[Dario33]

I'm moving next week and am on the fence about staying with Dish or switching to DTV. I'll be able to bundle DTV with CenturyLink and take advantage of DTVs 24-month pricing for new customers.

I know Dish has the free "Dish Mover" program, but any other compelling reasons to stay put? I've never been with DTV and have heard only mediocre things about their DVRs. Not sure I'd upgrade to Dish Hopper either as I'm completely content with my current 722k/211 setup.

Any recommendations?

 

[MysteryMan]

I'm moving next week and am on the fence about staying with Dish or switching to DTV. I'll be able to bundle DTV with CenturyLink and take advantage of DTVs 24-month pricing for new customers.

I know Dish has the free "Dish Mover" program, but any other compelling reasons to stay put? I've never been with DTV and have heard only mediocre things about their DVRs. Not sure I'd upgrade to Dish Hopper either as I'm completely content with my current 722k/211 setup.

Any recommendations?

Do what's best for you and use the service provider that best fills your needs.

 

[garys]

If you don't think you'll like Direct's dvr, stay with what you have now. You can sometimes get some promo's when you move using DishMover.

 

[E91]

I've had both in recent years. To be honest, its half a dozen of one six of another. Both had decent customer support, although I found DISH to be a bit friendlier. For my watching interests, DISH was mostly cheaper. I would have stayed with DISH but I'm a hockey fan and the HD content on Center Ice was just not there (at least at the time, that might have changed).

I can't speak to the latest round of DISH HDRs, but I had a VIP 722. Now, I have D* with a HR24. I did not love the VIP, and thought it was several notches below the DirecTIVO boxes I had years ago. I like the D* DVRs though and think they are vastly superior to the DISH units.

Personally, I had heard such terrible things about the D* DVRs that I was hesitant. My experience had been excellent though.

But, again, the latest DISH units may be improved, so I can't say.

It really comes down to your programming interests. Overall though, I was very happy with both providers. I do think the D* HD-DVRs have a much more elegant interface than the VIP 722, but YMMV.

 

[Marlin Guy]

I left DirecTV because of their crappy DVRs.
I'm staying with Dish because of their outstanding DVRs.

Got another "please come back, we'll pay your cancellation fees" letter today from DirecTV. My recycle bin is getting full.

/Oh, and I just watched last night's Breaking Bad - commercial free.

 

[Marlin Guy]

I can't speak to the latest round of DISH HDRs...

I can. The Hopper runs rings around the HRs in every conceivable way.
I used to spend hours pouring over posts in the HR forums, trying to find something, anything, that would fix my ridiculously slow and unresponsive equipment.

I found it when I saw the Hopper commercials.

 

[Dario33]

Oh, and I just watched last night's Breaking Bad - commercial free.

How'd you manage that, Amazon/iTunes? I love AMC (or at least Breaking Bad and Mad Men) and am considering that in my decision to stay/switch.

 

[Marlin Guy]

How'd you manage that, Amazon/iTunes? I love AMC (or at least Breaking Bad and Mad Men) and am considering that in my decision to stay/switch.

 

[MysteryMan]

I left DirecTV because of their crappy DVRs.
I'm staying with Dish because of their outstanding DVRs.

Got another "please come back, we'll pay your cancellation fees" letter today from DirecTV. My recycle bin is getting full.

/Oh, and I just watched last night's Breaking Bad - commercial free.

One man's candy can be another man's poison. As I posted one should choose a service provider that best fills their needs. That's why I've stayed with DirecTV for 17 years. The main reason I won't switch to DISH is because of their long term "channel fade" issues (AMC, Disney, FOX, ect,). Unlike you I put DISH mailings with offers to switch to better use. I use them as kindling for my fireplace.

 

[RasputinAXP]

:rolling::rolling::rolling::rolling:

 

[neomaine]

Ditto... That's has got to rank as one of the all time most greatest best posts.

 

[Marlin Guy]

Thought of adding the famous ship logo, but I didn't want to over clutter the thing.

