Goodbye Charlie... (OFFICIAL I am Leaving DISH Thread)

[yaz96]

Mine was pointed in a different direction that couldn't clear some trees, so my dish had to go in a different place.

But I'm really getting tired of this. I switched from FIOS to U-verse in August to get Hallmark, then they dropped it. Then I switched to Dish and they dropped FX. Then I switched to Cablevision and they dropped Fox. Then I switched to DirecTV and they dropped G4. So I dropped DirecTV and got rabbit ears. So far it's cost me $3,000 in termination and equipment fees and $2,000 lost time from work to have all these installs done. Then I lost my job for taking so much time off work. And because of the all the expenses for switching, I'm missed one too many mortgage payments and was foreclosed on. Then I had to sell my TV to buy food. My wife left me for a guy with cable. Now I live in a cardboard box behind best buy so I can look in the window to watch Fox. Ironically it's the same box my TV came in.

Good stuff!

 

[SQUEEZON]

Good stuff!

Perhaps its time to get a life? Why would anyone pay all of those charges for television viewing?

 

[Mr Tony]

Boy there is a country song there.......oh and a lot of BS because G4 hasnt been dropped from D* yet

 

[SQUEEZON]

I am a longstanding Dish customer (since they bought Voom).
With the new Dual receiver & HD DVR fee's, I have dropped 2 of my 4 receivers from my account (dropped my 2nd ViP 622 and a 222K I had as well, as these went up to $17 + $14 / month each). I also dropped HBO, since I rarely watch it. My bill went from $123/month, down to just $81 now.

You might ask, how am I watching TV on the 2 HD sets that I no longer have receivers on?

Ah, there's the rub. I have always had a "slingbox pro" on my main ViP 622 in the home theater, and I have PC's by the other 2 HDTV locations... well, I just connected the HDMI port to the PC, and use the TV as an HD monitor on the PC, and setup the "slingplayer" to watch the Main DVR in the other 2 rooms. I am only a single person, so I don't need different content on each TV. Problem solved, and $17+14 back in my pocket each month.

why do I bring this up in this thread? simple. FiOS is comming to my town in the next few months, and now that I have proven I can live with a single HD DVR, I am very likely to switch to FIOS for their $99/month deal for HD, Internet and Telephone [for 1 year] (I don't even have a home phone any longer, not needed with the iPhone and the AT&T microcell, which makes a 3G cell in your house routed over your internet connection). Again, this is purely a dollars/month decision. Do I keep spending $81/month on Dish and $56 on my COMCAST internet, or go with FiOS for $99/month for everything... not much of a decision, and I could have a free home phone for a year (probably won't get it though)

So, these are my final months with Dish, I called "customer retention" to see if there was anything they could offer me, and after being a customer for over 10 years, nope, nothing can be done.

It was a fun ride. anyone need a ViP622 or 2? (I own both of mine) I also have a ViP 222K with the OTA module for sale as well. Only the ViP 211 is leased and will be returned to Dish.

Mitch

Good Luck! We have had FIOS in our neighborhood for over 3 yrs now, and nearly everyone has quit! Eventually you will figure it all out, once you have left Dish

 

[Steve Mehs]

And not to mention you can't switch from Fios to U-Verse unless you move and Cablevision does not operate in the Southeast. Plus Verison carries Hallmark Channel, just not in HD.

 

[KAB]

Perhaps its time to get a life? Why would anyone pay all of those charges for television viewing?

You obviously did not read. It was a joke....a very good one, at that.

 

[mdavej]

And not to mention you can't switch from Fios to U-Verse unless you move and Cablevision does not operate in the Southeast. Plus Verison carries Hallmark Channel, just not in HD.

There are a few more holes in my story you guys haven't found yet. Like how can I see in the window if I'm BEHIND best buy? And how can I post on the internet if I have no money and live in a box?

 

[Steve Mehs]

You could go to said Best Buy and use their internet access from their display desktops and laptops. Yes I've done this before, many times infact, before I got a smartphone and needed some quick info.

 

[MikeD-C05]

Mine was pointed in a different direction that couldn't clear some trees, so my dish had to go in a different place.

But I'm really getting tired of this. I switched from FIOS to U-verse in August to get Hallmark, then they dropped it. Then I switched to Dish and they dropped FX. Then I switched to Cablevision and they dropped Fox. Then I switched to DirecTV and they dropped G4. So I dropped DirecTV and got rabbit ears. So far it's cost me $3,000 in termination and equipment fees and $2,000 lost time from work to have all these installs done. Then I lost my job for taking so much time off work. And because of the all the expenses for switching, I'm missed one too many mortgage payments and was foreclosed on. Then I had to sell my TV to buy food. My wife left me for a guy with cable. Now I live in a cardboard box behind best buy so I can look in the window to watch Fox. Ironically it's the same box my TV came in.

Love your imagination. You should be a comedy writer.:up

 

[jynxsee]

Well, I'm officially leaving on 11/18 as of now. I have *4* Comcast boxes and my total cost for 'equipment'...$15 for one DVR...THAT'S IT. Dish I've only hooked up 2 of my 4 TV's...now I can have pay programming on all of them and am paying *less* in equipment fees for more. That alone made Comcast cheaper than Dish.

