Dish vs. Directv: Which has a better deal & lower cost? (rental, house)

[MarianR]

We had a bad experience with Dish. Thought I had carefully listened to the deal before agreeing to the package. Installers arrived late on Friday afternoon, did the installation, demonstrated it for us and we asked about HD - were told we didn't have HD. (Hard to communicate because they spoke very limited English) So... we decided to cancel. Called first thing Monday morning, were told that we were beyond the 48 hour change your mind period!!!!!!!
I was not happy - googled it and after some searching found a phone number and reached someone, I think it was the vice president's office, and that person agreed with me and sent a box so I could send the receiver back. (They didn't want the dish back!)
My advice - never schedule installation for Friday afternoon!

[JH6]

If you look at the channel offerings, Dish seems to have more useless channels. Tons of religious channels, shopping channels, and stuff that most people would never watch. Sure you can get a plan for 19 dollars per month, but at that rate you might be better just putting an antenna on your roof.

[ibarrio]

DirectTV is the way to go if you love the NFL. Especially for out of market teams (cardinals stink)

[Jukesgrrl]

My advice: make a written list of the channels you actually watch. Then get a complete list of the channels offered AT EACH PRICE POINT for DirecTV and one for Dish. I did that when I was shopping and I was surprised to find what I considered to be serious differences in the offerings at the mid-price point. (I'm not talking about the premium level with HBO.) Don't just look at the offerings without making a list, or you'll fail to notice something that's missing.

I immediately rejected getting the lowest price point for either plan. The offerings were mostly the local networks and junk channels. We watch a lot of sports and cable news in my house. DirecTV was the clear winner there. Then I went through my list of other channels we like. They both had the Hearst channels (HGTV, Food Network, etc.). The rest of the list included cable channels we like certain nighttime programs on: USA, TNT, A&E, as well as AMC and TCM for classic films. Again DirecTV was the winner. They also have a private channel called Audience that has excellent dramas from Australia and some unique comedies, unlike the network sitcoms.

After we had DirecTV for awhile, we got really spoiled by their special coverage of major sporting events. For U.S. Open tennis, they're having at least four separate channels to watch it on. You aren't restricted to one match. You can switch among several. For the golf majors they also follow multiple players on different screens and have a screen devoted to a leaderboard with detailed stats. If you aren't a sports nut this will be silly to you, but if you are it's a major upgrade from regular viewing. And it's not a premium offering; we get it at mid-price.

I won't speak to actual price since I live in Pima Co., which might be different from Maricopa. But I will say we were replacing Comcast cable because of terrible reception and DirecTV is an improvement. It goes out occasionally during bad storms, but not anywhere near the frequency the cable went out.

I bundled with Century Link phone landline and DSL and opted for only one recorder, which was a big savings.

[Steve Pickering]

I have had both. One time dish is better, the next time it is direct. We cut the cable years ago also. Prices kept going up. We now do OTA only and love it. No bills. I do miss SOA on FX, my NASCAR on Speed and ESPN, and the Discovery and Learning channels, but OPB makes up for much of it.

[LBTRS]

You guys must watch some off the wall channels because after having DirecTV for 15 years and switching to Dish several months ago I've not found one channel missing on Dish. I've actually seen many channels on Dish that I don't remember seeing on DirecTV but they are not channels I watch so they don't matter to me.

[stephen431]

Originally Posted by Steve Pickering

I have had both. One time dish is better, the next time it is direct. We cut the cable years ago also. Prices kept going up. We now do OTA only and love it. No bills. I do miss SOA on FX, my NASCAR on Speed and ESPN, and the Discovery and Learning channels, but OPB makes up for much of it.

You can get SOA if you subscribe to Netflix streaming. You'll be a season behind, but still...

Discovery & Learning channels have turned into junk over the past few years. You're not missing much.

I think NASCAR has an online thing you can subscribe to.

Even if you like NFL Sunday Ticket, you can subscribe to that without DirecTV if you have a Playstation.
Sunday Ticket on PS3

[ibarrio]

Originally Posted by stephen431

You can get SOA if you subscribe to Netflix streaming. You'll be a season behind, but still...

Discovery & Learning channels have turned into junk over the past few years. You're not missing much.

I think NASCAR has an online thing you can subscribe to.

Even if you like NFL Sunday Ticket, you can subscribe to that without DirecTV if you have a Playstation.
Sunday Ticket on PS3

don't waste your money getting NFL ticket on the PS3. Reviews are horrible. Buffering and drops are common. Picture quality is poor.

[stephen431]

Originally Posted by ibarrio

don't waste your money getting NFL ticket on the PS3. Reviews are horrible. Buffering and drops are common. Picture quality is poor.

That only happened the first weekend last year. They issued $25 credits to subscribers for those games and fixed the issues. It wasn't actually a problem with the Playstation. It was a problem with DirecTV's feed for Sunday-Ticket-to-go (now called Sunday Ticket Max and was called "Supercast" a few years ago). So those same issues showed up on the iPad, iPhone and web feed.

I watched a few of the games after that weekend using my Playstation & the only time it buffered was when I rapidly switched between games. They obviously compress the signal a bit but it's still high-def, just like Netflix.

[Steve Pickering]

I have thought about Netflix as I missed last season. I go to a local bar on Tuesday to play in my Texas Holdem' Tournament, and if I am winning I miss the program on the Bar TV.