Dish Network vs. DirecTV

yddet12

Active Member
Since our local cable company is switching to digital, we're considering switching to satellite TV. Previously, since our TV was analog, cable had an advantage: no converter box required. Now, with that advantage disappearing on September 22nd, we decided to look into satellite TV.

So, I checked the channel listings for both DirecTV and Dish--and for about $20 less for the first year (and either $5 to $10 less, or the same price, for later years) we can get significantly more channels, while still getting most of the old ones (nothing extremely important will be lost).

Then I read some of the reviews of Customer Service for both companies. DirecTV seems to have a huge group of unsatisfied customers (surprise charges, cancellation period being shorter than stated, receivers breaking after 2 days or two weeks and DirecTV charging you to fix it, local channels requiring a different satellite and having reception problems, etc.).

So, I ask all you AKers who have experienced these two companies:

1. What is your general opinion of DirecTV/Dish?
2. Is the equipment reliable (e.g. doesn't break 2 weeks after it's installed)
3. Is the reception good, or does it freeze up, require a restart, or pixelate often?
4. Is the reception for local channels also good? I've heard some people say DirecTV has a separate antenna for local channels, which has problems; I haven't heard anything about DishTV.
5. Are there any early cancellation fees for Dish? I know there are for DirecTV.
6. Does XM/Sirius radio come with Dish? I heard it comes with DirecTV, but if the customer service/reliability nightmares are true, I'm not sure it's worth it.
7. Does Dish have an early-termination fee if you cancel before the end of your one-/two-year contract?
8. Any other comments about either company?
 
I had DirectTV for less than a month and it SUCKED!!

I had a rainstorm and it was out for almost two days. Just a rainstorm mind you, NOT a typhoon! The service is all contracted out so you get Joe Yoyo who doesn't really give a ratsa** if he fixes things or not. The service tech who came out on mine let my dog out of the yard, (I had go find him), tracked mud into my house, and admitted to me, "well I don't know if what I did will fix the problem, but if it does that's good." WHAT???

I called and told them to cancel it. They were going to charge me over $300 to cancel early. I told them they weren't going to get a nickle and called the corporate office. I never paid a cent. Oh yeah, and on top of that, I had to ship the equipment back, nowhere to drop it off???

I will never have satelite again unless I don't have a choice. :no:
 
I have the Dish network and am very happy with it. After a nightmare experience with Cablevision anything would be an upgrade! Locating the Dish on the roof is key, and over time trees will grow and force you to relocate the dish, which happened to me after ten years.
Big rainstorms will cause you to lose the signal, but I am talking severe atmospheric disturbances, the kind that make you think you should unplug your computer and stereo. Local channel reception is excellent, service for the most part has been very good. Only unhappy one time when they farmed out an upgrade installation to a sub contractor.
Plenty of music channels for every possible taste between Dish's own channels and the Sirius network. I don't even know how many I have, sometimes I will just randomly stop at one to see what is playing. My experience with Dish has been very positive, YMMV.
 
There's no cable out in the woods here so Satellite is the only option other than an antenna. We've had Dish Network for over 10 years now, and my Sister (who lives next door) has Direct TV, so I've had a fair amount of experience with both.

I could go on and on, but IME Dish is by far easier to deal with, simpler to use, and cheaper. I've had one problem in 10 years (a worn out receiver) that Dish replaced at no charge. My Sister on the other hand, has had several hardware problems, and always seems to have trouble getting them sorted out.
 
I've had Dish Network for almost 8 years with zero problems. Local channels are as good as the rest. Hardware still plugging away since day 1. I should have booted cable years earlier. I could have saved a lot of money!
 
We went with Direct TV for week and told them to yank it out. The dish was already on the house we're renting so we thought we'd save a few bucks over cable.

Everything on the Web site pointed to one year services. Prices per month, channel access, box costs, free HBO, etc. It even said your first monthly bill based on 12 months less the freebies will be X$.

First bill came. It was different than what they said. Then we discovered the fine print that it's a two year contract with early termination fees. Told them to yank it anyway.

They charged my card $480. I disputed it with the CC company and filed with the Attorney General. Also went through Direct's formal complaint lodging process. I also found miles and miles of Direct TV complaints on Google and other places.

Beyond all that, I didn't much care for how you navigate or attempt to navigate through the channels. It seemed really hard to figure out what you had access to since they display a list of all "600" channels but we only signed up for 70 or so.

I thought the picture was pretty good, my wife couldn't tell the difference.
 
If you have cable, keep it.

