is that's a bridge too far.
  • We moved to our current house about 4 years ago. I assume I'm not under any contract or obligation to DTV anymore. I see nothing listed on AT&T's "my account" about it, but that whole website is a bit of a cluster**** anyway and it lists nothing about a contract date anywhere. Just want to make sure that after 15 years of total service, and 4 years at our current home with 4 year old gear, I'm probably out of contract.
  • What do I do with my equipment? Just e-waste it?
Thanks for any tips!
You can try to call retention, but as you stated, that is probably a bridge too far. AT&T is looking to stop discounts and credits as much as possible. I called before I left and even though I had never had one single discount, credit or anything else in 20+ years with D*, they told me there was nothing they could do other than suggest I cut my programming package back and/or downsize the number of receivers I had, neither of which was an acceptable solution. As for your question about whether your still under a commitment, call customer service and at the prompt say "contract date". That should get you transferred (eventually) to retention who are the only ones that can access that info. If you haven't upgraded your equipment in 4 years, you should no longer be under one. Your equipment needs to be shipped back once you cancel. Even if they say you don't have to, hang onto it for a year or so. I also demanded they send me something in writing stating what receivers I didn't have to send back. I have seen way too many times where they have said they don't want them back, only to turn around in a few months and bill you for unreturned equipment. Whatever you do, make sure it's WELL DOCUMENTED!

I think you need to look at what you're getting and what you got. If you're paying $160 a month I'm guessing you have like 4 or 5 boxes, and a dvr on nearly all of them, a bigger package, etc... If you want to get it lower cut it down to similar what you'll get with your new provider. Drop some rooms off, cut your package down, eliminate dvr, etc..... Are you getting the same with your new as what you were getting with DTV?
Why should the OP have to consider cutting back on what they feel they need just to stay with a service that can't provide them with what they want at a reasonable price? The old days of limited providers that allowed them to charge fee upon fee, demand service commitments and limit programming options to a few purposely structured tiers to up sell you are no longer the only game in town and the "grass on the other side" is getting greener by the day.

I totally understand where the OP is coming from. I have posted elsewhere on here about what my setup is and how it gives me everything and MORE than I ever had with D* so I won't repeat it here. Is cutting the cord for everyone? No. But suffice it to say, for those that actually take some time to plan the transition correctly and do their homework, it can and does work out well for a lot of people that are just tired of the traditional providers nickel and diming them to death. What we have now is a MUCH better "fit" for us and we went from about 230.00 a month to 80.00 to boot with absolutely NO STRINGS, COMMITMENTS OR EXTRA FEES OF ANY KIND. D* simply cannot compete with that. So after 20+ years with D*, all it took was an incentive that AT&T unknowingly provided us to look at alternatives and in hindsight, we couldn't be happier.
 
#15 ·
YTTV isn't perfect. I don't care for their DVR solution, CBS plays their VOD content with unskippable commercials (and I fear other networks will do the same soon), the interface still is kind of clunky, and no MTV. I tried all the streaming services (Sling, Hulu Live, etc) and YTTV is in my mind the lesser evil of the streaming services.

The family will watch college football and local baseball, both of which are available on YTTV without the RSN fee. If I stuck with DTV but used a lower package, looks like we'd be stuck with the Whole home and Advanced Receiver fees because I don't want to sign up for another 2 year commitment just to get a Genie in the bedroom which is watched less than an hour a day.

I'm also in the boat where personally, I don't really care that much. I just want to save the money. It's all about what the rest of the family watches on TV.

Now all this being said, if you guys think I can still manage to get a package that includes at least the channels YTTV offers me plus HBO (without having to call in and re-do a promo every 6 months), at let's say $70 a month out the door, I'm all for it. From what I've done research wise with cross referencing the packages and combined with the fees DTV tacks on, I just don't think it can be done.

I'm not trying to offer any sort of belligerent challenge to you guys :) Honestly asking if there's something about the DTV packages that you guys can see through that I may have missed. I'm fine staying with DTV and wouldn't even mind a $10 - $15 monthly premium over the $65 I pay for YTTV for the pleasure of staying.

Years ago there was a website where you could easily make a channel matrix to cross compare what you get with what packages for whichever satellite or cable service. Anything like that around these days that you can also add the streaming services?
 
