Direct TV vs Cable TV

[surgtech1956]

Anyone have Direct TV? If so, have you been happy with it? Nancy

[snapdragen]

We just switched about two weeks ago, I had Comcast cable.

The picture quality is really good - even on our antique televisions. The number of channels is overwhelming. We went with the Plus DVR package - which has at least a million channels. OK - 250 channels.

One thing I've discovered is on some channels (A&E, SciFi) shows I would normally watch at 9:00 are on three hours earlier. It's not like this on all channels, just some.

So far we're very happy with Directv - ask me again in a year!

[crazycanuck]

What's direct TV???

C

[Eden]

It's mini-dish satellite service. We have it and love it - though we never had cable so I don't have any comparison

[BleeckerSt_Girl]

I'm a "no tv" person myself.

[Trek420]

I'm a "no tv" person myself.

That's the best TV

I've never had cable so can't compare. I bit the bullet and got Dishnetwork when West Wing went to a station I could only get on Dish or cable ....then discovered I also get to watch Le Tour . I'm somewhat hooked lately on HG tv and DIY network because of remodel plans.

Only drawback, no Logo on Dish Network so I could not even see myself when they ran the made for tv movie about AIDS Lifecycle ride it's ok, I'd ended up on the cutting room floor.

[bike4ever]

We've had DirecTV through three moves - from Northern VA to Pittsburgh and now in St. Louis. We've had no issues with them. The picture is great. The company is easy to work with when your receiver finally craps out - they will die eventually.

[northstar]

We had Direct TV before going cable free. DH and his roomies had it hooked up before we were married and took over the house.

What I didn't like about it was that if there was a bad storm, our service went out. Blue screen.

We like our life post-cable.

[Eden]

That reminds me. They have the, bar none, absolutely best customer service I've ever dealt with. It's probably the only company that I ever called the help line and was really and truely happy and pleased when I hung up.
We were having a problem with our reciever periodically resetting all of the channels (you have to go in and tell it what channels you get and which ones you want to see in your menus). When I called and the person didn't know what was going on she transferred me to an actual real live engineer who worked on the product. I've never had a company be responsive like that. Not only that - the problem did not happen again.

[short cut sally]

We've had Directv for years now..we live too far out to receive cable access. The only thing I hate is that just about every night, between 7-9pm the whole thing shuts off, then reboots to some odd channel then we have to search for whatever channel we had it on before. I don't know if the whole program resets or what but that's the real major annoyance I have with Directv. Obviously if its really rainy or a bad ice storm, there is no reception. There are nights that there just isn't anything on, or 3 channels have something I really want to watch all at the same time. I am sure regular tv and cable have that going for them also. We have no reception where we live so basic tv is out of the question also.

[crazycanuck]

I think i might need to google both of these forms of TV as i don't know the Australian equivalent.

When i was last in Canada a friend had wireless tv or something??

Is direct TV where you can put the show on hold??

I'm a wee bit lost so hopefully one of the Aussie or Kiwi girls can help me out.

C

[OakLeaf]

I've had DirecTV since '95, almost since the inception of the service. Cable isn't available at our house "up north" (either where we live now or where we lived at the time). When we bought the winter house, we were able to add DirecTV service to that house for just another $10.00 per month - just like adding a DVR receiver in the same house. As far as DirecTV is concerned, a second receiver is a second receiver, it doesn't matter where it is.

For the most part I've been very happy with DirecTV. Where they've really dropped the ball recently is in their DVR service. They license some technology from TiVo, but the end product is their own (DirecTV+). It's had some major glitches, including erasing programs that were just recorded, and not recording requested programs. They've known about these problems for two years. They seem to have been fixed with the very latest software update (as of two weeks ago), but it's so recent I can't say for sure. For that reason alone, if cable with real TiVo is available to you, I'd be inclined to go that way.

What channels do you watch? Channel selection guides are online. Besides movies on HBO, Sundance and IFC, the only channels I usually watch are Speed, OLN, Link and FiTV. The first two are available on basic cable; many cable systems don't carry the second two.

Be aware that if you have trees or hilly terrain, you may not be able to get a signal from the satellites. The website should give you direction and azimuth from your location. DirecTV's satellites are in a differerent position from Dish Network's, so check them out also. I have no experience with Dish Network myself, so I can't recommend one way or another. For a first-timer, pointing a DSS antenna takes a little patience, and walkie-talkies are highly recommended. Once you get the hang of it, it's not that big of a deal to do it again if needed.

[OakLeaf]

That reminds me. They have the, bar none, absolutely best customer service I've ever dealt with. It's probably the only company that I ever called the help line and was really and truely happy and pleased when I hung up.
We were having a problem with our reciever periodically resetting all of the channels (you have to go in and tell it what channels you get and which ones you want to see in your menus). When I called and the person didn't know what was going on she transferred me to an actual real live engineer who worked on the product. I've never had a company be responsive like that. Not only that - the problem did not happen again.

Eek Eden, I'm glad you had a good experience with DirecTV's customer service, but we have had TERRIBLE experiences. There have been times when they've been so evasive, patronizing and unhelpful that both DH and I were simultaneously ready to go through the phone line and tear that !@#$% a new one.

[Eden]

Hmmmm - maybe we are grandfathered in, but we still have real Tivo. We've had it for quite some time - we still have an integrated DTV - Tivo reciever. We haven't been having any trouble with the recording, nor have we seen it reset itself unless the power goes out. Even the reomote is really well designed (we have a Sony reciever) - the buttons are all different shapes - you can use it without ever having to look at it.

I sound like a bit of a sap I guess.... I rarely gush about a product, but at least when we got ours these guys really had their stuff together. Now, I haven't had to deal with customer service for a long time (the menu stuff was happening in 2003, I think, and we haven't had any problems since then). Maybe they've outsourced their customer service since then. If they use the same company as Earthlink..... I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle them.....

[onimity]

I think i might need to google both of these forms of TV as i don't know the Australian equivalent.

When i was last in Canada a friend had wireless tv or something??

Is direct TV where you can put the show on hold??

I'm a wee bit lost so hopefully one of the Aussie or Kiwi girls can help me out.

C

Hey C,

I think I can help you out...a little, though with the caveat that I've not ever been to Australia (yet!), so I can't say exactly what you have, though I've heard that your standard broadcasts have a) better content, b) interactive apps with digital content, etc.

In the US we have a few clear-to-air standard broadcast channels, analog & digital, then premium (pay) TV over cable and satellite. DirectTV is a satellite service, where you have a little dish outside your house. With satellite service you get a lot of downstream content (lots of channels) but limited upstream ability, so if you've used any interactive TV content, that sort of thing is limited in satellite, including high-speed internet. Cable, though, requires cabling, so it is great if you are in a city, but even in low-density cities and towns it is not financially advantageous to cable companies to run the extra cable, so satellite is the only option beyond the basic channels.

With cable, you get a lot of channels and (for more $$$) access to high-speed internet over the same cable. In the future cable will also carry interactive TV applications so you can, say, order pizza (or bikes ) through your TV.

DirectTV is different from DVR (digital video recorder), which is where you can put a show on hold (or record it and watch it later without advertisements) DVR is generally a premium service that you can get with either cable or satellite or even without either (with TiVo, etc.).

Wireless TV is different too... in some countries there is broadcast wireless for handhelds, though what I've seen in Canada has basically been content delivered to the handheld from a DVR Set-top box or similar, or using cellular networks. We have similar things in the US; with my cell service I can also subscribe to a bunch of channels that I can watch live from my phone.

(I really don't watch TV, truth be told...)

Hope that helps...

Anne