Lighten up a bit on DISH

ClarusWorks

Member
Original poster
Dec 29, 2004
12
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Dish Network really is trying to keep quality products and services. I agree that the $5 DVR fee is ridiculous. Originally, with the 501/508 they didn't charge the DVR fee, but they brought it in with the 510 because everyone else had DVR fees, so they saw it as 'lost money.'

As for the 921 (or any other DISH receiver) being software-upgradeable to MPEG 4, it's not happening. It can't happen. The MPEG decoder is a hardware chip, and IIRC it's soldered on. An MPEG 4 upgrade would involve 3 elements: A.) Hoping that Broadcom uses the same pinout on the MPEG 4 decoder. B.) Changing the chip, requiring the box to be sent in. C.) New Software. I know most of the people here know this, but for the people who author whiny posts without studying up on their subject material, here ya go.

Tech support's not perfect, I'll admit that, but the problem is, it's hard to get good employees. People are generally lazy.

Rate Increases: Most Programmers demand more $ every chance they get, DISH can't just eat all those losses, some of it has to be passed on, or the company loses $, and if you lose $, you lose stockholders, causing more loss of $, putting you on the road to bankruptcy.

Yeah, I know the software has bugs, but my old RCA DirecTV hardware was just as obnoxious, and the receivers are, after all, computers, and we all know how computers can be.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
Yex, I've been pretty happy with dish. They work pretty good. Everyone else will be raising rates as well, dish just has the burden of doing it first. They also have the additional cost of switching to single dish, which D* doesn't have...

I don't quite get the whole "lacking" HD thing either. They are only missing tow channels that are capable of being in the hd pack and the one channel not a single provider has. I could careless about premiums and Network HD feeds because those would serve a much smaller audience that would benefit dish only minorly
 
How about selling 6000u with the intension of never upgrading them but not alerting the public. How about the promises to the 921 that never panned out. There are peope who care about premium channels and would like to have Cinemax HD, TMC HD, Starz HD, Encore HD.

Price increase sure everyone is ok with it. Me, no sweat I'll pay but why even bother sending the PPV coupon. I threw it in the garbage. They could try all they can but there are a lot Dish can learn about satisfying their customers and not coming with the no compelling programming nonsense that we are used to hear from them.

How about not having the YES Network for one of the biggest market.

Just my $2.00
 
Sorry but E* deserves all the criticisms that folks are heaping on them. Frankly I think if they could just get their hardware to work, and stop making empty promises that most of this would go away. Yes, other hardware providers, from D* to Motorola or SA for cable still have some issue but no where near the level of issues that E* hardware does. Just look at some of the threads/posts from folks that have jumped ship, generally they are happy with the hardware. No more lost programs, no more rebooting boxes to get them to work.

On the HD programming front, so far I've not see on service that carries all the HD channels that are out there. V* probably is the closest but even they don't carry HDNet's which folks like. So I don't think it really matters what provider you have, you're going to want a HD channel that they don't carry.
 
ocaddict said:
What promises?

Dish(fire)Wire output enabled to allow for dubbung to select JVC D-VHS VCR's is a biggie that comes to mind. A number of folks purchased the 921 for that specific reason which was advertised in hardcopy and discussed on the chats to only have E* change their mind.
 
rad said:
Dish(fire)Wire output enabled to allow for dubbung to select JVC D-VHS VCR's is a biggie that comes to mind. A number of folks purchased the 921 for that specific reason which was advertised in hardcopy and discussed on the chats to only have E* change their mind.

