TWC vs D*TV

[sp44again]

My point is that it's not something to get rid of D* for. You know the signal will come back unlike when your cable goes out and  you have no idea when it will come back on.

[chure]

Thank you for all the feed back, I'm happy this didn't turn completely into a D*tv or TWC bashing.

I've talked the wife into staying with D*tv and getting a DVR plus probably stepping up to the Premier programing. Our 1-year commitment has expired, can I expect to get a fair deal offered from customer retention if I play the, "I'm going to cable" routine..?  I ask because I did that last year and received a credit to buy a HD receiver, can I expect the same?  Will they only offer me their TIVO receiver or will I get the option to get one myself.  If I go out and buy one myself, I think I'd get the 80GB; is there a unanimous choice for a 80GB DVR?  

I understand that I won't know what they'll offer until I call, but was just interested if anyone has gotten a deal....

[borghe]

if you're contract is expired seriously you should be able to get quite the deal from them.. WARNING!!! Get the programming deal/credit BEFORE you buy the DVR. Anytime you activate a receiver with DirecTV you are automatically entered into a one year contract. If you buy the receiver first they will already have you for another year. Call customer retention first, then buy the Tivo.

As far as Tivo model to buy, my recommendation is to just buy the 40 hour Tivo and use the money you saved to upgrade it yourself. The guides out their are virtually foolproof. Either that or go to a site like //www.weaknees.com and buy a pre-upgraded unit.. With as cheap as drives are these days their is no reason anyone should have an SD Tivo with anything less than two 120GB drives in it (about 200 hours of recording).

So call DirecTV, tell them your cable company has offered xxxx (heck, just take a deal posted here on the board) and see what they are willing to do for you. Then either buy an upgraded Tivo or buy a standard one and upgrade it yourself.

[chure]

I finally called D*tv last night and after a half hour of song and dance from the lowly CSRs I finally got to a manager in the customer retention dept.  He was hesitant to give me any deal at first since I recieved a credit last year to buy a HD receiver, but in the end he gave me a the DVR and installation for free.  I was hoping to get a little more from them, but in the end the DVR was what I wanted and that's what I got at no cost to me, fair enough.  I also stepped up our programming to the Premier package, chalk up another HD channel (ShowtimeHD), hoowa!

All in all, I was starting to get frustrated for the half hour it took to get someone on the phone that would work with me and was wondering whether this was the customer service that was far superior to TWC, but I did get the DVR so I'm happy, now if I can just figure out how to get consistant OTA reception, i'll be in a HDTV happy place.

[Scott Zsori]

I just wanted to give another insight to TWC vs Sat.  While I don't have experience with satellite myself, my father-in-law and brother both have it.  Neither has HD.

I've been a TWC customer for about 5 years, and have never had a problem with their customer service.  In fact, the only times I had to call customer service was when I moved and if I had problems with my cable modem.  That's a total of 4 calls over 5 years, with the longest wait time being about 10 minutes.  The 3 other wait times were under 2 minutes.  That's not bad, IMO, but of course I don't have anything to compare it to.

As for the picture quality, the HD channels are pretty good.  I've had a few pixels here and there, but it seems like the sound problems have stopped within the past few months (CSI: Miami used to be bad).  The analog channels are fine compared to OTA, except for channels 4-6, which seem a little poorer.  I think that's my TV doing something, though, since a friend that lives 2 miles away with the same TV has no problems with them.

I don't have digital cable, just the normal package, so I can't say if one is better than the other.

I would contend that overall a TWC HD customer will pay less than a sat or OTA HD customer, since we only pay $7/month for the box along with our cable package.  No need to go out and put money down on a HD box or DVR.  I also have the benefit of being able to swap for a newer version box as they become available, which I've done once.

My brother and father-in-law both had problems with snow and rain fade, and they obviously needed sat boxes beside each TV.  I only need one where I have my HDTV, and the other just uses the normal cable signal.

Overall I've been very satisfied with TWC.

[borghe]

just one aside that has been pretty much accepted by the TWC members of this board.. HD non-DVR boxes costs are pretty much a moot point now. Any existing or new sub can fairly easily get an HD box for $99. Add in DirecTV's free first box mirroring and $5 mirroring after that (compared to $8 on TWC) and the box will pay for itself in under a year.

The HD DVR is the big sticking point on cable vs. satellite right now, though just like normal HD boxes that too will eventually become a non-issue.