Direct TV--OR--Comcast

[jennyf2]

Hello!

I currently have Comcast but I am thinking about switching to Direct TV. In my area they are offering $100 VISA gift card for switching & a great 1 year deal--after the years up its still a little less than what I am currently paying.

Any Direct TV users want to share the good & bad?

Thanks!

Jenny

 

[ICF]

If the question is.....

anyone Or Comcrap....you always take the "anyone", because anything will be an improvement.

There are lots of threads here on the good (and some bad) about Direct TV or Dish. I would suggest trying a search to see what you can find.

I've had both Dish & Direct and both beat the @#$@ out of cable. If you have a specific question or can't find anything via a search let me know.

 

[andrews_dad]

ComCrap is Crap!!! I loathe writing them a check every month. If you can't have an external dish out, though to have an option ....

 

[ICF]

ComCrap is Crap!!! I loathe writing them a check every month. If you can't have an external dish out, though to have an option ....

where cant you have an external dish?

 

[ambgoph]

I've had Directv for 8 years - I'm happy with them. Good customer service. You may lose the signal during bad weather for a bit - usually in a bad thunderstorm or heavy snow. Never lasts more than 30-45 minutes.

You might want to see if any of your family/friends are customers. They have a deal where if you sign up with their account #, you get a $100 credit and so do they. Not sure if you can get this if you're getting another deal - doesn't hurt to ask.

 

[Deb & Bill]

Rabbit ears before Comcast. I hate Comcast - it was terrible and they treated us like dirt.

DirecTV has always been good for us.

 

[Big Kahuna]

We fled Comcast three years ago for Direct TV here in Pa. I hate Comcast... In fact two Saturdays ago a knock on the door proved to be the regional comcast manager walking the street and talking to residents. Asked why we left... Told him customer service sucked and company was useless and went over how obnoxious Comcast was to deal with . He asked what it would take to get us back... He offered the bundled phone, tv, and High speed internet etc.... 99 dollars for 1 year... I again said never... We like our Internet and phone provider, and they are great to deal with. He asked what he needed to do to win us back ? I told him he needed God himself to come and talk to me before I would ever think of Comcast... He left quite dejected...

 

[Donaldswife]

We left Comcast for DirecTV in June and couldn't be happier.

 

[travelin' tigger]

Over 5 years ago we left Comcast for DIRECTV and have been happy ever since. They have great customer service, and more channels for less money.

 

[Melrosgirl]

I have Comcast and Direct TV (vacation house). I much prefer Comcast. Each time we use the Direct TV, it drives me crazy. It's not as reliable (big rain storm makes it go out). It's not very user friendly.

 

[LoraJ]

I had DirecTV and switched to Comcast and am so happy I did. Who provides your internet now? When I had DirecTV I had to have DSL and hated it. Comcast internet is so much better, less problems and much faster.


DirecTV would go out sometimes when there was bad weather. Sure Comcast has gone out, but not as much as satellite.

DirecTV was very limited when it came to On-Demand. If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to wait for a certain time to start watching the movie. Comcast has tons of On-Demand shows. So many of them free. DirecTV does not. If you forgot to record a show on the DVR, there's a good chance you can find it in the On-Demand section.

I have never had issues with Comcast's customer service. I just had a cable card installed in my TiVo and they were prompt and got everything done quickly.

My co-worker just had a huge issue with DirecTV. They (DirecTV technician) had installed a few dishes in his building in illegal spots and my co-worker was getting fined by the fire department for them and DIrecTV would not help them or come out to remove the dishes.

 

[DawnM]

Hate cable companies of any kind! We have Directv and love them.

Dawn

 

[pilesoflaundry]

There is nothing good about comcast, in general cable companies charge you more than dish for less channels but comcast is just awful service too.

We have directv and they are pretty good. Sometimes we get something in the mail "thanks for being a loyal customer you now have xyz channels free for 2 months" stuff like that. We've had them for 3 years and always get the football package so I guess we gave them enough money for that

 

[blanq]

Wow, lots of Comcast haters here, but my experience is exactly opposite. We had DirecTV for many years and switched to Comcast a year ago. We could not be happier, but I have to say that a major factor is how great their internet service is. We previously had AT&T, which we hated (I was so sick of intermittant service, and spending hours on hold and trying my darndest to communicate with some service person in India).

