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Now I remember why I hate cable companies

NutBucket

NutBucket

Lifer
I'm planning a HD upgrade so I've been looking at what DirecTV has to offer as that's what I have now. I decided to do some research as to what the competition has to offer and wouldn't you know it the local cable company (Comcast) current has NO DVRs available to me period, HD or SD. Maybe that's acceptable if I lived in bumfvck nowhere but I live in the nation's second largest media market in a respectable middle class neighborhood.

I swore off cable years ago because of crappy image quality and high prices. Now they've really guaranteed that they won't see my business for a LONG time.
 
Wow, no DVR's available? That's one thing about Comcast, different everywhere you go. I'm in the SF Bay Area and have Comcast with an HD DVR.
 
DirecTV will have a new DVR out soon, I was told May by my installer when he replaced my dish with the new 5LNB model. DirecTV said that they will replace the current Tivo model for free.
 
I hate cable companies because of the anti-satellite propaganda they spread. "Ooooh your signal is gonna go out" The only time our satellite signal went out was when we shouldn't have had the equipment on anyway (heavy lightning). I can't wait to make the jump to HD.
 
Take it from a long time DirecTV customer, there is no easy path. I had a 5 LNB dish installed February 8 and it is still not working correctly 100% of the time. The original dual LNB dish I installed myself worked flawlessly for 9 years. I had it tweaked to a signal strength around 97% and never lost signal except in summer when severe thunder storms would move through.

The new dish works fine for everything but my local HD channels which are the only MPEG4 channels DirecTV is delivering at the moment. They are coming to my house for the 4th time this Saturday and are going to relocate the dish. They are saying this tree in my neighbors yard is what is causing the problems with the HD signal. I also have the HD DVR from Comcast that I am going to return to them once the satellite is working correctly.
 
My brother lives in a house w/some roomates and they have DirectTV, and he always tells me how when he moves out he's DEFINITELY not getting DirectTV and going to get cable instead.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
Take it from a long time DirecTV customer, there is no easy path. I had a 5 LNB dish installed February 8 and it is still not working correctly 100% of the time. The original dual LNB dish I installed myself worked flawlessly for 9 years. I had it tweaked to a signal strength around 97% and never lost signal except in summer when severe thunder storms would move through.

The new dish works fine for everything but my local HD channels which are the only MPEG4 channels DirecTV is delivering at the moment. They are coming to my house for the 4th time this Saturday and are going to relocate the dish. They are saying this tree in my neighbors yard is what is causing the problems with the HD signal. I also have the HD DVR from Comcast that I am going to return to them once the satellite is working correctly.
Click to expand...
I've had DirecTV for about 5 years now and am very satisfied. My only complaints are the HD DVR is $499 (vs. 299 for dish) and that they have some stupid leasing fee now but the price of the hardware remains unchanged. That part makes about zero sense to me.

EDIT: DirecTV just responded to my question about the advantages of leasing by saying that they'll replace leased equipment for free (so $6/mo for an extended warranty) and that if leasing negates a service commitment. Big f'ing deal......
 
Originally posted by: woowoo
Does your set have an 8vsb tuner?
If you are in such a market HD / DTV should be free.

www.antennaweb.org
Click to expand...
No HD set yet but the one we'll likely get is just a monitor.
 
The satellite companies don't carry your local HD stations on their signal. They'll just install an OTA antenna and if you live in a crappy area then you're SOL.
 
Originally posted by: her209
The satellite companies don't carry your local HD stations on their signal. They'll just install an OTA antenna and if you live in a crappy area then you're SOL.
Click to expand...

DirecTV will have local HDs on line soon. They just put the satellites up in order to do it last year. Now all they need is to get their HD receivers out that support mpeg4. DISH is in a similar situation I believe.

edit: Actually, I believe some markets already are getting HD locals via satellite. I just checked and Atlanta is one of them.
 
Originally posted by: her209
The satellite companies don't carry your local HD stations on their signal. They'll just install an OTA antenna and if you live in a crappy area then you're SOL.
Click to expand...
I live in LA. All my locals are in HD from both providers.
 
