After 15 Years With DirectTV...We’re Breaking Up

[blueboss]

...they continue to raise their prices and not adding any additional services. I’ve grown very comfortable over the years with Direct and overall I’ve enjoyed the service. They continue to offer new subscriber deals but give no breaks to long time loyal customers.

By switching to Spectrum I’ll be adding an additional room, several additional channels including two premiums, faster internet, and a locked in price which is right at $100 less/month

I’m losing a bunch of great games I have recorded on my DVR including the Mardi Gras Miracle, Jodi going for 54, a bunch of ul butt whoopings, and a whole lot more.

I hope I don’t regret it...

Anybody make a similar switch with any input?


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[dan_bgblue]

I think we were about 12 years with Dish and went thru similar issues exactly the same except I played a game with them to keep the price down, but the trees in our yard and our neighbors finally grew tall enough and wide enough that we lost out signal and had to go with Spectrum. Been with them for 3 years and can say I have been very happy. Like you I hated losing the stuff I had recorded on the DVR but have put that behind me and moved on.

[BigBluePappy]

I believe it was either Citizen, Pedro or deathbyit that had figured a way to transfer from a DVR to an external hard drive but for the life of me I cannot remember who or how or if it was all a hallucinaton...

[blueboss]

I think we were about 12 years with Dish and went thru similar issues exactly the same except I played a game with them to keep the price down, but the trees in our yard and our neighbors finally grew tall enough and wide enough that we lost out signal and had to go with Spectrum. Been with them for 3 years and can say I have been very happy. Like you I hated losing the stuff I had recorded on the DVR but have put that behind me and moved on.

I made my monthly calls to the loyalty department at Direct and they would usually throw me a bone knock a little off which kept the price down. They would never give me a reasonable locked in price. Last month I called and they wouldn’t do anything so I started shopping.


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[MickintheHam]

25 years ago I was a major critic of Charter Spectrum. Today I cannot say enough good about their service. I have 3 tvs and stream on one of them. Couldn't be more satisfied.

[blueboss]

So far the only two negatives ( that I’m aware of) in switching is losing my current DVR material, and Spectrum doesn’t have the room to room feature on recorded material. As I understand it, whatever room you record something to the DVR is where you have to watch it.


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[KSRBEvans]

We were with Time Warner for about 12 years and got tired of their price increases and limited DVR. I called to see if they'd do anything to keep me and they didn't, so we switched to AT&T Uverse. After we switched, Time Warner then tried to get our business back. Nope, too late.

Uverse was great for a year, then I had to do the dance with them where I threatened to cancel and we renegotiated. The first time we were able to keep what we got and get a small discount. The second time the best they would do ended up with us having to pay $20 more/month. So we cancelled and went without any plan for about 6 months. But I really missed live sports (UK) and didn't like having to go to a sports bar every time I wanted to see a game. So we got AT&T Now when it first came out and have been with them since. The service was a little rough when it started but has gotten better over time, and the price has stayed pretty reasonable.

There's a quasi-underground industry of selling jailbroken Fire sticks and other hardware so you can get a lot of live TV in what one could consider a pirated way. I've not done it but I don't criticize others who do, because the TV providers are a bunch of crooks who try to make it as difficult as possible to get a decent price on decent service. It kind of reminds me of the record companies back in the pre-Napster days. They basically told everybody "screw you, conform to our pricing and distribution plan" and people looked for an alternative.

[blueboss]

The thing that ticks me off (the biggest thing)are the random increases for no additional services. If it’s $200/month that’s fine, but leave it there.

Another thing is all of the great entry level deals they offer to new subscribers, but not to long time loyal customers with impeccable payment history (me).


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[blueboss]

Watching some of my recorded games since I’m losing them on Friday. CBS Classic in Vegas on 12/17/2016 against UNCheat... Wow!!! I really liked that team, Monk and Fox were nuts, Briscoe was like a junk yard dog, but Monk was insane.

Did you know when Bam Adebyo was a child he broke a table while watching the Flinstones?


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[CitizenBBN]

I believe it was either Citizen, Pedro or deathbyit that had figured a way to transfer from a DVR to an external hard drive but for the life of me I cannot remember who or how or if it was all a hallucinaton...

Sorry, I was in a phone booth changing clothes.... :party0035:


Google "Hauppauge PVR". They sell a box you can put between your incoming connection and your TV, routed to your computer. With the recording software that comes with it you can record to your TV.

There are probably other options including some hardware hacks, but you can get a used one on Ebay for $50-$100 or so. Need a computer with the right inputs and enough speed.

[Doc]

I hope I don’t regret it...

Anybody make a similar switch with any input?


