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I'd like to take a moment to offer my un-biased opinion of the aforementioned television services. I have had all 3 services within the past 7 months so they are all fresh in my mind. I think it's important to let everyone know that I don't currently nor have I ever worked for any of these service providers. I'm not a "fan-boy" of any particular provider, I just like reliable, quality programming delivered on powerful equipment at a reasonable price.

I've broken down my review into 4 categories: equipment, programming, picture quality, signal reliability, and price. I have rated each category with 5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest. I've added some notes to each category detailing my experience. I hope this helps some of you who may be on the fence trying to determine which provider to go with.

I've also broken down the packages and prices for each based on the programming and equipment I use. All pricing referenced is based on standard, non-promotional, monthly rates. I realize there are many different configurations available but the only one that really matters is the one that fits your needs. YMMV.

So, without further ado, here is my review of Suddenlink, DirecTV, and Dish Network.

Suddenlink
Service Description: Service in SW Missouri. Subscribed to SL200 + Sports & Info and Family packages.
Programming charge: $57

Equipment: TiVo Premier (4 tuners/500GB HDD), 1 TiVo Mini
Equipment charge: $22

Total Cost: $79

Equipment (4.5) – The Tivo Premier is a nice box, however I felt it was a bit dated. I'm sure the newer Roamio boxes or the new Bolt are much peppier, but this is what SL provided and I wasn't willing to buy my own, so that's what I got.

Speed was a bit sluggish compared to the Hopper and HR44 units offered by the satellite providers. There were times when I would try to navigate through the menu to select a recorded program and would have to wait several seconds, in some cases nearly a full minute, for the spinning wheel in the middle of the screen to disappear and allow me to move on. Now, that being said, the layout of their menu and ease of use is the best I've seen. It is very simple to setup and backup recordings and season passes. You can also manage and edit your timers remotely from their app, which is also a huge win for TiVo.

You can use a separate Tivo Stream to stream recordings or live TV to your device (I think this is included in newer TiVo boxes). This works well when connected to your local network however I was never able to get this to work out-of-home. Honestly, I didn't try too hard as that isn't a component that I'm all that interested in but the troubles are worth noting.

Programming (4) – In my area, Suddenlink has one base package with 2 add-on packages. The total for all 3 is only $57 which includes many of the same channels the sat providers have in their highest packages. That being said, the selection of HD channels on Suddenlink is lower than DTV & Dish. There are a number of common HD channels that were not available in HD on Suddenlink, such as National Geographic Wild, TruTV, & The Weather Channel to name a few. There are also some sports channels, like MLB & NBA network, that aren't available at all on SL. I realize that channel selection for cable providers often differs depending on where you are in the country, but in my area, there are several channels that I consider pretty common that they simply don't have.

One saving grace to the lack of HD channels on SL is that the SD channels are much higher quality than either of the sat providers. This at least makes the non-HD channels watchable.

Picture quality (5) – This is an area where SL really excels. I'm not sure what the technical reasons are behind this but their HD picture is the best I've seen in my home (excluding blue-ray, of course). Additionally, as noted above, SD picture quality is much higher than either sat provider. This helps to make up for the lower number of HD channels given that the SD versions are at least watchable.

Picture reliability (2.5) – If PQ is SL's biggest advantage, then picture reliability is their biggest downfall. I know this sounds weird because signal reliability is supposed to be better with a buried cable than with a satellite signal that has to traverse clouds and weather. Obviously there is no rain fade with cable, but at least in my experience, I had major issues with pixilation, freezing, and audio drops. I uploaded some pictures in another post on this site if you're interested in seeing what I was dealing with. SL sent multiple techs out to investigate and they all said my signal was very strong. The last one switched out my TiVo with a newer version made by Pace but the issue remained. I thought the issue may be internal with my wiring or something but after talking to some other people in my area who have had SL it appears the issue may have been more widespread. It is because of this ongoing problem that I am no longer a SL customer.

