I just signed up for DISH TV. Am I going to love it, or detest it? I’d like to hear your input on this.
I’m sick of our local cable company, Rapid Cable. It seems they can’t fix any of the problems they’ve been having for the past year or so. I’m going to keep internet with them, but I’m having them cancel the analog and digital cable. Even with the full DISH package and cable internet with the cable company, I will still be paying pretty much the same amount as I was paying with just the cable company.
So, is there anything I should be aware of with DISH? I did a search, but I really couldn’t find anything about this.
I’ve been a customer since 1997. No major problems. You will lose your signal in heavy rain (and snow, I guess, we don’t get snow here), but it’s rarely more than 15-20 minutes at a time.
I’ve had Dish Network for about 3 years and I am a happy customer. I’ve lost my signal about 3 or 4 times - still less then the cable I had at one place that would go out whenever it rained.
Dish is overall a good product at a fair price. They have some big issues, though. The customer service is horrible. I’ve had numerous bad experiences.
Cancelling the service is difficult. I sent my equipment in the same day I got the boxes to ship it in. I paid my final bill right away. Dish still sent a collection agency after me and they called daily for a couple weeks. (I was away on vacation.) I called them and they sheepishly admitted that, yes, I have paid and they will call the agency and stop the collections. Huh? Then why did they call me in the first place?
The hardware sucks. My remote control broke. My dish on the side of the house always gave many error messages, and then just outright broke one day. My hard drive on the DVR crashed one day and resulted in no TV at all. The good thing about hardware is that they seem aware that it’s junk, so they quickly have methods to get new stuff out to you. They ship you a new item right away and you send back the broken one in the box the new one came in.
Like many companies today, Dish is stuck in a aquisition marketing model. They will bend over backwards to get new customers. But, they don’t seem to care about retention. They treat existing customers like shit. When you move, they charge you a fee. If you instead set up an account as a new customer not only will everthing be free but you will get newer, updated hardware and a lower introductory rate.
The Dish DVR is good because it’s free. Also, Dish owns it and not you. This is a good thing, because the technology just gets outdated. Buying a Tivo means you are stuck with it unless you want to buy a new one. With Dish, you just give it back when it breaks or when you move. If only the damn things stopped with the error messages and the crashing.
One thing to note: Dish DVR is a bit different from Tivo DVR, which is the other major brand. Tivo tries to be much more user friendly, but this just ends up being a hassle. (It’s sort of like Mac vs PC, or AOL vs regular internet.) Dish is more simple, but also more reliable. When you set a program to record, it will record. This isn’t always true with Tivo. The one thing that Dish requires is that you manually go and delete the shows that accumulate every so often. This is needed a couple times a week, depending on how much you record. Tivo doesn’t have this requirement because it does much more automatically for you.
Overall, I prefer Dish to Tivo. However, I’d say that Tivo would be better for folks who aren’t technically inclinded or prefer automated simple to use tech. Basically, if you set up your own stereo and know how to program your VCR then Dish is better. If you can’t figure out how to get the VCR to work and don’t own a stereo then Tivo is for you.
I had Dish Network for about two years. It went out in ANY rain, not just heavy rain. And that outage could be for two ours on a really stormy day. And many other times it went out for no apparent reason.
The reason I’m back on cable, though, is becuase I didn’t get the clever idea to sign up as a new customer when I moved like Debaser did! Any scenario I presented them with (it started out wanting to upgrade to three receivers in the new house) it was going to cost me $199 for them to move me for “free”.
I really prefered Dish Network’s favorites and program grids much more than Comcast’s, though. So much so that I’m really thinking of going back to Dish when my contract is up. Since I will then be a “buy-back” I’ll get great deals, and “free” really will be “free”.
Another nice thing about Dish network is the included Sirius Satellite radio music channels. Mine will sometimes go out in a storm, but hasn’t been too bad. I think an hour was about as long as it stayed off and the wind was whipping around fairly fierce.
I like Dishnetwork. Rain outages have improved since I had the dish realigned. Speaking of which, the service was good. I imagine it depends upon the local contractor.
The CD music and Siris (sp?) is cool, but Mrs. Plant hates Jazz.
My first DVR lasted 4 years (of continous I-never-shut-it-off service). Luckily I was able to retrieve the shows I had recorded before having to send it back.
The problem was it would “black out” for no reason. Shows would not record or would partially record and the unit would shut down. I got a replacement in 2 days.
The original remote is about at the end of it’s life as well.
I like it, but for some odd reason, the screen will go black for a few seconds every once in a while. They said this would be taken care of in the upgrade, but it wasn’t. It seems like right at the Most Dramatic Moment of Lost I would lose picture and sound for 3-5 seconds. Grrr!
I have a DVR/DVD recorder. I have to set a timer for it and the receiver, but then I edit the program and burn it to DVD. It also works with the C Band receiver.
Man, I must be lucky. I’ve had Dish since 1999, at three different addresses, and I’ve had no trouble at all. Customer service, what little I need, has been quick and courteous, and I’ve only ever lost the picture twice, very briefly. You gotta get a DVR, though - and then you’ll never want to be without it!
We’ve had Dish since 1997. Overall, we’re very happy with the programming and once you have DVR you won’t be able to live without it.
For those of you who have had problems with customer service…try the old-fashioned “we aren’t getting anywhere here, let me talk to your cancellation department.” Then you get to talk to the folks who are tasked with keeping you. We owned our equipment, including the early generation PVR receiver. We wanted to be able to run both our TVs off one receiver and have DVR for both tuners. Basically, I wanted the new stuff without the hassle of cancelling and setting things up in my daughter’s name or something. Told the cancellation dude that I didn’t like the way existing customers are always getting hosed and that I wanted the new, cool equipment or I was going with DirecTV. Next thing you know, I’m set up with free installation for my new receiver with $100 free programming. I just wish I didn’t have to go through all the drama to get what I wanted.
We’ve lost our signal a couple of times, but nothing compared to the way TCI Cable used fail us. That was a company of mass suckitude.
I’ve had Dish for about 4 years and Dish HD for about the last 3 months. A couple of weeks after I got the HD receiver custom installed with a new Home Theater system and tucked away nicely in the heavy furniture, it lost all the favorites lists and couldn’t save new ones. They sent a new receiver but it took me 4 hours just to uninstall and reinstall everything completely. What a PITA! Plus, there’s only about 4 or 5 HD channels and IN HD (sp?) isn’t one of them, although I’ve heard it’s one of the more popular channels available elsewhere.
My installers recommended Time Warner since it has IN HD, plus HD to additional sets is provided without additional cost. In 9 months I’ll switch for a year and see which I like better.
My cable experience, if I may briefly hijack, consisted on calling the Evile Cable Companye:
CP: “The cable is lying on the ground. I won’t have to be here, will I?”
ECC: “No Sir, we’ll take care of it”.
I arrive home and step over the fallen cable to find a “Sorry we missed you” sign on the doorknob.
Besides, they don’t have cable internet. Screw 'em.
Sounds like you got an 811. Notorious POS, although not as bad as the 921.
Dish Network’s high-def offerings include 10 of the former VOOM channels (a high-def satellite service that went under in January). They’re also planning to move to MPEG-4, a more efficient compression scheme . . . which basically means more satellite bandwidth, thus more channels, but also your receivers will have to be replaced.
INHD and INHD will probably not show up on Dish Network or DirecTV any time soon, as they are owned by Comcast, Time Warner, and one other cable company.
