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Thinking of ditching DirecTV

6K views 99 replies 23 participants last post by  sregener 
#1 ·
I've been with DirecTV since 1996, but I'm thinking it's time for a change. I'm under contract until December, 2013 but I'll pay the ETF if it's worth it. I had been playing the game of calling in to get credits in order to lower my bill, but DirecTV is now cracking down on that, and as a result my monthly bill has increased considerably over the past 12 months as various credits have expired and prices have increased. I want to see if taking advantage of new customer pricing will have a significant advantage if I drop DirecTV and move to Dish. I realize that each service has its pluses and minuses, but at this point cost is becoming more of a concern than anything else.

Here's what I have now, and I would like to retain the equivalent capability if moving to Dish:

-4 HD DVRs (1 x HR20, 2 x HR22, 1 x HR24), including one (HR22) being used with a SD TV

-HD programming

-DVR service

-Whole Home service

-TOTAL CHOICE programming package

My current monthly bill is $110.87 before the credits that I have still remaining are applied. As credits have expired and prices have increased over the last 12 months, my bill has increased by more than 38% for the exact same service. Obviously, I'm hoping to take advantage of "new customer" pricing to save some money. I realize that most (if not all) of the new customer pricing is only good for the first 12 months of a 24 month contract.

I've looked at the Dish website to get some idea of what's available to new customers, but much of the available technology is different than what I have now, and it's not clear what the charges are for extra stuff.

-Is there a monthly charge for DVRs? HD DVRs? If so, how much?
-Is there a monthly charge for the Dish Whole Home service? If so, how much?
-The Dish website says that new customers "may" be eligible for free HD for life. How does a new customer qualify for this?
-Will I pay upfront equipment costs as a new Dish customer? If so, how much?

Thanks to anyone who can provide information, even if it's just directing me to an existing thread.
 
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#52 ·
Ray C@DISH Network said:
Each Hopper and Joey, after the first receiver, is $7 per month. I have auto pay setup with several companies and I've never had an issue with more that the allotted amount being taken from my account. Most people do not listen closely to the disclosure that are given to them when they sign up for new service. All disclosures are provided to each customer when changes are made to their account or when setting up a new account. Thanks.
I'm sure that many customers have autopay and never have an issue. But you don't have to go very far to find someone who has had an issue:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=211300

To me, the potential for aggravation is just not worth it, especially if that aggravation includes trying to get back money that should never have been charged or deducted in the first place.
 
#53 ·
damondlt said:
No thats if you want the FREE HD OPTION, and don't want to do auto pay.

Otherwise you Pay $10 per month
I'm still having trouble understanding this part. It sounds like a new Dish customer has three options as far as paying for HD goes:

-Do paperless billing and auto pay and get HD for free
-Pay an up front fee of $99 for the year (does this happen in subsequent years as well?)
-Pay $10/month

Is this correct?
 
#54 ·
dcandmc said:
I'm sure that many customers have autopay and never have an issue. But you don't have to go very far to find someone who has had an issue:

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=211300

To me, the potential for aggravation is just not worth it, especially if that aggravation includes trying to get back money that should never have been charged or deducted in the first place.
Agree.

The Dish Equipment works better IMO then the Directv equipment, But the limited tuners and not quite the channel line up I want, or the disputes. Will never make me switch to Dish!
 
#56 ·
dcandmc said:
I'm still having trouble understanding this part. It sounds like a new Dish customer has three options as far as paying for HD goes:

-Do paperless billing and auto pay and get HD for free
-Pay an up front fee of $99 for the year (does this happen in subsequent years as well?)
-Pay $10/month

Is this correct?
Yes correct

And the $99 is a one time fee!
 
#57 ·
dcandmc said:
I'm still having trouble understanding this part. It sounds like a new Dish customer has three options as far as paying for HD goes:

-Do paperless billing and auto pay and get HD for free
-Pay an up front fee of $99 for the year (does this happen in subsequent years as well?)
-Pay $10/month

Is this correct?
No. $99 WAS a one time charge, no longer available.

