Direct TV option ?

[bigdog]

My local TV cable provider in Mass. is going up on all services (TV, Internet, Phone) across the board, 25% on TV is the killer !

I'm thinking of cutting the cord, and have been reviewing Direct TV a satelite option. They have a 12 month special of $19.99 (I undersatnd this is a 'teaser rate', then the rate goes up 1 yr).
I know it's a 'bait & switch' tactic, but I''d be willing to grab for 1 year.

Does anyone have Direct TV?
If so, please provide your feedback on service, especially during the winter snow months causing reception interference.

As a last option, I'll ditch the whole TV cable/satelite, and just use my Apple TV and Roku at the Lake. Apple TV has most of the TV options I watch anyways.... Not much on regular cabel TV anyway, unless you like 'Kadashians' or some other moronic reality TV show. I can't see paying for 100 + TV channesl I don't watch !

Thanks !

[HomeWood]

I had DTV for two years because it was a two year contract. Yes, there was the teaser rate, free movies for 3 months, and free NFL Sunday ticket for the first year.

Make sure to cancel the freebies (like the movie channels) or they will just start charging you. DTV really really likes you to set up auto pay (I think there was a small discount) and they charge you for the following month. It's backwards from say your electric bill. Year number two jumped up to over $90 month but I was stuck. The paperwork to sign at the time of installation is excessive. The customer service while you're under contract was sub-par. You also lease the equipment. Yes, lease and you pay for repairs if you don't buy the equipment protection plan. I will say I never had a hardware issue once in two years. I have replaced more TWC boxes than I can count but there is no charge for it. They just give me a reconditioned piece of garbage. The signal was great but a simple rainstorm could easily kill it. You almost come to hate t-storms with DTV.

I cancelled DTV and the calls and mail offers came flooding in. They could promise me the world! I told them they should have called before my contract ended to see if I would stay. They just hope you keep going at the stupid high price. I probably would have stayed for a much much lower amount with NFL included. They called again the other day to yet again tell me how important I am to them and to see what it would take to come back. I said I wanted a locked in bill that won't ever change and free NFL Sunday ticket every year. He said he couldn't do that. I said call me back when you can.

I went back to Time Warner (yuck also) and I borrow my sister's DTV internet login for Sunday ticket when I need it for Pats games .

Oh ya, DTV will send you a shipping kit to send back the hardware when you cancel. It's kind of a pain.

[Orion]

I have DirecTV on the island for the summer months and bring it back to my winter home off season, so I'm not starting/stopping contract each season. I get great reception at both locations and can only remember one very short (a few minutes) outage last summer when the dish was looking right through a major thunderstorm to the SW. It was a good time to shut everything off anyway due to excessive lightning. Snow usually melts off the dish in my winter home and not an issue. Yep, it's almost $100/mo but that includes $25 for the advanced DVR receiver (can't live without DVR now). I have to say that their receivers have excellent software and make time shift series program watching a breeze.

As you, I'd like to drop the whole thing though since I use Netflix and primarily the main network channels (broadcast TV) and very little of the other hundreds of channels. If I could get TV antenna reception on the island (tried very hard) I'd drop it today.

[DickR]

When thinking about dish-type service, consider also the terrain around you. A neighbor was told by Direct TV that he'd have to remove some trees from the hill behind us to the west to get adequate signal strength. After spending some money to do that, DTV came back, put up the dish on his roof, then said some more trees would have to come down. Rather than keeping going one tree at a time back up the steep hill, he pulled the plug on it. I had been interested in this, and I too would have had a "tree" problem.

The next week he had Dish come out. They point at different satellites, more toward the south and up at a higher angle, and for my neighbor that was the solution. I should ask him how that has been over the last two years. When I used a web site for aiming a TV dish to zoom in on my house, I found that I, too, could have a good angle with Dish. Hmmmm......

TWC keeps ratcheting up the rates, and, as noted, for a bunch of "reality" shows, sitcoms, game shows, 1950s reruns, etc. that I can't decline to pay for. They are getting close to losing me as a customer. Back in MA, we had competition for cable, via Verizon FIOS. Up here it is monopoly.

[TheProfessor]

There is no easy answer.

If you have two homes you can have one Direct TV account. You can turn off one and turn on the other. You can carry your receiver with you from home to home as some do. Or obtain other receivers.

I purchased my HD receivers and own them. No lease. But I do pay the for the monthly insurance.
The receivers are "dumb" and don't know where they are. So practicality - you can take a receiver anywhere that has a correct dish. If you want local channels away from home you have to telephone Direct TV to switch local channels. Such as NH to Florida as an example.

I get a $15.00 discount off bill every anniversary - as I call to cancel. Yes, to get the discounts you have to call and tell them it is too expensive and you wish to cancel. Then they offer the discounts. Same is true for Sirius XM.
My 2 year contract was done over 10 years ago. I started with Pegasus who had the original Direct TV contract.

But there is no easy answer for TV and internet. I pay cable company for internet. So add the two together and I am not saving much if any money.

Be careful though with Direct TV. Every time you change equipment and such a new 2 year contract may begin. I have to make Direct TV customer service READ me back that I am not under any contract - every time I change equipment.

[HomeWood]

Originally Posted by TheProfessor

But there is no easy answer for TV and internet. I pay cable company for internet. So add the two together and I am not saving much if any money.

