Current DTV subscriber debating about Dish

[nicemann]

Really debating if I want to switch to Dish. I like the idea of the Dish Anywhere App. It's got to be better then the DirecTV App (not DirecTV now). I got a great deal on the table right now. America 200 channels, Hopper 3, Three 4K Joey's, and one wireless Joey. No fees at all for the equipment (called to cancel the service appt and they removed the fee). On top of the waived fees, also getting a one time $50 statement credit, $10 off for the first 12 months, and the echo dot). Price lock for the first 24 months is $109 with taxes. I told them I needed to think about it. I have a week till my install date and they noted all the offers on my account.

Really wondering how well the Joeys work with the Hopper 3. I don't want to be stuck for 2 years and not have great communication between them. I currently have DTV with a Genie and two more actual HD DVRs. I am currently only pay $45 a month but that is because I call every year and threaten to cancel. This time I was really going to do it till they offered to upgrade two of my boxes for free and that was the reason I signed up with Dish in the first place. The other TVs right now I just use for netflix or hulu. Would watch regular TV if I had boxes on them.

Also is the Dish Anywhere App really good? I want to be able to use it at work when I got the office to myself and on vacations.

Thanks for any input.

 

[ncted]

Really debating if I want to switch to Dish. I like the idea of the Dish Anywhere App. It's got to be better then the DirecTV App (not DirecTV now). I got a great deal on the table right now. America 200 channels, Hopper 3, Three 4K Joey's, and one wireless Joey. No fees at all for the equipment (called to cancel the service appt and they removed the fee). On top of the waived fees, also getting a one time $50 statement credit, $10 off for the first 12 months, and the echo dot). Price lock for the first 24 months is $109 with taxes. I told them I needed to think about it. I have a week till my install date and they noted all the offers on my account.

Really wondering how well the Joeys work with the Hopper 3. I don't want to be stuck for 2 years and not have great communication between them. I currently have DTV with a Genie and two more actual HD DVRs. I am currently only pay $45 a month but that is because I call every year and threaten to cancel. This time I was really going to do it till they offered to upgrade two of my boxes for free and that was the reason I signed up with Dish in the first place. The other TVs right now I just use for netflix or hulu. Would watch regular TV if I had boxes on them.

Also is the Dish Anywhere App really good? I want to be able to use it at work when I got the office to myself and on vacations.

Thanks for any input.

Disclaimer: I have DirecTV now, but I have had Dish in the past, and I am currently trying to decide between switching to Dish or U-verse as I do not have LOS for DirecTV at my new house.

By all accounts, the Joey is going to work more seamlessly than the watching a recording on your Genie on another box using DirecTV's Whole Home service, whether another DVR or a Genie Client. This is especially true of the 4K Joey. I find the Genie Client to be kind of sluggish, while 4K Joey users here have described it as almost as fast as the Hopper 3, the fastest DVR currently available.

The same applies for the Dish Anywhere app. In addition to being able to download recordings to watch out of the home (did you know you can do this with the DirecTV app as well?), you can stream content from your DVR to your remote screen via your home Internet connection. Please be aware this uses data on both your home internet connection and whatever your remote device is connected to, such as your wireless carrier, so consider whether you have any data caps that would apply. Again, by all accounts this works very well.

Technology-wise, I would describe Dish as being closer to the bleeding edge. Mostly this means better features, better performance, and more functionality. It can, however, mean slightly more prone to issues as they push out new stuff. YMMV as always.

FWIW: The mobile DVR functionality on DirecTV is about 60% reliable in my experience. I expect Dish Anywhere to be much better than that.

The other thing I would ask is are you comfortable with the potential downsides of Dish? It is clearly going to cost you more than you are paying DirecTV. Picture Quality on Dish is not considered as good as DirecTV, although opinions vary.

What really matters to you when choosing your TV provider?

-Ted

 

[HipKat]

Wow, that's a great deal. I assume you have steller credit to get all those fees waived. Especially the 4K Joeys. I'll try not to sound too biased here.

