Considering a Change

[mj911sc]

I have been lurking the forums for a LONG time and have enjoyed the information provided. I really have not had to many questions regarding my current service until now. I am a DTV subscriber and have started to consider a move to Echo. I currently have 4 TVs in the house and one of them is HD. There are 4 DTV recievers 3 of which are DVRs (2 Tivo (D) and 1 HD DTV). I have beed reading alot about the great offers from Echo and was wondering what was the reason most of you decided to go with Dish over Dtv? I am not a huge sports guy so the sports programing with D is not a concern. Thanks for any info!

M

 

[KAB]

Welcome!!!

First of all we say Dish or E* as opposed to Echo. We refer to DirecTv as D* The reason I stay with Dish (having almost left for D*) is the equipment, which is generally considered better than D*'s. They are very robust in terms of response and have all the features I would ever need. Coming from Tivo, you might need some time to get used to it, but most prefer them over Tivo. E*s newest HDDVR, the 722K has an optional OTA module that will record two OTA channels and two Sat channels at the same time...total four. Recently, customer service has gone from abysmal to decent and tech support for receivers has also been quite good. The general rule of thumb has always been, if you're into sports, go D*. Movies, go E*, in that Dish has many more premium HD channels, and if you go with auto pay and paperless billing, you should be able to get in on the 1 cent Cinemax for a year deal. Not counting regional sports channels, E* leads D* in total HD channels. The longer you are with Dish, the more offers and incentives to stay occur. Those are my reasons.

 

[The-P]

I have been lurking the forums for a LONG time and have enjoyed the information provided. I really have not had to many questions regarding my current service until now. I am a DTV subscriber and have started to consider a move to Echo. I currently have 4 TVs in the house and one of them is HD. There are 4 DTV recievers 3 of which are DVRs (2 Tivo (D) and 1 HD DTV). I have beed reading alot about the great offers from Echo and was wondering what was the reason most of you decided to go with Dish over Dtv? I am not a huge sports guy so the sports programing with D is not a concern. Thanks for any info!

M

Im a DNS Technician so it may seem biased but the truth is Dish Network has the best technology and the most user friendly interface. With DTV you get one receiver for each room. With Dish Networks dual tuners, one receiver will do two rooms, eliminating an additional bulky receiver. With the dual tuners both TV's still operate independintly. You get one IR remote and one UHF (radio frequency) remote for the Second TV.

So for your situation you would most likely get 2 722's or 722K's. Its got 55 hours of HD space and/or 350 hours of SD space. I believe Dish Network has the largest record time for their DVR's so you would have plenty of space for all your programs. Not to mention you would be saving money going to Dish Network.

Unbiased story: My sister had Dish Network for about 4 years or so. About 10 months ago she switched to DTV. Not a month after her DTV was installed she regretted changing. She wishes she could get out of the DTV contract and switch to Dish. As soon as her contract is up thats exactly what she intends to do.

Do your homework but I have no doubt you will be much happier with the service of Dish Network.

EDIT: Like KAB mentioned the customer service for Dish has gone up. They have really been gearing towards quality opposed to quantity and most of the time you will not be disappointed with the quality you get both from your technician and the CSR's on the phone.

-P-

 

[grb]

I originally had D* and switched to Voom when I got my HD tv. When Voom went boom, I switched to Dish because they picked up most of the exclusive Voom HD channels, which Dish has subsequently dropped. The main reason I have stayed with Dish is because of the HD Absolute package @ $29.99, which is now only available to those that currently have the package.

I have a 622 and use it for 2 tv's (HD & SD) and have been generally pleased with this DVR. E* does not carry the MLB network and I can't get the regional sports channels with HD Absolute, but I expect to stay with E* as long as I am grandfathered with this package.

I also subscribe to the CI package. Dish has about 25% of the games in HD compared to closer to 50% with D*. FiOS has only one HD channel for CI and that is shared with MLB. So D* has a clear advantage in this area.

To summarize, my main reason for staying with Dish is the price. If that goes away, I will definitely be researching D* and FiOS.