Thinking of switching to DirecTV - Need some info

[digiblur]

I currently have 3 HDTV's and 2 SDTV's. One of the HDTV's is only 32 inch or so and really doesn't have to have a HD receiver.

Previously I had HD Absolute with one 722 HD DVR. I had the 2nd TV output of the 722 spliced into my basic cable so any TV in the house could watch basic cable or the second side of the DVR. Now that basic cable is going up I started doing some thinking. I was thinking of just cancelling the basic cable and getting another 722, but Dish wants $100 to come to my house to hook up 3 cables as I've already ran a feed from the dish to the new 722's location. So since they won't just ship me a receiver and re-up my contract I'm looking at other options and pricing.

I was looking at getting 2 HD DVR's with the whole house thing. As I had 3 tuners on the 722 to record, and needed every bit of those 3 tuners. We record a lot since we never watch live TV. So I figure I could setup my recordings between the 4 tuners on the 2 DVR's...not sure about the OTA add-on stuff with the DirecTV receivers if they can record 3 things at once. Then I would get 3 SD receivers for the other TV's(2 SD & 1 HD). Would the other receivers be able to watch stuff on the DVRs? I really don't want to lose this capability since any TV in the house can watch TV2 from the DVR right now.

What deals/rebates does DirecTV have? I've never been a customer of theirs.

 

[RandallA]

I'll answer a few of the questions.

Only HD receivers will be able to see the recorded shows on the DVRs using MRV.

For OTA you can use the SW21 adapter but you can only record 2 shows at a time, no matter what tuner (OTA or SAT) you're using.

You can get the first HD-DVR free and the second one is $99. Any other additional HD receiver will be $99.

Best thing to do is to go to their website and configure your system. You could see the discounts for the next 2 years and your equipment cost.

IMO, it's expensive to switch to Directv but for me it was worthy. MRV and On-Demand are fantastic with Directv. The equipment just works, I haven't done anything with the setup since it was setup.

 

[digiblur]

Yeah...it would take a bit of change to switch especially if I want to be able to watch the DVR in other rooms. Kinda sucks to have to get an HD receiver for an SDTV just to watch the DVR content. Decisions Decisions.... Think it's going to come down to the 2 yr cost of either dish, direct, or cable plus the hardware to grab the features I need. Time to fire up Excel and some formulas

 

[Mr Tony]

digi what local market are you in? Baton Rouge, Nawlins or a smaller market?

As for the deals, right now its $31 off a month for 1st 12 months, then $16 off months 13-24, free HD (with auto pay), on Choice Xtra (2nd package) or higher you get HD, DVR service and MRV for $10 (normally $20) and a DVR & HD receiver free.

And its the AM21 for OTA tuner. The drawback with it (besides what Randal posted) is it doesnt scan. You type in your zip and it loads the locals in your market that D* has loaded in the database. So if you have a low powered station, it probably wont be listed in there. You can have 2 markets loaded in but if you live in an area where you have 3 or more local markets available OTA you are set at 2 only.

 

[digiblur]

digi what local market are you in? Baton Rouge, Nawlins or a smaller market?

As for the deals, right now its $31 off a month for 1st 12 months, then $16 off months 13-24, free HD (with auto pay), on Choice Xtra (2nd package) or higher you get HD, DVR service and MRV for $10 (normally $20) and a DVR & HD receiver free.

And its the AM21 for OTA tuner. The drawback with it (besides what Randal posted) is it doesnt scan. You type in your zip and it loads the locals in your market that D* has loaded in the database. So if you have a low powered station, it probably wont be listed in there. You can have 2 markets loaded in but if you live in an area where you have 3 or more local markets available OTA you are set at 2 only.

BR market here. Yeah, I know about the not scanning thing. If it doesn't enable you to record another program at a time like the Dish receivers do then it's really kinda pointless for me to get the AM21 unless Raycom decides to battle it out with DirecTV again like they were showing a few months ago.