#17 ·
YTTV isn't perfect. I don't care for their DVR solution, CBS plays their VOD content with unskippable commercials (and I fear other networks will do the same soon), the interface still is kind of clunky, and no MTV. I tried all the streaming services (Sling, Hulu Live, etc) and YTTV is in my mind the lesser evil of the streaming services.

The family will watch college football and local baseball, both of which are available on YTTV without the RSN fee. If I stuck with DTV but used a lower package, looks like we'd be stuck with the Whole home and Advanced Receiver fees because I don't want to sign up for another 2 year commitment just to get a Genie in the bedroom which is watched less than an hour a day.

I'm also in the boat where personally, I don't really care that much. I just want to save the money. It's all about what the rest of the family watches on TV.

Now all this being said, if you guys think I can still manage to get a package that includes YTTV offers me plus HBO (without having to call in and re-do a promo every 6 months), at let's say $70 a month out the door, I'm all for it. From what I've done research wise with their packages and the fees they tack on, I just don't think it can be done.
Well, you won't get a permanent promo, that's for sure and you won't get rid of the HD & DVR fees. Really the best thing you can do is get a 1 yr promo. For adding a DVR, it's only 2 yrs for a tech install, 1 yr for a self install.

If Youtube has all your channels and you have multiple TVs, then that'd be your cheaper bet. I just wouldn't expect your bill to stay flat there either :). The streaming services WILL raise prices too.
 
#21 ·
Well, as disconcerting as the rate increases for streaming services have been, as long as I'm below $160 a month and the family can still see the channels that they want, it's a win. When I first looked into cord cutting, I changed my Guide in DTV to show me all the channels that I've hidden to cross compare, and I was baffled at the pure amount of absolute **** on the DTV channel guide that on some abstract level, I'm presumably paying for. I'm not talking the ho-hum channels like Discovery Life or MTV2, I'm talking the endless home shopping channels, all those music channels, all the religious programming channels, all of the foreign language channels, and not to mention all those ad banners in between channels.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that just because I don't watch the foreign language or shopping channels doesn't mean somebody does and that's why DTV includes them in the packaging. It's that same issue with bundled packages where if you want 1 channel you gotta take the other 5 you don't want. But, on some level, a portion of the fees for operating those channels have got to be passed down to me, the consumer. At least with YTTV, I'm more likely to watch the included channels instead of hiding 100+ of them in the guide.

I used to adore DTV but now I just get this feeling it's a sinking ship. Anyone else notice the lack of new DTV commercials? I don't believe I've seen a single ad for the Sunday Ticket or College Football plan this year. Did they even do a free weekend for the NFL this year?
 
#22 ·
Well, as disconcerting as the rate increases for streaming services have been, as long as I'm below $160 a month and the family can still see the channels that they want, it's a win. When I first looked into cord cutting, I changed my Guide in DTV to show me all the channels that I've hidden to cross compare, and I was baffled at the pure amount of absolute **** on the DTV channel guide that on some abstract level, I'm presumably paying for. I'm not talking the ho-hum channels like Discovery Life or MTV2, I'm talking the endless home shopping channels, all those music channels, all the religious programming channels, all of the foreign language channels, and not to mention all those ad banners in between channels.

Don't get me wrong, I understand that just because I don't watch the foreign language or shopping channels doesn't mean somebody does and that's why DTV includes them in the packaging. It's that same issue with bundled packages where if you want 1 channel you gotta take the other 5 you don't want. But, on some level, a portion of the fees for operating those channels have got to be passed down to me, the consumer. At least with YTTV, I'm more likely to watch the included channels instead of hiding 100+ of them in the guide.

I used to adore DTV but now I just get this feeling it's a sinking ship. Anyone else notice the lack of new DTV commercials? I don't believe I've seen a single ad for the Sunday Ticket or College Football plan this year. Did they even do a free weekend for the NFL this year?
I did the same thing. The streaming protagonists have every excuse in the book why DirecTV is better and streaming sucks. In the end, if you have the channels you watch and your bill is less, then that is all that matters.
 
#24 ·
Well, on the DTV side you have their guide and their DVR. I am absolutely amazed at how ****ty all the streaming services guides and DVRs are. Their DVRs aren't even DVRs, really. They're just pointers to shows that their service records. It makes sense - why have 50,000 people using drive space on the cloud when all they need is 1 recording and 50,000 people pointing to it - but it has all these restrictions that I am baffled so few people complain about. If you want to watch new episodes of The Simpsons, tough - it records every episode of the Simpsons on every channel, forever, and when you want to watch the latest episode you have to sort through that big list that you can never clear out. You can't delete recordings from your streaming DVR. "Oh but it's unlimited storage! You don't have to clear it out" - unless you're like me, and you want an actual cleaned up list of programs to watch, instead of just this endless list of everything you've ever recorded. There's no concept of "give me a season pass but only record first run airings".