Ridiculous. I'll tell ya why they opted not to waste any time on that. Who the hell that has a 921 has a VCR? I ditched my VCR back when I got my first DVR unit and never looked back. I bet less than 1% of 921 owners are worried about this feature. Let's face it, companies have to make money, AND you cannot make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. Which is quite obvious from these forums. Still, the 921 was the first HD/DVR unit to the market and I personally give props for making a gargantuan effort to cater to the cutting edge crowd. So maybe it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.
 
ocaddict said:
Ridiculous. I'll tell ya why they opted not to waste any time on that. Who the hell that has a 921 has a VCR? I ditched my VCR back when I got my first DVR unit and never looked back. I bet less than 1% of 921 owners are worried about this feature. Let's face it, companies have to make money, AND you cannot make 100% of the people happy 100% of the time. Which is quite obvious from these forums. Still, the 921 was the first HD/DVR unit to the market and I personally give props for making a gargantuan effort to cater to the cutting edge crowd. So maybe it wasn't all it was cracked up to be, but hey, ya gotta start somewhere.

If you happened to actually read my response it said D-VHS, as in digital, as in does HD. And yes there are a number of people that have these decks. And you also seem to be missing a major point that E* was guilty of bait and switch. They promised their customers something then after they purchased it said never mind.
 
You have GOT to be kidding!!!!

First of all, the "lost money" argument holds no water - period. DON'T compare it to Tivo or cable providers, as they actually provide interactive and updated information which is truly a "service". Dish provides absolutely nothing that is not built into the hardware - period. It is unethical, and frankly should be considered criminal. No argument and no discussion at all.

Second, I'm not ticked off because of MPE4. I'm ticked off because my 921 was/is a piece of crap. It is absolutely the most unreliable, worst supported consumer electronics product I've seen in the past five years at a minimum. It CONSTANTLY requires reboots, and frequently does not record what it's supposed to record. It's a great idea with deplorable execution and delivery. A year is far more than enough time to at least make it reliable. NBR would be great, but not necessary for me. Reliability is necessary without question.

Third, saying people are lazy is equally ridiculous. They are a company who provides a service, and must provide adequate customer service. People are not all lazy. It's not an excuse. Their support has declined remarkably over the past 18 months to the point that it has been completely worthless to me. Every single call has to be escalated, and is often not resolved. I have to make reps read back to me what they are entering into the system because they so frequently don't enter any remarks. LAZINESS DOESN'T EXPALAIN THE RIDICULOUS HOLD TIMES!

Fourth, I could care less about the rate increases, so long as they are competitive, providing good quality service and growing. To me, they are providing none of the above.

Finally, and the one remark you've made that really gets me hot is your premise that the lack of quality in their receivers is OK because "they are computers". Bullcrap - pure and simple. They are NOT personal computers. You have NO ability to add applications, modify the operating system, change operating parameters, use it in a mobile or "hostile" environment, physically add new/different components, etc, etc, etc. They have COMPLETE control of ALL variables in their system. Frankly, you are making the uneducated correlation that all computers should have the same problems as all "personal computers". Would you accept it if your car only ran correctly 90% of the time? How about if it randomly shut down when you drove down the interstate? Or, maybe if the air bags randomly activated every week or two? Or, maybe it would be OK if your microwave operated correctly 90% of the time. How about your thermostat in your home furnace? Those are operated by computers too. The difference is that Dish has AT LEAST as much control over their entire system as any of the previous examples - except personal computers.

As for the follow-on comment that BFG made, he is clearly in the minority. Most of us DO care about HD networks and premiums. If there are only two more channels that are important to HD, then why the heck does E* or anyone else have the multitude of other channels? To be clear - I want EVERYTHING it HD at some point. Not today, certainly, or even this year. But, I want the Networks in HD NOW! Just like with cable.