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You won't. I had DTV since inception in the early 90's. Likely the first customer in this county. Had to fight the HOA over the dish, etc...... and did not regret it as it allowed me to get UK games back in the day. Then with the Freedom Cards, I could watch anything and everything free of charge. Eventually went off "steal a vision" to back to paying b/c they kept zapping my card. By the time we dropped service we were $200+ a month for wireless 2 hdtvs with DVR boxes. Only way I could get service to one TV ( hung on chimney so needed to be wireless) and it was a bitch. Would go out and I would spend hours on tech support, so much so I have the direct number so no phone roundabout. They would send new updated equiip free but lock me in for 2 years. Had to pay when we moved to cancel. We also had comcast for the other 5 TVs thru HOA. But we moved so I dumped and we Direct and am pleased as punch. Intro offer was $98 for complete package including internet. That just expired and went to $123 a month. That includes HBO, showtime, etc.... I also have rveal box for streaming sports so miss nothing including PPV, league passes, etc....and can stream thousands of movies free. We have no outages (comcast xfinity) and have 7 tvs all share anything recorded. All HD, all voice remotes. Quality as good as DTV w/o the outages (which is an issue here, and why we had both dtv and comcast at last house--comcast before and during hurricanes, DTV after until cable came back).

PS..when dumped I never lost old games because they kept replacing the box with a new one...lost them years ago, but I do have plenty of real old VHS ones

[ukpumacat]

I got a kick out of my older son last week. He was saying we needed Disney+. And I said, "we already have Netflix, Prime, Hulu, etc."
And he said, "Dad, it would be so much easier if they just had all of this content like in one place as part of one package."

I said, "Ya, they call that cable. We have that too." Ha

But that is exactly where this is all going.

[blueboss]

Welp, tomorrow is the big day. I’ve got a 1:00-2:00 window, It still has me pretty nervous. I remember when I fired Dish Network I was excited about getting a new service... not this time.


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[dan_bgblue]

Spectrum takes a bit to get used to as their TV guide is a bit clunky, it works just fine but is not as user friendly. What I do not miss at all is the outages during thunderstorms, right when I wanted to be watching the weather radar to see if a twister was spinning up or hail storm was imminent.

[blueboss]

Spectrum takes a bit to get used to as their TV guide is a bit clunky, it works just fine but is not as user friendly. What I do not miss at all is the outages during thunderstorms, right when I wanted to be watching the weather radar to see if a twister was spinning up or hail storm was imminent.

Guide is clunky indeed, other than that, and having to reset the WiFi passwords on all the gadgets, so far so good.

I do miss having the connectivity between all of the TV’s...


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[dan_bgblue]

I do miss having the connectivity between all of the TV’s...

That is a bummer for sure

[Catfan73]

Waiting in line at Spectrum to turn in our cable boxes and go to just WiFi from them. Wish there was another option in Louisville but Google Fiber pulled out barely before they got started. Already had Hulu (and Netflix and Prime), added Disney+ and got Sling. I think we’ll be alright but don’t expect the bill to go down lol.

[KSRBEvans]

^Catfan, I'm in Louisville, too and use AT&T TV (formerly DirecTV Now), Netflix and Amazon Prime. For those services we pay about $65/month, not counting the monthly cost of our internet connection. The son purchased Disney+ and we'll have that until he departs for overseas in a couple of months.

I'm satisfied with our setup, although I wish the cloud DVR capabilities of AT&T TV were more robust.

[Catfan73]

I thought about AT&T but a couple of my neighbors (in Barbourmeade) had some frustrating experiences with them.

[blueboss]

Low and behold, when I received the equipment return instructions in the mail it was accompanied by a sales pitch letter.

We are very sorry to learn that you have decided to cancel your service. If you would like to come back we would like to offer you the same service you had with free installation and no equipment fees for the price of 69.99/month with a two year contract. We’d also like to give a 200.00 visa gift card for your inconvenience.

I asked them to do that in the first place... they stated that that was not possible.


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[dan_bgblue]

I would tell them that I would accept the offer if they would extend the guaranteed monthly rate to 5 years instead of 2 and a guarantee that any future monthly rate increases would be tied to the national rate of inflation.

[blueboss]

I’m going to ride out Spectrum for a while. I will say it is taking some time to get used to. DirectTV guide, DVR, and remote were a lot more user friendly than Spectrums.

On a side note I got a bill from DirectTV today, for last months service. I cancelled them the start day of the billing cycle. So, back on the phone for twenty minutes, they said they were sorry.


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[MickintheHam]

For years I was one of Charter Spectrums biggest detractors. But I can honestly say, of all the options, they seem to be one of the best. Of course they are only as good as the fiber in the ground. I am fortunate in that regard. I read my neighborhood Facebook page and the other services have serious issues.

[Owenchon]

I guess it would depend if you're in a great location or not.

[MickintheHam]

I guess it would depend if you're in a great location or not.

That's what I said.