Direct TV is Poor service

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:51:42 -0500 Lloyd Parsons wrote:
| In article ,
| wrote:
|
| On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:10:33 -0700 Steve Urbach
| wrote:
|
| |You have to sign a two year contract.
| | How is that "Free" G.
|
| That's DTV's imagination of "free".
|
| Try Dish instead. They suck slightly less.
|
| Same committment, no better customer service.

DishNet has a month to month service if you buy your own receiver (not from
them). DirecTV does not offer the that.


| Dish does have a better HDDVR but the picture quality isn't quite as
| good as Direct's, nor does Dish have all the good HD channels yet.
|
| In time, the channels will all be on both though.

That's why I'm not jumping to HD, yet. So far I've just dabbled (got a Philips
19" monitor/TV that recently died due to an apparentl P/S thermal issue).

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wrote:
On 19 Jun 2008 14:46:12 GMT wrote:
| wrote:
| On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:49:14 -0500 John Carrier
| wrote:
|
| | Two gripes: They pulled several HD channels from their HD package
| | and made them an extra cost option ($5 IIRC). The DVR uses a
| | database to determine what OTA broadcasts it gets vice just doing a
| | search like any TV tuner.
|
| And presumably it is getting the OTA broadcasts wrong?
|
| It gets them right IF they are in the database.
| I believe it is provided by Tribune. If you have
| wrong info, contact your local station and let
| them know to get it updated.

So the database is wrong. And so the tuner behaves wrong because the
database is wrong. Bzzzt. Bad design. DTV Bad. DTV Bad. DTV Bad.

Did you read the part where I said the database is maintained
by Tribune? It's up to them to get the information correct.

Chip

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In article ,
wrote:

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 15:51:42 -0500 Lloyd Parsons
wrote:
| In article ,
| wrote:
|
| On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 10:10:33 -0700 Steve Urbach
| wrote:
|
| |You have to sign a two year contract.
| | How is that "Free" G.
|
| That's DTV's imagination of "free".
|
| Try Dish instead. They suck slightly less.
|
| Same committment, no better customer service.

DishNet has a month to month service if you buy your own receiver (not from
them). DirecTV does not offer the that.

I've seen discussions about that very subject on dbstalk forums. The
gist is that DTV does have that too.


| Dish does have a better HDDVR but the picture quality isn't quite as
| good as Direct's, nor does Dish have all the good HD channels yet.
|
| In time, the channels will all be on both though.

That's why I'm not jumping to HD, yet. So far I've just dabbled (got a
Philips
19" monitor/TV that recently died due to an apparentl P/S thermal issue).

With a 19", or even up to 32", I don't think there is enough compelling
reason to go to HD.

I lease the DTV equipment Besides the programming cost monthly, the only
thing I pay is $4.98 a month for the receiver. We had the extra dish added
(no cost because we lease) for local channels also two years ago, the DTV
tech gave us all new remotes and upgraded our receivers to the newest ones.
We've never had to pay anything more with the lease agreement. We just
renew our 2 year contract every two years.

If you have the HD package, then the locals will be in hd if the
locals are sending hd. It seems to me that I only loose DirecTV signal
when the heart of a T storm passes directly in line with the bird.
Except for the commercial sound being too loud, I find the sound to be
fine.

"JohnR66" wrote in message
...
My parents just moved to downsize for retirement. My dad wanted Direct TV
because they have a football package he wanted. Overall I'm not impressed
with the service.
No local HD channels. You have to pay for them.
No service if heavy storm clouds pass.
Some standard def. channels look like even less resolution (320x240).
Heavy compression makes audio terrible. Lots of that "watery" sound from
rear channel speakers.

I would rate Direct TV a 4 out of 10.

They had it only for a month and my mom complains that every time a storm
cloud passes the signal is lost. Another issue (I don't know if it is Direct
TV thing), is the sound is out of sync with the video.

