Tell me about Direct TV...goood, bad and ugly

I love my Directv. The only complaint is the prices keep going up. Like everything else. I dont have unlimited internet. I always like to think about all the tv I can watch and not have to monitor usage. LOL If it is less with more channels. Go for it.

We have direct. Really like them so far. Customer service has always been great if I call in. They just offered me a free genie upgrade when I called to order starz. So far no complaints.

I am satisfied with their channels and their service.  They are very expensive after your initial contract is up, though. 

What someone said earlier about there being not much on over what seems like a million channels is pretty accurate. I'd switch to streaming options and save a boatload of money but we "have to" have DirecTV because of the sports packages that my husband "needs" to watch.

Cons: expensive, the dish might be installed somewhere you don't like (ours isn't on the roof, but I'm still not thrilled with it's location), heavy rain/snow can cause you to lose your signal right at what always seems to be a critical part of a show, the Genie system can be fickle, calling them can be an exercise in patience, and did I mention the expense?

Pros: You gets lots of channels, there's ample room on the Genie DVR, picture quality is good, technicians have been nice, and if you have sports watching needs they will be met.

I had cable before and we signed up via a BestBuy deal in November.
The picture quality is superb.
They try and tell you it's cheaper but it's not.
Our bill is about $20/month than it was with cable.
We have all the movie channels and I may cancel those to save the money.
So, in other words I would not go back to cable unless DirectTV became really expensive.

Like Monica said - read the fine print. They have ways of wording it so it can be very confusing.

We have had Dish for 18 years and love it. We live in the country, so there is no way to get cable. Several of our friends switched from Dish to Direct because of a "great deal" - everyone one of them switched back to Dish as soon as they could - they said Direct was very deceptive in their advertising and it ended up costing way more for less programming. DISH appears to be the better company.

I love my onscreen guides and DVR.

If you have a heavy rain - you will lose your signal. Same for heavy snow. If your dish is high on the roof, and you get heavy sticky snow - it may cover the dish and you won't get a signal until it melts and falls off.

we lost reception every time there was a storm - rain or snow. I hated their dvr and switched to TIVO, but if there was a storm it didn't matter - you can't record what isn't coming in. Once I quit they offered all kinds of deals to come back. We switched to comcast and while I have heard horror stories about them, that has not been our experience and we never have the reception issues we had with DirecTv

I signed up with DirectTV under the same deal you are considering.  I'm also a former Comcast cable subscriber.  I like DirectTV better because:

1.  With the Comcast DVR I never knew if a show would actually record properly.  I would take my old DVR to them to switch it out and it was still hit and miss.  I'd be all set and in the mood to watch a show I thought I had recorded and it would just be blank.  I've NEVER had that problem with a DirectTV show I've recorded.  One time one show was funny, but it automatically recovered.  I didn't miss a thing.

2.  On Comcast if I wanted the HD channel I'd have to hunt around and find it.  At first they charged extra for HD channels, then they started including them, but they were still on separate channels.  Nuts to that.  All of DirectTV channels are HD.

What I liked better about Comcast:

1.  They had that section of Free Movies so it was easy to find all the free ones grouped together.  With DirectTV, you don't know if it's free until you actually go to select it.  I don't watch movies that often, so it's not a feature I really miss all that much.

2.  The On Demand on Comcast was quick and easy to get to.  While Direct TV has On Demand, it's downloaded from the Internet every time, so there is a delay to go get the info.  It's not horrible, but it's not instant, either.

3.  Direct TV does have a feature where on some shows you can switch over to the show and you have the option to go back and watch it from the beginning.  The downside is that you can't fast forward through the commercials.  It's kind of painful.  I'm the type of viewer that builds up cache on whatever I'm watching so I can fast forward through commercials.  Always.

4.  On the wet snow days or really super heavy rain times, I never lost my Comcast signal, but DirectTV is satellite so you do.  That's when it pays to have plenty of shows to watch from the DVR, because that still works. I've lost signal about 3 times in the past year for anywhere from ten minutes to a day. I have a lot of variety recorded on my DVR so it hasn't been too painful. And at least I know whatever I have recorded is actually recorded (see item 1 in the first list.)

I still have Comcast for Internet.  No way am I going to go with satellite for that.

I'm happy I made the switch.  When they increased the price, I found they are fairly negotiable. Just be sure to mark in your calendar when the promos are going away so you know to call and cancel them in time.

We have had them for 11 years and are pleased.
We don't pay for any premium channels--we have the 2nd level of available channels.
Back in the early days we would have trouble when it rained.  Turned out the box that is on the dish was cracked and letting water in.  That was replaced, and then placed under the eaves of the house, so it stays dry.  No problem.

I will say this---around the time we were having the water trouble (probably 5 years ago), I called for repair help.  I got this offer--"pay $15/month for service contract or they would charge me a fee to come and check it."
I ripped into that person with a vengeance.  Told her that when I got the service I had to sign in 3 places that I acknowledged the equipment belonged to Direct TV and was not mine, and I would have to give it back when the service was stopped.  ...so, I was NOT paying for them to repair THEIR equipment!!   ...and if they charged me, then I was leaving them for someone else.

I was not charged a fee and have never had that "service contract" mentioned again.

Uverse is being sold in this area and ATT is really pushing it.  But my husband loves a particular channel (RFD) and it is not carried over there.

I have it (Costco deal) and I really like the DVR (genie) and the picture quality up until a few weeks ago was great. I've started having some issues with pixelation and "skipping" but it's only occasional at this point.

The biggest con I have is with the On Demand feature. My mom has UVerse and you can search for tv shows by genre, network, title, etc. the options are clear and easy to use. You can find free movies, pay movies, etc. With DirecTV it is confusing. It lists tv shows by episode TITLE, not by the name of the show or network. So, if I want to watch "Food Network Star" and marathon a few episodes I go to TV Shows>Cooking but instead of listing "Food Network Star" it's a huge alphabetical list of show titles and you have to scroll to each title to see what show it is. And then when you are done with the episode, you have to go back through the entire list again to find another one. It makes no sense to me at all and is really annoying

Direct TV was good for me until the discounts expired. Then it got very expensive, very quickly. And I had issues with their customer service when I needed new boxes, etc. Maybe it's just because I'm used to cable where you rent the boxes and with Direct TV they made us buy them AND pay a monthly fee still. They also charge for service calls and I don't think that's right. Plus I hate anything with a contract.

We've had directv for 14 years, in Virginia and ohio. We've never had a problem ever. Love directv.

I'll never have satellite service again. We tried DirecTV. They lied to us and it took a lot of work to get rid of them. We had Dish for over two years. They wanted over $200 to come out and check why we weren't getting channels we were paying for. I refused to pay and cancelled their service. We went back to cable and never looked back. Of course, Dish tried to offer free service after we disconnected and installed cable. I told them it was too little too late.

wanted to add we have had Directv for over 15 years. They have been very good at sending a new TIVO when we needed it. They are also good at finding discounts when you call. Ours will go out during heavy rain, but not for very long. We have never lost signal do to snow. DH and I still have the orginal boxes. Dh installed ours. Thats what is so nice about DT. You dont need someone to install it. Less hassle. We currently pay $78 and I think thats pretty cheap for 3 tvs, unlimited. Having limited internet. Its nice how many hours I can watch. LOL I miss unlimited internet.