Anyone with DirecTV or Dish Network?

[Red Heeler]

I have had Directv for many years without having it hooked to a landline. You can order pay per view stuff over the net without a phone line. If you get the FoxSports ($12) package, you should get the Reds games. I did when I lived in Tennessee. Last summer, I moved ten miles across the Georgia line and no longer get them. We just got the regular HD reciever ($100), not the HD DVR ($200).

[Jpup]

The cable company is coming today to install a box and all that. The one they are bringing is a single tuner HD DVR because they are out of the dual tuner units. They will bring one of those when they get one from Motorola. I decided to stick with local cable for the next couple of months because it is cheaper and I plan to buy a house within the next 5 months and will get Dish Network then. It will be early in the season and hopefully I'll move before the season starts. I can deal with what they offer until baseball starts.

Thanks for all of the help guys. I'll let you all know how it goes.

[deltachi8]

Thanks for the posting here, I too am going to be moving in the next few months and when I do, I will be gladly telling Time Warner to fly a kite.

[Handofdeath]

I have had Directv for many years without having it hooked to a landline. You can order pay per view stuff over the net without a phone line. If you get the FoxSports ($12) package, you should get the Reds games. I did when I lived in Tennessee. Last summer, I moved ten miles across the Georgia line and no longer get them. We just got the regular HD reciever ($100), not the HD DVR ($200).

I've got Dish and you have to have the phone line plugged in to order something like PPV or to upgrade your programming. But I don't keep the phone line plugged in and I don't think they charge me even though they say they will. And my programming guide updates just fine without it. I've had cable and satellite and I would choose satellite except for when it goes out during storms. Also I couldn't get the Weather Channel locally until just recently. Now you can get a certain form of it. Got to have the dish.

[jmcclain19]

One of the more interesting perks with DirecTV - is that if you move every couple of years - they tell you to leave the dish - and they'll install a new one at your new house free of charge.

My situation was a little different becaue I lived in an apt - so I took the existing dish with me - but I know others who have moved out - you just call them up and set up the date & tell them the new address and they come out for free.

Nice little perk.

[Jpup]

Well, it was an interesting afternoon. First of all the cable company was scheduled to be here at 1pm. I decided to run some errands and be back home before 12:30 in case they were early. I got back at 12:15 and the guy was hanging out in the driveway waiting. So, that went well.

He hooked up the box and he was amazed at the PQ of my TV. He said that they do this job everyday and mine is the best PQ of any television that he has seen. (Thanks to Avia and Sony, of course.) It really did look good, but no different than I was used to really. Then....

The guy wasn't gone for 10 minutes and the picture starting tiling really, really bad. I thought it was just ESPN HD that I was watching so I changed the channel and quickly realized it was happening on every channel. I called up the cable company and told them the problem. The lady on the phone said that she would send the guy right back out here. This was about 2:00. At 4:00 no one had showed up. So with the weekend coming up and me about to throw the box through the wall, I called them again. They redirected to someone who could get someone out here. By 4:45 I had another guy out here and he couldn't figure out the problem. The signal was great, he said. I let him know that I thought the box was screwed up. It was really acting weird to me, although I had never had one before. Between his comments about how wonderful my TV looked and him trying to tell me 10 stories, he went out and got another box to test it out. He hooked it up and fixed the problem.

I am really glad they got back out here before the long weekend or I would have probably just canceled my service. That is how mad I was trying to figure out the tiling issues. It all worked out and the PQ from the box is actually a little better than it was without it due to the box upscaling all the HD channels to 1080i, which my Tvs native res. is 1920 X 1080. 720 just didn't look too good on my set.

I also asked the guy why I they couldn't get FSN Ohio/Cincinnati since every county around us seems to have it. He gave me the company line that it would cost every customer as much as 8 bucks a month to add the channel and they didn't think it was worth it and they would lose customers. He said if they had the option to add it as a premium they would be glad to, but FSN would make them add it as a basic channel. I understand that even though I don't like it. I did let him know that I would be switching to Dish Network within the year just for that reason. He said that there customers they have canceled their cable because they refuse to get FSN South (UK games) and Disney Channel for the same reasons.

There is my story. I'll get to do it again in about a month when they get me a new dual tuner box in from Motorola. The one I have now stinks because you can only record what you are watching. I also went to the MOTO site and got the user manuals for the box so that I can change everything whenever I want.