DISH TurboHD vs Verizon FIOS

[jame_g]

Anyone here have recent experience with both Verizon FIOS and Dish TurboHD? How does the quality compare?

Verizon is raising their rates again. Verizon started out very reasonable, but the increases since the initial install are now getting painful, and the charges for their HD receivers and DVRs are outrageous. I can get the TurboHD package and DISH HD receivers for less than what I am paying Verizon.

Does anyone know what HD receiver and DVR and the standard models for new Dish accounts?

I am a little hesitant. I had Dish for years and liked it. Then I moved to a different state 4 years ago and the installer was no show 5 times. I gave up on DISH and went with Voom (loved it), then Comcast (hated it), then Verizon FIOS (love the HD quality, hate the add-on prices.)

[lern4483]

Dish, has some very good promotions. Im not sure what they are running at the moment though. You will have to call.

Dish uses the 722 HD DVR. In my opinnion the best dvr on the market. It is in a league by its own.
Im sure you will agree when you have it.

I see you had Voom. I still have Dish network soley for their DVR its that good.
They have converted many of their HD programming to MPEG 4 last week.
The HD picture is fantastic.

Customer service wise, my opinnion, they rank near the bottom.

Im also big Voom supporter. When they took all 15 Voom stations down in one shot, I lost all respect for dish. I have since downgraded my service.

Be aware that they pull programming off the air if they have any sort of contract dispute.

The only reason I still have dish is the stellar Dvr. The HD is truely fantastic.

See what kind of deal they will offer you.

I have always supported dish. Still have them. However, i dispise the way they treat loyal top tier customers.

Again, this has been my experience.

[jame_g]

Yeah, I had almost everything they offered prior to my move. The exception was Cinemax, which at that time was only 2 or 3 channels, and I never saw anything listed in the guide that interested me. They even had the nerve to give me a number that didn't go anywhere one time. No one ever answered this number, went right into hold music and stayed there, no message, no nothing. Not something you do to a loyal customer that is being very reasonable despite being treated very poorly.

Thanks for your input. Hope to hear more from others here.

[nlk10010]

Anyone here have recent experience with both Verizon FIOS and Dish TurboHD? How does the quality compare?

Verizon is raising their rates again. Verizon started out very reasonable, but the increases since the initial install are now getting painful, and the charges for their HD receivers and DVRs are outrageous. I can get the TurboHD package and DISH HD receivers for less than what I am paying Verizon.

Does anyone know what HD receiver and DVR and the standard models for new Dish accounts?

I am a little hesitant. I had Dish for years and liked it. Then I moved to a different state 4 years ago and the installer was no show 5 times. I gave up on DISH and went with Voom (loved it), then Comcast (hated it), then Verizon FIOS (love the HD quality, hate the add-on prices.)

I agree with the other poster that the DVR (I have the 622) is fantastic. Picture quality I can't speak to, but a lot depends on how interested you are in Local and especially National HD. Right now (at least in my area, don't know about yours) Verizon FIOS has considerably more national HD than Dish and you should base your decision on what channels the providers have now, as it is impossible to predict what they will add. IOW, there is no way to tell ahead of time if either Dish or Verizon FIOS will add new National HD. There is also the issue of rain/snow fade, which Dish suffers from to one degree or another and FIOS doesn't, although both services have their problems.

Good Luck with your decision, at least you have the choice. I won't have FIOS available to me until next Spring, at which time I will re-evaluate my decision to stick with Dish (I'm out of contract).

Edit: sorry, just realized you wanted to hear from people who have experience with both. I don't (although I arranged to have VZW install FIOS in my condo development) but thought I'd mention my opinion of the DVR and the channel lineups.

[jame_g]

Verizon has recently added a lot of national HD channels. The problem is that when they did this they added a new programming tier, so in order to get many of the new channels that interest me I will have to pay them even more. This is one reason the TurboHD is a nice option. Fortunately DISH has the big 4 OTA networks in HD in this area. (Direct does not.)

Personally, I think all the providers need to reduce or eliminate the extra charges for HD programming and receivers as we are probably to the point where we will start seeing a transition to gradually eliminate SD feeds altogether. But I guess they're all out to rake in as much as they can for the time being.

[navychop]

I have Dish, a good friend has Fios. The ViP722 HD DVR for Dish is great, the one for Fios is miserable.

HOWEVER, if all you have in your experience is a cableco DVR, then you won't know what you're missing, and the Fios DVR will be fine. Rumors abound about an improved, whole house Fios DVR in the future. I'd wait until it actually has user reviews before believing it.

I'm spoiled, I wouldn't want to be without my ViP722 STBs. And I've had pretty good luck with their CSRs.

[jame_g]

They've had a FIOS whole house DVR available here for several months. I don't subscribe to it. It appears to be available just by enabling a feature on my existing DVR that they will then charge me more for. Maybe they actually have plans for new equipment with new features. The DVR is okay, but could use some work. The Verison ON-Demand functionality sucks IMO.

[Lord_Vader]

I am with Dish but have been looking at FIOS.

I would only do it by buying the DVR from TIVO and using the 'cable cards'. I don't care about the on demand stuff and would like to do the 'lifetime' subscription to ditch the monthly DVR fees. It would cost a lot up front, but I would eventually get my money back.

[riffjim4069]

Dish Network has a superior HD DVR (622/722) and guide, but just about every other aspect about FiOS TV is superior to DishHD: better value (especially if you bundle Internet, phone and wireless), far superior HD and SD picture quality (no one has a better picture), FiOS TV has the most HD channels (102 at last count with another 15 more coming), TV always works (although I had few outages with Dish), customer service reps speak english and are very friendly (FiOS and U-Verse customer service was rated ahead of D*, E*, and cable).

I still miss using our 622s, but the advantages of FiOS far outweigh the negatives...especially if you bundle your services. Additionally, I was on a two year contract, but I was permitted to upgrade just 7 months into my contract in order to receive all the new HD channels along with faster (20/5 Internet) - all for the same price...and I even got a free HD DVR and HBO/Cinemax free for 3-months, and the new contracts are only 1-year long (shaved 5 months off my current contract). All I did was call and ask to be upgraded. No fuss, no muss. Plus, not one of my channels ever got yanked off of FiOS without warning (unlike with Dish Network).

The choice is yours. I cannot fault you for staying with E* as they provided me with a pretty value while I was with them, but after 2-years of DishHD-Lite it was time for me to move on since I value quality over quantity. With FiOS TV, I get quality, quantity, and the best value IMO. Warning: their ordering and billing systems was outdated when I ordered earlier this year. It took 4-months to square away my billing issues. Hopefully they have upgraded their systems.

[pfan1981]

i recently switched to TurboHD Gold and love it. The price of $62/mo is amazing for the number of channels you receive. The DVR is the best around. They can only add channels to your line up as more and more switch to HD (for the most part).

pfan