I hate to say this, but PQ is better on Comcast over Dish (in my local network anyway). Saying this was FAR from the case when I left Comcast a decade ago. I was most pleasantly surprised.

I'm not mad at dish or anything...but as I said before, I'm just saving a buck. If I could un-combine Internet, Phone and TV and keep the $60 a month savings I am now going to enjoy (for MORE TV service no less) I would come back to dish in a heartbeat.

So long for now, never know...I might be back one day.

 

[Dishlover]

You do know that DVR holds only about 20 hours of HD with no way to offload to an EHD. I'd need at least 4 of them and still couldn't save anything.

 

[am7crew]

thats true about the DVR space, the way around that is tivo's with upgraded hard drives but then you lose one of the best things about cable (tough to say) ondemand.

 

[jynxsee]

You must be thinking of the Motorola DCT-3216. That's the older DVR with 160GB HDD only capable of ~20 hours.

The DCX-3400M is the MPEG-4 capable one that does multi room and has a 500GB HDD (more than my Dish 612), which can do as much as 60hours of MPEG2 HD.

 

[Dishlover]

Glad it meets your needs, still not enough for me- Two more tuners and EHD support and cheaper. Multiroom is nice if you need it. Surprised Dish doesn't have it yet.

 

[jynxsee]

Yep, it's perfect for me, thanks. 2 Tuners and 500GB is plenty, especially with OnDemand. I've found that a good 75% of what I record weekly is on it anyway so I'll probably not bother recording those shows and just watch them VOD. I don't keep anything either, I just watch and delete. So EHD, while a pretty sweet tech, isn't something I needed.

Multi-room I don't know if I'm going to bother using. I'd have to ask for a different box for the rooms I'd want to use it, I'm not convinced it's worth the trouble...yet.

 

[Dishlover]

I've heard with VOD you have to watch the commercials. Is this true? Also Comcast was constantly going out when I had. Hope it's better for you.

 

[Steve Mehs]

Bingo! I have two Cisco Explorer 8640HDCs with Time Warner. They have 320GB hard drives, which is plenty for me. I DVR around 30 shows a week, all in HD, and when I had the Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8240HDC with the 160GB hard drive I never had it more than 30% full at any given time. I watch then delete. I don’t keep hours and hours of archived stuff. I watch then delete as well. 160GB was fine for me, too much even. I don’t need space. Even on my computer, I have a 1TB hard drive, with 32GB full. 320GB is just huge and multiroom is not available in my area yet, but those DVRs have 500GB hard drives.

But the thing is, I really don’t have to DVR much of anything. All network primetime programming with exception of ABC, but that should be coming soon as part of the new deal with Disney, is available On Demand in HD the next day, the Showtime and HBO series I watch are all On Demand. I don’t watch any of them but a lot of USA and A&E series are on Demand on HD as well. South Park and new episodes of the Sunday Night Fox cartoons are just about the only shows I watch that I can’t get in HD On Demand. I have all of the movie channels, and all of the movie packages come with their On Demand channel. I don’t really need to DVR any of the movies as most of the movies that will be shown on the Starz channels this month for example are available on Starz On Demand.

I’ve never seen an episode of True Blood but have heard great things about it. The entire series is available on HBO On Demand when it get’s to be around Christmas time and all the network have repeats on for a few weeks, I’m going to polish off the entire series to date. When the new season of Californication starts up I have no plans to DVR it. I’ll watch it all On Showtime On Demand.

 

[Steve Mehs]

I've heard with VOD you have to watch the commercials. Is this true?

False. You can fast forward all you want but there is no need to FFW through commercials. As with VOD there are no commercials for the most part. All you get is a quick blurb at the beginning of the show and it's usually a promo for something on that channel. I watch last weeks episode of CSI:NY On Demand, the only thing that resembled a commercial was a quick 15 sec bumper for Blue Bloods at the very beginning.

With TW, Fast Forward is disabled when using Start Over and probably Look Back, but not On Demand.

 

[jynxsee]

This is more informational than anything. But I have my Comcast service in.

The DCX-3400 is a nice, fast DVR with a lot of capacity. The Comcast i-guide is *lame* though as it's not in HD. It looks like the old Dish DVR guides before they went HD. But it is functional. Definitely a +1 on Dish there. Now I wait for the new tru2way guides...could be years... :-\

PQ...Comcast wins this hands down I hate to say it. Dish has very good PQ on HD. Comcast has GREAT PQ on HD. Putting my Dish and Comcast box on the same HD station and flipping between the two, Dish is a touch soft. Obviously it's not bad but Comcast just has a noticeable edge.

I also notice that I have quite a lot more stations in general. A number of AT250 stations are in the cost equivalent package on Comcast. I don't know if I'll ever watch any of them, but it's a bit more bang for my buck. Though I do realize this cost advantage is because of Triple play.

More thoughts as I go along over the next 2 weeks while I have duplicate service from both (I can't cancel Dish until 11/18, when my commitment ends).

 

[inazsully]

Is the DCX-3400 equipped with a USB or ESATA port for connecting a EHD? If so what is the size limit.