Thinking of coming back, but, some questions plus eastern arc vs. western arc

[kluken]

So I was with Dish for 15 years after 7 years with Directv. I finally was fed up with signal fade and the rising fees. Comcast struck me a great deal for Internet and cable TV that was hard to refuse. First think I noticed was the PQ on Comcast is far better than Dish, The other thing I quickly realized is what a piece a junk the X1 DVR is. Hard to believe the X1 is the best thing Comcast can come up with, and a measly 500GB drive? Hard to start up seasons of shows to binge after the season is over with 500GB. Also the DVR is laggy and the guide is junk as I routinely get duplicate recordings of show sI never received dups of with Dish. Also if the cable /internet is down the DVR does not work as it must connect to their central systems to work, which means when you have no cable/internet it is like those ATT commercials you are starved for info and media. Fortunately I have a large Plex library on my NAS.



OK so my options are;



keep Comcast and just deal with the junk, maybe get a Tivo, even though they seem to be exiting the business? Just suck it up and stay with Comcast and wait to see what their Roku app looks like later this year? Or come back to Dish and keep Comcast internet.



The Hopper 3 looks really good and while a few bumps I am sure it blows away the X1 DVR. To mitigate the signal fade I am wondering whether I should move from western arc to eastern arc (I am in Atlanta) or have another disk mounted so I am pointing to both and hope I can always get a signal except in the works of conditions. Or do I just move to eastern arc? Is the PQ any better on eastern arc since it is MPEG4?



Only hassle so far is the fees, Comcast has no DVR fee and no "protections" fee and no commitment. I still have my dish and everything, yet they want me to do a 24 month commitment when all they need to do is send me a Hopper 3. I am reluctant to do 24 months becasue the market is changing so fast, Playstation Vue and Sling are really getting viable soon, if they work on locals and DVR of more than 28 days I would do Vue in a heartbeat.



Any thoughts or suggestion? Or should I just stay put and give up on Dish?


Thanks!

 

[boba]

You seem to have already made up your mind stay with Comcast so we don't have to listen to your complaints.

 

[kluken]

I left out th reliability, I have had more Comcast outages in 7 months than with 15 years of dish. Dish I only get occasional rain fade during bad storms, but fees are getting crazy. Just chatted with th m, flex package with locals $49, DVR fee $15, protection fee $8 so $72 for their package to compete with PlayStation Vue and Sling.

 

[TheKrell]

I left out th reliability, I have had more Comcast outages in 7 months than with 15 years of dish. Dish I only get occasional rain fade during bad storms, but fees are getting crazy. Just chatted with th m, flex package with locals $49, DVR fee $15, protection fee $8 so $72 for their package to compete with PlayStation Vue and Sling.

I hear you. I first went to Dish about 14 or 15 years ago. At that time, our cable provider was Media General, and they had outages far longer and more frequently than Dish ever did. I personally really liked what is now called "mixed arc", because in general when a thunderstorm took out 119 and/or 110, I could always tune in 61.5. When the thunderstorm went into LOS for 61.5, I could switch back again to a channel on 119. I also prefer getting locals off my antenna with the built-in OTA tuners in my VIP receivers. So Flex Pack w/o locals would be attractive to me IFF they still provide guide data for the OTA channels.

Also, please note that Dish is very liberal with their protection plan. They allow you to add it in order to get something fixed, and take it off again for a fee. I forget what that fee is, but I calculated that I didn't want to leave it on my account for many months (when the ETF goes to zero), or else it would cost me more than paying the ETF. I did this to get my owned 722 replaced for free (or was it very little?), and as soon as I was confident that the replacement was working right, I ended the PP. They had the previous year replaced both my 612s without cost (or very low cost), because they were leased. Consider not paying for the PP.

 

[DWS44]

I still have my dish and everything... all they need to do is send me a Hopper 3.

Depending on how long you've been away from Dish (not sure from your post), you may need a new Dish. At the very least you'll need a new "Hybrid" LNB for your Dish along with the new Hybrid Switch in order for a Hopper 3 to work, so there will be a bit more required than just to ship you a Hopper 3 and call it a day.

 

[Tampa8]

It doesn't sound to me like you will end up being happy returning to DISH...

 

[mrbrock72]

Can you not add an external HD to the comcast box?

I used Tivo for years and loved their GUI and Guide etc. Plus they have more built-in apps that actually work pretty well. Netflix, Amazon, Hulu YouTube etc. The only reason I left Tivo is because at the time I could not access the VOD library from Cox cable. Well now Tivo can access a cable company VOD library!
https://www.tivo.com/support/how-to/how-use-xfinity-demand-tivo-premiere-dvrs
But the Tivo has only 4 tuners. The Hopper 3 has 16!

The main thing that brought me to dish is the PIP feature. And the multi-view is even better. I like to watch several news or games at once.
I only get channel fade it the worst down pours which is pretty rare. And when that happens I just switch over to my OTA antenna source.
I do wish that dish could crank up the PQ a bit. I have been watching my locals OTA lately since I dont have NBC thru dish right now and the difference is quite noticeable.
When my dish contract ends I will probably see if I can get by with just a Tivo OTA box and my Roku.
Except for live news and sports there really is no need for broadcast TV anymore. Assuming you have a good Internet connection, everything can be streamed and you end up watching exactly what you want, when you want, with far fewer commercials and from the beginning. Good luck...

 

[kluken]

Can you not add an external HD to the comcast box?
..

Comcast never activate their external disk port, very sad.