Direct TV

[Senor Capper]

I'm getting it installed tomorrow.

Guess I shoulda asked the forum if they had any problems in the past with this outfit. To late now still any comments would be appreciated.

Gotta be better than cable.

I'm stoked about the NFL Sunday Ticket and for 4 months you get all the movie channels.

It doesn't storm much in Vegas so hopefully there won't be any breaks in the service.

Any comments or horror strories ???

I hear people are getting sued 4 grand by direct TV.

 

[AR182]

i have direct-tv & like it much better than cable.

there are some problems with them......

they never make a house caLL

you lose reception when there is a rain storm with high winds.


enjoy.

 

[bubbas1]

People got sued because they bought a box that you could basically mess with the card and get all the channels for free without signing up. There isnt any way to "fix" the new cards yet. Since you are a subscriber you wont have any problem.

Now....if you want to get it cheap or free here is what you do...Tell them to install 4 recievers to your house. Just have them put in extra bedrooms. Divide your monthly payment by 4 and let people you know and trust use the extra boxes and charge them 1/4th. They cannot plug in there phone lines at all that is why you have to know and trust them. This way you will only pay 1/4th of what you normally would.

 

[marine]

I had minor problems with it. Of course, nothing was DirectTV's fault - but you need to keep an eye on the installation guy.

DO NOT let the slimy little bastard leave your home until you say you are finished with him!

- I found finishing nails laying in my carpet that he had left behind (my 13 month old kid found them the hard way actually)
- Dirty, grubby paw prints from the monkey's hand were all over my nice clean walls.
- he failed to hook up all the wires in the back properly, actually disconnected everything, left it there, and pretended he never saw it.
- The real clincher was when he refused to plug the box into the phone jack and insisted that I do not need to plug a phone line into the reciever for ANY reason whatsoever. When I asked why they have a phone cord and jack on the receiver then he said it was optional and he still would not plug it in.
- Many other small things he boned up as well. All in all, he was a slob and it showed in his work. I took pictures of everything from multiple angles and took the camera up to the best buy store i got the direct tv at.
I told him all the problems first, and the manager didn't believe me. So I showed him the pictures and the guy said he would come over and clean my house himself after viewing it all.

Of course, they send the installer back out to get a chance to unf*ck his mess. He looks behind the tv at the wires that he left laying there and looks at me and says
"I can't do this, it's gonna be such a headache to straighten it out"

at that point he was escorted out of my house.

it was kind of funny, because he still had tools in my house and i wouldnt let him back in. i had best buy on the phone with this joker standing outside my door begging to come back in. I made him shout thru the door into the phone that he was going to get a headache if he un****ed his wiring mess.
Best buy said i had to let him in to get his tools so he could leave. I told them he obvious can not be trusted in my house and leaves stuff around... first it was nails, now its screwdrivers! If he wants to come back in my house he needs to get completely naked on my doorstep here so I can inventory everything he has on him and then i will let him in the house, and when he leaves i want him naked again so i can inventory him again to make sure he got everything.


I had tears of pure joy streaming down my cheeks at moments.

so it finally all gets squared away... i do it all myself. best buy manager promises me a 50 buck gift card for my troubles. Unfortunately, he had called me from his cell phone to tell me this... and he never sent me the gift card!
So after a 4 wk grace period of waiting i had enuff and began the phone call parade.
I had to call 1 time per day for the first week
2 times a day for the second week
after that it just got to be whenever i had a free minute.
All i would say on the phone was my name and phone number over and over again and ask him to call me back. some days i sang along with the radio, other days i read him the paper. and i would end each call letting him know that the pain could stop if he simply returned the call.
he never did.

so i had to call his boss....

anyway, i got the 50 dollar gift card.
and hopefully he learned a lesson.
oh yea... direct tv... i like it.

 

[cisco]

marine...ROTFLMFAO!!!

