Digging Dish!

At the end of last year I was so disgusted with Consolidated Communications and their third rate cable TV I decided to give DirecTV a try.  I had such high hopes, and frankly anything would have been an upgrade over Consolidated.  Their service was (and still is) so atrocious it was hard to imagine how it could get worse.  A massive lag when using the remote, the ability to only record one channel at a time.  Low def looked like 240 most of the time.  Their pay for view movies looked like they were pirated with a camcorder.  Their HD was just a fucking joke with pixelation and interference so often, I'd argue that even calling it high definition would be a fraudulent claim.

To their credit Consolidated did try repeatedly to make me happy and ended up bribing me with discounts and credits, which made the pain of paying them a little easier to take.  But I was still very disappointed when DirecTV came out and told me that they just couldn't quite see their satellite from my balcony, and therefore were unable to offer service.

Time passed, I almost gave up on having satellite TV, especially since the DirecTV installation guys thought that the Dish satellite I would need to use was only standard definition.

At the end of February I was still hating Consolidated service.  Their DVR acted like an abusive drunk step parent, that seemed to simply refuse to record shows out of spite.  The final straw came when I paid $4.99 to watch a movie, and the image quality looked like an animated GIF file.  It was beyond pathetic.  So I thought I may as well try calling Dish.

Their eager and polite salesman informed me that they had more satellites in the sky than DirecTV and so there was a much better chance of things working out.  I didn't get my hopes up too much, and remained a little skeptical.

They were able to schedule installation the following day, something DirecTV had been unable to do.  And unlike DirecTV the installation guy was both early (he called first for permission) and local (the DirecTV guys were from over 1,000 miles away).  From the start he was gung-ho about being able to do the installation, and sure enough in an hour or so I was set up.

To say that Dish is about six years or so ahead of Consolidated would be an understatement rather than an exaggeration.  I've had the service just under 48 hours, but already I am totally sold.  It's really quite amazing.

I only needed service in the main room, with a secondary service in the master bedroom.  As a result, Dish only needed to install one controller box.  This box feeds both TVs, the primary big screen in glorious HD which is easily 50% better than Consolidated could deliver on their best day.  I'd say every channel I watch is in HD too, including BBC America.

The half terabyte DVR works incredibly well, recording up to two shows at a time, which is far more industry standard than Consolidated's one.  Not only that I can play back DVR shows in the bedroom now, even though the bedroom TV is SD, and the show was recorded in HD.  I can schedule recordings from either room or even my laptop, desktop or iPhone.

Consolidated required two boxes, and they didn't talk to each other, so if I recorded a show in the bedroom, it had to be watched in the bedroom.  I guess they were going old school and trying to remind me of a VCR.  Certainly their picture quality did.


Dish are very good at keeping me informed, even downloading a welcome to Dish program onto my DVR over night.  They've also thanked me for joining their email list, and signing up for paperless billing by sending me five free pay for view movie coupons; and shockingly I can watch them in HD, what a concept.

So far I could not be more impressed.  It is everything I hoped it would be and more.  Slick customer service, delivering more than I expected, an outstanding service that works flawlessly so far.  Did I mention it is CHEAPER than Consolidated too?

I guess if I had to whine, the box they brought me was clearly refurbished, as a scratch had been repaired on the top of it.  Personally, I'd have expected new, as a new customer.  Although that hasn't affected performance thus far.  The box runs a bit hot, is supposedly sensitive to being moved around, and they recommend against putting other components on top of or below it.  They had a better box available; one that would allow you to watch TV from anywhere in the world via the Internet, but it would have cost $199, which I am not prepared to pay for right now.

Frankly, my gripes are especially nit picky.  So far so good, and I am so glad to be taking my antiquated shitty Consolidated boxes back to their office on Friday and dumping them on the counter.  Dish must be laughing out loud at their competition, at least where I live, because the only customers they are going to retain are people who just don't know how much better the alternative is.  I'm kicking myself that I didn't do this when I moved in last year.

So thank you Dish.  You're wonderful!  Please don't ever get shitty and outdated like Consolidated!