Life Member
Hi guys.
I'm new here so please bear with me.
This is NOT a hate message, only an evaluation of the facts.
I have been a lifetime member long before SA began transmitting. I made the decision because I believed that the Word needed to be aired as globally as possible, to give us an alternative to the filth on regular broadcast TV, becasue there was no other source of such Christian programming, and this would be a very good way to do it.
Life time members who subscribed early financed the operation for those who came later. If it weren't for the early subscribers you probably would not have anything to subscribe to. Because we helped in the beginning, it would have been nice to receive at lease a modicum of recognition such as a 5-10 % discount. Not a lot of money, but at least a little recognition. After all, it took a lot of faith to spend hundreds of dollars and not have anything to show for it for so long a time.
The reasoning they used to terminate the lifetime memberships is quite suspect. They claim that the lifetime membership applied only to the satellite reception and not the service as a whole. To me, that's stretching it quite a bit.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for whatever it takes to keep the Word flowing even if it takes a monthly subscription to do it. But the way it was handled was , as far as I am concerned, more worldly than Godly. For that, I am very disappointed. I don't believe that Donald Wildmon would have done it this way. If they are having financial woes, they could have given the lifetimers an option to pay for the service, and/or raised the monthly premium. I believe that the suscriber base has enough loyalty to have obliged. It's a little disturbing that there were no options.
So much for lifetime membership.
I tried the IPTV and found it to be very good reception. No complaints there. However, there are a great deal of features missing from it as compared to Dish, and these are somewhat important to me.
1-The guide. The software written for the guide looks as though it was written by rank amateurs. They could have taken a page from nearly every program guide on the market and given us a scrolling guide of all the channels such as Dish, DirectTV, Comcast, and all of the other major providers. Being a programmer, I know exactly how difficult or easy it is to create something that is below par and something that is superior to the average. Being used by and for Gods purpose leads me to believe that it should be at least as good as what it is replacing.
2-Recording. There are a great deal of good Christian programs that feed very high quality bread (Word). Many come on at times I am not able to view. Even though the programs are still available for the 24 hour period in which they were broadcast, this is not enough. Consider a program that aired at 11:00 PM. It is no longer available after it is broadcast. When using SA on dish I depend very heavily on the dual tuner recording capability which is so lacking in the IPTV box.
3-Many of the features could have been overcome if SA had allowed us to use our computers to receive SA transmission. At least this way there would have been a lot of options available to us such as a better guide, recording, multiple tuners, and it would still be a monthly subscription service. I asked if they had this option and they responded only with "not at this time" as though it was not even a consideration.
4-People in rural America use satellite service because Internet service is a joke. If they have it at all, it is dial-up and it certainly is not fast enough to use for SA. There are a great many people like this and I'm sure a great deal of those were SA subscribers as well. Now they have been abandoned. I find this to be quite disturbing.
There are many other features lost during the transition to IPTV. Many are inconsequential and not worth mentioning. But there are so many features missing I find it disturbing that I now have to pay more for less. For a little bit more money, I can get an FTA dish system with at least as many (more) Christian channels and many other good channels as well. Plus the ability to purchase a receiver with the ability to record. With SA, I have no such options.
Since the advent of SA, there have been a lot of changes in the quality and availability of Christian programming from many other sources. SA is no longer the only provider of good quality Christian programming. FTA and other venues are now available which makes SA just another source, not an exclusive as it was in the beginning.
With all of the above in consideration, I find it much more feasible to go FTA. Not because I am angry or disgruntled, but because it simply makes more sense.
Just my 6-cents worth. (Inflation dontcha know)