:rant2: :rant2: :cuss: :142hump:

 

[Trossi3389]

that is good! :lol:

 

[boilermaker]

Hey Lanny, how's it going? Your gonna love the Directv. I've had it for about 7 years now and wouldn't go back to cable if they gave it to me free. Get Tivo. It's awesome. Directv has a sharper picture than our local cable and the sports choices are great. Heading out your way monday might stop in the Palms and see you. Hope all is well. Later Ron.

 

[SPIDER]

i think it is the best, i have the DVR which has Tivo. the best thing i have every purchased, i had the chip at first but they always seem to zap it and then you have to pay someone $25 to reprogram it, so now i just order the sunday ticket. you can get it in high definition as well.
the only problem i ever have is when it rains, sometimes you will lose a signal for about 5 or so minutes, but if you have Tivo you dont have to worry.

hope this helps
spider

 

[Another Steve]

I also have had Direct for around 7-8 years. Had the Ticket from Day one, never a commercial because you keep flipping. Have had Tivo for 2 years, nothing like it.

Storms affect it but it does Cable too. Just rub of the Green in my Mind.

 

[THE HITMAN]

Signal only goes out when the storm is between you & the satellite. (SW for me) It can hurricane in he other direction & it wont bother you. I actually have both, cable & dish. Cable goes out more than the dish. Forget the ads you see from cable targeting the adjustments etc. one must make with the dish. I have not made an adjustment in 10 years with my dish and I live in stormy & windy S Fla. Hint: turn the bolts tightly & it will stay in place.

 

[msdee]

Direct TV

Hi Lenney, I have had direct and tivo for years. Love them. Also have their 7.95 service plan. It replaces any of your receivers free if they go out and Makes you a VIP when you need tech service. Really works, I had my direct receiver replaced free. Waiting for my tivo to go next, have had it 3 or 4 years. This morning in the paper was an article about people moving from cable to satellite because satellite is so much better. Good choice. See you later, Dee

 

[Kdogg21]

should of gotten cable....

im just saying that because i work for Comcast

great deal on the NFL ticket though. thats the most complaints we ever get about it though. when it rains or its windy, big problems, but this is Chicago, so that can happen quite often...

 

[Senor Capper]

I appreciate all the input.
Thanks for ALL the help !!!

Now I have to figure out what ISP to use.

Guess I will start another thread on that.

 

[SPIDER]

hey senor capper , you can use directv if you want, they will run a line straight from the atenna. in s. florida i use bellsouth for dsl, long distance and local all for a flat rate of about $85 a month, never more. they now have these one rate plans.

spider

 

[GM]

DTV is great. I've just started HD service. If you have an HDTV I'd recommend getting in now. At the moment the channel choices are a little limited with regards to HD offerings, but this looks to be the year where it booms. What there is of it now fantastic, and all new subscribers who get a 4 room setup get the first 6 months of HD for free in addition to any other specials (such as the free NFL season you also get for a new 4-room setup).

At the moment on HD you get ESPN, Discovery, HD Net, HD Net Movies, HBO HD and Showtime HD, plus right now the NBC Olympic HD channel. Once football season starts as long as you have Sunday Ticket you also get 6 Fox HD games per week (which is almost every game Fox shows), and 3 CBS games per week in HD, plus of course SNF on ESPN HD. MNF in HD depends on a few things (you have to be in an eligible market for this...call that a 50/50 shot)... So that's about 2/3 of the schedule this season in HD....fantastic!

The two HD Nets are the best quality channels they have IMO. They show some sports - mostly soccer and baseball at the moment. And apparently they will also have quite a few NBA games this year (Mark Cuban owns these stations). Also expected to be added this year is TNT-HD (more hoops), Bravo-HD, and probably at least half a dozen others.

As Hitman pointed out, you will probably lose signal at some point due to rain, but it's usually brief. Note, putting your dish under an overhang / on a covered balcony does not prevent this. A lot of people think that it's rain ON the dish that causes signal breakup. It's not...it's storm clouds at high altitude that cause it. So it may not even be raining where you are...if it's raining and dark south of you, you'll lose signal briefly. This usually happens to me about once a year. Usually in the 4th quarter.