And while technically correct about part-time HD on RSN's, just be clear most all pro games (And you can say all for NESN and virtually all for CSNNE) are in HD.
 
#58 ·
#59 ·
tampa8 said:
I feel like I have to clear up a few things. First though. I'm not suggesting you do or don't switch. If you were coming from Cable I would say you can't switch fast enough. But Direct TV would be my second choice to Dish if I had to switch. That said, yes you can save money by switching, just as you could if you switched from Dish to Direct, but only for a short time. Then while Dish can be a little less, it isn't by much, and at times not at all, depends on equipment. As other have pointed out check out the packages.

1. ESPN, ESPN2 are in HD. There is good indication Dish and Disney will come to an agreement to get the other ESPN channels to HD, but they are not now.

2. Red Sox. I can tell you from being on the boards a very long time, and having NESN, that NESN on DISH carries virtually every game in HD, and that includes day night double headers. Dish quite possibly carries the equal or highest percentage of games in HD on NESN than any other RSN. And this past year DISH was carrying most RSN's games in HD. Ditto Bruins or Celtics so that includes CSNNE.

3. If you do get autopay and online billing, the HD charge is free for life, as long as you do not cancel DISH. There is no guesswork to it. And should you need to, Dish has a couple of very affordable packages to stay a customers and keep getting the locals in HD. You do not lose the HD free if you switch back to an all HD package.

4. Not mentioned (I don't think) while two HOPPERS have six tuners, if you use PTAT, one tuner records all four Networks at the same time, very possibly in effect adding tuners. I do strongly suggest two HOPPERS.

Unfortunately or maybe fortunately for you, packages, price and equipment are the important factors, and you can throw in service, and while DISH and DIRECT handle all in different ways, they are in my opinion the best providers. So you are choosing among equal but different choices.... If you had FIOS I would include them as a choice, except for cost, even though I consider Verizon to be even more evil than ATT..... lol
Very nice post; thanks for the great information. Yes, cable would be my absolute last option, as the local pricing structure would kill me with equipment fees to have HD DVR capability at three TVs, with SD DVR capability at a fourth TV. I am not interested in PTAT, as we watch very little traditional network programming.

If I can save $20/month for the first 12 months of a 24 month contract, that to me is significant. Whether it's worth the hassle of switching providers every two years, I don't know (yet). Whether I'll be disappointed with the programming and equipment features of Dish as compared to DirecTV, I don't know (yet).
 
#60 ·
dcandmc said:
I think that I'm coming to the same conclusion. Also, pricing aside, the only way to really determine if your personal preference is for one service or the other is to experience each service for a substantial period of time.
I would agree. For me, D* and E* are just two sides of the same coin since I'm not a big sports fan. Give me some boxing and golf, and I'm good to go and both services have more than enough of each for me.

I switch when I think it is in my best interest, which works out to around the 2 year mark, sometimes earlier but not by much.

As to the autopay situation. With Direct, if you use credit card autopay they take the money before you have a chance to even see the bill. That was and is piss poor method imo. With Dish, you get the email of the bill about 2 weeks before they take the money, so you have at least some reasonable chance of catching an error before it actually costs you any money.

That said, I've never gotten a wrong bill with either service over many years, or at least nothing significant enough to make me remember it. And that has been true of the many autopays I do now.

I do protect myself a bit by paying all autopays with a credit card that has a very, very low limit so that worse case they could get a few bucks more than they should, but not much.
 
#63 ·
dcandmc said:
If I can save $20/month for the first 12 months of a 24 month contract, that to me is significant. Whether it's worth the hassle of switching providers every two years, I don't know (yet). Whether I'll be disappointed with the programming and equipment features of Dish as compared to DirecTV, I don't know (yet).
Get the program guides I posted a link to so you can make some comparisons, especially for those channels most important to you.

