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DirectTV Users In Katy


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I am considering Direct TV. Any positive/negative opinions are welcomed.

Does the High Definition reception work well?

Does Direct TV suffer with poor reception during peak viewing hours, particularly on local Houston channels such as CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox local?Do they provide decent local service when called?

Does anyone have an opinion regarding their NFL Sunday package?

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I am considering Direct TV. Any positive/negative opinions are welcomed.

Does the High Definition reception work well?

Does Direct TV suffer with poor reception during peak viewing hours, particularly on local Houston channels such as CBS, NBC, ABC and Fox local?Do they provide decent local service when called?

Does anyone have an opinion regarding their NFL Sunday package?

I was looking at switching from cable, but a co-worker mentioned that their direct tv reception suffers a lot because of the wind.  And they are always having to call for service to have the dish adjusted because of the wind.

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Not sure why you would only want to seek Katy residents' opinions, as satellite is the same across the city/country.

DirecTV has a very good service, both in picture quality, choice, and DVR. The HD is fantastic, and I'm very picky about PQ. There is no degredation of signal based on viewership (the satellites broadcast the signal, your dish downloads it). Their OnDemand HD (some in 1080p) is great as well. I have had their service for a couple of years now, moved over from Comcast, and have never been happier. Granted, the service isn't cheap, but I feel like I generally get what I pay for.

As for signal outages, we will have outages a few minutes before a strong thunderstorm, but it comes back on pretty quickly. And our dish, mounted on a pole in the back corner of the yard (trees in the way at the house) survived Ike's winds just fine. Believe me, if the dish required an adjust every time there was a storm or strong wind, DirecTV and Dish would have no subscribers!

The only caveat is that a quality install is a must. There are both good and bad ones out there, and doing a little research ahead of time to understand what makes for a good install is worth your time.

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I appreciate the opinions offered so far.

I currently have Dish and I find their service is very poor on the local Houston channels during primetime viewing hours, i.e. 7-9pm. Plenty of pixilation and momentary picture freezes, momentary sound outages, sound does not follow lip movement, etc... occurs regularily on local NBC and Fox channels in particular.

Any other recommendations for DirecTV? I am interested in hearing more.

(Sorry, I mentioned Katy because I am interested as well in the service provider reputations in the local area)

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I had it a while back, and found the outages from heavy rains to be annoying. You'll be watching DVR recordings of your favorite shows, and right at a critical juncture, it'll go to static snow because there was a rain storm during the recording period. Same with live sports events. Houston gets heavier downpours more frequently than most of the country (although not so much this summer), and it's a problem. I don't think the minor savings is worth the hassle vs. Comcast or AT&T U-verse (which I've heard very good things about, and was rated highly in a Consumer Reports survey).

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I had it a while back, and found the outages from heavy rains to be annoying. You'll be watching DVR recordings of your favorite shows, and right at a critical juncture, it'll go to static snow because there was a rain storm during the recording period. Same with live sports events. Houston gets heavier downpours more frequently than most of the country (although not so much this summer), and it's a problem. I don't think the minor savings is worth the hassle vs. Comcast or AT&T U-verse (which I've heard very good things about, and was rated highly in a Consumer Reports survey).

I've been a DirecTV customer in Houston now for about 10 years. While cost of service is one reason to go with a sat provider, for me it's always been about the content - they have the most HD channels (that you'll actually use), and their equipment is much better than cable - and is at least comparable to the U-verse gear.

In terms of reception, things are probably better now with the somewhat larger HD dishes, which have the side effect of being less prone to rain fade. But mine "goes out" for 10-20 minutes, 3-4 times a year. The difference from that and cable is that with satellite, it comes back on its own - not hours later when some cable guy fixes it... And I agree with the other posters talking about the wind - if you're losing signal when the wind blows, your installation is not correct. That should not happen, period.

The thing to note about U-verse (at least in Houston) is that the bandwidth per home is limited, and (the last time I checked) you can only have one HD stream active per household. They really dance around that fact in the sales pitch. Yes, you can have 4 standard-def streams at once, and you can watch a DVR'ed HD show while recording, but you can't do the very basic watch-one-live-while-recording-another trick that people remember from the VCR days.

DirecTV has also improved their equipment to be more friendly with existing house wiring (although you may need to ask for it and perhaps add some $$$) that makes it much easier to get the full benefits of their HD / DVR devices.

And if you want to sign up, I can refer you and you'll get $100 off... cool.gif

Jeff

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I switched to DTV from Comcast and in most cases it far exceeds that of cable, both in picture/audio quality and better HD channels. Of course having the NFL network is a huge plus as well.

I've only had a couple of outages (due to storms) over the last year, but they're generally just a few minutes.

