DirecTV vs. Time Warner Cable

[fearofpopvol1]

Originally Posted by hebroncougar

If you move, they have the movers service. Just take your receivers, and they will come install for free. They did that for me.

I know that, what I was saying was that it sucks if you want to move and cancel, you really can't! You're stuck with it no matter what.

[fearofpopvol1]

One other note...the DVR with DirecTV is much better than the one with Time Warner. The recording space is MUCH bigger.

[hebroncougar]

Originally Posted by fearofpopvol1

One other note...the DVR with DirecTV is much better than the one with Time Warner. The recording space is MUCH bigger.

From what I've seen, cable dvr's, and other boxes are light years behind directv. And that may be an understatement.

[GAC]

That was another item that I got Directv to throw in when I was juking them last August - the whole house DVR capabilities. I'm really not that much of a TV watcher. I sleep in front of it more then I watch it any more. And I don't really watch series TV either, other then The Walking Dead (which premieres this Sunday); but I like that DVR option of seeing a movie or show coming on, and if you don't want to watch it right then, you can record/watch it at your convenience.

You can then also FF through all the commercials.

[fearofpopvol1]

As someone who used Comcast and Time Warner's boxes for a number of years, I think DTV is definitely ahead of the pack. As I said before, the memory is probably 75% larger and that is a huge difference. I also like after you watch something it shows that it's been watched in your menu. I also like that you can switch rooms and pick up where you left off with (if you have whole home). DTV, starting on 2/9, will also have standard HD DVRs that can record 5 shows at once instead of the standard 2. That's pretty big.

Maybe most importantly, DirecTV not only has a better DVR, but they don't charge ridiculous money for the service, unlike their greedy competitors.

[Caveat Emperor]

Bumping this up -- I just moved into a new house and found out today that I cannot get a DirecTV signal (too many old trees all over the neighborhood).

I was looking at Time Warner now, and they want to charge me $31 per month just to have 1 DVR and 1 regular cable box for the 2 TVs in the house. DirecTV was going to give me whole-home HD-DVR + a 2nd box for a TOTAL of $10. My total bill with TW, for less services and channels than DTV would have provided, is nearly double what DirecTV would have been.

What a rip-off. I can't believe anyone willingly uses this service.

[dougdirt]

Call them up and tell them you are going to go with Direct TV unless they can give you a better deal. They will hook you up.

[reds1869]

Is Cincinnati Bell FiOptics available? We switched to them from TWC and saved $45 per month over our old cable bill. In the process we increased our internet speed from 7.5 Mbps to 30 Mbps and got a much better tv package. If you can get actual fiber like we do (they sometimes label copper lines as FiOptics for marketing purposes) it can't be topped.

[Caveat Emperor]

Originally Posted by reds1869

Is Cincinnati Bell FiOptics available? We switched to them from TWC and saved $45 per month over our old cable bill. In the process we increased our internet speed from 7.5 Mbps to 30 Mbps and got a much better tv package. If you can get actual fiber like we do (they sometimes label copper lines as FiOptics for marketing purposes) it can't be topped.

I've heard good things (except one friend, who complains constantly that it takes too long to bring up the guide and change channels), but they don't have FiOptics available in my neighborhood yet.

As best I can tell, with DirecTV being blocked, my options are literally pay Time Warner or have no television service whatsoever.

[cinredsfan2000]

Originally Posted by Caveat Emperor

As best I can tell, with DirecTV being blocked, my options are literally pay Time Warner or have no television service whatsoever.

You might try dish Network there H.D. dish settings are a little higher for Dish network compared to Direct tv . Where as Direct T.V techs set up there elv. on there H.D dishes at aprox. 34 or so degrees in elevation. where dish network's are somewhere around 45 degrees that 10 degrees is a huge difference sometimes . So that may be another option to look into .

[Reds4Life]

Stay away from Time Warner, my bill just went up AGAIN. 5th time in 2 years, I am fed up with them.

[hebroncougar]

My direct bill just went up to $97. I have 2 DVR's and no premium channels. So, I called Insight. They installed a whole home dvr, and I have all the channels except premiums (same I had with direct), and my bill is $65. I suspended my directv service. If all goes well, I'll cancel in about a month.

[goreds2]

Originally Posted by dougdirt

Call them up and tell them you are going to go with Direct TV unless they can give you a better deal. They will hook you up.

I called TW up about 2 months ago saying I keep getting these Direct TV and DISH TV flyers in the mail and asked if they had any discount promotions right now. They took 20 dollars off my monthly bill.

[fearofpopvol1]

I've now had DirecTV for almost a year and a half and am still thrilled with them. As you may know, they do ask for a 2 year contract, and the contract is backloaded with extra costs (at least compared to year 1).

However, I just called up at around the year mark and said I was looking to cancel my service and pay the disconnect fee and they immediately took off around $35 a month off the bill for 6 months and $25 for the 6 months after if I was willing to stay. That has my bill at around $55-60 a month (including whole home DVR) and 2 boxes, which to me seems like a fair price.

I also called up last year before the NFL season started and asked if I could have the NFL Sunday Ticket since I was a relatively new customer, but not technically eligible for the package and they gave that to me as well.

The MLB Extra Innings package on DirecTV is SO much better than Time Warner it's not even close. You can pick whatever feed you want from whatever team (this especially helps out if the Reds aren't broadcasting a particular game) AND all of the games are in HD. I don't know if Time Warner has improved the number of HD games or if they allow you to pick whatever feed you want since I have not had their service for a while, but when I had the package with them, you definitely couldn't pick the feed and the vast majority of Reds games were not in HD (maybe 1 a week was if you were lucky). I do wish though that DirecTV allowed you to see the pre and post game shows, though.

The last thing I'll say, for now, is that I have really not experienced too many weather related issues either. That was a big concern of mine previously (mostly because I had DTV in the 90s and any amount of rain would doom the signal). I would say the service has gone out maybe 3 times in the last 18 months and each time, it was only out for maybe an hour or 2 tops. It does suck if you're trying to watch a live event of some kind or if your DVRing something that may not be repeated and it goes out, but I only ran into that problem once.

Overall, I'm very happy with DirecTV. And I'm still saving around $50-60 per month over when I was with Time Warner.