Direct TV, Dish, Verizon FiOS, Who Is Better?

[fenrill]

I have finally decided to leave Comcast after many problems with them, now I am in the market for new cable and internet providers but I really don't know which service is the right for me. I've seen the promotions for Dish and Direct Tv and frankly I could go either way, but my major problem is the internet provider and the one I am really interested is Verizon FiOS but don't know much about it hopefully you guys can help me decide or if you have any of these services tell me you're experience with them. Thanks.

 

[muttley]

We have Directv w/DVR and a Directv/ w/DVR HD (in the living room). I had never thought I would ever use the DVR (like Tivo) but now I don't know what I would do without it.. haha! My boyfriend has us on premium service so we can get all the HD channels plus he has the football package and during basketball season he has the college bb package. I love the service but I've never had to deal with them (he does all the phone calling troubleshooting setup(ing)). You can compare services online. We had cable but it doesn't even compare to Directv and now HD. You'll never look back once you make the switch. You see Discovery Channel's Planet Earth Series in HD.

 

[maxpowr9]

FYI, verizon owns both directTV and fios. I have fios at home and I love it. You can get huge savings if you have verizon phone/cable/internet. My rents pay about $120 a month for all 3.

Yeah its kind of funny, comcast used to have a natural monopoly in the boston area for cable until it expired with the state. Verizon moved right in with fios and all my neighbors have been switching over because people are sick of being ripped off from comcast. I remember being home when we switched over to verizon and comcast called my mom to ask her why she switched services and she said to them "because I hate being ripped off."

I would suggest doing what my mom did and try to get all three. Not to mention its all on one bill .

 

[me12121]

I've heard great things about fios. I wish there was such a service in Canada.

 

[bbya2064]

In Canada we have Fiber, but only if you live in the downtown core of Toronto or Vancouver. (The newer condos.)

It's through Telus for like $100 a month you get cable/telephone/internet.

 

[DoctorGiggles25]

FYI, verizon owns both directTV and fios.

Not true. I work for DirecTV and Verizon is one of our partner companies. LoL.

With regards to the original question, DirecTV doesnt have their own internet service just yet. We use DSL providers and Wild Blue (satellite internet) in the mean time until we do.

I know I work for them, but we really do have great picture quality and the HD is the shit, bar none. Just make sure you can afford it though and be aware that if you choose HD or a DVR, its an automatic 2 year lease agreement. Hope this helps and let me know if you have any questions.

 

[tornZorak]

A good set of questions.

The advantage of Verizon FIOS over DirectTV is you can combo up and get a reduced rate compared to going ala carte. For instance you can get TV, internet and phone as a bundle and that will save you a decent amount of money. Please note that the price for FIOS internet starts out fairly low, however if you do not have a combo package then after the first year it goes up substantially.

Now comparing TV - you didn't say what you are looking for. Do you care about HDTV? Premium Channels? VOD?, etc. Here are some pro-cons:

• HDTV - currently DirectTV has a substantial number of high-def channels on-line thanks to their new satellite (turned on about 3 weeks ago). Given their plans, how they have executed, and the types of channels available I would say they are the leaders at this point in time.
• DVR - if your looking for a Digital Video Recorder (Tivo type device) I think that either Dish or DirectTV are the leaders here. Verizon uses a Motorola box and have just updated the software but from all accounts it's still substantially more primitive than the other companies DVR's. However since Verizon supports cable cards the new Tivo HD ($299) box will work - without support for VOD though. Plus the DirectTV & Tivo boxes support the addition of external disks to increase the amount of recording space if your so inclined.
• VOD - the leader at this time is probably FIOS. I don't think that Dish offers VOD. DirectTV will be offering VOD via your internet connection fairly soon (there are many beta testers talking about it). The only issue is you will need the DirectTV DVR and a good high speed internet connection in order to use it.
• Picture Quality - this is a tough one. I think it's fair to say that both DirectTV and Dish have compromised picture quality by excessive compression on some channels for their SD (non HD) in order to support more channels. Their pictures are not terrible but your not going to get DVD quality here. That said on an HDTV I find the DirectTV SD picture decent and the HD pictures excellent. By contrast I think FIOS has a better picture due to little to no compression on any of the channels.
• No cable box? If you have multiple TV's and you don't want a box placed next to each (don't want to pay the monthly charge, the looks, etc) then Verizon is your only choice since there are a decent number of analogue channels that your TV's can tune. However you will not get many of the higher-end channels since they are digital only and require the box or cable card to be viewed.

If your just looking for a low cost TV service and don't really care about the bells and whistles then any of the vendors you mentioned will work fine. Remember almost all of the programming comes from 3rd parties so really it's about picture quality, supported channels, features (VOD, HDTV, DVR, etc), and price that will likely help make your decision.

 

[DoctorGiggles25]

[*] Plus the DirectTV & Tivo boxes support the addition of external disks to increase the amount of recording space if your so inclined.


[*]VOD - the leader at this time is probably FIOS. I don't think that Dish offers VOD. DirectTV will be offering VOD via your internet connection fairly soon (there are many beta testers talking about it). The only issue is you will need the DirectTV DVR and a good high speed internet connection in order to use it.


