DirecTV vs Dish

[bobgeorge]

So I am tired of Time Warner Cable for TV and considering going with either DirecTV or Dish. Most of the comparisons I see online seem bias.

So what do you think the pros/cons of each are? The NFL package is free this season.....but i would never pay for it after that....so that is not a big deal for me.

What about the DVR boxes...Hopper vs Genie?

Thank you for any info you can share.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

[DJFaninTN]

Direct has more HD channels and a much better picture in my opinion. Have their DVR and Genie and they both work.


Just like everything else in life, you get what you pay for.

[Pampurrs]

Personally, I prefer the 1330 over the 998, and much prefer the 6 speed over the 5 speed.....

Pam

[Motorcycledave]

Direct, don't botherwitg the others

So I am tired of Time Warner Cable for TV and considering going with either DirecTV or Dish. Most of the comparisons I see online seem bias.

So what do you think the pros/cons of each are? The NFL package is free this season.....but i would never pay for it after that....so that is not a big deal for me.

What about the DVR boxes...Hopper vs Genie?

Thank you for any info you can share.

Sent from my SM-N920P using Tapatalk

[tobor9]

When i had DTV it was great,now have U-Verse, but now that ATT owns DTV i will probibly end up with DTV again,hope ATT has not f****d it up

[Pandy]

As a current employee of at&t, gladly accepting their $$ every other week, I'll have to say Directv. I'm delighted with mine.
Patrick

[Sam Mac]

I had DTV from 1995 till last year. Price kept going up and it was a take it or leave it attitude. They wouldn't even upgrade the equipment. Switched to Dish with a 2 year contract. Now DTV want's me back with a much better deal and better equip. My new plan is to switch back to DTV at the end of the contract then 2 years later go back to Dish. In summery they both suck.

[jcthorne]

Dish is the only one that will still allow you to own your own equipment and purchase service month to month with no contract. This is very helpful if you have a motorhome or vacation home where you want service only part time.

Just something to consider if you need this feature.

We do not have pay tv service at home, only use OTA and internet based services. We have a prepaid month to month DISH system at our vacation home.

[Bob Denman]

[mowin]

Had DTV, there customer service sucks. Price kept going up. Have Dish for the past 4 yrs. The hopper is great. Customer service is great. Very pleased with Dish.

[Joe T.]

We switched from DirecTV to AT&T UVERSE several years ago. I much prefer DirecTV, but have been too lazy to change. And now, AT&T owns DirecTV!!

When we had DirecTV, it was 'hard wired' into our house. We have a home built in 2008 and it came with all of the cabling installed for each bedroom,l den, etc. Worked great and never had a problem with it.

Dumb me had heard so much goods stuff about Uverse that when it came to our neighborhood, I just had to get it! BIG mistake!

UVERSE is totally wireless and uses CISCO equipment. Dang thing always is going down (looses signal) and have to restart system a lot! Big problem if the DVR is recording and it looses lock!

So, if DirecTV has only wireless now, don't do it! If you can get hard-wired, go for it!

Joe T.

[Rob Rodriguez]

I've had both DTV and Dish. If you don't switch every 2 years then the prices suck. They sign you up with a great 2 yr price deal. Then after that the price keeps going up. So you switch to the other, get a good 2 yr deal and then after 2 yrs you play switch aroo again. For me there really is no difference. The channels are about the same, the pricing is about the same the equipment is about the same. Like I said every 2 years I switch to the other so the equipment is always upgraded every 2 years.

Currently I have DTV and there customer service fails on so many and I mean so many levels. It's terrible. The website, the phone, etc they just drag you around in a big circle but you never get any sort of help. AT&T is no better so AT&T purchasing DTV didn't help the customer service any.

That said I'm not sure Dish is any better in the customer service department but overall I'd have better luck with Dish than DTV.

One thing that has become more important for me. The DTV satellite and the Dish satellite point is different directions. Over the years the trees have grown to block the Dish signal direction more than the DTV signal direction. So, you may want to keep in mind which direction the satellite will point on your property and see if its clear of obstruction. There are free phone apps that make determining this very easy.

