Dish Bid to Extend HD Customers Contract

Sigma

SatelliteGuys Family
Original poster
Mar 30, 2007
35
0
Arkansas
Don't know if anyone else has had their original 18 month HD contract expire, but I got a call yesterday offering me 3 months of HBO & Starz for no charge if I would commit to another 20 months of Dish HD service.

My response ... If they don't get busy and get the Little Rock locals uploaded in HD, they won't need to worry about even having me as a customer in a year much less than two.

Anyone heard of a projected date for uploading the Little Rock HD locals?
 
The Time Has Come

Got the same call and told them "No Thanks." After 12 years(1996) with E I am canceling next week and moving to the "dark side" D. Scheduled for a Wednesday install and will save almost $500 the first year and be done with all of E's BS. The loss of Voom and other channels, losing signal in light to moderate weather and all of the law suits made the move easy. I have only hesitated because of my VIP 622 receiver but I will learn to live with the HR21. Also better and more HD and I will get my Little Rock networks in HD. If Charlie stays on the current path of operation, there will be many to follow me. The next #'s coming out on subs should be interesting.
 
Got the same call and told them "No Thanks." After 12 years(1996) with E I am canceling next week and moving to the "dark side" D. Scheduled for a Wednesday install and will save almost $500 the first year and be done with all of E's BS. The loss of Voom and other channels, losing signal in light to moderate weather and all of the law suits made the move easy. I have only hesitated because of my VIP 622 receiver but I will learn to live with the HR21. Also better and more HD and I will get my Little Rock networks in HD. If Charlie stays on the current path of operation, there will be many to follow me. The next #'s coming out on subs should be interesting.
12 years and 2 posts wow!!!
 
The loss of Voom and other channels, losing signal in light to moderate weather and all of the law suits made the move easy. I have only hesitated because of my VIP 622 receiver but I will learn to live with the HR21. Also better and more HD and I will get my Little Rock networks in HD. If Charlie stays on the current path of operation, there will be many to follow me. The next #'s coming out on subs should be interesting.

First, besides Voom, what channels have been permanently pulled? I hope you enjoy Voom on DirecTV. Oh wait, they don't have it, and bad mouthed it for years. Second, next year a new sat will be at 129, fixing your reception issues (or you could go to 61.5 in Little Rock). If it's other sats, your dish is out of alignment, or you have a bad LNB. And what, directly, has Dish lawsuits cost us recently?

Or, could you be a frustrated sub coming to vent? If so, have fun with DirecTV, but don't think we are idiots for staying. As soon as DirecTV offers a HD DVR as good as the Dish VIPs and offers all their national HD for the $29.99 I'm paying, I'll join you. But that is unlikely to happen.

All you have to do is say 'no' if you don't want to up your contract.
 
First, besides Voom, what channels have been permanently pulled? I hope you enjoy Voom on DirecTV. Oh wait, they don't have it, and bad mouthed it for years. Second, next year a new sat will be at 129, fixing your reception issues (or you could go to 61.5 in Little Rock). If it's other sats, your dish is out of alignment, or you have a bad LNB. And what, directly, has Dish lawsuits cost us recently?

Or, could you be a frustrated sub coming to vent? If so, have fun with DirecTV, but don't think we are idiots for staying. As soon as DirecTV offers a HD DVR as good as the Dish VIPs and offers all their national HD for the $29.99 I'm paying, I'll join you. But that is unlikely to happen.

All you have to do is say 'no' if you don't want to up your contract.

You're making too much sense. It's might be confusing to some!!! ;) :rolleyes:
 
Got the same call and told them "No Thanks." After 12 years(1996) with E I am canceling next week and moving to the "dark side" D. Scheduled for a Wednesday install and will save almost $500 the first year and be done with all of E's BS. The loss of Voom and other channels, losing signal in light to moderate weather and all of the law suits made the move easy. I have only hesitated because of my VIP 622 receiver but I will learn to live with the HR21. Also better and more HD and I will get my Little Rock networks in HD. If Charlie stays on the current path of operation, there will be many to follow me. The next #'s coming out on subs should be interesting.

Good luck, I don't think you will ever be sorry. The HR21 has many more features than the VIP622 or 722. Also you should never have signal strenght issues.
 
