George from California writes:

Web site is useful except for one issue which does not make sense. How can Directv rank #1 in customer service for 7 years in a row as well as dish network being ranked #1 in customer service. Both quote JD power so there is something wrong with this information.

George,

To be honest, I don’t know for sure. The information is a bit old and I wondered that myself. I did some research and found the latest jd power rankings: www.jdpower.com/telecom/ratings/television-service-ratings

I’m guessing that when I originally posted the info they were number one in different areas. They were both #1 & #2 in each area. It looks like in these latest polls they have fallen just a bit to some newcomers.

I’ll be sure to update this information on the site.

Mark from Lemon Grove writes:

Thanks for your web site…..however, this is still confusing to me. So I’ll tell you what my wife and I would like to accomlish.
1. we currently have 2 hdtv’s and will add a 3rd in near future.
2. we still have Cox Cable and do not think they have served this
market very well. So I am researching satellite service. We are
not getting a digital signal from Cox yet. The kitchen table top tv
is the only hdtv (Samsung 19″) hooked up to cable and the picture
is of poor quality. I have been told by Best Buy that I need a
cable top box to decode the signal. I don’t understand why. I
thought Cox would already be sending a digital signal by now. I
think they are dissing their customers. I just bought a Sony 32″
hdtv and it is still boxed. I will hook it up when I get the proper
signal. OK so what do I do?
3. My wife needs local channels to watch the Padres games. I’m not a
big sports fan but don’t mind watching sports like the NFL, MLB,
etc. when guests are over that are sports fans. Premium channel mo
vies, PPV, etc., I could care less–don’t need. Hdtv channels? Why
not? That is why we bought these tv’s in the first place.
4. I want the best service for the best price—I don’t see as yet,
much difference. What consumers really need is alacarte program sel
ection so we can customize our service and not pay for the many
channels avail., but will never watch. Well, since that will prob
ably never happen. Who do we choose? Cox Cable…..screw them!
Direct and or Dish…..don’t know yet.
5. I guess we need an HD DVR and HD receiver. What about TIVO? They’ve
got the best software. Can a TIVO be purchased and used w/ either
Direct and or/ Dish and still get HD programming w/o buying 5000
stations+? I just want the local channels for my wife and Speed,
History, Food, AMC, Discovery, Outdoor, H&G, Travel, and such for
the rest of us. What do you think? What would you recommend?
Thanks for reading this…….Mark

Mark,

I assume that Cox Cable is similar to Comcast. If you use their set top box then you get a digital signal, otherwise it just comes in as analog.

As far as your choice between Dish Network and DIRECTV, they are more similar than not, so its mostly personal preference. Overall, Dish Network is slightly cheaper, unless you get a lot of upgrade packages, then DIRECTV tends to get cheaper. I personally prefer Dish Network mainly because I like their guide a lot better. It just seams faster, it’s easier to tell which channels you don’t have and filter them out, and using favorite lists is easier. I’ve heard some say they like Dish’s DVR better than TiVo and I think TiVo is trying to sue them or something. But if you really want TiVo, I think they only work with DIRECTV. DIRECTV actually dropped TiVo a few years back and people have been complaining ever since. I’ve heard that they soon might be bringing TiVo back.

I hope this helps.

Television entertainment has never been so in demand and so easy to get in this day and age. Today, it is not about scarcity of entertainment sources, it is about choosing the best option for optimal spending to value ratio.

The choices for quality television entertainment today are between cable and satellite TV. The question of consumers is – “Which one has the coolest channels for the price?” However, satellite TV is not as straightforward as cable. If you choose satellite TV, you need to choose between Direct TV and Dish Network.

So, which one has the better value for the money?

Let’s start with the coverage, the most important thing consumers need to know. Which of the two satellite TV providers can cover the best areas? The answer is that both have shortcomings in city coverage.

Dish Network covers cities that Direct TV does not. The same is true with Direct TV. For example, Direct TV covers Las Vegas, Memphis, Milwaukee, Columbus and Baltimore. Meanwhile, Dish Network covers Oklahoma City, Albuquerque, Honolulu and Grand Rapids.

So look at the list carefully if your city is covered.

The next one to look at after you know that you are covered by the service is programming. What shows do you think you will want to watch the most to get the best bang for your hard-earned buck?

Both satellite TV providers offer cheap packages. Direct TV offers 3 packages with a starting price of $39.99. Dish Network has an offering of 5 packages, starting at $24.99.

Direct TV and Dish Network both offer the best sports channels out there today. If you are a sports buff, you won’t miss games from the NHL, MLB, NFL and a lot more. The only difference is in pricing. You can buy the sports package from both providers, but Direct TV has some exclusive sports channels that you can buy.

The Dish Network, however, has a better selection of international and foreign language programming. Take this into consideration if you are an overseas worker or immigrant because some of your country’s programs might be included here.

Now that you know a bit about the programs, make sure that you don’t miss any show by taking advantage of PVR technology. The two providers have this capability built-in out of the box.

PVR or Personal Video Recording can allow you to record shows so you won’t miss any of your favorites when you are away. The downside with Direct TV is the monthly fee to access this feature. Dish Network offers this service for free.

Lastly, both providers have 12 months of warranty and 24-hour customer service. Many say that Dish Network has superior customer service because it’s done within the company and not outsourced in any way.

If you want the best entertainment experience, you have to go digital satellite. Just remember the coverage, programming, price and customer service. This way, you will need to research and make an informed decision, before you pull money out of your wallet.

DirecTV’s decision to help fund Friday Night Lights in exchange for first dibs on the new episodes is a bold and exciting maneuver for the satellite provider. I’m not entirely certain of how I’ll view this event a year from now, but my knee-jerk reaction is this: one of my favorite shows is getting another season of life and that’s great news. DirecTV with less than 17 million subscribers is available to only about 15% of NBC viewers. As of Q4 2007, I believe Comcast was claiming more than 24 million subscribers between its basic and digital cable services, more subscribers than DirecTV, but not so many more that it should raise red flags around cannibalization. DirecTV has been sued over a similar issue in the past, and DISH has also engaged in such “HD Lite” tactics as well, namely by dropping the overall resolution of its broadcasts to save on bandwidth. In fact, DirecTV actually sued Comcast when Comcast tried to call out DirecTV’s lower-resolution HD in its advertisements.

DirecTV will soon introduce another gizmo called the AM21 that hooks up to the HR21 via USB and provides those missing digital TV receivers. It looks like this is probably how I’ll get this capability back after DirecTV (or its local contract installer) screwed up this part of my upgrade, but since the AM21 isn’t shipping yet, I can’t get DirecTV to tell me for sure whether they’ll be able to send me one.

DirecTV shares were up 42 cents, or 1.6%, to $26.42 in 4pm Nasdaq composite trading. Shares in Liberty Entertainment, the tracking stock through which Liberty holds its DirecTV stake, were up $1.17, or 5.1%, to $24.29 in 4pm Nasdaq composite trading. DirecTV 11 will co-locate with the Spaceway-2 satellite in the vicinity of 99.2 W. During a search for potential launch dates, a check of the Wikipedia Portal: Spaceflight page indicated March 19th, between 22:49 and 23:47 GMT, is a possible window for the Sea Launch Zenit-3SL launch vehicle’s next liftoff attempt. DirecTV-11 will be placed into such an orbit.

I read the following on Multichannel News this morning:

Like its satellite rival Dish Network, DirecTV is raisings prices on some of its program offerings this year.

I’m sure no consumer likes to hear this.

According to www.satelliteguys.us and Scott Greczkowski, who writes a blog for Multichannel News, the nation’s largest direct-broadcastsatellite provider will raise the rates for a variety of its packages, such as Choice and Plus HD DVR, by $3 a month effective Feb. 27.

Three dollars a month isn’t bad, really. $36 per year…

DirecTV Thursday confirmed the rate increase, saying it will average about 4%.

Earlier this month, Dish Network announced it was freezing the price for its DishDVR Advantage offer until February 2009, but raising the rates on other popular packages, such as America’s Top 100 and America’s Top 200.

These are obviously their most popular and competitive packages, so I’m sure the cost increase was unavoidable.

Overall, the Dish Network price increase average out to about 8%, according to Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett. Dish Network said customers who subscriber to non-DVR, a la carte packages would see an increase of about 3%.

Who doesn’t get DVR anymore? Seriously, they’re missing out!

“We’ve frozen prices on some of our most popular packages,” Dish Network spokesman Kathie Gonzalez said. “Unfortunately, we cannot offset the unavoidable costs of increased television programming fees, which were more than 5% in 2007.”

Tom from Carson City, Nevada writes:

We’ve had Dish Network so long now I can’t even remember when we didn’t. I only know we dumped Comcast fr it. We’ve had virtually no problems with our sets. One of them we use for our RV and that has been a lifesaver for us. Getting weather in the ‘outback’ of Nevada has kept us out of trouble many times. It’s always been relatively easy to set up our dish when on trips.

The home DVR is set up with two TV’s. One in the living room and one in our office. Works great. Now I’m going to mount another dish on my shop and use the RV box to run it when we’re not out on a trip. I can’t wait. I’ll use it mainly for music out there, and since Dish has their music PLUS Sirius Satellite music, there’s no problem finding a music channel I like.

I’m sure DirecTV is pretty much the same, but we’ve been loyal Dish subscribers for years and see no reason to change. Their customer service has always been very good, the few times we needed to call them, and, as someone else mentioned, the people on the other end always speak English.

Richard From West Michigan writes:

I had dish for 2 years about 6 years ago. It was ok average pic quality, no DVR. Then Dish sent a promo for a free DVR and I switched to them for several years. Had a few probs – bad DVR box, bad switch in the dish (they fixed both free), but service was largely ok for those several years. Then Directv did a promo asking old customers to come back to them. The price was right, so I arranged installation. That was 48 hrs ago. What a difference two days makes. So far: Incomplete installation – no box or RF remote for the bedroom – Directv phone “tech” said I had to have a HDTV for an RF remote to work – unbelievable – that took 60 minutes on the phone. I told him I didn’t think that was true but he insisted repeatedly. I said ok, install the box like I arranged for in the first place, then he said that I’d have to pay an additional $19.99 to have a second box installed in the BR (which they had agreed to do as part of the original install order). I said I don’t think $19.99 was fair because the installer said that an RF Remote (like my old Dish system) eliminated the need for the second box in the bedroom. This goes on and on for awhile and after he left me hanging on the phone for another epoch of time I just hung up out of fatigue.

Did Directv or the installer call me the next day? Nope. Basically I was a cipher they didn’t want to deal with and they lack the common courtesy and responsibility to finish the job they started…

Some differences are apparent between Dish and Directv:

1) Directv wait times on hold seem to be about 20 minutes plus. Dish times were never more that a few minutes.

2) Directv picture with the latest dish/box combo are very good – better that the 3+ year old Dish equipment. Technology has improved TV pictures in three years.

3) The Dish remote and speed of operation of my old Dish DVR box are clearly, absolutely, massively superior to the new Directv remote and system performance. In fact I’d go so far as to say that until you’ve used a Dish DVR remote (assuming you’re now using a Directv system and remote) you have no idea what you’re missing. You use the remore ALL THE TIME to view, schedule, etc. My Directv remote is primitive, complicated and SLOW, SLOW, SLOW. If you’re used to clicking with a PC mouse as I am on a pentium-class PC, the Directv software and hardware will take you back to the days of the original IBM PC. Its that slow.

Dish equipment has obviously been engineered by people with a sensitivity to speed, simplicity, and performance. And it’s so much easier to navigate the Dish on-screen menus with their logic and intuition. You don’t even need the manual. But I’ve had the Directv manual out since I got the system… for instance, if the program guide is missing the channel descriptions on the Dish box, you push a few buttons and download the new program data. On Directv? no such function is available.

Want to delete a scheduled program on the Dish? A few SWIFT keystrokes and you’re done. On Directv? Plan on 30-60 seconds of remote button pushing with several second delays between every button push – slow, slow, slow.

Notwithstanding the installation issues which I presume will be solved eventually, I regret going with Directv mostly because of the comparatively primitive remote performance of the Directv system.

I truly wish I had my Dish back mostly because of its speed of operation. I’ll grant you that the new Directv picture is better than the old Dish, but so far it’s not worth it – the Directv man/machine interface is really that bad I My Humble Opinion.

Last year DIRECTV added many more channels and touted they would have 100 by the end of the year (2007). I don’t know what happened with that goal, but as of now, I believe they still have 85 channels.

Dish Network is now making the push for more HD channels. DISH Network this week said it will increase its national HDTV channel count from 76 to 100 in 2008.

DISH also said it plans to add local HD channels in 65 new markets this year, bringing its HD local market total to 100.

The company’s decision to offer more high-def programming is an obvious effort to keep up with satellite rival DIRECTV.

DIRECTV has said it will expand to nearly 150 HD channels in 2008.

When you are looking to make the switch to a satellite television provider, get ready for a show-down between the top two providers in the nation: Dish Network and DirecTV. Both offer amazing package deals and top-notch customer service that surpasses that of any cable provider. You can check out any mailed advertisement or log onto their websites for the promotions they are currently running to find out what your approximate out-of-pocket costs will be for the package your family desires. What about the features each provider offers? From the receivers to the programming lineup packages to the parental controls, how does each of these satellite providers measure up?

HD/DVR Receivers

Both Dish Network and DirecTV offer the latest in technology HD/DVR receivers. Dish Network offers the HD Receiver for 1 or 2 TVs as well as a dual HD DVR receiver for 1 or 2 TVs. Their latest dual HD/DVR receiver, called the ViP722 DVR, is capable of supporting two televisions (one HDTV and one SDTV). It can record up to 350 hours (that’s almost 15 days) of SDTV programming or 55 hours of HDTV. The satellite tuner can be viewed either in single-mode with picture-in-picture or in dual mode where a customer can record shows on two televisions as well as view a pre-recorded program simultaneously. The Dish Network program guide has easy-to-use search options. Also, a customer can choose to have caller ID shown on their screens, as long as they have subscribed to this feature with their phone company.

DirecTV’s latest dual HD/DVR receiver (DirecTV Plus HD DVR) allows customers to record 200 hours (over 8 days) of SDTV and 50 hours of HDTV. Their Series Link feature allows customers to record their favorite show for the entire season. If the date or time changes from week to week, the HD/DVR receiver will adjust for that. This receiver also touts a Media Share feature which allows users to view their photos and listen to their favorite tunes saved on an Intel Viiv processor personal computer. The DirecTV guide allows customers to view the schedule for upcoming shows and movies up to two weeks in advance. Like Dish Network, caller ID can also be displayed on the screen.

Sports Packages

Dish Network offers an extensive line of soccer, football, basketball and hockey packages. Customers have the option of purchasing individual games, 4-game packages or half-seasons or entire seasons. DirecTV is known for its sports subscriptions offering the same options as Dish Network, but going one step further with NASCAR, rugby and cricket.

Exclusive Programs & Music

Dish Network has their own exclusive interactive television channel (100) where customers can do anything from play games, check the local weather or a daily horoscope, read up on celebrity gossip, check local movie listings, get live scores for various sports events and even shop on the Home Shopping Network using their remotes. Dish Network has also teamed up with SIRIUS Music to provide over 60 channels of commercial-free music that are available with several Dish packages.

DirecTV also offers their own exclusive programming through channel 101. This channel offers music and live events as well as exclusive shows. Channel 103 is devoted to faith-based programming and family inspirational events. DirecTV also offers over 70 channels of XM Radio with selected packages.

Parental Locks

Both Dish Network and DirecTV offer parental controls and locks for no additional monthly cost as these features are built directly into the systems. Dish Network and DirecTV allow parents the option to lock certain movies based on their Motion Picture Association of America rating. In addition, Dish Network allows expanded ratings including nudity, language and violence to be taken into account and selected to offer extra protection for children. Both Dish Network and DirecTV allow parents to lock certain channels, including Pay-Per-View channels. DirecTV also authorizes parents to enforce spending limits on Pay-Per-View channels.

Dish Network and DirecTV offer tremendous packages and state-of-the-art technology to meet any family’s television needs. These listed features along with your family’s desired programming lineup and pocketbook will all need to be taken into consideration to choose the satellite television provider that is best suited for you.

Steven M. Bornstein recently issues a press release talking about how they work hard to deliver to their fans.

Football fans around the country watched a historic game on the last Saturday of the 2007 NFL season as the New England Patriots became the first team in 35 years to go undefeated in the regular season.

There were a few large cable companies that apparently tried to capitalize on the opportunity and blocked millions of fans from watching the game.

If some of the cable companies had their way, however, millions of fans would have missed this game. A few large cable companies tried to punish football fans by refusing to air the NFL Network and the game on reasonable terms.

Fortunately neither DIRECTV nor Dish Network were named as “bad guys”.

NFL Network had the exclusive right to telecast the game. More than 240 cable companies like Cox, along with satellite providers like DirecTV and Dish, and telephone company video providers like AT&T U-Verse and Verizon FiOS, had already reached agreements with NFL Network to carry our programming in its entirety.