seems like the Dish Network is a better deal.
Unless you want to buy a sports package. DirecTV’s are vastly superior to the choices you get with Dish. My husband changed us over from Dish to DirecTV so he could get the NFL Sunday Ticket. On the other hand, if you like movies, Dish has lots of movie channels.
I thought they were going to merge, but apparently not
Anyway, no personal information, but I did find this
just found a thread about paying for each channel. i don’t really watch that much. the most basic that includes Discovery, TLC, AMC, TCM, SiFi, and of course TV Land.
thanks for the links!
I just got DirecTV this past weekend (love it) and I have a friend with Dish. I’m quite fond of the fact that my installation and all equipment was free free free (well, $15 handling) and is mine to do with what I will, while my friend with Dish has to rent his equipment. He likes the fact that if they improve the equipment, he doesn’t have to worry about buying all new stuff, but I figure his rental fees will add up to a purchase price anyway.
Oddly enough, I have Dish for watching TV with, but DirecTV for DSL access!
So far, we’ve been very happy with Dish: your best bet (for whomever you go with) is wait for one of their frequent specials for new customers. Didn’t have to pay for our equipment (and we don’t rent it), didn’t have to pay for the install… just needed to sign a year-long contract with them. Which, for one area we were living in, we had to break because once Spring came and the trees budded out, there went the signal. (We were in the middle of a redwood forest.) But, Dish was more than willing to split up the year-contract: they ‘paused’ it until we got the signal back, then we picked up where we left off. 
<< Foo! >>
Blown & Injected - Can you link to the pay-per-channel thread?
StG
We had Dish for a few years, last year we switched to Direct. The sports package was one of the reasons we switched, and at the time Direct offered more in the way of HDTV brodcasts (this might have changed by now). Another reason is Dish wanted to charge us $106 to come out and see why our signal strength sucked. Anything that requires them to come out and do something costs $106. We did get them to come out and skip the $106 charge, but it was a big hassle.
StG:
you made me do something I’ve been meaning to do for some time now, I hope I got it right.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=149887
Blown & Injected - see? That wasn’t so hard. Thanks! I don’t think it’ll help me, though. I just want to pick and chose which channels I get. IF I’m going to get 100 channels, why shouldn’t they be the 100 channels I might actually watch?
StG
Make sure you test drive the receiver you’d get at a store like Sears or some such before you sign up to get either. On my folk’s Dish receiver, when you go into the program guide the TV goes silent and the guide takes up the whole screen. On my DirecTV receiver, you still hear the channel you were on and have the option of keeping the current channel in 1/8th of the screen. You have no idea how useful that is. Also, my DirecTV receiver came with the most compact, useful, universal remote I’ve ever seen.
StG, if you want to pay to pick and choose exactly which channels you get, you’re almost going to have to go with a big dish, and you may end up paying more than you would than with a package that contains those channels from DTV or Dish
-lv
does Dish offer anything for HDTV??
I think thats why I am about to go with Direc…
although I heard that the HDTV technology has been pushed back due to 9/11 and broadcasts coming from the WTC.
Dish receivers also allow you to watch the current channel while using the Guide - it sometimes takes 20-30 seconds though before it gathers enough data to provide the picture. You can also use a less informative guide, semi-transparently, over the full screen picture.
We’ve had Dish for over a year and are happy with it.
Mine’s just the opposite. I have DirecTV and my guide causes silence and takes up the whole screen. I can do a channel-by-channel search on the top of the screen, but I can’t find a way to get more on the screen without not being able to listen to the game in the background.
I have two different receivers one lets you watch tv while browsing like kind of like picture in picture when you are in guide mode and the other doesnt.
But browse mode lets you search channels while the program is in the background.
Oh and I have regular cable which gives me discovery, history, tlc for the internet but I prefer the dish network.
I had Primestar when DirecTV bought them out, and was given a choice between buying or leasing the new eqipment. I choose to lease it, and the two bad LNBs that they’ve needed to replace left me ahead of them money-wise.
So I guess the point I should have made was “understand that the various receivers that are available from different retailers have different levels of functionality, even within the same service. So make sure you’re getting the features you want”.
-lv