Good luck, I don't think you will ever be sorry. The HR21 has many more features than the VIP622 or 722. Also you should never have signal strenght issues.
Really. Then why is Dish Network Dvr's constantly ratted the best?
What I've read and seen about D* is it's a great service if you stay away from the DVR.:eek:
Dish Network ViP722 HD DVR

The Dish Network ViP622 and 722 are among the most fully featured and versatile high-def DVRs you can buy today.
Price: Sorry, pricing not available
Review date: Feb 19, 2008

  • 4 stars
    • Overall score: 8.7 (4.0 stars)
Excellent
Read full review

To be fair:

CNET did not review the DirecTV HR21 but we did review the HR20, which is very similar.
Specifications: Product Type:Type: HD DVR; Dimensions (WxDxH): 15.0 in x 11.8 in x 3.0 in; Max Recording Capacity: 200 hour(s); ; See full specs


Average user rating: 1 1/2 stars out of 4


CNET editors' take

Although CNET did not review the DirecTV HR21, we did review the HR20. The two DirecTV satellite DVRs are basically identical aside from coloration (the HR21 is black while the HR20 is silver) and the fact that the HR21 lacks a built-in ATSC tuner, so it cannot receive or record over-the-air HDTV channels. The HR21 lacks such a tuner, although many local HD channels--typically ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC--are available via satellite in most areas of the country (more info).

User reviews on the HR21

"Busted POS."
by ctuckercva on September 18, 2008

Pros: Picture is good, when it works
Cons: Doesn't work reliably
Summary: Delivered unreliable box: misses recordings, has skip / freeze issues on playback. It's going back.

"Much worse than previous HD TIVO (HR 250)"
by sierracamper on September 2, 2008

Pros: Supports all 5 Satellites
Cons: Slow, Illogical Menus, Slow and Jerky FF, worthless 30 second skip. Unreliable recording.
Summary: Like many others, I was forced to deploy the HR21 in order to "retain all of my HD programming". I was somewhat pleased that DirecTV did not force me to turn in my HR250's, so I reluctantly agreed to let the installer come in and install 2 HR21's at no charge. I kept the HR250's activated, but for the last 6 months, I had tried to get acclimated to the HR21's and left the HR250's offl line. I had many problems with resets, shutdowns, and lost recordings on the HR21's, but over time (and numerous automatic firmware upgrades) the HR21's both seem to be stable. However, last week I hooked up one of the HR250's and what a huge difference! It really illustrates how bad the HR21 is. My biggest beef with the HR21 is that when watching NFL games, the 30 second skip search skips ahead 40 seconds, flashes the image, then rewinds back to the 30 second spot.. This is unacceptable, especially when you see a snapshot of the outcome of the play, then it goes back to where it should have stopped in the first place. All DVR functions are dog slow and jerky. The HR 250 playback and skip functions are fast and smooth. I hope DirecTV addresses these issues or offers a different unit that uses the same architecture as the HR250 with support of all 5 satellites.

read more


"WOW, What a peice of Junk"
by damondlt on September 2, 2008

Pros: ZERO ZERO ZERO
Cons: THE entire thing. Slow, NO OTA,still reboots, Slow,and more slow
Summary: This is worse then the HR-20 at least the HR 20 had the OTA option. Directv need help building a receiver.


"I am all for automation, but ..."
by apoind1 on September 1, 2008

Pros: Live TV - works great. Beautiful picture on my Samsung 63" Plasma. One touch record, two touch series record is great. Hit the blue button, and you can continue to watch your program while scrolling through the guide at the bottom of the screen.
Cons: Try to watch a recorded show, or dare to press pause on your DVR, and you may get a picture, you may not. This is my 6th box....different prob each time. Sometimes no recording, sometimes audio/video out of sync. Problems, problems, problems!
Summary: I am all for automation, but ...I would prefer to be the one to decide when and for how long my show/movid is on pause. The picture just FREEZES whenever it wants. It starts back whenever it wants...and then will pause, again,..... whenever it wants. I'm all for automation, but this is rediculous. This is one product that I'm sure the Quality Assurance team is saying "I told you so" to the management team that pushed this through. This Directv customer of many, many, many years is not willing to put up with any more of it......this box is makiing me switch! .


And no I didn't write any of them. So much for working out the bugs. :eek:
 
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Good luck, I don't think you will ever be sorry. The HR21 has many more features than the VIP622 or 722. Also you should never have signal strenght issues.

Please... the DirecTV forums are full of people with signal strength issues. There are good installs and bad installs, and satellite will always have rain fade issues.

Yes, 129 is a problem right now, but it should be fixed soon. Then, there will be three very strong satellites for non-eastern arc customers (two brand new ones and a very strong 119).

As far as locals go, more are added all the time, and the 722K will allow 2 OTA tuners, so you'll be able to record 4 HD at once on a single box. I don't see anything like that from any other provider. And then next year with Sling integration, Dish will be even more interesting.
 
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