I had an unexpected job change, had to move across country to the new job, leaving my wife behind to try to sell the house. In the dead of winter. In a state with miserable winters. So, I've been in an apartment for the last 6 months and without Dish. This is the first time I've been without some form of satellite TV (Directv or Dish) since 1995.
So, for reasons, been in two different apartment complexes. First one had ATT uVerse cable (and internet.) Had a TV in the den, one in the bedroom, bedroom was a box connected to the main box via wireless. Current apartment has Charter/Spectrum cable, with a DVR in the den and one in the bedroom. No whole house setup, so each box/DVR is independent.
First learning: Oh how I miss Dish's DVR system! AT&T uVerse's was soooo slow to navigate, could only handle 4 tuners (so what you're watching plus record 3 others,) had a fairly limited recording capacity. Did I say it was slow? The guide was also fairly slow. TV picture quality was just OK at best, especially with a Sony 65" 950G TV. Search, everything felt two generations behind my Dish Hopper 3 system.
Then I moved to another apartment complex, and now I have Charter/Spectrum Cable. Once again, everything is slow and cumbersome. The interface is primitive. You can't click on a series set of recordings and delete the folder, so to speak. Deleting a single show - no single button delete, you have to bring the episode up, then move the cursor over to the delete button, press delete, then it asks you if you want to select everything or the single show (even if there's only one show in the folder) then delete. Then yes, I do want to delete it. Everything is like that. The guide: you can skip back 10 seconds but there is no skip forward button. I couldn't find it on the remote, couldn't find it in documentation, asked Spectrum, nope, can't do it. The entire interface is like that. Like it was developed in 2000.
But even worse: the PQ. OMG is it bad. I thought my TV was faulty at first until I tested with other media, Netflix, etc. My wife was visiting down here, she watches the Bachelor (don't judge) on CBS, and it looks SD with all of the noise, etc. Most of the networks look far from HD. It is simply horrible. Since the two boxes I have are actually different models I tested on both, same results. Tech came out, checked the connections, signal strength coming in, and everything was fine, he commented "yeah, I used to do sat installs, Spectrum just doesn't have that kind of sharp picture.)
I did, out of frustration, try Youtube TV. Nothing to lose, no need to have an install, just pay for the month, cancel anytime. Pretty nice other than missing a few channels that are "must" for us, but I just can't live with their guide (or lack of one.) You can't just pull up a guide and browse for the next couple of weeks to see if anything interesting is on, perhaps a movie or documentary or anything else that interests you, then hit record to record it. There really isn't much of a guide at all (I think maybe for a day or two?) When I asked in that forum, I was told I need to put aside my old fashioned habits and adopt the mindset more like Netflix, and just use search for any show you may be looking for. But what if I'm not looking for anything specific? Just browsing? Sorry, that's not the new way! Or browse in something on your computer then if you see something go into YTTV and search for it and record. Also, I really don't like that if I want to record, say, Law and Order SVU, I can't tell it to just record new episodes. It will put every episode it can find from every channel including L&O SVU marathons on USA into the L&O SVU folder. Up to you to sort through them all. No real way to mark any of them read, either.
So, for any griping and moaning I may have done about Dish, at this point I told my wife we don't buy a house without a clear shot for the satellite. I really, really want my Dish and everything I've taken for granted back.
So, for reasons, been in two different apartment complexes. First one had ATT uVerse cable (and internet.) Had a TV in the den, one in the bedroom, bedroom was a box connected to the main box via wireless. Current apartment has Charter/Spectrum cable, with a DVR in the den and one in the bedroom. No whole house setup, so each box/DVR is independent.
First learning: Oh how I miss Dish's DVR system! AT&T uVerse's was soooo slow to navigate, could only handle 4 tuners (so what you're watching plus record 3 others,) had a fairly limited recording capacity. Did I say it was slow? The guide was also fairly slow. TV picture quality was just OK at best, especially with a Sony 65" 950G TV. Search, everything felt two generations behind my Dish Hopper 3 system.
Then I moved to another apartment complex, and now I have Charter/Spectrum Cable. Once again, everything is slow and cumbersome. The interface is primitive. You can't click on a series set of recordings and delete the folder, so to speak. Deleting a single show - no single button delete, you have to bring the episode up, then move the cursor over to the delete button, press delete, then it asks you if you want to select everything or the single show (even if there's only one show in the folder) then delete. Then yes, I do want to delete it. Everything is like that. The guide: you can skip back 10 seconds but there is no skip forward button. I couldn't find it on the remote, couldn't find it in documentation, asked Spectrum, nope, can't do it. The entire interface is like that. Like it was developed in 2000.
But even worse: the PQ. OMG is it bad. I thought my TV was faulty at first until I tested with other media, Netflix, etc. My wife was visiting down here, she watches the Bachelor (don't judge) on CBS, and it looks SD with all of the noise, etc. Most of the networks look far from HD. It is simply horrible. Since the two boxes I have are actually different models I tested on both, same results. Tech came out, checked the connections, signal strength coming in, and everything was fine, he commented "yeah, I used to do sat installs, Spectrum just doesn't have that kind of sharp picture.)
I did, out of frustration, try Youtube TV. Nothing to lose, no need to have an install, just pay for the month, cancel anytime. Pretty nice other than missing a few channels that are "must" for us, but I just can't live with their guide (or lack of one.) You can't just pull up a guide and browse for the next couple of weeks to see if anything interesting is on, perhaps a movie or documentary or anything else that interests you, then hit record to record it. There really isn't much of a guide at all (I think maybe for a day or two?) When I asked in that forum, I was told I need to put aside my old fashioned habits and adopt the mindset more like Netflix, and just use search for any show you may be looking for. But what if I'm not looking for anything specific? Just browsing? Sorry, that's not the new way! Or browse in something on your computer then if you see something go into YTTV and search for it and record. Also, I really don't like that if I want to record, say, Law and Order SVU, I can't tell it to just record new episodes. It will put every episode it can find from every channel including L&O SVU marathons on USA into the L&O SVU folder. Up to you to sort through them all. No real way to mark any of them read, either.
So, for any griping and moaning I may have done about Dish, at this point I told my wife we don't buy a house without a clear shot for the satellite. I really, really want my Dish and everything I've taken for granted back.
