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DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: DirectTV Anyone? ()
Date: April 26, 2009 11:24PM

DirectTV is really trying to push for subscribers in my building, now that we have a rooftop dish and it's available to all. I've got Cox Cable and internet.Does anyone have a plan with DirectTV with cable and internet? I'm curious what the prices and quality is like.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Furfur ()
Date: April 26, 2009 11:44PM

It has great picture quality until you get a thunderstorm...then you will have no signal for hours. The signal even goes out when its just a moderate rain.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: jimmy jingles ()
Date: April 26, 2009 11:46PM

unless the price is far below cox I'd say stay away.

if you have to sign a contract, stay away period. At least with Cox you can get bundle discounts with the internet, you can't do that with directTV

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Dirty Jersey ()
Date: April 27, 2009 12:40AM

We have Directv for a while now and its a hell of a lot better than cocks. Rarely goes out, sometimes only when a bad storm is rolling through. Have had very little problems with them. Don't have their internet though, have heard its not that great

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Gravis ()
Date: April 27, 2009 01:39AM

their internet service is poor. the reason is that you only have a one way dish, so you have to have a phone connection to request files to download. it's really fast for getting a giant file from a site, but it's slow at getting lots of little files.

when they start renting out two way dishes, that will rock.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."095042938540

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: jimmy jingles ()
Date: April 27, 2009 01:42AM

there will always be some heavy latency with satellite internet, even if they go bidirectional satellite... it will affect anything that needs to be in realtime, like gaming or voip.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: RESton Peace ()
Date: April 27, 2009 06:58AM

Genevieve and I get free directv from our company... and even for free it blows. I have considered getting cable lots of times... nature has too much effect on those dishes.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: CliftonResident ()
Date: April 27, 2009 07:07AM

When I first moved to Clifton they didn't have cable available to my house so I've had DirectTV for years now. They've since put in cable lines but I wouldn't consider switching. Picture quality is great and I've found it very reliable--more reliable than my cable ever was. I've lost the picture a few times over the years--in heavy snow or rain--but I could probably count the number of times on one hand. My cable used to go out all the time...

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Area Man ()
Date: April 27, 2009 07:11AM

My Directv hasn't been affected by weather for over a year. If you have the dish properly aligned, which you can do yourself if you have access to it, there are limited problems due to storms. And even when my signal has gone out during storms it is for 5 to 120 minutes until the thickest clouds blow over.

I had far more outages with Cox when they would shut off 20 channels at a time overnight about 4 times a year for "testing."

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: cville ()
Date: April 27, 2009 08:50AM

Yay for sure. Like previous posters, yea my picture went out maybe 1-2 times per year, only due to end of the world downpours of rain, but Cox cable went out more than that. I was lucky enought to pull DirecTV, Fios internet and Cox land line. All were good.

Just make sure your dish is aligned as best as you can, and make sure it's bolted and tightened securely! Wind can affect the dish, So placement can definitely change your reception interference.

Picture is great, plenty of HD, and the HD DVR is way better than the Fios one (more storage). They are supposed to have a Tivo HD DVR coming out this year sometime too, so if you can, wait for that.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Area Man ()
Date: April 27, 2009 09:24AM

I meant 5 to 10 minutes.

Area Man Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> My Directv hasn't been affected by weather for
> over a year. If you have the dish properly
> aligned, which you can do yourself if you have
> access to it, there are limited problems due to
> storms. And even when my signal has gone out
> during storms it is for 5 to 120 minutes until the
> thickest clouds blow over.
>
> I had far more outages with Cox when they would
> shut off 20 channels at a time overnight about 4
> times a year for "testing."

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: True ()
Date: April 27, 2009 09:24AM

Area Man Wrote:

> I had far more outages with Cox when they would
> shut off 20 channels at a time overnight about 4
> times a year for "testing."

lol. This just happened to me last night. I was watching a show on Spike and it suddenly froze up like someone had hit pause on the playback deck. I waited for about 1 min, then went up a channel and then back down a channel. I then got a message that the channel was unavailable (like when you have to call to order a channel). Nice. A whole block of channels in that 200 range were like that. I guess they figure no one's watching at 1am on Sunday night....

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Vienna Res ()
Date: April 27, 2009 09:37AM

During NFL season Yay, not in season Nay. Go with FIOS!

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Date: April 27, 2009 09:40AM

DirectTV Anyone? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DirectTV is really trying to push for subscribers
> in my building, now that we have a rooftop dish
> and it's available to all. I've got Cox Cable and
> internet.Does anyone have a plan with DirectTV
> with cable and internet? I'm curious what the
> prices and quality is like.