[*]Picture Quality - this is a tough one. I think it's fair to say that both DirectTV and Dish have compromised picture quality by excessive compression on some channels for their SD (non HD) in order to support more channels. Their pictures are not terrible but your not going to get DVD quality here. That said on an HDTV I find the DirectTV SD picture decent and the HD pictures excellent. By contrast I think FIOS has a better picture due to little to no compression on any of the channels.

[*]Correction: DirecTV DVR's currently have an inactive USB port on the receiver meaning it does not support an external hard drive. Tivo does only after hacking into the hard drive inside the receiver.

[*]Update: Not sure about the VOD just yet. It is supposedly debuting later this month on the HD-DVR only and will continue from there. Again, supposedly. LoL. Yes a land line phone is needed for the service to work.

[*]Opinion: On SD broadcast as well as HD, this is one of those "eye of the beholder" deals. At my personal home, my picture is impeccable compared to analog cable. Again, this is personal opinion and will vary with the user.

tornZorak has some really good information all in all. Good job.

 

[tornZorak]

[*]Correction: DirecTV DVR's currently have an inactive USB port on the receiver meaning it does not support an external hard drive. Tivo does only after hacking into the hard drive inside the receiver.

Actually if you look at the latest generation of DVR's from DirectTV (the NDS versions) they now contain eSata ports. As such external enclosures with eSata ports in them will allow you to replace the internal hard disk in the DVR with the external drive. In this way you can increase the total storage thereby increasing total recording time. This is exactly how the latest Tivo boxes add disk space too.

BTW - I don't believe any DVR currently supports the use of a USB port to add disk space. A USB port is really slow (compared to eSata) and, as such, not really appropriate.

 

[tornZorak]

[*]Update: Not sure about the VOD just yet. It is supposedly debuting later this month on the HD-DVR only and will continue from there. Again, supposedly. LoL. Yes a land line phone is needed for the service to work.

When the VOD service is enabled it will use ethernet (aka your broadband connection) to receive the programming. Once this is done a land line phone is not required to receive VOD.

[*]Opinion: On SD broadcast as well as HD, this is one of those "eye of the beholder" deals. At my personal home, my picture is impeccable compared to analog cable. Again, this is personal opinion and will vary with the user.

True enough. I tried to not include SD broadcasts because that requires a DVR with an encoder to convert the NTSC into an Mpeg-2 stream. This was mostly because we are talking about FIOS versus satellite not broadcast. Your fortunate about getting an "impeccable" picture. One of the big issues with broadcast NTSC is it's very prone to interference from reflections, etc that give you all sorts of ghosting, herringbone patterns, etc.

You do bring up an interesting point that I hadn't mentioned. The FIOS boxes do not support OTA (over-the-air) reception of channels - you can only get whatever is broadcast over the fiber.

By contrast, DirectTV (and I believe Dish) have ATSC (high-def) tuners in the HD DVR boxes. That means that you always have the option of receiving the OTA broadcast if needed. This may be more likely than you might expect since neither DirecTV nor Dish broadcast all of your locals in HD at the moment. As such those that don't get transmitted will require you to either watch them in SD or use the OTA tuner to receive them locally (if that is an option for you).

 

[KennyD]

I like Direct Tv here in Central Florida ... With ATT High Speed Internet for only $19.95 a month , who gives you a Discount on your bill for having Direct TV wheather you have HD or not... then IF you have ATT Wireless cell phone ... you get another discount . I believe to bundle all three is about $100 a month thru ATT ....
IF you have ATT ; give them a call for their "SPECIAL" and "DEALS" ...

 

[DoctorGiggles25]

[*]Correction: DirecTV DVR's currently have an inactive USB port on the receiver meaning it does not support an external hard drive. Tivo does only after hacking into the hard drive inside the receiver.

Actually if you look at the latest generation of DVR's from DirectTV (the NDS versions) they now contain eSata ports. As such external enclosures with eSata ports in them will allow you to replace the internal hard disk in the DVR with the external drive. In this way you can increase the total storage thereby increasing total recording time. This is exactly how the latest Tivo boxes add disk space too.

BTW - I don't believe any DVR currently supports the use of a USB port to add disk space. A USB port is really slow (compared to eSata) and, as such, not really appropriate.

Oh thats what that means. Kewl, I never knew what that meant. It'll be nice when that option becomes available, but I already see all the dumbasses calling in about it. LoL. I was under the assumption that the USB connection would be able to support an external drive, but now I do believe that is only there for data transfer. Thanks for the info tornZorak.

 

[DoctorGiggles25]

I like Direct Tv here in Central Florida ... With ATT High Speed Internet for only $19.95 a month , who gives you a Discount on your bill for having Direct TV wheather you have HD or not... then IF you have ATT Wireless cell phone ... you get another discount . I believe to bundle all three is about $100 a month thru ATT ....
IF you have ATT ; give them a call for their "SPECIAL" and "DEALS" ...

Yeah its nice if, IF ATT DSL is available in your area. ATT isnt that bad as I thought it was gonna be. Im getting DSL @ 768 kbps for just $10 a month for a whole year. I couldnt believe it when I saw the deal.