Satellite TV sucks like no service I ever used before. We use it because we literally have no choice. If you even think of rain, you'll lose your picture. The satellite internet service is extremely expensive to install and the monthly service is far pricier than top-speed DSL for a connection which is only marginally batter than dialup - and you need a separate receiving dish for the internet signal.
Bite the bullet. Keep your cable service.

I can say that with DirecTV, we've not had any hardware issues at all; no failing boxes, etc, but really: If cable were available out here, DirecTV would be a rapidly fading memory in our home.
 
If you have cable, keep it.

Satellite TV sucks like no service I ever used before. We use it because we literally have no choice. If you even think of rain, you'll lose your picture. The satellite internet service is extremely expensive to install and the monthly service is far pricier than top-speed DSL for a connection which is only marginally batter than dialup - and you need a separate receiving dish for the internet signal.
Bite the bullet. Keep your cable service.

I can say that with DirecTV, we've not had any hardware issues at all; no failing boxes, etc, but really: If cable were available out here, DirecTV would be a rapidly fading memory in our home.

Satellite for internet is not very good and also expensive. There are delay problems because the bird is 23,000 miles up there and also bandwidth limitations because of the expense of satellites.
 
I think the main advantage of DirecTV is if you're a sports watcher guy. They have the Fox Sports package for an extra $10/month. You might want to consider doing the installation yourself, and make sure a good job is done. I don't personally have experience with either DirecTV or Dish. I will say that when I go to the local sports bar here in Ft. Worth, TX, they ESPN HD broadcast (all received by satellite there) is just a beautiful picture. It would be interesting to do a side-by-side comparison of the picture quality of HD digital cable vs. satellite HD TV. I think digital cable is still using QAM64 modulation and satellite TV is still using QPSK. But you do need the set top box with either service. I'm like you in that I had cable without the box and just used the tuner in my TV. I had to fight the guy to tell him I didn't want the box.
 
I have had Dish for about 6 years without any major problems. The only downside is if severe type storms come through the area, then the signal is lost until the storm subsides. Prior to this we had cable TV for 20 years and they sucked. We get all of our local stations in HD and the picture quality is excellent.

I have no experience with Direct, as I have never felt the need to change from Dish. I do know Direct has a better NFL package, but I work every Sunday anyway, so that is a non issue for me.
 
I had dish network for two years, and was so happy to get rid of it. If it even looked like rain, one cloud in the sky,it went out. Had them out to reposition the dish,didn't do any good. Glad it's gone. Got AT&T U-verse now,way so much better. No more problems in rain storms. Say no to Dish.:nono:
 
FYI... Dishnetwork recently lost a court battle with Tivo and was ordered to pay 200 million, for it's use of their record and playback system. It's still going on though. Worst case, Dishnetwork will have to come up with a substantially "new" DVR system, rendering their present DVR's useless. Best case, Dishnetwork will have to pay a licensing fee to Tivo, like DirectTV already does. My bill will go up I expect.
Here's the story.

I've had Dish for about 6 years, and have had 2 receivers go out. (we have 3)
They were replaced within 3 days though, without any hassle. Rain fade is an occasional pain, but no big deal to us. It rains almost everyday in the summer here, and once every 2 weeks or so, it's bad enough to lose signal for a few minutes.
 
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As several have mentioned, if a heavy storm passes through you'll lose signal for a while. I can't speak for everyone, but in my own experience this has not been a major problem in the past, because when the storm is heavy enough for us to lose signal it's heavy enough for me to unplug the TV anyway. Normally our signal loss lasts no more than 10 minutes, and it's usually not that long.

When I had cable in my old neighborhood, it wasn't unusual for us lose the feed for hours or even days if the weather was severe enough (downed lines and wrecked substations). That hasn't been a problem with our satellite. If we have power, we have TV.
 
I have had Dish for about 6 years without any major problems. The only downside is if severe type storms come through the area, then the signal is lost until the storm subsides. Prior to this we had cable TV for 20 years and they sucked. We get all of our local stations in HD and the picture quality is excellent.

I have no experience with Direct, as I have never felt the need to change from Dish. I do know Direct has a better NFL package, but I work every Sunday anyway, so that is a non issue for me.

I've had both. T-storms will ALWAYS screw with the signal a fair amount. Usually no more than a half hour of so. It did this with both systems.

I owned Dish Network first. Never had any problems. Just decided to switch to Direct since Sony had the first receiver available with an optical out for Dolby 5.1. I've had Direct TV for close to 10 years with no problems. They are coming out tomorrow to hook up a new receiver for HD and the DVR package. I have good faith that I won't have any problems. I will let you know if I do.

EDIT: You are GUARANTEED to have a service charge if you cancel before your introductory time is up with either sat. provider. You may be able to talk your way out of it but I wouldn't count on it.

