It’s been a year now since I’ve subscribed to satellite television. I wrote a blog about this time last year asking people for their ideas (here’s the blog), and now I’m giving my one-year later scenario with my provider: Dish Network. Some goods and bads may be for other service providers as well…I’m not sure about that. This is based on my experience.
YES!
- Great selection of HD content and channels.
- DVRs are easy to navigate and lots of room to record shows.
- Technical support over the phone was simple, people were very friendly, and the calls were about 20 minutes long on average.
OH NO!
- Both receivers in my house had to be replaced because of hard drive failure, and I lost all my recorded shows because of it.
- The $100 mail-in rebate never automatically processed when I bought the unit. (The rebate was to take $10 of my bill each month for 10 months for HD programming.) I had to call and ask why it never processed, and after that, they only took off half the discount.
- Because I do not have a phone line, they charged me $5.00 per month per receiver. That’s 10 bucks gone each month for no reason. It’s called a “Program Access Fee”…be aware of this.
- I see the pixelization in HD because the signal goes to the recorder, then to my TV, and there’s no way to just show me the picture without going to the DVR first. I really don’t know what true HD looks like (unless I buy a separate HD converter and antenna or buy a BluRay or HD-DVD player)
- I wanted to save some shows to a hard drive–and the unit has a USB port, but to activate the USB port, it would cost extra each month, and I would need a special hard drive.
- Pay-per-view appears to be in standard format, not HD. I can’t really prove this one though, since I never bought a PPV movie.
- They force you to take the Dish Home Protection Plan for $5.99 a month. Since it’s a forced option, they should have disclosed that in the very beginning.
