Considering discontinuing DirectTV after nearly 12 years

2109 Views 15 Replies 10 Participants Last post by heaphus, Jan 3, 2007

nrnoble

Discussion Starter · Dec 31, 2006

Looking for reasons why I might consider staying with DirectTV.

I have had DirectTV since it's very first year. I have been with them for primarily 1 reason, I own a DirectTivo and a UTV. I have been, for the most part, satisfied with DirectTV. My decision is not based on personal feelings for\against DirectTV.

This month I bought a Tivo3 with a lifetime service transfer, and it does not work DirectTv (I knew this in advance of purchase), and as far as I know, DirectTV and TiVo no longer have a partnership for future products. My #1 biggest disappointment.

To get the Tivo3 to really work to its fullest, Tivo3 requires digital cable. Comcast has already given me 2 free digital cable cards with no addition monthly fees.

If I keep DirectTV with current package along with digital cable for the TiVo3, then I will be paying close to $200 a month for programming, paying for most channels twice. Waste.

As far as I've been able to determine, programming costs between digital cable and DirectTV is nearly the same, give or take a few $$$ either way. Not enough to be a deciding factor.

I do not subscribe to any of DirectTV's exclusive packages (ie NFL games)

Downside, UTV and DirectTiVo become useless. Both have been used daily for many years with high satisfaction. They would be missed.

Comcast gives me the option for OnDemand if I want to get additional hardware.

I might consider keeping DirectTV if there is some kind of small package that has the channels I frequently watch\record.

If anyone has advice\thoughts that I might want to consider, I am interested.

Thx

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JLucPicard

· #2 · Dec 31, 2006

Almost sounds to me like once you purchased the S3 and did the lifetime transfer, your decisions were already made. If there's no turning back, then I don't think you've got a lot of choices.

If there's a chance that the S3 and cable won't work out for you, I'd maybe consider suspeding your DirecTv account until you're sure you're sticking with the S3.

Best of luck, and Happy and Safe New Year to you and yours!

nrnoble

Discussion Starter · #3 · Jan 1, 2007

JLucPicard said:
Almost sounds to me like once you purchased the S3 and did the lifetime transfer, your decisions were already made. If there's no turning back, then I don't think you've got a lot of choices.

If there's a chance that the S3 and cable won't work out for you, I'd maybe consider suspeding your DirecTv account until you're sure you're sticking with the S3.

Best of luck, and Happy and Safe New Year to you and yours!

Thanks. I guess I'm looking to see if there are reasons I have not yet considered for staying with DirectTV in addition to having digital cable. If I were to stay with DirectTV, it would be a reduced package, switching most of the programming to digital cable(ie Premium channels).

For many years the combination of DirectTivo and UTV were clear factors to stay with DirectTV, and I wouldn't have switched to a Comcast digital cable DVR because from what I've seen\read, they just don't measure up to TiVo, at least not yet. Tivo3 gives me a state of the art HDTV DVR.

I don't know the history of why DirectTV broke off with TiVo, but for me that decision has pushed me towards digital cable because I want to keep Tivo as my DVR technology over DirectTV as my service provider. I am sure DirectTV's DVR is good enough for their typical customer, so it is cost effective for them in the long run not to keep TiVo around as a DVR partner.

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john18

· #4 · Jan 1, 2007

I always hated cable. I seemed to have too many cable disruptions from car accidents causing outages, infrastructure problems, etc. Ever since I went to satellite I have been very happy.

Best wishes with whatever decision you make.

JLucPicard

· #5 · Jan 1, 2007

Given your desire for HD, the only reason I could see to stay with DirecTv would be their HD expansion in this next year. That runs kind of contrary to scaling way back on D* costs as I'm sure you would need to subscribe to the HD Pack to take advantage of it (not to mention needing to use their equipment, which you don't want to do).

DirecTv does have a Family Pack option, I believe, that as of today is $29.99. That's the lowest package price they offer (unless you strictly do a foreign language package). I imagine you could go with that, but I don't think you get anything with that that you wouldn't be getting with cable anyway, so that doesn't make much sense.

BruceS

· #6 · Jan 1, 2007

JLucPicard said:
Given your desire for HD, the only reason I could see to stay with DirecTv would be their HD expansion in this next year. That runs kind of contrary to scaling way back on D* costs as I'm sure you would need to subscribe to the HD Pack to take advantage of it (not to mention needing to use their equipment, which you don't want to do).

DirecTv does have a Family Pack option, I believe, that as of today is $29.99. That's the lowest package price they offer (unless you strictly do a foreign language package). I imagine you could go with that, but I don't think you get anything with that that you wouldn't be getting with cable anyway, so that doesn't make much sense.

I believe that whatever additional HD channels are added this summer will all be MPEG4.

If that is true, then to receive and record them he would need D* proprietary HR20 DVR. That seems to defeat his primary concern of staying with a DVR running Tivo software.

JLucPicard

· #7 · Jan 1, 2007

BruceS said:
I believe that whatever additional HD channels are added this summer will all be MPEG4.

If that is true, then to receive and record them he would need D* proprietary HR20 DVR. That seems to defeat his primary concern of staying with a DVR running Tivo software.

Which is exactly why I said "(not to mention needing to use their equipment, which you don't want to do)".

CCarncross

· #8 · Jan 2, 2007

As soon as you bought the Tivo3, you might as well have cancelled D*....there is absolutely no good reason to have both if you are not a big sports fan...Now your problem will be you'll have a great dvr and a terrible service provider....cause any cable company I have seen in the past ten years, has just been complete trash...

Tom Robertson

· #9 · Jan 2, 2007

As for packages, the smallest would be Family Choice but probably completely duplicates your cable channels.

As for you and your family, may you have lots of good luck,
Tom

harsh

· #10 · Jan 2, 2007

Given that you're so deeply dependent on TiVo, you're going to have to go with cable. The S3 will likely always be a compromise in functionality and will last only as long as Comcast doesn't decide to do away with CableCard or require CableCard 2.0.

RAD

· #11 · Jan 2, 2007

Or move to switched video delivery.

Ghengis

· #12 · Jan 2, 2007

I was actually thinking of doing the opposite. I am not using Tivo, I am suing the HD PVRs from Cablevision, and they charge $10/month for each one. Since I have 3 of them, I am paying $30/month in PVR fees.
I can switch back to DirecTV and pay $5.99 once for all PVRs.

Dave

JLucPicard

· #13 · Jan 2, 2007

Ghengis,

I'm not real familiar with how they charge for their cable boxes/DVRs, but with DirecTv it would be one charge of $5.99 for DVR service, then either two or three charges of $4.99 a month to mirror the programming on each DVR (depending on if one of them was your "primary receiver"). So you could actually be paying $15.97 or $20.96 (if you had some other receiver besides the three DVRs).

In the interest of full disclosure.

heaphus

· #14 · Jan 3, 2007

RAD said:
Or move to switched video delivery.

Will CableCard 2.0 be able to handle this?

RAD

· #15 · Jan 3, 2007

heaphus said:
Will CableCard 2.0 be able to handle this?

I don't know, but I would think it wouldn't since my understanding is that the CableCard is for program authorization while switched video is a change to the way the programming is distributed.

heaphus

· #16 · Jan 3, 2007

RAD said:
I don't know, but I would think it wouldn't since my understanding is that the CableCard is for program authorization while switched video is a change to the way the programming is distributed.

OK, after further research, it does infact appear that switched video is part of the CableCard 2.0 spec proposals, along with pay-per-view, VOD, interactive programming guides, and the ability to tune up to 6 channels simultaneously through one card.

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