DIRECTv help for possible switch from cable

[Peter Elliott]

Hey Guys,
Thinking of dropping Comcast. As you can expect the creeping charges and not really willing to budge much is making look at satellite for TV.

I did a search and only a few threads came up and they are much older as in years.

So anyone have the Do's/Don'ts.

Right now I am looking at the Directv thru Costco. My big question is to figure out the cost after the freebies/promos so I truly know what my bill will be.

Here is the Costco deal (http://shop.costco.com/Feature/DIRECTV) $180 Cash Card.

Probably looking at the Choice Ultimate (http://cw.directv.com/DTVAPP/new_customer/base_packages.jsp?ref=cw).. we like the sports and they are giving NFL ticket away for free, that's if they have a season!

What I don't like is I have to lease the equipment? Im looking at 5 tvs.. 1 DVR, 1 HD, 3 stnd boxes.

What about the installation? do they do a good job? My neighbor has it mounted and it would be the same spot for me, which is ok.

Then throw in Dish Network... yikes!:eek:

Thanks
Peter

[dave toney]

I have had directv for about 18 months and have found it to be dependable and easy to use.
The only down side is the 2 year contract commitment.
Make sure you get all of the equipment you want at the time of installation, if you want to add a receiver or upgrade equipment you will have to agree to another contract that runs two years from the time of the change.
Figuring out what your costs per month can be hard to do, call up directv and tell them what you want then ask how much it will be for the first year and the second year per month with all rental fees, dvr access fees and programming, that seems to be the easiest way to find out.

[Lee Koepke]

I had directTV for the better part of 10-12 years, so I thought when I finally decided to move into the HD society, they'd offer me a similar deal that they offer new customers, well .... I was wrong. Three attempts at three different 'customer retention' reps and i would have paid several hundred dollars for the new receivers ...... so, one phone call to Dish Network, I had all my HD receivers, DVRs, and stuff installed within a few days. Downside, I had to learn new TV channel numbers, upside I realize the customer loyalty is pretty much a one way street.

I never had any other issues with DirectTV, and I'd find the best deal from the big two .... wait your contract out, and upgrade to the other guys. Repeat.

[Matt Meiser]

We've had it for 7 years now and its been pretty good. I've found when our contract expires I can pretty easily get them to give me any equipment or discounts a new subscriber would get by threatening to leave. Of course there's a new commitment. Our bill is creeping up toward $90/mo with no premium sports/movie channels.

The current DVR is pretty good. I miss the suggestions from Tivo, but I like that we can DVR OTA channels since they claim we are in Detroit even though we are just out of Toledo. We bought the AM21 tuner module for that.

Installers vary widely. I've had them here probably 4-5 times between install, upgrades, and repairs. Some are real morons, some are good.

Lease vs. buy doesn't really matter. Before they did leases you owned the equipment but had to pay the same amount in a receiver fee.

Other than when our dish got out of alignment because an installer forgot to put a screw in the LNB our service has been pretty reliable in all but the heaviest rains. Snow buildup on the dish can also be a minor problem but I can reach ours to brush it off if needed (rarely.) I don't recall ice buildup ever being a problem.

If/when we get cable on our road I'll probably go to that just because the local cable company has a pretty good price on phone/internet/cable. Its been "in the works" for two years but delayed over and over due to the investment the company needs to make to expand into our area.

[Lee Koepke]

That's lucky Matt. I am dead serious I tried three times and they didn't do a thing. I was shocked.

[Jerome Hanby]

IMHO the Direct-TV DVR is just awful. Their original Direct-Tivo was so good that I waited around for years waiting for their version to flop and them returning to a Tivo based unit. Finally they announced that they were going back to Tivo and the units would be available late fourth quarter. They continued saying that bumping the time out a quarter or two for two years. When we moved, I just gave up and got cable and a standard Tivo with tuner cards. If they ever get a new HD Direct-Tivo offering, I'd say jump all over Direct-TV. Their customer service is just as bad as everyone Dish and the cable companies, but I think their offerings are superior.

[Bryan Morgan]

I had all my stuff upgraded to HD for free. I just called and told them what I wanted and they were happy to do it, no hassle. This was a year or two ago. The installers came and did an awesome and clean install of the new dish too. I've been a customer since 2000.

Now, about pricing... every little thing they nickle and dime you until you have $100 bill. I have 2 HD DVRs (one leased, one owned), the middle programming package, and Showtime, and its $92 a month. Each DVR I believe cost $5 for lease, and $5 for something else which I don't remember. I was told they now charge you "leasing" fees for each receiver even if you own it to cover the cost of upgrades or some nonsense like that. My bill has the fee on there for the one I own but they credit it back. I don't know why they did it and I never asked.