Just so you know, I voted with my wallet. I've got 2 508's and a 510 that I own outright that are now sitting idle, have a 921 that I bought outright and am waiting for the return shipping boxes to arrive from Dish, and installed Adelphia cable last week. Though there are things about the SA8300HD that I don't like, it works right every time, never requires a reboot, gives me a LOT more HD content including major local networks, is cheaper, requires no contract, does not make my $500+ new receiver obsolete in a year, allows me to have more TVs, dual tuners in everything, better customer service and support, and frankly even the analog channels from Adelphia look pretty much as good as the SD channels from Dish because they are not being excessively compressed. Dish, on the other hand provided me with higher costs, VOD fees that provide no value, no HD Locals, no new HD content scheduled for the upcoming year of any value, a receiver that was declared end of life before it was delivered, extremely long hold times for customer service that ultimately can't fix the problems, a completely unreliable receiver that hasn't been able to be fixed over the past year, single tuners in my other 3 DVRs.

Now, what part of that diatribe is hard to understand?

ClarusWorks said:
Dish Network really is trying to keep quality products and services. I agree that the $5 DVR fee is ridiculous. Originally, with the 501/508 they didn't charge the DVR fee, but they brought it in with the 510 because everyone else had DVR fees, so they saw it as 'lost money.'

As for the 921 (or any other DISH receiver) being software-upgradeable to MPEG 4, it's not happening. It can't happen. The MPEG decoder is a hardware chip, and IIRC it's soldered on. An MPEG 4 upgrade would involve 3 elements: A.) Hoping that Broadcom uses the same pinout on the MPEG 4 decoder. B.) Changing the chip, requiring the box to be sent in. C.) New Software. I know most of the people here know this, but for the people who author whiny posts without studying up on their subject material, here ya go.

Tech support's not perfect, I'll admit that, but the problem is, it's hard to get good employees. People are generally lazy.

Rate Increases: Most Programmers demand more $ every chance they get, DISH can't just eat all those losses, some of it has to be passed on, or the company loses $, and if you lose $, you lose stockholders, causing more loss of $, putting you on the road to bankruptcy.

Yeah, I know the software has bugs, but my old RCA DirecTV hardware was just as obnoxious, and the receivers are, after all, computers, and we all know how computers can be.

Just my 2 cents worth.
 
I agree in that they are computers... but most computers i use dont flake out on me multiple times per day. Everything electonic I own classifys as a computer. now my PC's heck I play a ton of games on one. One is a Webserver, the other my wife uses and 2 laptops. I reboot my gaming pc about once a week, generally out of habit or a little slowdown. My Stand alone Tivo... other than moving it and when it has to for a software update is never restarted. Ive still not restarted my D* tivos.

Fact of the matter is 99% of the computers in my life dont crash as badly as dish's receivers. And their receivers like stated above are completely under their control.

I waited on hold for 2 hours just to cancel my account... dont tell em that that many people are cancelling? every time ive called dish this year (2004) I ended up spending a minimum of 30 minutes holding.

Im 22 years old and I care plenty about premiums and even more about HD.

All that said why did I switch?

BROKEN PROMISES
 
SkyAngel helps keep me with Dish, I also saw that DirectTV's top storage amount was 35 hours. That is way to short to get me to want to switch. Give me 200 hours (quite doable with today's hard drive sizes) and I might be much more tempted. Otherwise, they all have flaws.

BTW, the $5/month VOD fee is just another "because we can" fee. Just like the extra $5/month per additional receiver. It doesn't cost Dish any extra to let you get the signal on an additional receiver. :)

Brad
 
ShadowEKU said:
All that said why did I switch?

BROKEN PROMISES

Then why are your still here?

Get a life and do something rather than hanging out griping about something you don't like! Some of us here may have issues with Dish, but we have nevertheless chosen to be here. Do something productive, help your community, veg out in front of more movies, whatever. :D

Brad
 
Brad,

Many of the people complaining about DISH were customers from the start. The very same people who helped the company get off the ground. The same customers who BOUGHT all of their hardware INCLUDING when it came time to upgrade.

These are the people who encouraged others to sign up back when DISH offered competitive programing, costs, equipment, etc.

Fact is that DISH has since grown fat and lazy just like the cable cos who they villanized.