YTTV on the Roku doesn't even have a damn clock on their guide. It's baffling. You could be scrolling through the YTTV guide and have only a vague idea of what time it is. Hulu Live was the same type of thing. Just baffling and poor design decisions on the set top streaming players. As much as I complain about the DTV guide, even in it's most basic form it's tons better than what I've found on streaming services. On YTTV there's no quick way to "get info" to find a two sentence summary of the plot of an episode. Finally on YTTV and Hulu Live there doesn't seem to be any way to get DD audio, which has always worked perfectly on DTV for years and years.

The CBS channels are another load of crap that I bet the other networks will soon follow suit. Basically on streaming services, when you record a CBS show, the recording is actually the VOD version. Meaning you can't skip their commercials. Plus it's buggy in the same way the DTV VOD recordings were buggy - fast forwarding/rewinding is jumpy, sometimes they don't synch up, stuff like that. Probably just a matter of time before the other networks change their "live" recordings to a VOD version.

So it's not all ice cream and marshmallows.
 
#37 · (Edited)
For what it's worth in this financial discussion, I also have a 1TB cap and with several people in the house streaming for the 3 weeks I've had YTTV, plus all of them using their devices for their usual Youtube and apps and whatnot, we're only at 550gb out of 1TB with 9 days left in the cycle. Looking back at our historical usage, without YTTV, we're averaging less than 450gb per month.

So I don't really think adding $50 to the comparison price to remove the cap is something everyone has to do. For me, YTTV+HBO Go+Philo is 50+15+20 = $85 a month, which is obviously far less than the $160 I was paying :)

And I really do appreciate the discussion around this, even though it seems to be taking a turn for the heated end of things.

Hey back to a previous question - anyone else notice a lack of DTV commercials? Makes me think they're really not even looking for new customers anymore.
 
#50 ·
Thanks again everyone for their opinions and comments on this thread! I really appreciate all the input.

I also just got off the phone with the Loyalty Department at DTV and all they could do for me was $5 off HBO for 6 months and $5 off my programming package, presumably also for 6 months. That was discouraging to find out how little they could do to retain me, but it also sounds in line with other people's experience with retention. The lady was pretty nice, and the service with her was fine, but I do have to say she didn't try very hard to retain me. Once I got through to her department, and told her $85 was the number to beat, she offered me those two deals and then processed my cancellation, and I was off the phone in 10 minutes.
 
#57 ·
The channels that no one watches like all the shopping channels actually lower the costs - they pay DTV to be in the line up.

I think certain things are going to get worse - not only are current streaming channels going to increase prices but I think we will more and more separate streams - just as NBC has just announced. I think the streaming services will lose many of their included channels and force us to buy NBC, ESPN, HBO+, etc. separately. CBS on streaming forces you to watch commercials if you wait more than 24 hours to watch recorded.
 
#100 · (Edited)
Well I called to officially cancel my Directv account after more than 25 years, and the best offer retention could offer me was $10 off a month for a year (just had $60 fall off) I said no thanks. Bad thing is my billing date is the 15, so the disconnect will be on the 14th. Even if the turned it off right now, I will still be charged more than $160. I will really miss Direct, but I have to remember it is just TV, and for $110 less a month, I will still get the same amount of entertainment, and I can take every channel with me when I’m away from home (I know you could watch most channels on mobile with Direct, but most of the locals are for in home use only).
 
#105 ·
D* isn't guaranteed success either. In the rain delay scenario I outlined above, you run into another problem with DirecTV - you probably aren't setting up your recordings with enough extra time to cover that whole game. No matter what, after the game you'll have your whole event start to finish on YTTV because of the event start/end times being auto adjusted by the game stats.

I personally only hit the 2 hour lookback issue this summer with watching Tour de France coverage, because I wasn't going to get up at 5:45am on a weekend to watch the race, but it was still underway when I wanted to start watching around 9.
I understand the D* DVRs. When I record games I take the weather into consideration. I know how to cope with that. That's a good point, tho. And another good reason for anybody to consider when thinking about YTTV.

