DIRECTV vs. DISH

I’ve been a DirecTV customer for nine years. Not one complaint! I would never have cable or Dish Network.

After 11 years, I finally dropped DirecTV. The prices just kept inching up and up, and when I went to cancel, they told me how great of a deal I was getting ($58/month for most stations.)

When they started carrying HD stations, they sacrificed many of the non-HD stations by over compressing them. The picture is often choppy and looks much worse than local TV.

The channel selection was good. In the end, we decided to pull the plug because there simply wasn’t much on to watch, even with 200 stations. To pay that much for something that we rarely use just didn’t make sense, so we “right sized” our entertainment.

I really cannot complain too much about this service, because it’snot actuallly mine. My girlfriend lives in McHenry, IL and she gets this black box on her smaller tv when she is trying to watch the basic channels. pleh! It’s very frustrating because we have to get out of the cozy bed and go into the living room if the program is something we really want to watch. She has also had an outage because lightning struck the Mirror? I don’t really know what happened there, probably the only time that is happened right? Well, Overall I like the programming, but I am slightly dissatisfied with the pixelation and the black box issues. However, I have Comcast at my house and I have the pixelation issues there too. I am looking at changin services, but I might try Dish network first. Less holes in the wall.

I had Dish for six years. I had a 510 DVR which was rather flaky (it would freeze up, lose programming and require a reset twice a week.) I liked it though. It was very simple to use and the parental controls were logical.

Due to a special, I switched to DirecTV. I checked out the Dish website to see if they could give me a comparable upgrade for less or at least without the 2 year commitment. They didn’t. I suppose I should have called Dish immediately since when I did call to cancel, they offered me a “free upgrade”, but didn’t go into details.

The installer completely messed up the DirecTV installation. It arguably wasn’t his fault since the stupid salesman didn’t convey what to do. On the other hand, the installer only talked to us AFTER the dish was put in precisely the wrong place. I decided to cancel, but got told so many different things about 24 hours and 3 days and so forth that I just threw up my hands and decided to live with it.

I have one standard definition TV and rarely watch sports. So far, except for a few channels where the audio is a fraction of a second out of sync (Dish had that on occasion too), the DirecTV has been very good. The channel guide is much better than that of Dish as is the way it takes care of recording conflicts when setting them. DirecTV’s web site is better than Dish. I really like how DirecTV stores series in folders. We record a lot of old shows and it keeps the menu from being cluttered.

On the other hand, Dish’s parental controls made more sense to me and the guide was easier to use (though on the 510 at least, the DVR timers control was really messed up and confusing.)

In the end, despite the better guide on DirecTV, I think I would have preferred sticking with Dish. But I say that with six years of familiarity. I may change my mind two years from now.

One last thing: I have NEVER had a problem with Dish or DirecTV phone support. Both companies have had very professional operators and support staff who have been very helpful on the rare occasions I needed it.

The reason I didn’t rate this five stars is that there are still minor software design issues and more channels than Dish have the audio a few milliseconds behind. Oh, and the skip feature on DirecTV is idiotic—it’s really fast forward 30 seconds.

(Once I go HD, it would be nice to have the cash to do a side-by-side comparison for several days.)

My conclusion: for standard definition non-sports people, it doesn’t make much of a difference which one you go with.

I never thought that Directv had 1080p for the on demand like Dish did. When I switched I was a little apprehensive because the Dish reps were telling me how much more advanced their equip is. I was pretty sick of Dish and all their bull-oney that kept feeding. I couldn’t even get HD on the 2nd tv hooked up to their system! Let me tell you- Directv HD DVR is awesome! I have the On demand with the 1080p, all my family photos are downloaded onto the HD DVR,the DVR scheduler that I use on my cell all the time, I play Gamelounge like all the time, and their interactive features are so much better to the eyes than Dish. I can’t wait til the end of the year when Directv has TIVO back! (Tivo got into a lawsuit with Dish- HA FIGURES!) I don’t really care for Dish’s service or the fact that they’re cheaper. I rather get what I pay for in customer service and products!

I’ve had Directv from 1998. Always done my homework with them and they’ve always sent me copies of my customer agreement, my bill, even helped me understand the economics of why the price increases were happening whenever I’ve requested. (Hey it’s not like the whole industry doesn’t see the price increases from their programmers) The customer service people helped me understand everything on my account before I did anything on my account. Completely patient with me & spoke to me like a person who just needed help. Upon upgrading my equipment to HD DVR they very politely said “since it’s a discounted equipment that costs the company a lot of money to make we would like to ask your permission to stay with us for 24 mos, is that ok?” WHAT A SWEETWAY TO ASK ME! I totally didn’t feel like I was being pressured by some sales rep trying to make their commission. I rarely call them for any problems. Maybe about 0.5% of the time we get some bad weather that causes the dish to go out. Their customer service is great! I feel like an appreciated customer. The technician that installed the equipment was very polite and walked me through the house showing me all his plans first of what he was going to do and also asked my permission before I started! I totally felt like I was the boss of the company! A VIP in their eyes. I just want to let people know that they’re really working for me!

i have been a loyal direct tv customer for 10+ years, and now I think that will all change, I recently bought a hdtv, so since my contract was up, i called about a hd dvr upgrade, and was told i would have to pay for it … i called dish and they said they would replace my stuff for hd and not charge a penny… so it seems like direct tv wants you, at first but then do do’s on you when you have been so loyal … direct tv didn’t even want to talk to me so they hung up the first time i asked … That’s Rude!!!! to think it would cost direct tv about $2 a month to keep me as a customer but it don’t matter to them … Later!!!

As a home theater installer, I can tell you first hand that Directv is much easier to use and navigate through than Dish. Dish menus are hard to navigate through if you are a new satillite user, Dish is pretty much garbage if you ask me.

We had DirecTV since 1997 when we finally quit using our old C-Band satellite system. Anyway, DirecTV has the best customer service on the planet. They will bend over backwards to help solve your problems. You really can’t ask for more.

As for the shipping department, it could definitely use some work. Lately, they have really screwed up some of my orders and they tend to ship refurbished equipment when your suppose to be receiving new.

Another problem I have with DirecTV is their new HD DVR equipment. It’s got some problems that need to be corrected. Plus, the fact that they’re now shipping out receiver that are missing the B-Band converters which are required if you plan on watching your HD programming.

Because of the problems I’ve had with DirecTV’s HR20 and the HR21 (it’s even worst) ... I’m leaving DirecTV and switching to Dish Network … plus the fact that Dish Network HD DVR’s are the only 1080p receivers out there (DirecTV’s are 1080i only). Hopefully the switch goes well.

In 1998, we bought into Dish Network. We had it for 6 years. For the most part it was good – there were customer service problems though and the one time I used their installer (instead of doing it myself) it was a nightmare.

We ended up going to cable for about 3 years and missed the DBS service.

Last year we decided to go back to satellite TV and DirecTV had the better deal at the time (plus the NFL Sunday Ticket and NASCAR Hotpass). We cannot believe how much better they have been than Dish. Don’t get me wrong, Dish was good but DirecTV has been great.

The equipment is very easy to use (the HD picture is second to none). We have 3 DVRs (including 1 HD DVR). This would cost another $45/month with our cable provider. With DirecTV it’s $4.99 per box regardless.

It is easy to change programming if you want to(the online functions for this, and for recording to DVR are great). I like the Sportspak in the fall (for colloege sports) and don’t need it other times of the year. This is no problem to change with DirecTV.

I have had a few customer service issues. They have always gone above and beyond to take care of me. I have never hung up from them feeling as if they did not take care of what I needed.