DirecTV HDTV - Page 478

I seem to have a lot of times where I need more than two tuners, I may plan on recording 10 or 12 shows a week, but it seems like one or two nights will have some kind of conflict and I'll need 3 or 4, or there will be just enough slight overlaps that I need 4 tuners going at once. Another problem with the major nets, no real chance to catch a repeat, on-demand is hit and miss, they don't seem to really care, if you miss it, too bad, we ain't gonna show it anymore. Cable stations give you so many more opportunities.

Incorrect. The DVR fee went up from $8 to $10 (for any DVR) earlier this year. The HD fee is $10, and the Whole Home fee is $3. All of these are per account, not DVR.


It's not necessarily about volume, but conflicts. I often have more than 2 things to record at a time, and there were a couple of Sunday's last Fall when I actually had more than 5.

For me, the bulk of what I watch is on the cable nets, so I rarely have a conflict I can't resolve by recording a later showing of a cable show.

I just wish the DVR was a bit smarter about resolving conflicts. Right now, if I set up to record a show that conflicts with two other shows that a I have a series record set up for, it only gives me the option to cancel the request or cancel one of the two shows it conflicts with. I wish it was smart enough to see upcoming additional showings of an episode and give me the option to record the next available showing.

So, for example, I was set up to record Revolution and Bates Motel automatically each Monday at 10PM. I wanted to record the Mel Brooks special that is on PBS, but it overlaps until 10:30PM. If I try to record the special, the DVR will ask if I want to cancel the request for the special or cancel Revolution or Bates Motel. What I wish it would do is give me the option to record a later airing of either Bates Motel or the special, since both had multiple airings.

It's not like the DVR doesn't find them when I search for upcoming showings. It just makes me search for those upcoming showings manually, then set up to record one, delete the conflict, then set up for the show I want to record that would otherwise conflict. These devices should be smarter with that stuff.

I currently sub to the Premier pkg, but I'm thinking about dropping it down to Ultimate or possibly Xtra, but I'd like to get the Sports Pak. Prowling around the web site, I never actually saw an actual channel listing of what is in the Sports Pak and I also didn't find a monthly price for it. Anybody know the answers about the Sports Pak?

I believe the Sports Pack is the same price as one premium move package is per month which is $12.99 or so.

What channels in the sports pack do you routinely watch? They recently moved some channels around within certain packages. For example, Fox Soccer Channel (619) is now part of any choice xtra or above package. This channel was part of the sports pack previously. Its the only channel I really watch, so I dropped sports pack. I think its 12.99/month. I'm not sure what, if any, other channels from the sports pack were moved.

Sent from the Nodes of Ranvier

Fox Soccer goes away on September 2nd and will be replaced with FXX. That's why it's been moved out of the sports pack.

And if you already have other premiums, adding the SP would be less, since the more you add, the less each additional one is...

what happens to fox soccer plus? dies? fox sports 3? fox sports plus? FX movie channel / FOX movie channel spits in to 2?

Actually it should do this automatically for you, not sure why yours isn't. If you told it to cancel the Bates Motel recording the DVR would automatically look for the next airing of that episode and record it instead so you can record the PBS special (assuming you have a series link set up for Bates Motel). At least it should work that way with TV series set up with series links. If you told it to just cancel a one time recording I'm not 100% sure if it will replace that one with the next airing of it or not.

Let me make sure I'm reading this right, you are saying if I had Bates Motel set up as a series and something else came along and conflicted with it, if I told Bates to cancel the upcoming episode so the conflict could record, that the DVR will record the next non conflicting showing of that episode? I'm pretty sure that mine doesn't, if I cancel a single showing of a series it doesn't record until the next new episode comes along, which is usually the next week at the normal time(of course I normally set the series recording on first run)

Same here.

It just blows off the episode completely. If it actually worked the way Beerstalker said, I wouldn't be complaining about it.

I've even given it time to see if it just takes a little while to catch up and add the re-air to the list, but it never does.

No, if the show you are skipping has a season pass the unit will find and record it later. Mine has done it this way for years. If it's a one time show then no it will not find and record it.