This is where I was with DTV for TV and TWC for internet and phone. I saved $50 a month by going back to a triple bundle with TWC. DTV was OK enough where using them again is not totally out of the question.

[bigdog]

OK, I think I'm going to nix Direct TV......

Called my cable company back (Charter), to see if they offered a 'Basic' TV package PBS, Boston channels, and a few others My current package is what's referred to as 'Expanded Basic'. Well.... I'm at the bottom tier and they no longer offer the 'Basic' package anymore ! Surprise !

Think I have an alternative solution, tell me what you think!
Option would give met me TV reception at both the lake house and Mass. house. FYI, I don't have cable connected at lake house, just Internet with Metrocast, and use Roku, to stream videos Netflix, etc, but have lot's of options.including Amazon Prime.

So was thinking, getting the Metrocast TV Basic package for $35 per month. The Basic package will get me PBS, Boston channels, WMUR, Portland, and several others, enough for me !

I then buy a Sligbox, set it up at the lake house, and send the Metrocast channels to Mass house ! Wa-lah, I have TV at each location, and for minimal pcost per month. I understand I have to buy the Sligbox, but that's a one-time cost !

Two questions:
1. Will above senario work ?
2. Does Sligbox have to work with only 'smart' TV' ? One of my Tv's is an old projection TV and not sure if Sligbox would connect?

[Bear Islander]

I have had DirecTV for about twenty years.

You can have units at different homes and use them at the same time if you don't plug in the phone connection at the unlisted home. DirecTV is one way only. They have no way to tell where you are if you don't connect the phone line. You can also tell them you have no land line.

I like the service. The only big thing DirecTV can not do is on-demand. You can however record programming with the high end boxes.

Wet snow on the dish can put you out of business. Dry snow just blows off. Some dishes have an option for a heater to melt the snow.

[TheProfessor]

I have never heard of this. I have no idea what Kodi is.
I do see these for sale on eb*y.

AMAZON FIRE TV STICK JAILBROKEN, XBMC KODI 15.1 MOVIES, PPV, FULLY LOADED!
KODI 15.2 INSTALLED NEWEST VERSION!!

[brk-lnt]

Originally Posted by bigdog

Two questions:
1. Will above senario work ?
2. Does Sligbox have to work with only 'smart' TV' ? One of my Tv's is an old projection TV and not sure if Sligbox would connect?

Fundamentally, yes, the above scenario will work. Keep in mind that watching TV at your house in MA is going to be highly dependent on your Metrocast connection. The Slingbox needs to send video out of the house, using the upstream bandwidth, and of course the Metrocast connection needs to be up.

My personal experience with Metrocast would lead me to expect a decent amount of downtown and limited upstream bandwidth for this application. Meaning that your image at the house in MA is likely to be less then full HD a lot of the time, and completely unavailable an random times.

I'd buy the slingbox and test it for a month or two before fully committing to this approach.

[8gv]

DISH Network?

I really liked their "Hopper and Joey" system. With one DVR and a box at each tv you can record or play recorded shows from any tv. You can also have FULL access to your system via the internet. Their price is competitive with other companies but in my opinion, DISH has better equipment.

[Orion]

I've had both Dish and DirecTV at different times. With Dish, I needed two dishes to get all the channels since it has satellites in two different directions (one south and one SW) whereas DirecTV has all their birds in a single SW arc. Maybe it should be called Dishes. I can't agree that Dish has better equipment either. The DirecTV DVR receivers seem bulletproof with much better DVR software.

[Blue Thunder]

You need to have the SlingBox at the location that has the better high speed internet for the best upload. Otherwise you will have frequent buffering of the signal that will drive you crazy. I ditched DTV this year for all the same reasons as everyone has said and bought a SlingBox. I have had excellent results all season. So the SlingBox is in Mass at my home connected directly to my Verizon FIOS DVR. I watch all of my "home" TV via the SlingBox on a Fairpoint 3-4mbps dsl connection at my island location. I see everything in HD on my $600 Walmart 55" Vizio TV

BT

[SIKSUKR]

Originally Posted by Blue Thunder

You need to have the SlingBox at the location that has the better high speed internet for the best upload. Otherwise you will have frequent buffering of the signal that will drive you crazy. I ditched DTV this year for all the same reasons as everyone has said and bought a SlingBox. I have had excellent results all season. So the SlingBox is in Mass at my home connected directly to my Verizon FIOS DVR. I watch all of my "home" TV via the SlingBox on a Fairpoint 3-4mbps dsl connection at my island location. I see everything in HD on my $600 Walmart 55" Vizio TV

BT

Hi BT. I've been wanting to do just this for my skihouse. My only concern and its a big one, is that I'm a bigtime channel flipper. I have heard that slingbox will be very disappointing to me for that reason. Your thoughts?

[Blue Thunder]

Originally Posted by SIKSUKR

Hi BT. I've been wanting to do just this for my skihouse. My only concern and its a big one, is that I'm a bigtime channel flipper. I have heard that slingbox will be very disappointing to me for that reason. Your thoughts?

I use my Ipad as the "remote". A display of the actual Verizon DVR remote is on the screen. It operates the same....just MUCH slower because it has to send the "I want to change the channel" signal over the internet back to "home base" to tell the slingbox to tell the TV to change the channel. Sounds like you would be disappointed....having said that, The nearly $90 per month savings helps!!