Price (4.5) – SL service is the cheapest available for the programming I'm interested in. I am able to get all of the non-premium channels they offer for $57, which is significantly cheaper than similar packages on the sat providers.

Equipment costs are similar to other providers with a $15 fee for TiVo service, and $7 for additional receivers. They don't charge for HD service, however, though this is a trend that sat providers are starting to follow as well. Overall, good price for what is offered. It's too bad they can't get their signal issues ironed out.

SL Overall Rating: 20.5

DirecTV
Service Description: Subscribed to Choice Xtra package.
Programming charge: $78

Equipment: 1 Genie HR44 & 1 C41 mini
Equipment charge: $28

Total Cost: $106

Equipment (4) – I found the HR44 to be a very solid receiver. It was fast, reliable, and very user friendly. Unfortunately, it was not all that pretty and offered little other than the standard DVR / channel tuning capabilities. At the end of the day, however, isn't that the most important function of a DVR?

I did feel that the HR44 system strongly resembled the TiVo, at least from the standpoint of scheduling recordings, DVR lists, trick play, etc. The unit was very reliable and required only a few reboots due to lockups in the 3 years I had the box. I did feel that anytime I used the double-play or PiP features that the box was one button-press away from completely locking up and requiring a hard restart. This only happened one time that I can remember but it got to the point where it slow to a crawl when using these features so I just stopped using them after a while.

Now, on to their mobile app: Absolutely horrible! There is very little interaction you can do with the receiver, such as managing your recordings list. Additionally, the GenioGo would constantly lockup requiring reboots or sometimes resets. We also had to wipe the unit several times causing us to lose all of the prepared recordings.

Copying programs to your mobile device using GenieGo was also a tedious process which took a long time and would often freeze up. It became such a hassle that most of my family members eventually gave up and just stopped using it all together. I could go on but suffice it to say that our GenieGo system was useless.

Programming (4.5) – For our family, DTV has the widest array of HD programming that we watch. There is also a wider array of basic programming packages to choose from compared to Dish or SL. We had Choice Xtra which had all of the channels we were interested in and nearly all of them were available in HD. This is a good thing as their SD picture quality is absolutely atrocious!

Picture quality (4.5) – HD PQ is a very close second to SL. I think SL is slightly sharper, but it's very close. As for SD PQ, as I stated above, it's terrible! Fortunately, with DTV's large selection of HD programming, this is not an issue as nearly all of the channels we watch are available in HD.

Picture reliability (4.5) – This was not much of an issue outside of the most aggressive of rain storms. I never had issues during overcast conditions or in snow-storms. When the signal would go out, however, it be out for quite a while; longer than what used to be the case with Dish Network. I never had signal issues, drop-outs, or the other issues that I had with SL, though.

Price (3.5) – This is probably the biggest knock on DTV. I know, the cost really isn't THAT much higher than other providers, but even $10 adds up over time. Also, if you're a big NFL fan, your only option to watch more than your local teams on Sunday is to buy Sunday Ticket as they don't officially offer the Redzone channel. I know, some have gotten Redzone for free or have been offered NFLST at a discounted rate year after year, but going strictly by the book, it's full price for NFLST or local games only.

For me, I'm a very big NFL fan, but I got tired of "playing the pricing game" with DTV year after year and had a hard time justifying any cost for a package of multiple games that are mostly on during the same time slot (1pm EST). For me, Redzone is more than sufficient at a much cheaper price.

DTV Overall Rating: 21

Dish Network
Service Description: Subscribed to AT200
Programming charge: $75

Equipment: 1 Hopper, 1 Super Joey, 1 Joey
Equipment charge: $29

Total Cost: $104

Equipment (4.5) – The Hopper is a very polished receiver that has more apps and features available than either TiVo or Genie. Unfortunately some of the standard functions of a DVR, such as scheduling recordings, appear to have taken a back seat to some of these additional features. From a standpoint of basic DVR functionality, the Hopper is clunky and difficult to use. Many of their menus have large icons instead of a simple list. Sorting can be a challenge as well. But not all is lost with the Hopper.