Where I live I can get AT&T's fiber thing (which according to neighbors, sucks), Comcast, or Time Warner in my house... They all cost about the same when you add up the programming and receivers. Sure the programming looks cheap but once you add HD and DVRs they tack on a fee for every little thing. Must be government owned or something... :)

I have been happy with the quality and everything with DirecTV. Never had any outages and the dish has held firm in 70mph winds. If one of the others were significantly cheaper I'd switch, but that hasn't been the case so far.

[John Fabre]

Hey Guys,
Thinking of dropping Comcast. As you can expect the creeping charges and not really willing to budge much is making look at satellite for TV.

I did a search and only a few threads came up and they are much older as in years.

So anyone have the Do's/Don'ts.

Right now I am looking at the Directv thru Costco. My big question is to figure out the cost after the freebies/promos so I truly know what my bill will be.

Here is the Costco deal (http://shop.costco.com/Feature/DIRECTV) $180 Cash Card.

Probably looking at the Choice Ultimate (http://cw.directv.com/DTVAPP/new_customer/base_packages.jsp?ref=cw).. we like the sports and they are giving NFL ticket away for free, that's if they have a season!

What I don't like is I have to lease the equipment? Im looking at 5 tvs.. 1 DVR, 1 HD, 3 stnd boxes.

What about the installation? do they do a good job? My neighbor has it mounted and it would be the same spot for me, which is ok.

Then throw in Dish Network... yikes!:eek:

Thanks
Peter
I have been using DirecTV for 15 years, no problems. Don't buy, lease, you will not own it anyway. Customer service is tops, but I don't switch from Dish, cable and back. I have the Total Choice package with NFL sunday ticket. If you go with DirecTV, you can save $100.00 by giving them my account #.

[Peter Elliott]

Thanks Guys, this is all good info.

So far I learned about the equipment which seems to be a double standard about owning and have to pay for it.. weird!

Pricing, I think I can get a grip on it. We didn't expect to get $40 rate forever... it's just all the creeping charges and cable does it almost every month.
$3 here and there BS.

How about the install? I assume they connect to the outside Cable box and feed in to the house. Pro/Cons to any install advice?

John F. how does that $100 work? wonder if the Costco $180 gift card would negate that?

Packages: We are more sports fans than movie buffs. I just didn't want the hbo, cinemax, etc. but sport channels. All of which we can test out for free.
I guess I need to set an auto timer for when this stuff is off the freebie list and cancel it.

Do you have to call in everytime or can stuff be done online or thru the dish network

Right now we are lowering cost of the phone/cable stuff. Cable internet is about the only service I can get around. We have comcast, it's good, fast etc. and no options yet.

We did switch to Ooma phone - VoIp - and it's great!

Thanks
Peter

[Scott Shepherd]

I don't know if it's still like this, but Dish Network used to always be less expensive than DirectTV. There were a couple of stations on each that the other didn't get. Years ago, Direct had some outdoor channels Dish didn't have, and Dish had some mainstream things that Direct didn't have.

Installation is easy. I bought and installed Dish Network about 10 years ago, and it was easy to do. It was a sad, sad day when a neighbors tree finally grew out enough to mess up my signal. It was the only place on my property that had access and it went away :( It killed me to go back to comcast.

Only thing I can say about modern times is that Dish Network will call the crap out of you. They are relentless on calling to ask if you want to upgrade things. You can expect 1 or more calls a week from them for the rest of your life. They'll even call after you cancel their service.

[Peter Elliott]

Thanks Scott, that is good to know about the calling...

Good thing about Ooma VoIP is I can now block phone numbers, unlimited...

[John Fabre]

John F. how does that $100 work? wonder if the Costco $180 gift card would negate that?
When you call DirecTV to set up service, they confirm my account number, then you will save. I don't think going with Costco would work for the $100.00 saving, but $180.00 towards shopping at Costco is a good deal.

I let the installer mount the dish, I ran the wires myself because my TV was not on a outside wall.

[Peter Elliott]

Can you use the existing cable wires or is it a different grade of wire? meaning new wires need to be run?

Thanks
Peter

[Matt Meiser]

I believe the new SWM system requires quad-shielded RG6.

[Bryan Morgan]

Thanks Guys, this is all good info.

So far I learned about the equipment which seems to be a double standard about owning and have to pay for it.. weird!

Pricing, I think I can get a grip on it. We didn't expect to get $40 rate forever... it's just all the creeping charges and cable does it almost every month.
$3 here and there BS.

Thats one of the reasons I switched away from cable. DirecTV hasn't changed any of their pricing (unless you are in a state that keeps trying to tax it... but directv runs anti-tax campaigns all the time to defeat them)


How about the install? I assume they connect to the outside Cable box and feed in to the house. Pro/Cons to any install advice?