The only real complaint I have is that the surfing tends to be slower on my DVR than was Comcasts.

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I have been using DishNetwork for last 8 years. Overall, the quality is pretty good. I started subscribing HD channels about 3 years ago. HD is a must (with a HD TV) now.

The location of TV dish may have something to do with the downtime. Three years ago, my dish was on the roof ridge, wind and heavy rain caused more downtime. Now I have the dishes installed on the ground back to a wall, it seems working very well. (However, I do not watch TV during the sever thurnder storms.) Local HD channels work very well - no traffic jam time at all.

However, I do not have a lot of "good" to say on the phone calls (total about 5 times) to their severvice representatives - long waiting time, not very friendly attitude. There was one time when I called the service to diagnose and fix a problem, a guy answered my call and he solved my problem pretty smoothly (it took a while, but very nice).

Another complain I have on DishNetwork is pretty expensive. I have to pay about $95/month (a 200-channel package with HD channels, 1 DVR, 1 DV). Anybody got a better deal?

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Man whos is doing the installations for you all.

I have had Dish for going on 12 years and can count the times my picture went out in that time on my 2 hands. My dish sits on the top of my fireplace chimeny and it has to be one hellashish lightening storm to make my signal drop and then its only for a short time.

There customer service has gone down dramatically over the years and have added a bunch of nickel and dime cost add ons but for the most part for about $100 month I have everything except the HBO/Showtime packages.

Thinking of Uverse package but still think they have a little ways to go yet as some people I talked to who have it say the HD quality is not on par with the sat services currently. Also they offer you a ton of stuff but the reality is unless you are really close to the box your services start to diminish. Might try it on trial basis later though.

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To answer Mr B .... Dish sends out the clowns who over the course of 1+ years of troubleshooting could not solve the problem. I was even told on one ocassion I must be imagining things as they never have problems. On another ocassion I was told by a Dish serviceman I should change to DirecTV.

Anyway, I had the DirecTV system installed this week and everything is running smoothly so far. I trust it will continue that way. HD reception is perfect, including HD locals.

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To answer Mr B .... Dish sends out the clowns who over the course of 1+ years of troubleshooting could not solve the problem. I was even told on one ocassion I must be imagining things as they never have problems. On another ocassion I was told by a Dish serviceman I should change to DirecTV.

Anyway, I had the DirecTV system installed this week and everything is running smoothly so far. I trust it will continue that way. HD reception is perfect, including HD locals.

As long as the install is quality, you are good to go. And if you have a smart phone, don't forget you can program your DVR on the run using their mobile site (there is also an iPhone app).

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I have had Dish for going on 12 years and can count the times my picture went out in that time on my 2 hands. My dish sits on the top of my fireplace chimeny and it has to be one hellashish lightening storm to make my signal drop and then its only for a short time.

There customer service has gone down dramatically over the years and have added a bunch of nickel and dime cost add ons but for the most part for about $100 month I have everything except the HBO/Showtime packages.

I don't mean to be rude, but do you really feel that television is worth over a thousand dollars a year? Especially without HBO and Showtime? I mean, seriously, is it really important enough to you to drop that kind of coin? Once in a while I'll hear about something on cable that looks interesting, but the desire quickly passes.

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I don't mean to be rude, but do you really feel that television is worth over a thousand dollars a year? Especially without HBO and Showtime? I mean, seriously, is it really important enough to you to drop that kind of coin? Once in a while I'll hear about something on cable that looks interesting, but the desire quickly passes.

Yeah, 100.00 sounds like an awful lot considering no movie packages. I got a deal for 39.00 and that included a free year of Showtime.

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I don't mean to be rude, but do you really feel that television is worth over a thousand dollars a year? Especially without HBO and Showtime? I mean, seriously, is it really important enough to you to drop that kind of coin? Once in a while I'll hear about something on cable that looks interesting, but the desire quickly passes.

It isn't rude, but people value different forms of entertainment differently.

I cringe at the thought of paying more than $40 or $50 for a concert or stage ticket, but people pay many times that because they enjoy that type of entertainment. Yet I will fly halfway around the world to go to spend 4 hours at an auto show.

If, like many of us, you have invested a few thousand in a home theater, you naturally want to maximize your enjoyment of that purchase, and unless you are a blu-ray junkie, a quality satellite system allows this for relatively little money.

And as for HBO and Showtime, I think that most people will tell you how worthless they are. I watch more movies on FX than I ever did on those repeat-crazy channels.

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I don't mean to be rude, but do you really feel that television is worth over a thousand dollars a year? Especially without HBO and Showtime? I mean, seriously, is it really important enough to you to drop that kind of coin? Once in a while I'll hear about something on cable that looks interesting, but the desire quickly passes.