Comcast is totally reliable as both my ISP and TV provider. We have only had to call a couple of times, when we were new to the services, and the customer service we received was excellent.

My biggest gripe with DirecTV was how often it was "searching for satellite" when the weather was bad. Just when I needed the TV to tell me whether or not I needed to head to my basement, the darn service would go out...SO annoying!

 

[ICF]

DirecTV was very limited when it came to On-Demand. If you wanted to watch a movie, you had to wait for a certain time to start watching the movie. Comcast has tons of On-Demand shows. So many of them free. DirecTV does not. If you forgot to record a show on the DVR, there's a good chance you can find it in the On-Demand section.

That's just not true, perhaps when you had it but not any longer.

Comcrap may have more ONDemand (I havent compared) but Direct has a great deal of shows (free and pay) and you don't have to wait for the certain time for a PPV movie to start to watch it (assuming you are hooked up with ondemand).

People also compain about losing signal, but In the 11 months I have Direct I havent lost siganl for more than a few mins. If you are losing signal regularly there is probably another issue with either the equipment or the install that was done. It SHOULD take a very heavy storm for you to lose signal and not be something that happens on a regular basis.

Back when I had Comcrap in the late 90's, we lost signal all the time and if a line went down for some reason it could be hours or longer before we got TV back. With Satellite, it's down at most for 5 mins at a time.

 

[David 1980]

If you like to watch the NHL or Indy Car stay away from Direct TV? Direct Tv and Versus are in a battle and we the fans are getting shafted. Direct Tv says they are doing this to help keep the cost down and then they raise prices $4.00 per month anyway. I would rather watch test patterns before I would get Comcrap..

 

[skhermsmeyer]

LOVE Directv! We've had it for 7 years. The only bad thing about it like PP said, it does tend to "search for signal" during heavy storms (be it rain or snow). However, it NEVER did that in Kansas City. We've only had that problem here in Atlanta. Maybe we have bigger rain drops! For us, we couldn't beat the price. HTH

 

[Hardy]

We've had both...now we live in an area where Comcast is not available. Their customer service was always fine, our HD/DVR boxes failed several times and it was always easy to get a new one, but still annoying, I suspect the refurbished boxes they use are often not actually fixed.

Directv is what we currently have, and I am not terribly happy with them. Our DVR hard drive failed and we were told we would have to pay for a new one and pay for a tech to come out, all these things, unless we bought some protection plan. I'm sorry, but if I lease a receiver, I expect them to cover issues, especially when it breaks just sitting there on a shelf. We finally got a new one sent with no cost.

Signal is very good....if yours goes out a lot, you probably don't have the satellite in a great spot. Ours is mounted on a pole around 100 ft from our house and we very rarely lose signal.

One good thing about Directv is for the past two years, we have called and asked for discounts, and have never had an issue getting them. We just called for another 12 months of credits ($11 a month total).

 

[micki7337]

We had direct TV I stress HAD it. We had it for 5 years with minimal issues like outages, services issues like all providers had. then we moved to a new house and that is when the all things went kakakrazy. we had issues weekly. then we got HD and it only got worse.
We now have comcast and well same issues with outages like all systems but it is great they have every thing we want to watch and it does not cost an arm and a leg.

hope this helps

 

[deerhart]

If you like to watch the NHL or Indy Car stay away from Direct TV? Direct Tv and Versus are in a battle and we the fans are getting shafted. Direct Tv says they are doing this to help keep the cost down and then they raise prices $4.00 per month anyway. I would rather watch test patterns before I would get Comcrap..

We are lucky and our hockey team only had 2 or 3 games on versus this year. The rest were shown on our fox sports channel in HD.

The problem is that Comcast owns versus and doesn't want it on DirecTv so they are charging an arm and leg for them to carry it. As some one who's watched the channel oh like 5 times in 10 years, I'd rather not pay to have it.