 

[Mr Tony]

OK...the reason I asked about market is in the newer markets that D* adds they are only adding them to the HD sats (like E* does with eastern arc). If the market falls into the category then any add'l receivers would be purchased as the SD version and would be upgraded to HD...

sadly your SD locals are on 119 so you'll get a slimline 5...its only one station in SD (CW) but they'll put a SL5 up. The rest are HD

 

[lparsons21]

As for the deals, right now its $31 off a month for 1st 12 months, then $16 off months 13-24, free HD (with auto pay), on Choice Xtra (2nd package) or higher you get HD, DVR service and MRV for $10 (normally $20) and a DVR & HD receiver free.

When I look at the DirecTV site and did a build, I don't see either $31 off for the 1st year and absolutely zip off after that. Is this a new deal that isn't showing up on the website? Or is it market specific?

 

[Hemi 6.1]

Compair the options, even the bundle options.
Remember read all the fine print, total costs, rebates.

I've been through Directv , Dish Network, and Now Blue Ridge Cable.

I'm finally at peace with Cable.

Neither Satellite Company can touch Price when Bundled with my Phone and Internet .
I paid a total of $150 to start with 4 HD DVRs and 2 500 GB Sata Drives.

And not even 1 month commitment.

I finally got locals thats been missing, VOD thats endless and free, and Finally and HD DVR that responds to commands instantly and effectively.

Do your home work!

 

[Jimbo]

Compair the options, even the bundle options.
Remember read all the fine print, total costs, rebates.

I've been through Directv , Dish Network, and Now Blue Ridge Cable.

I'm finally at peace with Cable.

Neither Satellite Company can touch Price when Bundled with my Phone and Internet .
I paid a total of $150 to start with 4 HD DVRs and 2 500 GB Sata Drives.

And not even 1 month commitment.

I finally got locals thats been missing, VOD thats endless and free, and Finally and HD DVR that responds to commands instantly and effectively.

Do your home work!

Glad your happy Hemi .....
Can't wait till you get stuff on your hard drives and it starts to slow down though !

 

[Hemi 6.1]

Glad your happy Hemi .....
Can't wait till you get stuff on your hard drives and it starts to slow down though !

Still faster then the Hr 23 with nothing on the hard drive.

 

[Mr Tony]

When I look at the DirecTV site and did a build, I don't see either $31 off for the 1st year and absolutely zip off after that. Is this a new deal that isn't showing up on the website? Or is it market specific?

it shows up when I use a Minneapolis zip
edit: tried some other zips
Denver it shows
Glendive, MT (no locals) it only shows year 1
Missoula, MT does
Chicago doesn't (????) only shows year 1

 

[digiblur]

Compair the options, even the bundle options.
Remember read all the fine print, total costs, rebates.

I've been through Directv , Dish Network, and Now Blue Ridge Cable.

I'm finally at peace with Cable.

Neither Satellite Company can touch Price when Bundled with my Phone and Internet .
I paid a total of $150 to start with 4 HD DVRs and 2 500 GB Sata Drives.

And not even 1 month commitment.

I finally got locals thats been missing, VOD thats endless and free, and Finally and HD DVR that responds to commands instantly and effectively.

Do your home work!

My cable co has an awesome line up of HD channels... so so VOD..nothing to write home about. The Motorola HD DVR with only a 160 gb hard drive is a total piece of crap. MPEG2 HD fills up a 160 fast!!

 

[Jimbo]

Still faster then the Hr 23 with nothing on the hard drive.

Very true !

 

[Jimbo]

My cable co has an awesome line up of HD channels... so so VOD..nothing to write home about. The Motorola HD DVR with only a 160 gb hard drive is a total piece of crap. MPEG2 HD fills up a 160 fast!!

Can you add an EHD to them ?