Originally posted by: Muadib
DirecTV will have a new DVR out soon, I was told May by my installer when he replaced my dish with the new 5LNB model. DirecTV said that they will replace the current Tivo model for free.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm not encouraged by DirecTV's new leasing model. $500 upfront for the privilege of leasing their HD-DVR? They are gonna have to do way better than that with the new HD-DVRs.
 
Originally posted by: NutBucket
Originally posted by: Linflas
Take it from a long time DirecTV customer, there is no easy path. I had a 5 LNB dish installed February 8 and it is still not working correctly 100% of the time. The original dual LNB dish I installed myself worked flawlessly for 9 years. I had it tweaked to a signal strength around 97% and never lost signal except in summer when severe thunder storms would move through.

The new dish works fine for everything but my local HD channels which are the only MPEG4 channels DirecTV is delivering at the moment. They are coming to my house for the 4th time this Saturday and are going to relocate the dish. They are saying this tree in my neighbors yard is what is causing the problems with the HD signal. I also have the HD DVR from Comcast that I am going to return to them once the satellite is working correctly.
Click to expand...
I've had DirecTV for about 5 years now and am very satisfied. My only complaints are the HD DVR is $499 (vs. 299 for dish) and that they have some stupid leasing fee now but the price of the hardware remains unchanged. That part makes about zero sense to me.

EDIT: DirecTV just responded to my question about the advantages of leasing by saying that they'll replace leased equipment for free (so $6/mo for an extended warranty) and that if leasing negates a service commitment. Big f'ing deal......
Click to expand...

If they don't lower that price they are not going move many of those. I could have gotten the same one February 28 for $399.00 and owned it. Everything else appears to be the same as it was prior to the switch but for some reason they jumped that PVR by $100.00. I almost bought one before the switch but decided to hold off until the release the updated version that records MPEG4. If it stays at that price I will continue to wait.
 
Dish is looking really appealing because of that dual TV support from a single DVR. It comes packaged with two RF remotes as well.
 
Kinda related, if I get a HD DVR from Time Warner cable, if they have such a thing, will I be able to transfer recorded shows to my computer to save them ? I can do this for OTA HD using my ATI HD Wonder, but not cable channels.

I assume I can output them via analog outputs to a vcr, but would lose a lot of quality. I don't want to transfer stuff like movies, but more to save sporting events(NASCAR) for longer than a few weeks.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: NutBucket
Originally posted by: Linflas
Take it from a long time DirecTV customer, there is no easy path. I had a 5 LNB dish installed February 8 and it is still not working correctly 100% of the time. The original dual LNB dish I installed myself worked flawlessly for 9 years. I had it tweaked to a signal strength around 97% and never lost signal except in summer when severe thunder storms would move through.

The new dish works fine for everything but my local HD channels which are the only MPEG4 channels DirecTV is delivering at the moment. They are coming to my house for the 4th time this Saturday and are going to relocate the dish. They are saying this tree in my neighbors yard is what is causing the problems with the HD signal. I also have the HD DVR from Comcast that I am going to return to them once the satellite is working correctly.
Click to expand...
I've had DirecTV for about 5 years now and am very satisfied. My only complaints are the HD DVR is $499 (vs. 299 for dish) and that they have some stupid leasing fee now but the price of the hardware remains unchanged. That part makes about zero sense to me.

EDIT: DirecTV just responded to my question about the advantages of leasing by saying that they'll replace leased equipment for free (so $6/mo for an extended warranty) and that if leasing negates a service commitment. Big f'ing deal......
Click to expand...

If they don't lower that price they are not going move many of those. I could have gotten the same one February 28 for $399.00 and owned it. Everything else appears to be the same as it was prior to the switch but for some reason they jumped that PVR by $100.00. I almost bought one before the switch but decided to hold off until the release the updated version that records MPEG4. If it stays at that price I will continue to wait.
Click to expand...

I'm likely going to switch if they keep it at that price. There's no way in hell I'm going to pay hundreds of dollars upfront on top of a leasing fee.
 