The posters are indeed doing something productive. They are alerting potential new customers, and existing customers, that there are now MANY better alternatives to DISH. What is unproductive is when uninformed users and companies stop listening to voice of customer by claiming all is great when it is not.
 
I've had the AEP for several years. Not long after E* launched it's intensive advertising campaign about the "Cable Pig" raising rates that exceeded the cost of inflation, they raised the AEP by 4% which exceed the cost of inflation. On Charlie Chat they justified this by stating there was no DVR fee. No mention of adjusting the rate downward for folks like me without a DVR. Now this year the AEP is going up 5.1% and once again exceeding the cost of inflation. That represents hypocritical advertising and sounds like a vulture complaining about bad meat. And for us non-DVR folks it's another BOHICA (Bend Over Here It Comes Again). Since Charter Cable's rates are not competitive, I will be signficantly downgrading my E* programming. And don't even get us 811 owners started! :no
 
ClarusWorks said:
Dish Network really is trying to keep quality products and services.
If, by "trying" you mean "avoiding", then you are correct.
ClarusWorks said:
As for the 921 (or any other DISH receiver) being software-upgradeable to MPEG 4, it's not happening. <technical reasons>
More proof of their poor strategic planning.

ClarusWorks said:
Tech support's not perfect, I'll admit that, but the problem is, it's hard to get good employees. People are generally lazy.
I wonder how other companies do it? Plus, poor training and lack of information dissemination is not the fault of "lazy employees". It's the fault of corporate mismanagment.

ClarusWorks said:
Yeah, I know the software has bugs, but my old RCA DirecTV hardware was just as obnoxious, and the receivers are, after all, computers, and we all know how computers can be.
Your OLD DirecTV gear may have had bugs. But, unfortunately, Dish's NEW equipment has tons more, and most of them don't go away for more than a year after release. There is no logical defense of their practice of consistently releasing bug-ridden and partially functional hardware, model after model, that doesn't work close to the way it should for a year or more of half-arsed sw updates. And, when they do finally get it working reasonably well, they discontinue it and release another bug bomb in its place.

Nope. Dish deserves every knock they get on these forums. Those points above are only the tip of the Dish iceberg.
 
Man. You guys are brutal. If the cable sucked ass as bad in your area as it does mine, you'd think *E was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Even with the 2304832048309328423 faults listed in previous thread. :D
 
Doesn't sound like E*'s customer service has gotten any better then when I had their service. Kinda sounds E* is going down the drain completely from listening to what customers and ex-customers are saying. I was one of the early ones to switch back to D* due to E* shanagans, Ole' Charlie better listen up before the pond dries up.
 
I have enjoyed E* for the past three years with a flawless 508 and a 301. Lately, I have been looking to invest in HD technology to feed my HD set.

What I determined was, that i cannot wait around for either E* or D* to figure out what they want to be relating to HDTV when they grow up. I am not going to be victimized as many of you were by having a large purchase either (a) not work properly, or (b) become obsoleted with no clear path (absent your new investment) to the new technology.

I have decided to go back to cable until this mess sorts itself out. Maybe it will actually be better than dish. At least I am not taking the risk. And, Comcast will buy me out for $400. That's $300 more than I paid for my equipment (which, yes, I do own).
 
GaryPen said:
Luckily, cable doesn't, in my area, which makes Dish's sliced bread look, smell, and taste that much moldier.

LOL. I hear ya bro. I hear ya. I sure as hell do miss Time Warner in NC.



MI_SAT said:
Maybe it will actually be better than dish. At least I am not taking the risk. And, Comcast will buy me out for $400. That's $300 more than I paid for my equipment (which, yes, I do own).

Man, I do not blame you a bit bro. I wish I had the ability to do that. Unfortunately I live in an apt complex who has a shady deal going on with a small cable company that is about 10yrs behind the power curve. sh*t, their receivers don't even have s-video out! I ditched their service quickly when I could confirm *E was available for me.
 

522 no go on 2nd tv

Superdish Struts

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