Best way to express interest in HD channels?

[cypherstream]

Hello,

I was wondering what the best avenue for vocalizing customer interest in national HD channel carriage for DirecTV. When I had Comcast, they had an online form you could fill out, and one of the drop downs was for programming requests. I'm not sure if they still have it or not - but they do have a lively group of twitter social media experts, along with an employee moderated forum who passes suggestions on to "the powers that be".

I'm a relatively new DirecTV customer of about 3 weeks now. What happened is that we moved outside of a Comcast area. Since we cannot get Comcast, I decided to give DirecTV a shot - yielding to Beyonce's advice to "upgrade". The local cable company in the area isn't horrible - they offer about 70 or 80 national HD channels- but their on screen GUI to put it bluntly... sucks.

I'm very happy with DirecTV's on screen guide and multiroom features. I only have the "TV Apps are not available (code 11)" problem, that apparently hundreds of others with Hx24-200's have. Of course I would like to see the GUI expanded to take advantage of full HDTV resolution, but I think Dish Network is the only provider that does that, besides a few screens on the Tivo Premiere, or the expensive Moxi DVR for cable systems.

It's not just HD channels for me that I'm missing, but the wife really. We had these on Comcast and either I miss it, or she does:
AMC HD
E! HD
Fuse HD
G4 HD
GMC HD
History International HD
CNN Headline News HD
HSN HD
IFC HD
Investigation Discovery HD
Lifetime Movie Network HD
Outdoor Channel HD
QVC HD
Sportsman HD
Style HD
TruTV HD
Turner Classic Movies HD
We HD

With Comcast we had 101 HD channels, but like I said we moved out of their serving area. They didn't carry these, but I'd LOVE to see them on DirecTV:
BBC America HD
Cooking Channel HD
DIY Network HD
GSN HD
NASA TV HD
Nat Geo Wild HD

There's more HD out there that I didn't mention... but this is the stuff we would really like to see in our household. I know that the D12 satellite should of given DirecTV the edge bandwidth-wise, but it seems that a lot of HD bandwidth is wasted on PPV. I would rather see more linear national HD channels that appeal to a wider audience, and move some of that PPV content to VOD downloads. More and more people have high speed internet today, so VOD downloads should be sufficient. Maybe someday they could even figure out how to stream VOD, just like Netflix is able to do.

Thanks for reading.

 

[jcrandall]

Email would be as effective as any of the things you mentioned. click "contact us" anywhere on their site, there is an option for programming requests.

 

[Jimbo]

Hello,

I was wondering what the best avenue for vocalizing customer interest in national HD channel carriage for DirecTV. When I had Comcast, they had an online form you could fill out, and one of the drop downs was for programming requests. I'm not sure if they still have it or not - but they do have a lively group of twitter social media experts, along with an employee moderated forum who passes suggestions on to "the powers that be".

I'm a relatively new DirecTV customer of about 3 weeks now. What happened is that we moved outside of a Comcast area. Since we cannot get Comcast, I decided to give DirecTV a shot - yielding to Beyonce's advice to "upgrade". The local cable company in the area isn't horrible - they offer about 70 or 80 national HD channels- but their on screen GUI to put it bluntly... sucks.

I'm very happy with DirecTV's on screen guide and multiroom features. I only have the "TV Apps are not available (code 11)" problem, that apparently hundreds of others with Hx24-200's have. Of course I would like to see the GUI expanded to take advantage of full HDTV resolution, but I think Dish Network is the only provider that does that, besides a few screens on the Tivo Premiere, or the expensive Moxi DVR for cable systems.

It's not just HD channels for me that I'm missing, but the wife really. We had these on Comcast and either I miss it, or she does:
AMC HD
E! HD
Fuse HD
G4 HD
GMC HD
History International HD
CNN Headline News HD
HSN HD
IFC HD
Investigation Discovery HD
Lifetime Movie Network HD
Outdoor Channel HD
QVC HD
Sportsman HD
Style HD
TruTV HD
Turner Classic Movies HD
We HD

With Comcast we had 101 HD channels, but like I said we moved out of their serving area. They didn't carry these, but I'd LOVE to see them on DirecTV:
BBC America HD
Cooking Channel HD
DIY Network HD
GSN HD
NASA TV HD
Nat Geo Wild HD

There's more HD out there that I didn't mention... but this is the stuff we would really like to see in our household. I know that the D12 satellite should of given DirecTV the edge bandwidth-wise, but it seems that a lot of HD bandwidth is wasted on PPV. I would rather see more linear national HD channels that appeal to a wider audience, and move some of that PPV content to VOD downloads. More and more people have high speed internet today, so VOD downloads should be sufficient. Maybe someday they could even figure out how to stream VOD, just like Netflix is able to do.