I am going to pay DirecTV right at $125/mo for their service. For that fee, I get 265 channels, including 130 in High Definition, plus Showtime, HBO, Starz and Cinimax which betweem them offer 31 channels of uninterrupted movies. I also get for the first year the NFL Sunday Package free, allowing me to view any game I want. After the first year, should I choose to keep it, that package would add $20/mo to my subscription.

We have a complete home theater, plus several other HD TV's, and I think it is easily worth the price we pay.

Seriously, isn't the price a very relative thing in life? Some drive a economy car and others a high performance sports car.....price and enjoyment is the difference.

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It isn't rude, but people value different forms of entertainment differently.

I cringe at the thought of paying more than $40 or $50 for a concert or stage ticket, but people pay many times that because they enjoy that type of entertainment. Yet I will fly halfway around the world to go to spend 4 hours at an auto show.

Good point. Are you sure you aren't me? Where did you go? Goodwood? And $40 or $50 for a live performance is hard for me to justify, too. Twenty-five bucks should be plenty. And three figures for any sporting event not called "World Series," "NBA Finals," or "Super Bowl?" No, just no.

If, like many of us, you have invested a few thousand in a home theater, you naturally want to maximize your enjoyment of that purchase, and unless you are a blu-ray junkie, a quality satellite system allows this for relatively little money.

And as for HBO and Showtime, I think that most people will tell you how worthless they are. I watch more movies on FX than I ever did on those repeat-crazy channels.

I understand, and sorta agree, but again I come back to: is the content really worth it? Do you have time to watch enough stuff? Knowing that you (and others) have invested significant dollars in gear kinda makes the question even more pertinent.

Just to be clear, I'm not a tech Luddite, I'm not an old fogey. I'm not anti-TV. I live in a small, cheap house in a suburb. I have one child, a teenager, in public high school. When I am at home, there is cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, yard work, home maintenance, and car maintenance to do. Not all of them every day, but certainly most of them every week. And we're not neat freaks or gourmet cooks, either. Our child has homework every night and extra-curricular activities. I bring up the question because, very occasionally, my wife and I discuss getting cable for certain sports or cultural programming. I don't think our life is unusual, and the price versus value both in terms of content and time available to watch always comes out ridiculous for us. Not just iffy, but not even close to making sense. For the sake of staying on topic, substitute "dish-based premium programming" for "cable." We go weeks at a time without turning the TV on, and no one seems to miss it. The tiny little bits of leisure time which appear in the day from time to time are quickly dealt with by reading, knitting, or a little web surfing. There's not nearly enough to follow a series or watch an entire movie.

And I understand the "you pay for what you care about" argument. I drive a more expensive car than some, because I have a long commute and I really want something nice. (of course I've had it for ten years and I do as much maintenance on it myself as I can.) I spend at least an hour most days in my car, though. I don't really have that kind of time for TV viewing,

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I understand, and sorta agree, but again I come back to: is the content really worth it? Do you have time to watch enough stuff? Knowing that you (and others) have invested significant dollars in gear kinda makes the question even more pertinent.

Just to be clear, I'm not a tech Luddite, I'm not an old fogey. I'm not anti-TV. I live in a small, cheap house in a suburb. I have one child, a teenager, in public high school. When I am at home, there is cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, yard work, home maintenance, and car maintenance to do. Not all of them every day, but certainly most of them every week. And we're not neat freaks or gourmet cooks, either. Our child has homework every night and extra-curricular activities. I bring up the question because, very occasionally, my wife and I discuss getting cable for certain sports or cultural programming. I don't think our life is unusual, and the price versus value both in terms of content and time available to watch always comes out ridiculous for us. Not just iffy, but not even close to making sense. For the sake of staying on topic, substitute "dish-based premium programming" for "cable." We go weeks at a time without turning the TV on, and no one seems to miss it. The tiny little bits of leisure time which appear in the day from time to time are quickly dealt with by reading, knitting, or a little web surfing. There's not nearly enough to follow a series or watch an entire movie.

And I understand the "you pay for what you care about" argument. I drive a more expensive car than some, because I have a long commute and I really want something nice. (of course I've had it for ten years and I do as much maintenance on it myself as I can.) I spend at least an hour most days in my car, though. I don't really have that kind of time for TV viewing,

We're DINKs, so I guess we have more free time. When we have kids in the next couple of years, I imagine we might be asking the same question about the value of satellite, especially as internet-based TV makes inroads. As it is, our list of recorded shows and Netflix movies in the queue are more than we can watch. If I could pay for channels a la carte, I would for sure!

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