Originally posted by: NutBucket
Dish is looking really appealing because of that dual TV support from a single DVR. It comes packaged with two RF remotes as well.
Click to expand...

I got to have Sunday Ticket which pretty much means I am locked in to DirecTV for now. From what I can see from just having the basic Comcast digital they have a lot more HD channels currently available, especially the locals where they deliver all the HD available whereas DirecTV currently only delivers the 4 major networks and none of their extra channels that are available OTA.
 
Originally posted by: Vic
HTPC FTW!
Click to expand...

Is there a PVR card available that accepts digital audio and component video for the PC similar to the Hauppauge WinTV PVR cards? If so that is the way I would go. I want to be able to feed a signal in the way I can with the Hauppauge card.
 
Originally posted by: Linflas
Originally posted by: NutBucket
Dish is looking really appealing because of that dual TV support from a single DVR. It comes packaged with two RF remotes as well.
Click to expand...

I got to have Sunday Ticket which pretty much means I am locked in to DirecTV for now. From what I can see from just having the basic Comcast digital they have a lot more HD channels currently available, especially the locals where they deliver all the HD available whereas DirecTV currently only delivers the 4 major networks and none of their extra channels that are available OTA.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I don't really watch enough TV to justify Sunday Ticket. Luckily for me, about 160 Angels' games are on standard cable/sat channels. That satisfies my sports craving.
 
I have my own cable nightmare.
Deep breath
I recently moved into my new house "yeah".
I called Comcast and they sent someone out a week later. This dumb-@ss tells me oh, they didn't say there wasn't a line run to the house. I can't do this, I can only do wiring inside the house. He calls Comcast and they talk to me and say the soonest they can have a line tech out is a week later. So I bitch and moan and they do nothing to accomidate me. So I wait a week. Take off half the day to wait on the cable guy (who missed his eta window by 30 minutes). He starts looking at the cabling going into the house and says "This is rg-59 I can't do anything with this."
I told him to run a line from the pole to the house and I'll run a line myself to the rooms. He says he can't do that and that I need to have someone else come out and re-wire the house.
I loose it now. I then remember that there is a buried cable line that I found when I was re-doing the sidewalk. I point this out to him and he's like, ok, I'll check the outlets in the house and see if they work. He proceeds to put his ladder back in his truck and takes off. Doesn't say a thing to me. And to top it off he didn't bother closing my gate thus letting my dog out of the back yard. I ended up chasing the dog for almost a miles on foot across a very busy street.
Now I'm livid. I call Comcast and as soon as I get to the 1st person I tell them what's going on and exactly how I feel. My tirad goes on for a few minutes laced with colorful metaphors and explitives. I think I even invented a few new swear words.
The phone guy calls the installers manager and he in turn calls me saying someone else will be back out that night to get me hooked up.
The new installer comes out looks at it and says, no problem. He gets to work and has me wired to the pole and wires to the rg-59 that I was told was no good and BAM, cable TV works. Check internet ,nope not working. He calls his support and they try and try and finally find out that the system that provisions the modems doesn't work. It's now 9:30ish at night. I thank the guy for getting me set up and he tells me he will come by the next day and check and see if the internet is working. Cool. ok.
The next morning I decided to call Comcast and see if I can get it provisioned. They do the usual, and I make it to the comcast page that forces a download on me, and it downloads the 26MB file. I run the setup and it errors out. The lady on the phone then says, the system must not see my modem???? How did I download the file then? She calls the provisioning dept and after 5 minutes on hold, she comes back and says to try again. I open firefox and my home page comes up.
It took them probably 6 hours to do a simple task.
 
Originally posted by: Queasy
Originally posted by: Muadib
DirecTV will have a new DVR out soon, I was told May by my installer when he replaced my dish with the new 5LNB model. DirecTV said that they will replace the current Tivo model for free.
Click to expand...

Yeah, but I'm not encouraged by DirecTV's new leasing model. $500 upfront for the privilege of leasing their HD-DVR? They are gonna have to do way better than that with the new HD-DVRs.
Click to expand...
WTF are they thinking? If that's their new business model, it's going to kill them.

 
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