I want to Switch to Dish from Direct

[ejimmerson]

I have been with Directv since 2003. My bill keeps skyrocketing with another price increase in January and I like the idea two year price lock that Dish is offering to new subs. My hold up is that I am told Directv picture quality is much better than Dish. Is this true or false.

 

[fourhokiefans]

I just made the switch myself. I personally find the picture quality of Dish to be as good to me as directv on HD channels and better on SD channels. I was with Dish last in 2012 and did not recall the picture to be as good. For the record, I find Dish hardware to be superior.

 

[acer2016]

I was with Directv for 10 years and I'm not going back,the Hooper 3 is the best DVR out there 16 tuners.
The picture quality is the same as Directv.

 

[MitchDeerfield]

I have been with Directv since 2003. My bill keeps skyrocketing with another price increase in January and I like the idea two year price lock that Dish is offering to new subs. My hold up is that I am told Directv picture quality is much better than Dish. Is this true or false.

If you mainly care about the price, your best bet is to call DirecTV and tell them you are thinking of canceling and will they give you a good discount on the service. It's called the Retention Dept.

 

[KaptainRandom]

I have been with Directv since 2003. My bill keeps skyrocketing with another price increase in January and I like the idea two year price lock that Dish is offering to new subs. My hold up is that I am told Directv picture quality is much better than Dish. Is this true or false.

There are threads on this forum which have the technical specs proving Directv is technically better PQ.
There are many anecdotal opinions which have similar numbers of people either seeing or not seeing a difference in actually watching tv.
To me, that indicates the better technical spec of Directv is minimal to negligible in real world application.

 

[StarScan]

I over lapped dish and direct for a week when I switched. I agree directv has a more detailed picture and dish seems brighter.

 

[JSheridan]

We've got Genies and Hoppers here and the fact is that some HD channels look slightly better on DirecTV and some HD channels look slightly better on DISH. Overall it's pretty much a wash on HD.

For SD DISH has a much better picture than DirecTV on all channels.

 

[ncted]

I have been with Directv since 2003. My bill keeps skyrocketing with another price increase in January and I like the idea two year price lock that Dish is offering to new subs. My hold up is that I am told Directv picture quality is much better than Dish. Is this true or false.

I recently switched. Dish PQ looked better than expected with the Hopper3 on my 70" Sony UHD TV. I think there was a thread about this back in September, but Dish has been upgrading their encoders or something like that. Do I still notice occasional compressions artifacts? Sure, but not really any more than I did on DirecTV with my HR54. I would not let PQ concerns keep me from switching to Dish. If the price is right, and the channels you want are in a package that fits your budget, no reason not to go to Dish. That said, I would try DirecTV retention first, just so you know what the best deal available to you is.

 

[lgb0250]

I came back to DISH from Directv. That rumor is false. At best DTV has a slightly better HD pic. I say slightly because that’s what others tell me. I personally don’t see the difference at all. I do know that DISH has a much better SD pic than DTV because I did notice that immediately. Besides the Hopper 3 is so much better than the HR54. To me it was worth coming back just for that alone.

 

[dishnet_tech]

Long time Dish installer here. More often than not, when switching to us, former Directv customers will comment on how much better the Dish HD picture quality is.

 

[ejimmerson]

Thanks to all that posted. We are planning to buy a 4k TV in January and I would have to upgrade my equipment. Since I was going to have to be under a new 2 year contract I wanted the best equipment and the best programming deal. I have read a lot of positives about the Hopper3 and the 4k joeys.

 

[comfortably_numb]

Another thing to keep in mind is that Dish has the ability to tune in your local channels over the air. In many situations, your local stations' picture resolution is far superior to any channel delivered via satellite. Directv doesn't offer the ability to even tune your local channels OTA anymore.

 

[mdonnelly]

Another thing to keep in mind is that Dish has the ability to tune in your local channels over the air. In many situations, your local stations' picture resolution is far superior to any channel delivered via satellite. Directv doesn't offer the ability to even tune your local channels OTA anymore.

This is what may cause me to go back to Dish after my 2-year Direct commitment.

 

[mdonnelly]

This is what may cause me to go back to Dish after my 2-year Direct commitment.

I did implement a work-around with an OTA antenna on a coax input to the TV, but it's not as elegant as the Dish OTA integration. Sometimes around here you need OTA when the weather blocks the satellite signal.

 

[dishnet_tech]

We are planning to buy a 4k TV in January and I would have to upgrade my equipment.

For 4k you'll need a Hopper 3 and 4k Joey at your 4k tv's to get 4k (along with 4k hdmi cables). But, unfortunately, there's very little in the way of 4k programming.

 

[dishnet_tech]

For 4k you'll need a Hopper 3 and 4k Joey at your 4k tv's to get 4k (along with 4k hdmi cables). But, unfortunately, there's very little in the way of 4k programming.