Gee, another long timer leaving DTV thread

I know, I know. Another long timer pulling up stakes and leaving DTV but I just had to voice my displeasure.

I don't post in here very much but I do read the threads. I will miss the information but without DTV, not much reason to even read here.

My saga started with DTV back in 1999. Had a lot of fun installing my dish, getting it aligned and then enjoying DTV. Moved south in 2004 where I set up the 'new' oval dish, ran all the wiring for my new house and I was in business. Genie, clients and all that stuff.

Fast forward to now. Count me as another singing the chorus of, "Since AT&T bought DTV...." Yikes. Just got off the phone with the ole retention folks as my bill was hosed up and they could not fix my bill. Long story short, I was assured in August that I was not going to be charged with STicket. Come September, I was. Called to cancel. They credited my first payment back. Yesterday logged in to my account to find that I was charged for my second installment of ST.

Spent 40 minutes on the phone with my rep who BTW was born in 1999, wow, I feel old, but he could do nothing to rectify my bill. This is AFTER he said it was not listed as a service to me but that I still got billed. Makes no sense. I asked him for the details for canceling. He told me to call another number.

This is not my first rodeo with the new DTV either as I have called them more in the last year than I had in the previous 20 years of service due to a Genie HD going AWOL and that replacement. Alas, that is another fiasco story that I will spare everyone with.

So, over the last 3 months I have been paying for an IPTV service that I stream through my Firestick. I pay 15 a month for 4 feeds to the service. Feeds are in HD and many are 4k. I get a couple thousand channels with little to no buffering. Last night, no buffering at all on live TV. I get about 400 local feeds along with all the movie and normal cable channels and a lot of feeds from all over the world. Since I am a cyclist, the feeds from Eurosport that feature a lot of the cycling races in Europe are a plus to me. Ohh, I may not get ST any longer, but I can get any game I want because I have streams to just about every local market in the U.S. I have been watching the NFL on these local feeds all season so I am not missing a single game I want to watch. Did I mention that I can record with my IPTV service too? I can also split screen up to 4 screens. It is not perfect as any service has issues but right now, for 15 a month getting everything DTV offers plus feeds from Europe, Australia and Asia, I am pretty pleased. I know, I know some will say, wait until your service goes down yadda yadda. They have been "on" for a couple of years now so they appear to have things figured out. They have a main website and I have actually gotten a customer service question answered and the issue fixed with a simple email. Didn't take long either.

Like I said, I have been experimenting with IPTV since the spring and finally went with a paid provider over the last 3 months and with this latest go around with crappy Customer Service, I am at wits end with DTV. I will be moving on when my current monthly service ends. Streaming is definitely the way to go if you have a decent service provider that does not throttle your internet and so far so good with mine. I have 3 firesticks already on my TV's so with the 4 feeds I can get all these channels on every TV in my house.

It has been fun here and I have totally enjoyed all the free information but I am not sad to kick DTV to the curb. The product is still good but the service is beyond bad.

p47

 

Maybe. But pray tell, how do you get a better picture from 1080p or 4k. I have an LG TV and 1080p and 4k are just that. My Firestick is delivering a spot on picture. Frankly, I cannot tell the difference from DTV and using the FS to stream. If the content is there in the stream, then it all depends on the display device. I'm not OLED but the LG still has a very nice image.

FWIW, I hate Apple with a passion. Anyone that has a CEO that used to run around without taking a bath ain't all there....I also enjoy the thrill of figuring out things when the PC and Android side of things don't work. Keeps me sharp.

p47