I ended up making them a UHF antenna. Now they get the locals in HD. One
thing's for sure, the OTA HD blows DTV's HD away.

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:06:17 -0500 Lloyd Parsons wrote:

| That's why I'm not jumping to HD, yet. So far I've just dabbled (got a
| Philips
| 19" monitor/TV that recently died due to an apparentl P/S thermal issue).
|
| With a 19", or even up to 32", I don't think there is enough compelling
| reason to go to HD.

Actually, I see the quality of HD even on 19" (native 1440x900). But I will
want to find a genuine 16:9 before I make the HD move (this 19" is more of a
computer monitor for my uses right now). My reason to hold back on HD is to
see where things go.

I'm still in the market for a small (under 12") battery powered LCD TV with
digital tuner. But I don't need HD on that. I have seen a native 800x480
9" LCD monitor on the JVC web site, so apparently LCD modules are available
at that size (perhaps also used for those grocery cash register displays).
Either that for widescreen, or a true 640x480 for normal screen, would work
for that portable TV.

I'm continuing to survey what I will get for a big screen HD TV. Nothing
yet has all the features I want in one model. So I may continue hunting.
The 48" size range is what I will be looking at, with native 1920x1080.

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| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 19:17:33 -0500 Christie wrote:

| I lease the DTV equipment Besides the programming cost monthly, the only
| thing I pay is $4.98 a month for the receiver. We had the extra dish added
| (no cost because we lease) for local channels also two years ago, the DTV
| tech gave us all new remotes and upgraded our receivers to the newest ones.
| We've never had to pay anything more with the lease agreement. We just
| renew our 2 year contract every two years.

And how much personal information do you have to give them to make the lease?

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|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, googlegroups.com is blocked. Due to ignorance |
| by the abuse department, bellsouth.net is blocked. If you post to |
| Usenet from these places, find another Usenet provider ASAP. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

On 19 Jun 2008 22:37:33 GMT wrote:
| wrote:
| On 19 Jun 2008 14:46:12 GMT wrote:
| | wrote:
| | On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:49:14 -0500 John Carrier
| | wrote:
| |
| | | Two gripes: They pulled several HD channels from their HD package
| | | and made them an extra cost option ($5 IIRC). The DVR uses a
| | | database to determine what OTA broadcasts it gets vice just doing a
| | | search like any TV tuner.
| |
| | And presumably it is getting the OTA broadcasts wrong?
| |
| | It gets them right IF they are in the database.
| | I believe it is provided by Tribune. If you have
| | wrong info, contact your local station and let
| | them know to get it updated.
|
| So the database is wrong. And so the tuner behaves wrong because the
| database is wrong. Bzzzt. Bad design. DTV Bad. DTV Bad. DTV Bad.
|
| Did you read the part where I said the database is maintained
| by Tribune? It's up to them to get the information correct.

I'll try to rephrase to make it clearer:

Designing a tuner so it depends on some database that may or may not be
accurate by intent or neglect is a bad design. A tuner should just tune
on the basis of what is actually there.

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|WARNING: Due to extreme spam, googlegroups.com is blocked. Due to ignorance |
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| Usenet from these places, find another Usenet provider ASAP. |
| Phil Howard KA9WGN (email for humans: first name in lower case at ipal.net) |

said:
----"Designing a tuner so it depends on some database that may or may
not be accurate by intent or neglect is a bad design.A tuner should just
tune on the basis of what is actually just there."----

Reply:
Really? Well,that would kind of negate the TIVO model now would it not?
Sure it is not perfect by any means,but I kind of like it.Basic tuners
in my mind's eye are just plain boring.I like the fact that it is
attempting to find programs I like based on information and then
auto-recording it.Sure,it can be flawed but the dynamics of having to
wade through all that information yourself is just too mundane and
ploddingly slow to me.To each his own.IT systems follow the GIGO
(Garbage In/GarbageOut) principle,I accept that.It sure beats what came
before though.