 

[bebop]

They also had (have?) incentives for signing up through retailers like Costco. If you use one of the moderator member's referral account numbers on this site then you can get $10 off for 10 months and so can they. I'm paying about the same for the first year as I was with Dish Absolute HD, and average of $7-$10 more per month after the first 2 years. I got 3 receivers for $99 (2 HD-DVR's and one HD). You might be able to get more for the same cost, or pay more for the last 2. I opted to hold off on the OTA AM21 and just use my OTA antenna on my TV. The VOD integration is much better and well worth using. Now have 4 tuners to record from using the 2 HD-DVR's (send the HD receiver back as it was a fluke and shouldn't have came). You likely could get by with just the 2 and do some kind of modulation through coax to the other TV's and just have to main ones (unless you need to watch 3 separate ones at a time).

 

[lparsons21]

it shows up when I use a Minneapolis zip
edit: tried some other zips
Denver it shows
Glendive, MT (no locals) it only shows year 1
Missoula, MT does
Chicago doesn't (????) only shows year 1

I just got an email showing the $31 for the 1st year, haven't gone back to the website though.

I guess D* figures they have Illinois locked up and don't have to do the 2nd year here!

 

[Hemi 6.1]

My cable co has an awesome line up of HD channels... so so VOD..nothing to write home about. The Motorola HD DVR with only a 160 gb hard drive is a total piece of crap. MPEG2 HD fills up a 160 fast!!

Yep thats what our Blue Ridge has too, But they allow EHD and I got 2 of them.
Same capacity as the HR's with them, More if I would have gotten the 750 GB models.

But my Kids will do just fine with their 160 GB models.

 

[Mr Zulu]

Digi, your DishNetwork setup sounds a lot like mine. I had a single 722 with tv2 output going to 4 other rooms. Two of those four rooms had HDTVs and two had SDTVs. The two HDTVs had no HD access but at least had DVR access throughout the house. As soon as Directv offered the MRV, I wanted it so that I could upgrade the picture on the two HDTVs that were on tv2 but couldn't justify leaving absolute until they sent me the letter.

What I got was 2 HR24s and 1 H24. Since the deal is for 1 HR24 and 1 H24, the extra cost me $200 plus tax. But I now have HD access to the DVRs on all my HDTVs. I was also worried about losing the extra tuner and is part of the reason I went with two DVRs. The other reason is that the DVRs can only send one remote program at a time to another TV... not like the tv2 output on the VIPs.

The two SDTVs now have no access to the satellite system. That's was an acceptable concession to me. They are TVs in my kids bedrooms and they almost never are used to watch satellite in the first place (DVDs and video games usually).

Unfortunately, I was unaware of the free upgrade from an SD to and HD receiver in certain markets. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet it would have worked here in Abilene, TX. Seems that DirecTV was very late in adding the locals here.

By the way, regarding the extra tuner needs, there are so many network shows for download on the VOD system, you can probably download what you miss in case of conflicts in many cases.

 

[Mr Tony]

Unfortunately, I was unaware of the free upgrade from an SD to and HD receiver in certain markets. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet it would have worked here in Abilene, TX. Seems that DirecTV was very late in adding the locals here.

they are on 103W so it is an MPEG4 market. Now I know the ones that moved from 72.5 over to the HD were part of it but new markets I dont know. Maybe stonecold can comment on that

 

[bebop]

What I got was 2 HR24s and 1 H24. Since the deal is for 1 HR24 and 1 H24, the extra cost me $200 plus tax. But I now have HD access to the DVRs on all my HDTVs. I was also worried about losing the extra tuner and is part of the reason I went with two DVRs. The other reason is that the DVRs can only send one remote program at a time to another TV... not like the tv2 output on the VIPs.

Unfortunately, I was unaware of the free upgrade from an SD to and HD receiver in certain markets. I don't know for sure, but I'd bet it would have worked here in Abilene, TX. Seems that DirecTV was very late in adding the locals here.

The extra cost me $99, but it may have been a fluke on the account. The order got all screwed up, but you might try ordering 2 HR-24's and one SD and they will likely upgrade it to an HD. I basically was told that they don't give out SD receivers in my area - so that's a good idea.