Rain is actually worse than snow for causing signal loss. The raindrops deflect the signal before it reaches your house, but snowflakes are smaller and don't have the same effect.

Enjoy!

 

[kneifl]

Hey jackers,

I just got this too to be installed on Sunday. I got the NFL Sunday ticket package. I know their are P4 and P5 cards that I can buy on ebay that might give me even more channels, anybody know anything about these???

Thanks!!

kneifl

 

[GM]

You'll be getting a P4 or a P5 with your new equipment...every receiver must have a card or it wouldn't work. P4 and P5 are essentially the same card...only difference is P4 was produced out-of-house by the same company that made the older cards (H, HU). Directv then decided to take over the manufacturing of the cards themselves, and their version of the latest card is referred to as the P5. But from all reports the cards are identical (or almost exactly identical) in how they work.

You can tell which one you have by the design. P4's are light blue and have 2 chevrons (^^) on the front. P5's are darker blue with gray stripes.

Now if you are looking at buying an additional card off of eBay for hacking purposes, you should be aware of the following:

1) There is no hack for the P4/P5 yet. The HU's died in April, and in the past there was a hack out for the new version before the old one died. Well...we're 4 months down the road and still nothing. Don't believe the rumours that they have been hacked...they have not. You'll read a lot of conflicting reports that "some guy I know has a hack". It's really not that simple, and you may be waiting a long time for it to happen, if in fact it ever does.

2) If you must buy a card off of eBay, make absolutely sure that it is sealed in it's original plastic wrapper...not removed and repackaged, and definitely not out of the wrapper altogether. There is some talk that these cards will "marry" themselves to the first receiver they are placed in and will not work in any other receiver. So you want to make sure it's never been in anyone else's receiver or it may be useless to you. But again, until there is a hack, you'll have no way of knowing if what you've bought is good or just an ice-scraper. There are a LOT of scammers on eBay, so really make sure you know what you are buying and that it is a VIRGIN, untampered card. Definitely DON'T buy an HU/P3 card (card with the football player on it), or an H/P2 card (picture of a satellite on it). Both cards are completely useless old technology which has been discontinued...and will never work for you no matter what you do to it, as they've turned off the data streams that these cards decrypted in the past.

3) When buying a P5 card I've been advised to make sure the first 4 digits of the card are 0013. Supposedly cards numbered 0014 and higher will be tougher to hack. P4 cards are all numbered a lot lower (0005 I think?).

4) If and when a hack does come out you will have to invest in additional equipment such as a card programmer (or some other new equipment which has yet to be determined), find a way to get the programming software and files when it gets shot down...or find someone who knows how to do this to do it for you.

 

[kneifl]

Thanks for the info GM!!!

kneifl

 

[Senor Capper]

Great info thanks bunches

Also for all you Direct TVers I have the package w/ all movies free for a 4 months.

Well none of my TVs are hooked to a phone line but my son ordered and recieved a movie through the remote.

On the Pay Per View history it shows that movie 3.99

But my online account doesn't show the movie purchased.

How did he order without a phone line hook up, through the remote? Is it possible ?

What up ???

I was on hold on their 1-800 number for 40 minutes thought I would get a quicker response here.

 

[GM]

Senor,

You can order a limited # of movies without a phone line hooked up. If the unit never phones in you will never be charged... BUT...you will lose your ability to order PPV in the near future. One way of thinking of it...when you order a movie you are sort of on the honor system for a short time. You are not immediately billed...the info is stored on your receiver temporarily. You are able to view the movie. Then, some time during the next month it will try to dial out (usually in the middle of the night). If it's unable to make a connection (no dial tone or no phone line) then you will get a "Call Ext 731" error on any PPV channel you try to tune to and you will not be able to order anymore until you plug it into a phone line and allow it a day or two to call out.

There was a story here a week or so ago about someone who ordered a ton of stuff on one of the old hacked cards...months worth of porn. Then when the card died and they replaced it and subscribed they hooked up a phone line to their receiver, not realizing they would get billed. And they got a whopper of a bill in the mail and ended up having to pay for it all. :142lmao: