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.