Thanks for reading.

Do you really WATCH all them or you know you use to be able to get them ?
I'm sure others have different views, but BBCA is the onty one listed that I would watch.

 

[johns70]

QVC HD....

 

[cypherstream]

Not that I watch QVC HD, lol, but it's just something that Comcast of all providers has everything under the sun - including shopping crap.

We do watch most of whats listed, and unfortunately deal with it in it's stretched, blurry SD soupy mess on DirecTV.

I like to have options, and with an HDTV in the house I can't bear to watch over-compressed blurry SD. The best thing I can do is e-mail I guess. Thanks for the input. Just want to make sure they count it, and it doesn't go un-noticed. If enough people request something, perhaps someone uses that market data to help decide the order of what's added next.

 

[charper1]

I would 110% hate to see anything added that doesn't deserve HD = wasted bandwidth too me. Most of those don't even show real HD most of the time. Although I am not a huge fan of premium services such as HBO & Cinemax that rehash old movies 110 times each month, I would at least want those over nearly any of those listed above; sorry. Just saying; not attacking.

 

[cypherstream]

charper1,

Everyone's entitled to their opinion. When I was able to have Comcast at my last residence, a lot of those networks did air HD content. Sure they also did pillarboxed OR upconverted & stretched content... some more than others - however they still had HD content.

I just don't see the need for 30+ HD PPV's when you can simply download the movies using VOD. Sure a few HD PPV's for special events is great, but over 30 repeating the same movies over and over again? That sounds like a little too much redundancy right there.

I also agree with you that it would be nice to have all of the premiums available in HD. I think there are some HBO's missing. They have most of the Showtimes, and we subscribe to HBO and Showtime, so that's nice.

When your a service provider that has millions of customers, and millions more potential customers... you need to provide a very dynamic, diverse offering with stuff that appeals to everybody. It's the best way to make everyone happy. While the guy next door gets his sports fix in, the guy across the street gets his movie fix in, and the girls down the street get their "reality TV" fix on; everyone is happy. If everyone is happy, that's more money to DirecTV. What can DirecTV do with more money? Invest it in their network, equipment, and software to continually improve for all of their customers. It benefits everyone in the long run. Money for new expanded HD program guides, Money for new satellite launches. Money for new innovative technology. Money for research into better and more efficient compression and delivery algorithms, to improve audio and picture quality. The list goes on.

Cable providers didn't get this for years, but they are now starting to get with the times. The local cable provider in my area is a small one - not in the top 10 MSO list- However they have about 80 HD channels. Not bad for a small mom and pop shop. The only thing that sucks is their software. It's ugly... there's no real features like cover art and "smart search", or internet integration (program DVR from web or phone app). There's no "Multiroom", limited hard drive space, and everything is in MPEG2 (not so efficient when storing programs to the already limited hard drive). If they just fix this one roadblock, then it's no contest. I'll switch. ETF's? eh, who cares.... I'll pay my money to whomever provides the best user experience, with the most robust content choices available. Right now DirecTV has that best user experience. Content choices... OK, but lacking what it COULD be.

Everyone has an opinion of what they want to see (or don't want to see). That's fine, and by no means any personal attack. I respect your opinion, as anyone else who comments on this thread.

I did send them an e-mail, so I feel better about having some kind of voice (at least). Sure I can't move mountains alone (no one can), but at least I got it off my chest.

 

[joed32]

"I was wondering what the best avenue for vocalizing customer interest in national HD channel carriage for DirecTV. When I had Comcast, they had an online form you could fill out, and one of the drop downs was for programming requests. I'm not sure if they still have it or not - but they do have a lively group of twitter social media experts, along with an employee moderated forum who passes suggestions on to "the powers that be".

You would be wasting your time, they're not going to add channels based on what people here say that they want. It's all a profit and loss issue, if they think they can make more money adding a channel they will do it.