We cancelled Dish a few months ago as we sold our house and moved cross county and we've been in an apartment for a few months before buying a new house. We close on our new house next week. We forced ourselves to use YTTV to make ourselves get used it it while we've been in the apartment. We now have to decide whether to go back to Dish. So to the question of moving to Dish, here's our FWIW pros and cons.
Background: I've had either Directv or Dish as my primary TV source since 1995. I much prefer the Dish system and interface over Directv (but that's another thread!) We VERY much liked Dish. The DVR system is the best we've ever used. The ability to use unlimited external USB hard drives meant unlimited storage and you can keep it as long as you like. The user interface is excellent. The guide is very good and easy to use. PQ is quite good. Netflix is built in and one button push on the remote, and doing a search can also include Netfix if you choose that option. We had a Hopper 3 and two Joeys (den, bedroom, and sunroom.) Had we not had to move cross country we would have never cancelled Dish.
The negatives. Not a lot. You have to have a house with a clear view for the dish. Once you have the house wired for the hardware, it's challenging to change rooms or locations in the room for the hardware (they have a wireless Joey, but unless something has changed its slower than the normal ones.) Rain fade, though that very rarely was an issue. Compared to YTTV, the UI, the guide, the DVR system, everything is a level (and in some cases, many levels) above YTTV. So, why do we even hesitate on going back to Dish?
One, price. We paid for a high level package, because it was required to get all of the channels we watched. Our two year contract price was about $130 per month, including the hardware costs and the programming. That's the "intro" price but I've never had a problem as we got to the end of the two year contract calling and getting them to renew me at that price. So, for YTTV and Philo, which we have to get to get the channels we watch regularly, it's $130 vs. about $70. Frankly, for us, sixty dollars in itself is not a huge decision maker.
Two: Dish has a reputation - actually, the owner of Dish, Charlie - for loving a fight. He's loves proving he's tougher than the channel providers. So at least once or twice a year we'd lose a network channel or two for about 2 to 4 weeks. That's a pain in the rear. Dish aficionados in the forums say "don't give in! The providers are greedy! Keep our price down!" but prices do keep going up. Every cable and sat provider goes through these disputes but Dish, more than any other, loves to prove how tough they are. So they end up losing channels. We used to subscribe to HBO within Dish - no longer available. I watched our MLB team and other sports on the regional sports networks: Charlie dropped them to prove he had more power than they do. That as much as anything may be the reason we don't go back to Dish.
As for our take on YTTV after a few months: I'm sorry, but the UI just stinks compared to the better UIs out there. Maybe part of it is still learning, but with Dish, for example, I don't have to go on a forum to figure out things like how do I see the original air date of a recorded program? How do I simply look at the info of a program I'm looking at in the guide? How do I get back to my program in one button push when I take a quick look at other recorded programs? How do I browse the guide on TV beyond a few hours? I've never in all my years, going back decades, with Sat, Cable, etc. seen a worse guide than the YTTV. Even 25 years ago the guides were MUCH better and more useful. In just about every way, the UI of YTTV is awkward and clumsy.
So why would we even consider keeping YTTV? One, and it may be how young they are, they don't seem to drop channels as easily as Dish when it comes to channel disputes. Two, the flexibility of being able to put a TV anywhere in the house, at any time and use YTTV is a real positive. Price so far is good. No contract, so no big risk, I can cancel at any time.
And that's about it. In spite of it sounding overwhelmingly in favor of Dish, we're 50/50 on going back to Dish vs. staying with YTTV. We close and move in next week and for now we'll just stay with YTTV and then decide when we get the move and other moving issues taken care of. My wife and I have been discussing this a lot recently which is why this is pretty fresh on my mind. If YTTV would move to a MUCH better interface we'd easily stay with YTTV, that would be a tipping point. But good grief is it clumsy and awkward and require a LOT more button pushes than a state of the art interface. Including the DVR.
FWIW
. I have been with YUTV for more than 3 years & I really like their service. I am not seeing any other alternative, so I may continue with YUTV. No plan go back to cable/Satellite for sure
