Do you have HD with Directv?

[minnieandmickeymouse]

We are long time subscribers to directv. We up graded to a new 46" LCD HDTV. So we got a new HD directv DVR. I looked on their website, and it looks like they don't have many HD channels? Is it going to be worth the extra 10 a month for a couple of HD channels? We have no use for the sports, we all hate sports.

If you have HD with directv, are you happy with it?

 

[mom2kazkids]

I am not happy with Directv period. Any little wind where I live and nothing but local channels work. I cannot imagine what it will be like in the winter. Also the customer service that I received from them just down right stinks. One time I could not understand the rep that I was speaking with and asked to be transferred to another rep and I was hung up on. Also when a service call is needed you cannot get then out except for 1-2 weeks later. I am truely sorry that I ever signed up with them, especially for HD as I am stuck in a 2 year contract, or have to pay $300 to get out of it.

Barb

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Hubby does and he isn't happy with it. The HD signal isn't reliable and I don't know the technical reason why. The channels often behave like when you have a really bad storm or something. This is for our local channels. For the rest--I don't think he has any complaints. But when his football game is on the local channel--it is kind of irritating to watch.

 

[lulubelle]

We have it and love it. It almost never goes out and when it does it has only been for five minutes or so. I have only called them once for customer service (to change the package we had) and the guy was ok, nothing special, nothing rude. Anyway, what makes it soooo worth it is that many, many shows and movies are shown in HD - there is a Blue HD next to the listing on the guide channel so you know which shows are shown in HD. And our local news channel 7 (ABC) is HD all the time. Watching a HD show is far superior than non HD. As I said, combine that with surround sound and I feel like we enjoy a better experience that being in a movie theater. My only gripe is we do not have Tivo because a HD Tivo unit is about $500! Good luck deciding.

 

[MoniqueU]

I live the next town over from LULUBELLE and have to say my husband loves it. Would never go back to regular, thats why we bought the HDTV. I can't reemember the last time ours went out but then again we live where there are very few storms. I also get the NFL sunday ticket and alot of the games are in HD.

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Also wanted to say that the only time we lost signal was Tropical Storm Ernesto. Haven't had trouble with other weather--even severe T-storms.

 

[bicker]

When we went HD we originally looked at satellite services, both Dish and DirecTV. What we found is that the HD picture quality was far inferior to that of cable. In order to save bandwidth, the satellite services heavily compress their signal.

 

[jel0511]

We actually left Directv over HD. We didn't want to pay 300 for the HD Tivo box when our local cable co would give it to us for free with the $10 per month HD fee. Personally I miss directv, but LOVE HD. The only thing I miss is Tivo, we just have a dvr now

 

[Fitswimmer]

I tried our local cable system when I first got my HD TV and while the HD channels were good, the channels that weren't in HD were really inferior. I had a Directv receiver to have Sunday Ticket, so I was really able to make a side by side comparision. I ended up switching to Directv for everything and I really have not regretted it. The sound and picture quality is FAR superior than what my cable company was offering. The cable rates also increase far too frequently for my liking.

 

[bicker]

Fitswimmer -- were you comparing your non-HD channels on your big screen to them on a small screen? If so, that will always show a difference: A big screen will magnify any imperfections with the video, and the nature of analog ("non-HD") channels is that there are imperfections introduced all the way through the process. Projecting them on to a big screen make them look worse.

That might not be the problem, though. Some older cable boxes were half analog/half digital. That means that there are that many more ways for imperfections to be introduced (now within the analog half of the cable box). Our cable company now has a digital simulcast for all the analog (2-99) channels, and so the folks with digital cable boxes receive all their channels in digital now, rather than some in analog and some in digital. That gets rid of the additional imperfections -- with all digital, our non-HD channels look better than they ever did before on our big screen.

 

[Fitswimmer]

Some older cable boxes were half analog/half digital.

I think that's what it was. The way I did my very unscientific comparison was to put TNT on with the cable box, and then put TNT on with the Directv receiver (not the HD channel), and then switch inputs to see the same channel from both providers. To my eyes, the cable version was really inferior.

The reason I had cable at all was because they were offering TV, phone and internet for $99 a month. After 12 months it went up to the regular price which was more than what a combination of Verzion and Directv would cost. I only really liked the cable internet, the phone service had bad sound (there were always echoes) and the TV was not as good. So I gave it up when the promotion was over.