Recently switched to DirecTV. I haven't had any problems with outages (yet) due to storms, etc. Much better quality and HD selection than Comcast, though its "On Demand" service isn't particularly great (it basically shows you what you can record with your DVR, so I think calling it "On Demand" is deceptive). Kept my Comcast Internet service, so couldn't tell you about that.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Gravis ()
Date: April 27, 2009 10:46AM

Cox' DVR is crap. it locks up on occasion and is bitch to get it to reboot, taking a mere 5 minutes (seriously!). the good news is that while it was rebooting, you just missed five minutes of whatever show you were watching. scientific atlanta can suck it.


"the wisdom of the wise will perish, the intelligence of the intelligent will vanish."095042938540

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Genevieve ()
Date: April 27, 2009 02:06PM

If your dish is properly aligned, you should not lose the signal due to light rain. The problem REStonPeace and I have is that due to condo rules we cannot properly mount our dish. And since we need a 5 LNB dish for the HD channels, alignment is a bit trickier.

Satellite Internet service is not a DIRECTV product. That being said, they do have some bundles available because of partnerships with other companies. So if you have DSL, you may be able to get a bundled discount.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Date: April 27, 2009 02:09PM

Genevieve Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If your dish is properly aligned, you should not
> lose the signal due to light rain. The problem
> REStonPeace and I have is that due to condo rules
> we cannot properly mount our dish. And since we
> need a 5 LNB dish for the HD channels, alignment
> is a bit trickier.
>
> Satellite Internet service is not a DIRECTV
> product. That being said, they do have some
> bundles available because of partnerships with
> other companies. So if you have DSL, you may be
> able to get a bundled discount.

I use DirecTV with Comcast Internet and it is still cheaper than the "bundle" I got from Comcast for their Digital/HD service.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: RESton Peace ()
Date: April 27, 2009 02:25PM

Yeah, ok, thanks for inserting "facts" into my complaint, Gen.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Melissa ()
Date: April 27, 2009 02:52PM

I have DirecTv with Cox internet. My DirecTv plan is only $58 a month. I had Cox years ago before they went digital, but had such an awful experience I swore to never go back to them. I have absolutely no complaints with DirecTv.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: cville ()
Date: April 28, 2009 09:08AM

WashingTone Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> Recently switched to DirecTV. I haven't had any
> problems with outages (yet) due to storms, etc.
> Much better quality and HD selection than Comcast,
> though its "On Demand" service isn't particularly
> great (it basically shows you what you can record
> with your DVR, so I think calling it "On Demand"
> is deceptive). Kept my Comcast Internet service,
> so couldn't tell you about that.

DirecTV does have On-Demand, but you have to hooked your DVR up to your internet to get to it. I hooked mine up to the router and there is quite a bit to choose from. It just downloads whatever you select right to the HD DVR. Takes a little bit of time to d/l the show, but a pretty good selection. No better or worse than FIOS' selection; can't speak for COX On-Demand.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Date: April 28, 2009 09:14AM

cville Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> WashingTone Locian Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> >
> > Recently switched to DirecTV. I haven't had any
> > problems with outages (yet) due to storms, etc.
> > Much better quality and HD selection than
> Comcast,
> > though its "On Demand" service isn't
> particularly
> > great (it basically shows you what you can
> record
> > with your DVR, so I think calling it "On
> Demand"
> > is deceptive). Kept my Comcast Internet
> service,
> > so couldn't tell you about that.
>
> DirecTV does have On-Demand, but you have to
> hooked your DVR up to your internet to get to it.
> I hooked mine up to the router and there is quite
> a bit to choose from. It just downloads whatever
> you select right to the HD DVR. Takes a little
> bit of time to d/l the show, but a pretty good
> selection. No better or worse than FIOS'
> selection; can't speak for COX On-Demand.

Thanks for the FYI. I will look into it.

I'm surprised DirecTV never said anything about this when they installed the service.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Genevieve ()
Date: April 28, 2009 11:11AM

WashingTone Locian Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

> I'm surprised DirecTV never said anything about
> this when they installed the service.


DIRECTV hasn't had DoD for as long as most cable companies. Plus, you need an HR20 series receiver to use it. That might be why it didn't come up during installation. That being said, they introduced 1080p content (on DoD) recently and it will be expanding. I can only imagine how long that takes to download.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: formerhick76 ()
Date: April 30, 2009 12:47PM

I had DirecTV when I was in South Arlington (lived in a 3-level duplex), but there's so many trees here in Vienna, we never even considered DirecTV (plus our rambler's one story.) But I had outages maybe every 1-2 months for 5-15 minutes. Maybe once or twice over the 2-3 years we had it there was an outage greater than 30 minutes.

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Re: DirectTV- Yay or Nay?
Posted by: Bob L ()
Date: April 30, 2009 01:30PM

We had DirecTV for the first three years in our home; we then switched to Cox Cable for the last two years. I have no regrets with the switch from DirecTV to cable. We had regular outages with DirecTV, we got interference with household appliances and DirecTV has no customer service. With Cox we had a couple of outages but they were due to new home construction nearby; not Cox's fault. Otherwise we are very happy.

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