[Crisis]

Probably Direct. Dish would look silly on the Spyder. Not to mention the buffeting

[tobor9]

As a current employee of at&t, gladly accepting their $$ every other week, I'll have to say Directv. I'm delighted with mine.
Patrick

Hey Pandy,idid not know you are working at ATT,i retired from Bellsouth in '07 as an ST. We still have U-Verse here but i guess they will switch us to DTV sometime,i still have DTV dish's on my roof.

[SL Ken]

We had DirectTV for about 8-9 years. We moved to a different town and I wanted to upgrade to DVR's and HD programming. Because I was an existing customer, they were going to require some enormous cost for the equipment plus an installation fee. I told them that Dish would give me that stuff to switch, and they were like, yeah, but you won't do that... Well, I've had Dish now for about 11 years. The stupid part of this is that now I would like to upgrade to a Hopper and newer equipment. Last time I asked, they want to charge me an enormous fee plus installation because I'm an existing customer. The moral of the story is that they are the same. The programming is about the same. I don't have any problems with HD and the only channels that I really wanted in HD that Dish didn't have, neither did DTV. Both have them now. Customer service is a wash. I've had good and bad luck with both, but I think that Dish is a little more friendly. Pick the service that best fits your budget and as Rob says, figure on changing services every few years to get the newer equipment.

[Gray Ghost]

We have had Direct and Dish. Our experience with Direct was from 99-03, 2011-2013, and just started back with them. Had Dish from 2014-this month.

The last time we had direct was while full-time RVing. Our antenna was not set up to receive HD, so can't comment on that. Didn't have their genie system either in the coach. Ended up doing away with it because the price had gone up and we were able to get a lot of local channels with our regular antenna. Then we moved to a rural area with one channel coming in intermittently. So we went with Dish pay as you go, which is awesome for RV or vacation homes as someone has already pointed out. When we bought a house, still in rural area, we combined out plan with a residential setup. Came to the point where the price went up (2yr contract, only 1 yr price guarantee), and direct had a better deal to the point where the early termination fee was a wash.

In comparison:
DVR - with Dish we just hooked a 1TB hard drive to the system and recorded what we wanted, but only one show and we couldn't change the channel while recording. I never had to worry about Dish deleting any recordings from the drive. We are still learning the Direct system, but so far it is more user friendly on some recording aspects. At least on certain channels you can hit record on a show even after it starts and it gets the whole show. The bad part is that the system uses an internal drive and supposedly there is no way to transfer the recording to an external drive. Not a big deal on somethings, but if you record from an on-demand service you have to pay attention to the expiration date. Once that date hits, the show will be erased from your recordings.

Channel coverage - about the same on both, but with Direct I can access their on-demand services for certain channels that lets me catch up on series that we have found while streaming on Netflix. If Dish had that capability it was not part of my package.

When we moved to our current spot our Verizon phones were useless, the only service in the area was AT&T. So we switched to that but were on a limited data plan which bit us a couple of times. Direct is running a special deal where if you are an AT&T subscriber and you sign up for Dish you can get unlimited data (slows down a line if that line goes over 22GB in a period). That was a big part of our decision to switch.

[GS1]

We've had it since the 90's and have not had any issues have gotten free upgrades and since AT&T took over no issues, I would not change to anything else i've got HD DVR and the Genie 4k the best

[flaggerphil]

We've had both and much prefer Directv. I just hope AT&T doesn't screw them up.

[stillriding]

We've had both and much prefer Directv. I just hope AT&T doesn't screw them up.

I've noticed in the ultra fine print in Direct TV's unending flow of solicitations that a new subscriber MUST also become an AT&T wireless phone customer.

[Orange Spyder Man]

I have had AT&T ... Direct TV and Dish ... now I have Charter... hands down Charter is less expensive, better picture.. & no rain outs like satellite .. and NO CONTRACT...

osm

[GearHd]

I have had AT&T ... Direct TV and Dish ... now I have Charter... hands down Charter is less expensive, better picture.. & no rain outs like satellite .. and NO CONTRACT...

osm

It's just their DVR sucks. You can only record two shows at once, that's pretty barbaric this day in age. We had Charter and switched to Direct TV over two years ago and still no regrets.