 

[reche]

I would not suggest that you switch to direct TV. I recently experienced the worst customer service and this was towards me a prospective customer who had every intention of moving from my current service provider to DTV. they transferred me through 7 different departments until I finally gave up and decided to take my business elsewhere. it left a horrible taste in my mouth

 

[sregener]

I like the D* DVRs though and think they are vastly superior to the DISH units.

Sounds like you got one of the "good" HR24s. I had one of the "bad" HR22s. It was horribly slow to respond at times. At startup, it could take me 30-45 seconds from power on to starting a prerecorded program or changing a channel.

Dish's Hopper seems better to me. At the beginning, it was blazing fast. They've slowed down the 30-second skip for some unknown reason, which is a bummer, but otherwise the unit responds quickly and reliably to my commands. Starting up a prerecorded program is under 10 seconds. And I have PiP, something DirecTV hasn't figured out how to do.

If DirecTV would change their policy of "receiver ignorance", I'd say it's worth taking a gamble with the HR24. The problem is that DirecTV does not tell you what receiver you will get, and they're still shipping the HR21, 22 and 23s which are woefully slow for some people. You can, of course, go to a third party and pay $200 or so to get the model you want, but it felt like throwing money away to me. In DirecTV's mind, an HD DVR is an HD DVR, and they're all the same. But user reports show that they most definitely are not.

 

[Marlin Guy]

One man's candy can be another man's poison.

Send me a PM when your contract is up and I'll give you a referral.

 

[Dario33]

So I decided to stay w/ Dish. Overall, I've been happy w/ them (despite the recent loss of AMC) and didn't feel compelled enough to switch right now. They threw in a couple promo's as part of the Mover program as well. Hopefully it's a smooth Move process next week.

Thanks again for the input.

 

[Paul Secic]

I'm moving next week and am on the fence about staying with Dish or switching to DTV. I'll be able to bundle DTV with CenturyLink and take advantage of DTVs 24-month pricing for new customers.

I know Dish has the free "Dish Mover" program, but any other compelling reasons to stay put? I've never been with DTV and have heard only mediocre things about their DVRs. Not sure I'd upgrade to Dish Hopper either as I'm completely content with my current 722k/211 setup.

Any recommendations?

I'd stay with Dish because you already know the channel numbers. Also my neighbors have DTV and they hate their DVR because it's slow.

 

[packethauler]

I'm moving next week and am on the fence about staying with Dish or switching to DTV. I'll be able to bundle DTV with CenturyLink and take advantage of DTVs 24-month pricing for new customers.

I know Dish has the free "Dish Mover" program, but any other compelling reasons to stay put? I've never been with DTV and have heard only mediocre things about their DVRs. Not sure I'd upgrade to Dish Hopper either as I'm completely content with my current 722k/211 setup.

Any recommendations?

I just went through the same thing 2 months ago. I was considering getting rid of E*, but the Hopper and Joeys were exactly what I was looking for.

E* didn't charge me for install, they only charged me for the upgrade fee for the Hopper, which I expected. Customer service was outstanding from when I first talked to them, until the install was finished by the tech. BTW, the tech did a great job with keeping the wiring clean and neat, and was very personable. Customer service is very important to me, and I feel like they treated me as a valued customer.

On a side note; our master bedroom TV has no cables exposed, or any equipment anywhere. I ended up tethering the Joey to the back of the set. Everybody has commented how clean it looks.

My brother-in-law has the 5-tuner DVR from D*, and I'm not impressed by it's responsiveness at all. D* has a flashy guide, but I feel that slows down their interface quite a bit.

 

[fudpucker]

Does the Hopper/Joey require hard connections between them? It was a bear just getting cable from the dish to my 3 Dish DVRs (2 upstairs 1 downstairs ). And while I LOVE the thought of being able to play any recorded show on any of the 3 dvrs ( we often have moments of "oh that show is downstairs ) we need the ability to record on more than 3 tuners at once on occasion.

 

[APB101]

The programming should come first. Which provider (of those for whom you have choice) comes closest to what you would like in a lineup?