DirectTV. How is it?

[Stopsignhank]

My story. We had Verizon FIOS for many years with little or no problems. Frontier took over on April 1 and we are now entering our third day with no TV service. My autistic son is not handling it well. Yes think of Rainman and having to watch Judge Wopner.

I am thinking about changing to DirecTV but just wonder how it is. Does weather effect the service? I am in SoCal so our weather is not that bad. We also buy the NFL package every year so that would make it easier. We could switch to Time Warner, but not real happy about using them.

There is a thread from last year about this, but times change and I was not sure if I should start my own thread or bump up a semi-necro thread. Figured you only live once, make my own thread.

 

[Linflas]

My story. We had Verizon FIOS for many years with little or no problems. Frontier took over on April 1 and we are now entering our third day with no TV service. My autistic son is not handling it well. Yes think of Rainman and having to watch Judge Wopner.

I am thinking about changing to DirecTV but just wonder how it is. Does weather effect the service? I am in SoCal so our weather is not that bad. We also buy the NFL package every year so that would make it easier. We could switch to Time Warner, but not real happy about using them.

I would think SoCal would be ideal, never any rain fade. IMO the DVR is probably the best I have used features-wise. If you have more than 1 hookup you should check into the GENIE. If it wasn't for the football package I would switch to all FIOS myself but I can't stand the idea of being stuck watching only Redskins/Ravens games.

 

[Newbian]

As long as you have a clear line of sight for where they need to position the dish, no trees in the way and such, it should be fine except during heavyish rain.

That was the only time it cuts off for me when I used them and dish.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Good service that is expensive.

 

[Linflas]

As long as you have a clear line of sight for where they need to position the dish, no trees in the way and such, it should be fine except during heavyish rain.

That was the only time it cuts off for me when I used them and dish.

FYI there are android apps that allow you to use your phone/tablet to check to see if you have a clear line of sight to the satellites in the spot you would have the dish mounted.

 

[dr150]

DISH just came out with a new Hopper DVR which is pretty damn good and better than anything DTV has.

I've used both services and both are more similar than different in transmission quality. When the Customer Service discounts stop being compelling, I move over to the other service......Rinse and repeat every 2-4 yrs.

Regardless, both are way better than Comcrap or Time Warner.

 

[BoomerD]

We had DirecTV for a couple of years when we lived in NorCal. I was happy with their service...but when we moved to the PNW, we were surrounded by too many trees. Surprisingly, Dish Network could provide us service by installing two separate dishes. (apparently something DirecTV can't/couldn't do)

 

[Linflas]

DISH just came out with a new Hopper DVR which is pretty damn good and better than anything DTV has.

I've used both services and both are more similar than different in transmission quality. When the Customer Service discounts stop being compelling, I move over to the other service......Rinse and repeat every 2-4 yrs.

Regardless, both are way better than Comcrap or Time Warner.

Does Dish let you record programs that are finished i.e. say you wanted to record Jeopardy which runs from 7:30 to 8:00 but forgot to tell the DVR to record? Can you rewind back into it and hit record and have it save to the playlist? Also does Dish have dual live buffers on the Hopper?

 

[Stopsignhank]

We have the Fios Quantam with 5 TVs and loved it. No problems and the features were good. Frontier seems to be out of their league. Reminds me a lot of the Haggens grocery chain that tried to buy their way into the SoCal market. They made it about 5 months before closing all their SoCal stores.

How often does it go out in the rain? My son is already kind of iffy about rain. He does not need anything else to worry about.

 

[FerrelGeek]

Got DTV when we moved into our house just under 6 years ago. Would lose the signal even in light rain and we had good line of site. Customer service was like, 'well, it works great where I live, even in heavy rain!' Had a guy come out and service it; claimed to put a better receiver on it, but that really didn't help. After the first year promo ended, the cost skyrocketed. Got an offer from TWC and switched. I know what many have said, but they weren't as bad as DTV. Best we ever had was Verizon FIOS when we lived in Ft Wayne.

 

[Stopsignhank]

FG,

I hear you about Verizon FIOS. Frontier took them over and they just are not ready to play with the big boys. In fact I am in live chat to find out the status of my trouble ticket. I was #290 in the queue and have made it all the way to #98. Then there was the 35 minute wait last night for customer service.

 

[Linflas]

We have the Fios Quantam with 5 TVs and loved it. No problems and the features were good. Frontier seems to be out of their league. Reminds me a lot of the Haggens grocery chain that tried to buy their way into the SoCal market. They made it about 5 months before closing all their SoCal stores.

How often does it go out in the rain? My son is already kind of iffy about rain. He does not need anything else to worry about.

Ours goes out in heavy downpours that come along with thunder storms, generally a minute or 2 before it actually starts. That could be a local quirk as thunder storms here come out of the west/south west which happens to be the same direction the dish is pointed. In regular nor'easter type rains that we get here it doesn't affect it at all.

 

[OutHouse]

Good service that is expensive.

this. its getting hard to justify the 140 a month they want now.

 

[dr150]

Does Dish let you record programs that are finished i.e. say you wanted to record Jeopardy which runs from 7:30 to 8:00 but forgot to tell the DVR to record? Can you rewind back into it and hit record and have it save to the playlist? Also does Dish have dual live buffers on the Hopper?