But also keep in mind that the SD from Dish with Hopper/Joey isn't anywhere near as horrible as D*'s best SD. Many SD channels look to be nearly DVD quality, though sports is not one of them. I don't watch much in SD, but I also don't avoid watching something in SD if that is the only way it is available with Dish. With Direct, I actively avoided SD since it was nearly unwatcheable imo.
 
#66 ·
lparsons21 said:
Get the program guides I posted a link to so you can make some comparisons, especially for those channels most important to you.

But also keep in mind that the SD from Dish with Hopper/Joey isn't anywhere near as horrible as D*'s best SD. Many SD channels look to be nearly DVD quality, though sports is not one of them. I don't watch much in SD, but I also don't avoid watching something in SD if that is the only way it is available with Dish. With Direct, I actively avoided SD since it was nearly unwatcheable imo.
Something else to think about. I agree with you about DirecTV's SD picture quality.
 
#67 ·
dcandmc said:
That link wants to auto download something to my computer. Danger, Will Robinson!
Yea its a PDF channel chart.
 
#68 ·
Here's some more info to help you decide what is in your best interest.

1. With Dish, you can add an external HD and it adds to your storage space. And the EHD is married to your account not an individual receiver. That makes it handy if you have a Hopper crap out.

2. With the Hopper (and I think Joey too), you can back up your timers and settings to the remote so that switching out a bad unit doesn't mean manually resetting all those things.

That is handy.
 
#69 ·
lparsons21 said:
Here's some more info to help you decide what is in your best interest.

1. With Dish, you can add an external HD and it adds to your storage space. And the EHD is married to your account not an individual receiver. That makes it handy if you have a Hopper crap out.

2. With the Hopper (and I think Joey too), you can back up your timers and settings to the remote so that switching out a bad unit doesn't mean manually resetting all those things.

That is handy.
More good to know information.

How is Dish with integrating OTA? I like my HR20 because I can easily set it up to record OTA, which comes in handy when there is an occasional problem with locals off the sat.
 
#72 ·
damondlt said:
Directv has the Dual live feeds in HD dish not even close, And when Boston plays the Yankees at Yankees, you will be twiddling your thumbs since Dish gave up totally on the NY market.
I don't understand why Red Sox games at Yankee stadium would be a problem for a NESN viewer, unless Dish does sports blackouts in a substantially different way than DirecTV. Red Sox games in New York are never blacked out on NESN for DirecTV viewers in NESN territory unless the game is on a national feed (i.e. ESPN or Fox), and in that case I just watch the national feed.
 
#74 ·
damondlt said:
Good luck getting a 3rd hopper, Cause thats what you'll need to compair with 4 HR's
I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest you confer too much importance on live TV. Outside of the big four shows that can be covered by a single tuner, the other shows play at least two or three times a week. Walking Dead episodes play as many as six times a week (The Prey episode plays seven times in eight days).

Compared to the OP's non-unified scheduling, I'm betting that a whole home device will be considerably more efficient with its tuners.
 
#75 ·
Having had both services, I've found the free HD at Dish is what makes it cheaper than DirecTV in the long run. I, too, dislike having to call DirecTV every few months to beg and threaten in order to get the free HD discount extended when Dish does it for life and no hassles.

However, there is no such thing as a free lunch. Dish's lower prices come at the cost of more frequent disputes and channel losses.

As a sports fan, you really can't beat DirecTV, even if it is more expensive.

Needless to say, while I liked both services, all the games eventually wore me down, so I'm a happy cable tv sub again.
 
#76 ·
In southern california DISH ihas the FREE HOPPER whole home dvr with free blockbuster & HD for life plus free hbo,cinemax,showtime,and starz for 3 months plus a $25.00 gift card at activation. Pricing starts at $19.99 for 12 months americas top 120 is $24.99 a month,top 200 is $24.99 a month and the top 250is $39.99 a month.
 
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