"Moving" with Direct?

[khearrean]

I am seriously considering changing over to Direct after 12 years with Dish. This is due to many issues, but primarily tech issues such as rain fades, receiver freezes, etc.
I currently use an OTA antenna to get my locals although I cannot pick up Fox, so about 2 years ago, I did the "move" to Houston (if you know what I mean). So I can get all the (4) major networks in HD. My question is this; with Direct can I do the same thing?
Also with Dish, here in my hometown area of Beaumont, Tx., they are supposed to be switching all our locals to HD within another month or so. If I stayed with Dish, I could then "move" back to Beaumont & get those locals via the Beaumont LiL. So last question; is there anyway of knowing if Direct has our area scheduled to switch the locals at some point to HD?

Thanks,

Ken

 

[MikeD-C05]

Ken I had Directv as well as DISH for about a year and yes you can "move" to Houston with them as well as you can DISH. I sent an email to them via the email system through the DIRECTV site and the next day I had hd locals. The bad news is that the DIrectv hd locals for Houston were not as good pq as DISH. DISH had far fewer break ups on video & audio than DIRECTV did. By the way I used the same "moved" address for DIRECTV as DISH . I recently decided that I really didn't need DIRECTV as much as DISH and broke my 24 month lease and paid a lot to do it. THe csr mislead me on the amount I would pay for breaking my lease and retention didn't care, and I am still waiting on my 40.00 credit to my credit card.


DIRECTV does have more hd national channels by about 9, than DISH and of course more sports related channels in hd , but I still like DISH better because of the BETTER DVRS. The DIRECTV dish is much bigger and requires a bigger pole than my DISH sat dish needed. So putting it on your house might be a bit of a problem. Also a dual tuner will require two coax runs unless they get the new lnb that allows you to split one coax into two. As to the hd locals via DIRECTV I know of no plans for them to deliver hd locals for our area . DISH has already had our locals up on the 61.5 sat since March. I really think that the holdup is the lone Nbc station that hasn't changed to Hd yet. Come August that will most likely be rectified and there would be no reason to not turn on the hd locals .

 

[khearrean]

Thanks for the info, Mike. I talked to Mark with Advanced Electronics today & since they install both I figured I would get an unbiased view. He he agreed pretty much with what you have said. He didn't recommend I change either.
He suggested I do a Dish'n it up since I also told him we have decided to add our bedroom. He said I could do that, get the Dish 1000.2 which would also take care of my LNB drift issue (since that 61.5 separate would go away as well as the other Dish), get another receiver (another 211 if I want HD or just a 311 if I just want SD). And he said all of this probably wouldn't cost me more than about $50-75.
So I am considering doing just that.