Dish Network v. DirecTV?

[sicilygirl]

I just got our cable bill with the annual increase they like to throw at us each December. We now pay $98/month for the cheapest internet (15 mbps) and regular cable (like 100ish channels I think) and a sucky DVR. Anyway, I feel like we pay too much, and I've been thinking about switching our tv service anyway since I hate our DVR so much.

Any recommendations for Dish v. DirecTV? As far as I know, those are our only two options outside of Suddenlink, which we have now.

We don't need all the fancy channels, but I really want a better DVR that records more shows at one time and holds A LOT more so we're not constantly deleting things we haven't even had a chance to watch yet.

[magpie]

We have dish and I've been happy with it for the 2.5 years that we've had it. The dvr is my favorite thing about it, but I've never tried to record more than two shows at the same time. We aren't big TV people though (only one TV in the house and this is the first time we've had a anything beyond the old rabbit ears + Netflix), so I think we'd be happy with any kind of dvr.

[mollybrown]

We have Dish Network and love it. I used to have Comcast, so that's my comparison. My DVR can easily store 4 times as many shows. I think we can also record 5 or 6 shows at once too. No complaints.

[Roc A Bee]

We have had Dish for 3 years and have no complaints.

[zacksbride]

we have had direct tv for years and no complaints here. our dvr can record 2 shows at a time, but i think they make one now that can record more. ours holds a lot, we dvr a ton and never really have to delete shows.

we do pay a lot, but we have extras - i think our direct tv is around $140 per month. but we have hbo, showtime, 2 tv's (although the 2nd doesnt have a dvr on it), and dh has NFL sunday ticket (they divide the whole cost into several months, so we don't pay the few hundred dollars at once)

i do think that the dvr is slow to respond at times, and i have heard the same from others with direct tv - not sure if that is a problem with all dvrs or just direct tv ones.

[dutchgirl678]

We had Directv for year and then last year switched to Dish because they had a great deal on a plan for a year. It saved us $25 a month so we went for it. But I haven't been happy with the user interface on the DVR. And they came out with their Hopper after we signed up and I would have preferred that. We are moving back to Directv next week. They offer free installation of their new Genie system (same as Hopper, whole home DVR) and they will pay up to $200 of the cancellation fee we owe Dish.

[frlcb]

With our directtv we can record 2 things at once but you have to watch one of them (or something else on the dvr) but I am certain they have one now that records 3.

[kellbell191]

We had issues with reception and customer service when we had dish network. I think we also had issues getting football.

We have had directtv for a year and like them. Our DVR records 2 at a time, but you have to watch one.

[niq]

If someone in the house wants to watch pro football, get DirecTV for the NFL network. warning: getting NFL Sunday ticket is not MM at all! You could go to a bar, watch the games while drinking 1 beer/hour for 6 hours worth of football, and pay less than you pay for Sunday ticket + HD.

If no one in the house cares that much about football, Dish is a better deal. The Dish Hopper is a pretty great DVR.

[jenni232323]

Directv!! You can use me for a referral and we'd both get $10/mo for 10 months.
We were fed up with our spotty cable service and met a Directv rep @ Sams Club Labor Day weekend 2010. They got us at the right time because we never sign up on the spot but had just had our cable guy out "fixing" our service for the 5th time in a month. So we signed up. We signed up for 1 HD DVR, and 2 standard boxes. We were happy with it and added another box a few weeks after install and upgraded one of our standards to a HD box. The installer came out and installed 2 additional HD DVRs (different than we had asked for) and moved our 1 standard. Bonus!

Our bill for year 1 was around $60. Year 2 many credits went away and we were at $110/mo. We could have changed our plans/boxes and gotten the bill lower but we figured the average/month was still less than what our shotty cable was.

So our 2 year contract expired Sept 2011- they worked with me to get a lot more credits and we are now month to month with a $87 bill including taxes and that's without lowering our package or changing anything at all.
Each DVR can record 2 shows while watching 1 recorded show. I haven't looked into their new Genie - but it says it can record 5 shows. I do know the Dish Hopper saying it records a lot of shows @ once is deceiving because it's actually counting 4 of those as recording ALL of primetime shows on the 4 major networks, whether you want to or not. Not sure if Directv's Genie is the same.

For internet, we use ATT DSL without home phone which depending on promo, is around $19.95-$24.95/mo - we have the 6Mbps @ $24.95/mo which I have to call them around month 6 and get that promo price again.

For the referral - you have to call this # 1-800-507-4045 or 855-217-4388 and give them our account # 046704831

[sicilygirl]

Luckily we only care about college football in our house. I didn't even think about channel line-ups so I'll check that out. Thanks!