Rich
 
#106 ·
If I were a betting man, I'd bet that free additional streams will go away rather quickly and they'll start monetizing them. They already have with AT&T TV.
What are you talking about? AT&T TV (at least as it's being sold in the pilot test markets) includes 3 simultaneous streams (in or out of home, regardless of what devices are used). Right now, it doesn't even offer a way to pay extra if you do want additional streams beyond 3, although I would imagine that will be an option eventually offered.
 
#107 · (Edited)
EDIT: Hmm... they seem to have like 10 different streaming services with 37 different names lol.. AT&T TV, DirecTV Now, AT&T TV NOW, etc. Sheesh.

So, going by the "Plus" and "Max" packages that I've found on yet another AT&T page, yeah, those packages suck. I wouldn't do either one of those. No DIY, HGTV, History, Discovery, Science, etc.

I saw an article last week that AT&T TV was going to be a lift & shift of DirecTV to streaming pretty much. Guess that's referring to one of the other services.

There IS some streaming service from them that has all those fees and contracts though... AT&T TV: Live TV, DVR, On Demand, Apps & Voice Control
 
#108 ·
Damn. Just found this site, and I have been taking from DirectTV for years with the call ins demanding discounts or I would leave. I had two $60 offs running for 2 years and when the last one dropped off, I figured i would call and ***** and get another year's worth of $60 a month off. You all are saying "No more!," correct? I guess the main reason I never switched was I was always able to take a box to my beach house and hook it up there (I set up my own dish on a pole in the yard) so I never really wanted to get rid of DTV. Now, I show up at my beach house this weekend first time in 8 months, I hook up, and I can secure the guide on the TV but no live tv picture! Have they finally fixed this flaw which means it is time to get a deal from verizon fios and finally after 20 years say good bye to direct tv?

I started a thread asking this question, with no response yet. Thanks.

Help with secondary set up
 
#109 ·
Damn. Just found this site, and I have been taking from DirectTV for years with the call ins demanding discounts or I would leave. I had two $60 offs running for 2 years and when the last one dropped off, I figured i would call and ***** and get another year's worth of $60 a month off. You all are saying "No more!," correct? I guess the main reason I never switched was I was always able to take a box to my beach house and hook it up there (I set up my own dish on a pole in the yard) so I never really wanted to get rid of DTV. Now, I show up at my beach house this weekend first time in 8 months, I hook up, and I can secure the guide on the TV but no live tv picture! Have they finally fixed this flaw which means it is time to get a deal from verizon fios and finally after 20 years say good bye to direct tv?

I started a thread asking this question, with no response yet. Thanks.

Help with secondary set up
Look again. You did get a response to your original post. Here it is:

"Not sure what your problem is, it isn't anything on Directv's end. But soon you will have a problem because Directv is dropping the SD 'duplicates' that your single LNB dish picks up. When they do that you won't get any locals, and you'll have a limited selection of channels (it isn't clear what) so you probably want to install a Slimline at your vacation home. Then things will be easier since you won't need to redo the satellite setup, and you can get it aimed properly (a signal strength of 60 means it is badly aligned unless by "in the woods" you mean it is partially blocked by leaves)".

It doesn't surprise me either that a signal level of 60 is not producing a picture. A minimum of 70 is the general rule to get a steady picture and anything below that is prone to breakups or complete loss of picture as well. But as Slice said, your best solution is to replace that old round, single LNB dish with a Slimline and get it aligned properly.
 
#110 ·
Thanks for the help. I will just have to re-adjust the dish around those trees and thick leaves ( or wait until the fall when the leaves fall off the tree!) Again, much appreciated. Does anyone know where I can pick up a cheap "satellite locator" device on line, one that works? I had an old one that I hooked up to the coax cables and "listened" to beeps to adjust to the signal which worked fine, but it has been discarded somewhere (nice way of saying the wife threw it out when she didn't know what it was, lol). I have the general direction of where I face the dish, I will just need to trim it down to get a better signal. And where do I go to purchase a proper "slimline" dish? I did search for slimline and got multiple hits on completely different looking set ups which all claimed to be slimline. I don't want throw money away on the wrong dish! And what type cable will I need to run to my house, from the dish? Just regular old coax? Or is there something else I will need with the slimline. Love you all! Thanks.
 
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