Brendan’s Blog

Everyone has different television viewing habits and preferences. Some don’t have a TV at all and there are times that seems appealing. My viewing habits can be summarized as follows:

• I don’t watch TV every day.
• I only watch TV using a DVR.
• I only watch pre-recorded shows (except occasional sports.)
• I usually skip commercials and sometimes even boring content within a program.
• Most of my TV watching is late, when the kids are asleep.

Last fall I posted about “part 1″ of my search for HDTV service.  Earlier this year I dropped Dish Network due to frequent hardware failures.  I then switchted to Comcast and was happy enough with the service, but the monthly cost was too high after the initial promotions ended so I restarted my quest…

A little bit of research led me back to DirecTV.  Their offerings have improved in a number of ways since I left them last year.  Most importantly since I’m now a “new” customer, they’re offering a reasonable deal on new HDTV/DVR receivers. 

Additionally I discovered that AAA members get additional discounts on top of the regular promotions for new DirecTV customers.   Offer is available only by calling the AAA exclusive DirecTV toll-free number to order services: 1-800-242-9114. Valid AAA membership number needed when calling.

I ordered two HD-DVR systems and two standard (SD, non-DVR) receivers for a total cost of $130 with installation and a two year service agreement.  My monthly cost for TV service will be half of Comcast’s with more programming — even after my initial promotions expire.

I needed a new roof-top dish to receive the newest signals, and the DirecTV installer put the dish right where I wanted it.My only complaint about installation is the installer wanted to charge $80 extra to remove my old roof-top dishes.  I had three, one old DirecTV and two from Dish.  I removed them and patched the screw holes myself.

I am very happy about the following aspects of the DirecTV service so far:

• The picture quality is better than expected.  According to my research, DirecTV’s HD signlas are not technically as complete as cable or over the air HD broadcasts, but I can’t tell the difference.
• The DVR interface is easy to use, and response to the remote.
• The On-Demand service has lots of programming, comperable to what Comcast offered.
• The DirecTV receiver (HR-22) can play audio, video, and photo media through my home network which is stored on my Windows PC.
• The new roof-top dish to receiver wiring is much less complicated than it was previously.  I have only one RG6 cable coming from the dish to a central wiring point.  A non-powered splitter then provides one single cable output to each receiver.  The splitter provided by the installer supports up to 8 receivers.  The new receivers can now provide dual-tuner HD support with a single cable run back to the splitter.

I have the following suggestions for improvement:

• It would be nice to replay a program on a different DVR than it was originally recorded on.
• It would be nice if the DirecTV receivers could act as media sources to Windows Media Center.
• It would be nice to configure the DVR recordings via a web interface instead of the remote control.

In summary, I am now again a happy DirecTV customer.  Your startup and monthly costs are sure to vary from mine, as they are dependent on seasonal promotions.

Everyone has different television viewing habits and preferences. Some don’t have a TV at all and there are times that seems appealing. My viewing habits can be summarized as follows:

• I don’t watch TV every day.
• I only watch TV using a DVR
• I only watch pre-recorded shows (except occasional sports.)
• I usually skip commercials and sometimes even boring content within a program.
• Most of my TV watching is late, when the kids are asleep.

Until recently I had been a DirecTV customer for over ten years. Their service was consistent, reliable, and reasonably priced. That changed when I decided to upgrade our primary TV to an HDTV set.

Several months ago I purchased a 42″ HDTV set from Costco. I chose Costco because they provide a 90 day return policy (in case I was not happy) and an excellent price.

None of my DirecTV receivers supported HDTV content, so I called to inquire about an upgrade. I was quoted an unreasonable (in my mind) cost for a new HDTV DVR box, with two additional unreasonable conditions:

1. I wouldn’t own the box. Even though I would need to pay hundreds of dollars for the new box, I would have to return it with no refund if I decided to leave DirecTV.
2. A 2 year term agreement. Like cellular companies, DirecTV wanted to lock me into their service exclusively for the next two years.

I called ComCast (my local cable provider) and ordered service from them. They promptly installed an HDTV DVR and lots of high-definition content with no one-time charges, and a lower monthly cost than DirecTV. Unfortunately I found ComCast’s TV service to be unreliable. Over the course of two months we logged a half-dozen service calls. Channels would dissapear from my line-up, the On-Demand service would quit working, and the picture quality would sometimes degrade to where it was unwatchable. Many technicians came out, but none could fix the problem which was “upstream”‘ somewhere.

I then checked out DishNetwork. Dish provided a dual-tuner HDTV DVR (ViP 622) for my primary set, and a standard dual-tuner DVR (DVR625) for our second TV. I ordered Dish through a reseller instead of directly ordering it from Dish. The reseller allowed me to specify which DVR boxes I wanted and had a promotion for discounted premium channels.

Installation was $49 (which the reseller offered to waive in exchange for a long-term contract.) Installation required two dishes on my roof. One provides all of the standard definition content, the other provides VOOM HDTV content. The installer did a great job concealing the cables running down my house, and patching the wires into my existing wiring.

A couple months later I am very satisfied with Dish. Like DirecTV their service is consistent, reliable, and reasonably priced. There is lots of HDTV content (currently more than either ComCast or DirecTV offer in my area.) The DVR interface/remote is very easy to use and even includes the 30 second commercial skip feature I had to reprogram every time my old Tivo lost power.

Update: Last weekend a storm damaged something and caused one of our two TVs to stop working.  I called Dish support and did basic troubleshooting over the phone.  It was quickly determined that my “switch” was bad.  A service technician was dispatched and showed up on Tuesday.  They replaced the dish LNB which has the multi-switch integrated.  This fixed the problem.  No charge to me for the visit.  Not bad.