Denny
 
I had DirectTV for less than a month and it SUCKED!!

I had a rainstorm and it was out for almost two days. Just a rainstorm mind you, NOT a typhoon! The service is all contracted out so you get Joe Yoyo who doesn't really give a ratsa** if he fixes things or not. The service tech who came out on mine let my dog out of the yard, (I had go find him), tracked mud into my house, and admitted to me, "well I don't know if what I did will fix the problem, but if it does that's good." WHAT???

I called and told them to cancel it. They were going to charge me over $300 to cancel early. I told them they weren't going to get a nickle and called the corporate office. I never paid a cent. Oh yeah, and on top of that, I had to ship the equipment back, nowhere to drop it off???

I will never have satelite again unless I don't have a choice. :no:

I'm not sure I posted this story before, but this was something that happened to me about 2 years ago.

It began with my losing local channels - only the locals. I called DTV service and they sent out a tech (took 4 days). He said it was some tree branches which had grown out far enough to block out the signal from the satellite that carried ONLY the local channels. He then LEFT WITHOUT RESOLVING THE PROBLEM! saying I had to call DTV again to set up a service ticket to have the dish moved to a better location.

I let this go for a couple more days till I got sick of trying to watch Jeopardy over the air with a dinky set-top rabbit ear antenna from a station some 60 miles away so I called DTV again. The bimbo said a service ticket would add some $85 additional to my next month's billing cycle. I asked to talk to her supervisor. The instant he got on the phone, I told him (verbatum), "If cable TV was available out here, you guys would already be HISTORY!" He about fell over himself asking why I was so unhappy with DTV. I told him about the tech who had come by and diagnosed, but not resolved the issue of no local channels. He asked me what the guy's name was. I didn't know, but I described the fellow. (Blonde hair, about 30, thick wire-frame glasses... oh and he had a rather thick German accent...) The DTV guy knew exactly who it was and said he should have relocated the dish when he came out there the first time. I told the guy I expected the problem to be fixed damn fast... and I was certainly not going to pay $85 to get it done. He agreed (probably because of my not-so-veiled threat to switch to cable). The tech was at the house almost before I hung up the phone. Not the same guy as before. I asked the guy if that German dude with the thick glasses was still working for the company. He said no. Someone complained about one of his service calls and he got fired. I said, "Oh! That would have been me who complained, so you better do this right...":D

He did, and I've had no more problems with losing local channels since then. I still lose service entirely several times a week due to rain/clouds/birds and whatever else messes with packet delivery. This usually happens about 6PM - when Jeopardy starts.
 
I've had my Direct TV HD hooked up now for almost a week and I have to say I love it. The tech was courteous although he didn't seem like he was the swiftest installer in the world. This could be the fact that I'm kind of anal about how certain things are done and I was watching him while we talked.

Overall I think he did a decent job on the installation but the one thing I noticed was he didn't ground the cables coming into the house. This was a little puzzling as they did the last time they installed the SD dish. He even mounted a grounding lug on the house and there was already a steak in the ground for the cable ground. I might have to call the installer and see what they have to say about it.

He didn't think the place where the old dish was mounted would work because there some branches that looked like they might impede the signal to the dish so he put a post in the ground we both thought would work good. Everything he installed was brand new. Dish, cabling and receiver so I opted out of the monthly service plan. If the dish needs to be adjusted I can probably do that and figure out if it is a poor signal or something wrong with the receiver. He said it was $80 for a service call and I wouldn't have to pay for any hardware that they find bad. There is no lease on the first receiver.

I love the quality of the HD and am impressed with the features of the receiver. You can hide the channels you don't get and also hide the duplicate SD channels if you receive them in HD. The hard drive recorder speaks for itself. Just awesome! I also love the XM satellite channels. I'm VERY impressed by the quality of the signal. The remote is ok but it always seems like the designers are brain dead when they design these remotes. It could be a lot better.

So far I am very pleased with the Direct TV. I will post here if any problems arise in the future.

Denny
 
Denny, you really should call about getting the unit grounded. Effectively you've got no protection from lightning strikes until it is, and a bad strike could take out far more than the dish and receiver.
 
Denny, you really should call about getting the unit grounded. Effectively you've got no protection from lightning strikes until it is, and a bad strike could take out far more than the dish and receiver.

That's what I thought. I don't want to be a dick since the guy was pretty nice. But I hate to see them or me have any problems in the future from the cable not being grounded correctly.
 
My experience with Dish Network ended up with the company getting nailed by the Iowa Attorney General for a whole slew of consumer and banking law violations so....
 
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