I just checked and I have a conflict coming up on 6/2 @ 9:00pm. I'm Eastern Time. 8:00-10:00 The Killing, 9:00-10:00 Game of Thrones and 9:00-9:30 Nurse Jackie. It has rescheduled Nurse Jackie to the midnight showing. That is great, Nurse Jackie has the lowest priority of the three and the DVR is taking care of things. Now, if I wanted to record something say on PBS at 9:00 pm on that Sunday, then I am forced to cancel either 'The Killing' or 'Game of Thrones' and I'm almost dead certain(99.9%) that when I do that, whichever one I cancel will not record at a later time.

Mine does that as well, which is why I always move cable series to lower priority than broadcast network series.
That's what happens with me. It just bails and never bothers to record any later showing.

I am currently Camcast basic user in San Jose, CA area paying around $70/month. I have two TV (one in family room, another one in the bedroom). We watch local 4 major network channels and CNN and HGTV Home and Garden network. No, we are not interested in any premium nor movie channels. No, HD viewing is not that important either.

I am considering lower my TV bill. Is DirecTV a good option.
I read Yelp in San Jose about DirecTV and over whelming very negative reviews, particularly about over + double billing, horrible customer services, and non-working dish and constantly failed equipment., and very bad installation contractor here

This is not an option, right?

It will probably be a wash for you. DirecTV's cheapest package (after new customer discounts expire) is about $60. Add $6 for the bedroom box plus tax and you're right back at $70. However, you will save the first 2 years, as that package is only about $30. If you just want to save money, changing services every 2 years is the way to do it, or cut the cord, get an antenna, and watch CNN and HGTV online.

I've had DirecTV many times for many years, on and off. I had my share of billing problems, equipment failures and poor installation, but no more than I did with any other service like cable or Dish, and nothing I didn't eventually get straightened out. Nobody's perfect.

As noted, I doubt you'll see any major savings - just different equipment and programming packages. Honestly, the real advantage is having the ammunition to switch services if you aren't happy.
I've never had any of those kinds of issues other than I realized recently that I was still being billed for a mirroring fee about a year after I deactivated an older, second DVR. They had stopped billing for the DVR service, but the second receiver fee was still there and I had missed it on the bill.

When I noticed the issue, I called and they credited my account for the fees and gave me additional credits for 12 months as a way of saying "sorry" for goofing up. If that's terrible service, then maybe I'm too easy to please.

I will say, though, there are areas where the installers suck. Unfortunately, those guys are usually contract workers, so they don't always follow through properly on stuff. In those cases, all you can do is complain until you get everything right. One would hope that, with enough complaints, DirecTV or Dish would eventually stop using that contractor and hire someone else.

Finally, there are certainly areas where having a dish may not prodice as good results. Places that get a lot of heavy rain might see more signal outages. If your line of sight isn't quite clear, you'll see more outages due to low initial signal strength. Places with high winds migh see periodic signal issues when the wind wiggles the dish beyond tolerances. Not every location is good for dish service.

The thing is, if your installer doesn't properly mount and aim the dish and connect everything properly, even the best location for satellite can easily become the worst.

Unfortunately, when you hear complaints, that's usually all you hear. People seldom go online or wherever to say things are great. I'm sure if you looked it up, you'd find just as many complaints with every cable, telco and satellite company out there. That applies to every business. I'm sure that once it matures and expands, you'll eventually get some nightmare stories from Google Fiber, too.

Wow, click Yelp on both DirecTV in San Jose and their San Jose contractor: Ironwood Communications. I have never seen so negative legitimate reviews. With few 4 star positive obvious trolls. "NetworkTV" wrote above, I wander why we willingly put their live through hell to get DirecTV, and paying $400 to get of their contracts.

Compare with the rest of the world, Americans are taught to put their live through hell keep using set top box for their TV viewing, which they spent more time and more money more hell compare with the rest of the world. This is unbelieveable, just like Americans are taught to buy mobile phones with long term contracts from carriers.