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Original thread:
Post 4 made on Friday October 8, 1999 at 14:33
Todd J. Derr
Historic Forum Post
I wouldn't quite say "enough said".

If you don't mind having two dishes, you can get the best of both worlds (IMO) - get your regular programming from Dish and buy sports packages from DirecTV, so don't let that alone sway your decision. I picked up a bottom-of-the-line Hughes receiver & dish (still very nice, only thing really lacking is digital out and VCR control functions) for $80, plus an extra $20 for 100 feet of cable and some bolts, so the extra cost was minimal. It's actually a bit of a plus in that I can do Picture-in-Picture, with one coming from each satellite.

If you try this, note that some people seem to get roped into buying a 5.99/mo "package" from DTV that has 3-4 crap channels --- but you shouldn't be required to do this. I get NHL Center Ice and nothing else - I paid $119 and pay no monthly charges. Seems to depend on who you talk to at DTV.

I went with Dish initially because of the great deal they had - $300 rebate on equipment for comitting to $48.99/mo of programming (AT100 package plus 2 movie channels). I bought a 2 receiver system for less than that online so I "made" a few bucks. You almost definately want to buy your equipment online. The prices are much cheaper than in the stores and the online dealers will tell you why - they get a big 'kickback' from the provider for new subscribers (like $200+/each); they take some of this as profit and use some to lower prices.

Dish also had a few extra channels at the time (fX, which my girlfriend wouldn't go without, being one of them), although DTV has this now. Dish still offers a 'superstations' package for $5/mo which gives you a bunch of WB/UPN affiliates. If you're into those (WB has feeds from 3 time zones!) or syndicated reruns (seinfeld is on at 3 different times, also things like frasier, friends, etc.) then it's a great deal, and not available on DTV.

Unfortunately, Speedvision is only available on DTV; although I'm moderately into racing I don't care too much since my Fox Sports channel also carries the F1 races (replayed at a 'reasonable' hour to boot :)

Otherwise, their prices for programming are very close; Dish might be a bit cheaper for premium channels. DirecTV has more PPV (50-70 I think vs. 12 or 24 with Dish), but not many more movies on the PPV - mainly just more times for the same things.

You'll hear this all over the web but I didn't believe it until I tried it - DirecTV customer service is about the worst thing I've ever experienced. They'll pick up the phone fast when you're calling to activate your equipment, but otherwise forget it. I tried to call them last week on Friday afternoon, picked something like "talk to a representative" from their menu, and - I'm swear I'm not making this up - I got a recording that said "Due to high call volume, customer service is unable to answer your call at this time. [click]". Not even an option to wait on hold, no option to leave a message, you're just screwed!!! I repeated this process a few times and then got smart and decided to pick "pay your bill by credit card". Luckily this got me a person and not some automated thing... and pretty quickly too. So, it's pretty obvious that your questions aren't important to them, but your money sure is!

Anyways, that's my take on them. Now the race to provide local channels is on (actually I could get them from Dish now with yet another dish but I'm hoping they move them to where I can pick them up using my dish 500). I'm not sure what I'll do when my year commitment to Dish is up - locals could sway my decision, although I do have more and better Dish equipment than DTV, I'm sure DTV will give me a deal to switch.


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