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DIRECT TV
Total Articles:
2
Direct TV I had installed three years ago to replace COMCAST cable.
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| | Direct TV - Up Your Bandwidth And Drop Your Compression.
Posted: Mar 17, 2007, at 09:47 AM
Stored Under Topic: DIRECT TV -GUID-
Posted By: Infymus |  | |
Nearly four years ago we had Comcast Cable, the Extended Basic package. This package is just their cable connection to your TV with channels from 2 to around 100, or whatever your TV could handle. The cost? $58 dollars a month. Comcast claimed there were over 70 channels available in the extended package, but after you eliminated all the Spanish and Home Shopping channels, you were left with about 32.
Comcast then moved all of the Discovery channels into their Digital lineup. They then began moving all of the best channels out of the extended package, and into the digital package. This meant you had to sign up for digital - get a digital receiver, and pay a much higher amount including as much as $4.99 a month per remote control. Previously I had signed up for digital cable and was paying almost $70 a month for one TV, while the other televisions in the house would remain on the extended basic package. I found the digital quality totally lacking, the menu system painfully slow - and vast amounts of digital pixelization were constantly present. Of course, there was at least a 5% to 10% downtime as the cable just went out - without warning, and without compensation. Sometimes the cable would be out for a couple of days before it came back on. Comcast's Digital Cable was shit, and I went down to their offices and handed them the receiver and returned to the extended basic package.
When Comcast announced that they were going to raise the extended package price again on me, I decided it was time to go dish. After looking around and talking with others who had dish, I settled on Direct TV. It was easily installed and I was able to get a good package with four receivers and remotes for only $68 bucks a month. The same package with Comcast would have run about $108 a month.
I was so ticked off at Comcast that I cut the line they had run to my home from the pole, and tied the line up hanging down from the pole. I then removed (after great amount of swearing) the cable box that they had bolted to my brick wall, and tossed it in the garbage. The lines for Direct TV I ran myself and made sure they were done properly.
It is sad that both Comcast and Direct TV use MPEG for compression on videos. You can see the compression factor when you watch TV shows, you can see the large blocky compressed to uncompressed video on your screen. If you have an HDMI 80 inch screen, the resolution is so bad, it's like watching TV through a fish bowl. Last month I removed the Direct TV box from my theatre room and returned it to the children's playroom. There I hooked it back up to the 52" projection screen so the kids and Kim could watch TV while playing or exercising on one of our two treadmills. The resolution due to the compression factor made it impractical for use on an 80 projection screen.
The only time that Direct TV has ever gone out on me is when it snows hard and the dish is covered. I go out the side of the house and with a broom clean it off and whalla - the picture is back.
The thing that pisses me off about Direct TV is that they insert channels into your private lineup without your permission. You can program your own channels by using Custom 1 and Custom 2, or you can use All Channels - which sucks. With Custom 1, I get about 152 channels. What I hate is when I turn on the TV and I'm surfing my lineup - I suddenly find channels that Direct TV has inserted into my lineup. Most of these are Direct TV channels that they are selling crap on, or free concerts or whatnot. It drives me nuts having to go back and clean them out every week. Oftentimes, Direct TV will reset my favorite channels selection and put me back on "All Channels".
The other thing that pisses me off about Direct TV is that they update the receiver software and introduce bugs - then totally deny there is an issue - putting the entire blame on the customer. A year ago they introduced a bug that was so bad, it almost made using the service impossible. You would change channels and it would freeze - for as long as 2 to 5 minutes before returning to you. You couldn't even turn the receiver off, you either waited, or you unplugged it or hit the reset button. Direct TV customer service would then blame you, walk you through total reset methodology, or even try to get you to pay good $$$$ to have a repairman come out and diagnose the lines.
Even so, I have been happy with Direct TV. I just wish the so called digital resolution was better. The smaller and older your TV is, the better it is going to look. But those of us with HDMI, flat screen TVs (I have a 24" FLAT LCD in my kitchen) and so forth are noticing the poor resolution quality.
Direct TV - up your bandwidth and drop your compression. Give us this so-called "Digital" quality you are always waving around in our faces.
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| | Direct TV Woes
Posted: Jul 20, 2007, at 06:29 AM
Stored Under Topic: DIRECT TV -GUID-
Posted By: Infymus | | |
This week our Direct TV went out. All four TVs were searching for satellite.
I called Direct TV and worked with technical support, ended up running all over town to find a replacement multi-switch for our 2-in, 4-out switch. That, didn't fix it.
So I called them back and decided if they were coming out to fix the dish, I might as well go to HD for my theatre room and get my wife a DVR. That was $233.
Today the installers came and said they couldn't mount the dish on the side of the house where the current dish was. I find that incredibly stupid considering where the current dish is installed is the most secure place of all. The mount place is done with 40 foot long boards that are 40 feet by 3 inches wide. And there are three of them together holding the center part of the roof together. The Direct TV installer said it wasn't code to mount the HD dish there and said he'd get fined $75 bucks if he did it.
He said he could only mount it on the roof. Well, I have a flat roof and I refused. I'm not letting anyone punch holes through the tar and tar paper into less than 1/4 inch plywood.
Why for goddamns sake can't you mount it on the side where it would be fully secure? Instead, they can only mount it into a tar roof in quarter inch plywood? Whose reasoning is that?
I was pissed.
On top of that, it requires two connections to the HD-DVR to make it work properly so you can view one channel and record another. Well, the lines going into the house are through the basement wall and were sealed when I finished the theatre room. I am NOT going to drill another goddamn hole through the foundation into the house just to run a DVR. So that blew that as well.
So in the end, the installers fixed the LMB - which had gone bad after three years. Our Direct TV is back and running, but I'm left with NO HD and NO DVR.
So I called Direct TV back and they credited me back the $233 I paid for the HD and I only paid $15 bucks for the repair bill to the LMB. In addition, we got the entertainment package that gives us all the HBO, Stars, Showtime - etc channels.
I think we'll be happy for now.
What a runaround. It's too bad that when you call Direct TV and order this stuff, they don't ask you a series of questions that will lead to the same conclusion that days of waiting and technicians getting upset.
At least we can watch TV again. Enough of that crap, we're staying with our current plan.
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