First, the Hopper 3 is amazing. With 16 tuners, you have a huge capacity for recording and a 2 TB internal Hard Drive holds a lot. On mine, I have 170 Movies and approximately 25 Hours of programming and I've used 53% of my HD space. No receiver is ever going to have every single thing every single person wants, but the H3 is packed. I could go on and on about options like watching the trailers for almost any movie, the search functions, etc and the best part, pretty much anything you can do on the Hopper, you can do on the Joeys. The Hopper 3 includes the Youtube app, which the Joeys don't, nor is the Netflix App available on the 4K Joeys, but those Joeys are fast, almost no lag. I use WiFi Joeys and they work very well, but mine are also close to their Access point, so make sure your installer takes that into consideration, although they do have a great range as long as your walls, floors aren't full of lead or metal studs.

So Equipment wise, I think you're getting the best that anyone offers, but again, that may be biased.

One thing I noticed from having DTV and having Dish and hearing from DTV customers I'm setting up Dish service for is signal. Those DTV dishes seem to lose signal very quickly. How well it's pointed has a lot to do with that, but it seems to be a consistent complaint I hear and what I also experienced. Dish is the same way in that if the Dish isn't peaked out correctly, you can experience signal loss in bad weather, but on mine, I've sat through thunder storms and watched TV - only losing signal completely when it get's very bad outside.

Cost - another complaint I hear from DTV customers is the escalating bill. That 2 year price lock is real and I've been successful at getting the CSR's to find ways to lower my bill with different promotions.

Dish Anywhere app is excellent. You have access to your DVR, On Demand and Program guide, all in HD so you can watch Live TV. You can set recordings through the app and do a lot of the things you can do at the receiver itself, plus have access to account info, etc. I'd do some Googling on what capabilities it has and what other users say.

Hope this helps!

 

[KAB]

The other thing I would ask is are you comfortable with the potential downsides of Dish? It is clearly going to cost you more than you are paying DirecTV.

-Ted

Please explain how you have come to that conclusion. I have rarely if ever heard that statement from experienced users of both. I flirted with the idea of switching to Directv last year, but after I did ALL the math, they would have cost me more after the price lock expired, even if they did not raise prices in that time.

 

[mdram]

Please explain how you have come to that conclusion. I have rarely if ever heard that statement from experienced users of both.

with the op's current discounts, it may cost more than he is paying now
when i looked at switching it would have increased my costs @ 22 a month. due ti discounts i am getting.
otherwise dish would have been @ $3 a month cheaper

 

[ncted]

Please explain how you have come to that conclusion. I have rarely if ever heard that statement from experienced users of both. I flirted with the idea of switching to Directv last year, but after I did ALL the math, they would have cost me more after the price lock expired, even if they did not raise prices in that time.

Well, the OP said he is paying $45 now, and Dish would be $109. After reading that, I did some simple math and reached the conclusion it would cost him more to go with Dish.

 

[nicemann]

Wow did not except so many responses so soon. First thank you to everyone so far for their feedback. I agree with it being a huge price difference. Problem is I'm on the select with DTV and don't have DIY and one of the cooking channels my wife wants. To get those I am looking to jump up $20 a month. I am trying to justify the expense by that, plus I only have Hulu and CBS app no commericals because I currently don't have boxes on. So that is another $22 a month I can save. Gets me closer and of course there is no guarantee I would get $50 off my DTV bill when I have to call back and threaten to cancel.

If the dish anywhere app really works well I may end up going with Dish. Still need to think about it some more. The Genie is slow and the regular HD DVRs aren't super fast either with DTV.

 

[nicemann]

On the dish anywhere, can you also watch local channels? I know with DTV you can't stream them, except for Fox in my area.

 

[Tony S]

Regarding Dish Anywhere:
Overall, the Dish Anywhere app is pretty good. It works nearly perfectly on the iPhone and iPad, but it is a little quirky when using a PC. For example, on my Windows 10 systems, sometimes the DVR list does not show all of the shows that I have recorded, making it impossible to play them. When this happens, the DVR list on my iPhone is correct, so it is a PC app problem. Sometimes, setting timers on the PC app does not work properly. Also, I have found that the PC app sometimes adds a weekly timer (all by itself) for a show that I have watched.