Depends on your house wiring. You have to have at least RG6 from the dish to your box. My house was pre-wired with RG6 and has a distribution block in my telco box... so it was easy to just wire from the dish splitter into whatever room I want. If you don't have that they will run a wire(s) from the dish across your roof or under the eves and through the wall to the box. Depending on the work the installer might charge you more for this. From what I understand, the installers are independent contractors and DirecTV only covers up to a certain amount for installation.



John F. how does that $100 work? wonder if the Costco $180 gift card would negate that?

$10 off each bill for 10 months....




Do you have to call in everytime or can stuff be done online or thru the dish network

Most of it you can do online. Canceling things usually requires a phone call so they can try and guilt you into keeping whatever it is you are canceling.


Right now we are lowering cost of the phone/cable stuff. Cable internet is about the only service I can get around. We have comcast, it's good, fast etc. and no options yet.

Same here. We canceled our home phone ($60 a month and we never even used it... the only time we'd get a call is solicitors or politicians), switched internet around, etc. As much as I like DirecTV we might be canceling it too. Really the only reason I am keeping it now is to watch live NASCAR races (we like to listen to the in car radios on our sprint phones). If I can find a way to steam it live on the internet the satellite is going away too.

[John Fabre]

Can you use the existing cable wires or is it a different grade of wire? meaning new wires need to be run?

Thanks
Peter
It's always best to run new wires (RG6).

[Peter Elliott]

New cables could be the deal breaker. No interest in tearing up walls, running cables on the outside of the house. 5 locations would be a mess.

I really thought existing cable could be used and doubt my cable is RG6. It's 12yrs old.

Yikes...Guess I miss that memo!

[Paul McGaha]

We've been on direct tv for about 10 years.

We use it to get the NFL football package. To my knowledge direct tv is the only source for that.

We're pretty happy with it.

PHM

[Bryan Morgan]

New cables could be the deal breaker. No interest in tearing up walls, running cables on the outside of the house. 5 locations would be a mess.

I really thought existing cable could be used and doubt my cable is RG6. It's 12yrs old.

Yikes...Guess I miss that memo!

Might be. I put RG6 in my old house in 1999. If it was installed around that time, you could be fine. Just pop off a jack plate and look at it. There is a catch though, the cable has to go right from the box to the dish or multiswitch. It actually has to control a switch inside the LNB (the little guy that sticks out from the dish. So, if your whole house is looped on the same cable with old style splitters you can't use it for satellite, that I know of anyway...

[Peter Elliott]

Well, I know they lead to a splitter from the main feed into the house. How do you know it's RG6?

[Matt Meiser]

It should say right on the jacket. But my installer insisted on running new when we went HD because my wasn't quad-shielded. Luckily I had time and he was friendly so I helped him pull it in the walls behind the old--relatively easy in our house since its a ranch.

[Bryan Morgan]

Well, I know they lead to a splitter from the main feed into the house. How do you know it's RG6?

It will say it right on the cable itself. If each run from the splitter goes to a separate room or jack you might be ok if the cable is the correct type. Thats how mine is setup. I just pulled it off the splitter and connected it directly to the multiswitch from the dish.


It should say right on the jacket. But my installer insisted on running new when we went HD because my wasn't quad-shielded. Luckily I had time and he was friendly so I helped him pull it in the walls behind the old--relatively easy in our house since its a ranch.

I'm pretty sure mine isn't quad-shielded and I run HD everywhere without issue... What is the technical reason for the quad-shielding?

[Don Buck]

I was with DirecTV for nearly 10 years in 3 different states, usually I didn't have a choice of other services. I found they were quick to answer the telephone if you are buying but good luck getting someone if I had problems. I have been on hold for over an hour and finally when someone answers, the line somehow gets disconnected. I finally switched to cable and have found their customer service to be much better and the reception slightly better (at least you can watch TV during the rain).

As far as installation, I recommend that someone watch the installers like a hawk. On the last install I gave specific instructions to mount the dish off the side of the house where a good signal strength was detected and under no circumstances werer they to mount to the roof. I came home that night and found the dish mounted directly on the front roof of my house. They drilled holes directly through the shingles of my house!!! I raised sufficient noise and they came and finally installed on a wooden 4x4 that I was told to set in the back yard (the lower mounting bracket is still in my roof). I later learned that the installer was wrong to recommend wood as a wooden post can move slightly with the seasonal drying & rewetting and could change the alignment. Bottom line - the installers are usually if not always independent contractors under contract with DirecTV and their level of professionalism and intelligence will vary from truck to truck. I hope your luck with DirecTv is better than mine...