The new DVR will have features I'm not familiar with. Supposedly it's the best on the market:
http://www.dish.com/ces/?WT.srch=1&WT.tsrc=Paid%20Search&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=Google&utm_campaign=Brand_Google_DISH_Hopper_Exact&utm_term=hopper%203&kcid=5433cf15-cd85-7a68-53f3-000006a0627c&pid=4|707853&match=e&RP=SEM159669&KBID=8889263885&WT.mc_id=GSBN12608_96821&gclid=CKahvcHnjswCFU6Sfgod6EMI8g

The previous gen DVR I have from 6 months ago allows you to manually rewind to the beginning of the show and record it if you're already tuned in to that channel. If you press "Record" without rewinding it'll record at that spot. (with the DTV DVR it would record the whole show buffer without having to manually rewind). Actually I prefer DISH's manual rewind to record, b/c sometimes I want to record a clip of something instead of the whole show which would take up more DVR space.

 

[JulesMaximus]

My story. We had Verizon FIOS for many years with little or no problems. Frontier took over on April 1 and we are now entering our third day with no TV service. My autistic son is not handling it well. Yes think of Rainman and having to watch Judge Wopner.

I am thinking about changing to DirecTV but just wonder how it is. Does weather effect the service? I am in SoCal so our weather is not that bad. We also buy the NFL package every year so that would make it easier. We could switch to Time Warner, but not real happy about using them.

There is a thread from last year about this, but times change and I was not sure if I should start my own thread or bump up a semi-necro thread. Figured you only live once, make my own thread.

I am in SoCal and I've had DirecTV for more than 15 years now. I could count the number of times weather has affected my signal on one hand.

 

[John Connor]

I don't know... Comcrap has this song stuck in my head. https://youtu.be/V9AbeALNVkk?t=2m51s

 

[Stopsignhank]

Lin, We actually had a thunderstorm this year. The first one I can remember in a long time. Our rain is usually not too bad. Question for you, when yours goes out can you still use the DVR? My son was doing fine with this, because we could use the DVR and watch recorded show. But last night I thought I should try rebooting it. Now it does not work at all and that sent him over the edge.

JM, Cool, that is good to know.

Woo Hoo only #50 in the chat queue right now.

 

[dr150]

Question for you, when yours goes out can you still use the DVR?

With both services, the DVRs will continue to record, but the recording will have black screens/pixelation when the service is interrupted due to a heavy rain.

As someone else mentioned, heavy rains rarely have ever caused an interruption greater than a couple of seconds over the 10+ years I've used satellite.

 

[MiataNC]

We have had DTV for a few years now...

Exponentially better than Cox cable in our area. Great customer service, and only a couple of signal issues with heavy winds and rain.

I only have a couple of complaints...

1. Pricey - To get the few channels we like to watch, we end up getting packages with channels we don't want.

2. DVR is getting slower and less responsive over time. - Updates and age have really slowed down the DVR.

I would cord cut, but getting the wife and kid on board is an exercise in futility.

 

[JulesMaximus]

We have had DTV for a few years now...

Exponentially better than Cox cable in our area. Great customer service, and only a couple of signal issues with heavy winds and rain.

I only have a couple of complaints...

1. Pricey - To get the few channels we like to watch, we end up getting packages with channels we don't want.

2. DVR is getting slower and less responsive over time. - Updates and age have really slowed down the DVR.

I would cord cut, but getting the wife and kid on board is an exercise in futility.

The DVR in our bedroom crapped out a couple years ago so we upgraded to the whole home DVR to replace it. We still have another DVR downstairs so we have plenty of storage.

But yeah, it's not cheap. I think we pay about $80/month.

 

[Stopsignhank]

Dr, I was wondering more about the playback. For some reason we are not getting an incoming signal to our house, although the internet works, thankfully! However we could still use the playback feature on the DVR. Then I had the bright idea to try and reboot it the old fashioned way, unplug it and plug it back in. Since we do not have an incoming signal the DVR does not boot, which means we can't use the play back feature now. That sucks.

 

[Stopsignhank]

JM, so that is $80 per month for just TV? No internet?

 

[dr150]

Dr, I was wondering more about the playback. For some reason we are not getting an incoming signal to our house, although the internet works, thankfully! However we could still use the playback feature on the DVR. Then I had the bright idea to try and reboot it the old fashioned way, unplug it and plug it back in. Since we do not have an incoming signal the DVR does not boot, which means we can't use the play back feature now. That sucks.

Call Customer Service and work with Tech Support.

You can ask for a new DVR. IF you still pay for DVR insurance, it should be no problem. If you don't have it, sign up for it by phone, then a few days later call in to exercise your right for a replacement if you had no luck the first go-around with CS sending you another DVR as a courtesy.

 

[Stopsignhank]

We have the choice of Time Warner and had them a number of years ago. However they bought the broadcast rights to the Dodgers and then tried to charge everyone up the yang for them so now no one can watch the Dodgers. I would rather not pay them any money.

BTW, I was down to queue position #2. Now there is no number there and no one typing to me in live chat. Maybe they dropped me.

 

[Stopsignhank]

Call Customer Service and work with Tech Support.

You can ask for a new DVR. IF you still pay for DVR insurance, it should be no problem. If you don't have it, sign up for it by phone, then a few days later call in to exercise your right for a replacement if you had no luck the first go-around with CS sending you another DVR as a courtesy.

I did. Opened a trouble ticket yesterday. A tech was supposed to come to the house. No one showed up. When I called last night I was on hold for 20 minutes, then they could not find my account. Finally did and they told me that techs are in the area are working on the problem. The rep made it sound like we are not the only ones with this problem. Don't really talk to the neighbors so I can't verify that. My trouble ticket is still open and I am in live chat with them to find out the status. However I think they dumped me after waiting from queue position 290. With Verizon they had a local store I could take my equipment in and change it out. Frontier does not have that. I think there are 8 stores for the entire state of California.

I think Frontier is in way over their heads.