If you have a good enough internet upload speed, Dish Anywhere works nicely when away from home (if you are at home, your upload speed does not matter, the video data stays on your home network). I have never tried it, but I have read many favorable reviews on using Dish Anywhere with the Amazon Fire Stick. The Fire stick might be an alternative way of adding Dish to remote TV without any added fees (instead of using a Joey).

 

[ncted]

On the dish anywhere, can you also watch local channels? I know with DTV you can't stream them, except for Fox in my area.

Anything you can watch on your DVR, you can watch on Dish Anywhere, wherever you are (gonna say some restrictions apply because I assume stuff is going to get blocked somewhere in the world, but I don't know that for a fact).

 

[nicemann]

Anything you can watch on your DVR, you can watch on Dish Anywhere, wherever you are (gonna say some restrictions apply because I assume stuff is going to get blocked somewhere in the world, but I don't know that for a fact).

Perfect really glad to hear that. Looks like I have my decision almost made up. If I'm not happy with Dish, I can always switch back in 2 years and get DTVs newest equipment.

 

[Bobby]

Just this past week, I was watching my San Francisco local channels in Corvallis, OR via DishAnywhere. A few years back I did the same in Frankfurt, Germany. It works just fine.

 

[Tony S]

On the dish anywhere, can you also watch local channels? I know with DTV you can't stream them, except for Fox in my area.

To add to what ncted said, the only things you can't watch using Dish Anywhere are the shows that on your external hard drive, and any shows in your Rentals folder (but you can usually access those using the On Demand feature of Dish Anywhere).

 

[nicemann]

This sounds great. Not sure why DTV doesn't do this. Could because they are pushing their DirecTV now and want people to subscribe to both. Smart move on their side for money making but wonder how many other customers like me like that's just stupid and should be included.

Thanks again.

 

[ncted]

This sounds great. Not sure why DTV doesn't do this. Could because they are pushing their DirecTV now and want people to subscribe to both. Smart move on their side for money making but wonder how many other customers like me like that's just stupid and should be included.

Thanks again.

Well, I suspect one reason is Sling has many of the patents on this tech, and Dish owns Sling. I know this has kept Google from pursuing it. Even Tivo only allows downloads when away from home. No streaming. There may be other non-Sling products which do out of home streaming, but I haven't found any. I do think Cloud DVR functionality on OTT services is the long-term solution most people will use, but I still consider them to be in their infancy, so it will be a while. In the mean time, we have Dish Anywhere.

 

[comfortably_numb]

To add to what ncted said, the only things you can't watch using Dish Anywhere are the shows that on your external hard drive, and any shows in your Rentals folder (but you can usually access those using the On Demand feature of Dish Anywhere).

Or the SiriusXM channels...

 

[ncted]

Or the SiriusXM channels...

Wow. I was not aware of those limitations. Thanks!

 

[comfortably_numb]

No fees at all for the equipment (called to cancel the service appt and they removed the fee)

How in the world did you work that out? Are they *really* waiving the fees, or just crediting you back the fees for a certain number of months?

 

[Tampa8]

How in the world did you work that out? Are they *really* waiving the fees, or just crediting you back the fees for a certain number of months?

I wasn't going to go there but since you did.... Frankly I don't believe it. I believe he thinks that or was told something resembling that. The partial months discounts sounds right.
Not sure he gave fully what he is getting either because $109 is alot more than what Top 200 costs new subscribers. In fact that sounds closer to Top 200 and the $15 DVR fee about three Joeys with fees for a new subscriber. Also what exactly is price locked @$109? As I said Top 200 is far less than that and DISH doesn't price lock non package prices. This sounds like a Phone CSR running amuck or a misunderstanding of the temporary discounts.

 

[mdram]

does dish send an email confirmation?
be interesting to see whats listed