While the biggest detriment to the Hopper is definitely timer creation/management, the receiver truly excels in every other aspect. Their guide is larger, shows more hours of programming, and displays channel logos instead of the text-only guides on TiVo and Genie systems. I also think the channel layout makes much more sense on Dish than it does on the other systems. Their channels are grouped into similar categories, such as sports, news, kids, etc. DTV and definitely SL have channels thrown all over the place. Thank goodness that the TiVo lets you sort the guide by name instead of channel number as SL's lineup makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, but I digress.

The Hopper has a large amount of apps built-in to their interface. Using these apps is easy and fast making it a much more thorough entertainment experience than the other two receivers. The way Dish has integrated whole-home functionality into the Hopper is far more superior to DTV or SL IMO. With Dish, you truly have the ability to start a program in one room and finish in another. I think DTV was the first to advertise this feature, but making that occur is much clunkier and requires a lot more button presses on the Genie. Dish allows this with 2 button presses: one to bring up the tuner screen (another benefit over the other two providers) and the next to select the tuner.
Additionally, you can view, pause, rewind, etc. that program completely independent over what is happening with the SAME PROGRAM in another room.

Finally, the biggest advantage the Hopper brings over the other two providers is the integration of their mobile app. Dish uses Sling technology to stream all of your subscribed channels both in and out of home. Setup is a breeze! Simply install and open the app. It will run a scan on your network and find your Hopper causing a code to be displayed on the TV screen. Input the code into your app and you're done. Performing this simple step allows both in-home and out-of-home access to be configured without requiring any additional steps.

Also, the ability to transfer recordings to your mobile device happens much faster than with TiVo and GenieGo. I was able to transfer a prepared 1 hour HD program to my iPad in less than 2 minutes vs. at least 30 minutes on the other two systems.

Programming (4.5) – Programming is a close second to DTV. Dish has most of the standard, main-stream channels in HD as does DTV. The channels that are SD only are mostly kid's channels or channels that primarily replay old shows that were recorded before HD was prominent, like TVLand. While it is nice for the kids to enjoy HD programming while watching cartoons and such, they aren't paying the bills so I would much prefer the HD focus be on channels that I care about rather than the ones my kids watch.

Picture quality (4) – PQ is ever so slightly lower than DTV or SL. This should come as no surprise as this has been heavily discussed on these forums multiple times. Honestly, for me though, the difference is miniscule and is barely worth mentioning. I'm configured on the Eastern Arc which I've read is all MPEG4 and stronger than Western Arc so that might have something to do with it. In any case, HD quality between DTV and Dish is really splitting hairs IMO.

Picture reliability (4.5) – This is an area where Dish really struggled the last time I had them prior to 2010. So far, my new install has been rock solid, however. Now, while I haven't seen a monsoon type rain storm yet, there have been plenty of rainfalls and overcast days and not even a blip on the screen. There have also been no glitches or pixilation other than with one local channel which I believe is more related to that channel than the system as I've seen that on all 3 providers with that channel.

Price (4) – Dish's pricing is slightly lower than DTV for similar packages, so I give them the edge here, however both sat providers are significantly higher than SL. I find this odd given that when satellite TV burst onto the scene decades ago, they shattered the pricing models of cable. That seems to have turned around now. In any case, given the current "pricing standard", Dish is reasonably priced when comparing to other providers. My 3 receiver system and programming package totals $104, which is $2 cheaper than my DTV setup was with only 2 receivers! Both are quite a bit higher than SL, however.

Overall Rating: 21.5

I realize this is an extremely long post and for those of you who have taken the time to read the whole thing, I hope you have found some benefit. My goal was to post my experiences and share my opinion on the three providers in hopes that I can make someone else's decision a little easier. All things considered, I think all 3 providers are very solid with only minor differences between them. It's really a matter of personal preference.


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