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Fuck DirecTV in the goatass.

Prepuce of Doom

By Prepuce of Doom
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  • 4 weeks later...
Drew

Drew 2493

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Posted

I mean eventually they'll have to change their entire business model.  I still am having trouble talking the wife into cord cutting, but I'm only paying like $80 a month for Dish with all the bells and whistles right now.  I could save like $35-$40 by switching to Hulu/YouTube TV and she'd still get her live shows and I'd get my sports(the only real reason I didn't cut the cord years ago).

I'm close though...she wants new phones at a place that'll cost us a little more a month.  I think I'm going to trade these off each other.

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

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DTV Now sucks, but I’m now on my third free month with them (I keep getting “Get a Free Month emails), so combined with my free YouTubeTV month and a half I received to start the year with my Roku purchase, I don’t think I’ve paid a penny for subscription TV in 2019. Lulz.  I had been paying about $145 a month to DirecTV for an old Genie, two ancient boxes and wireless clients that never worked.

When my free DTV Now offers dry up (if that actually happens), then I’ll go back to YouTubeTV for $40 a month.

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JimmyHoffa

JimmyHoffa 1188

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21 minutes ago, Vito Andolini said:

DTV Now sucks, but I’m now on my third free month with them (I keep getting “Get a Free Month emails), so combined with my free YouTubeTV month and a half I received to start the year with my Roku purchase, I don’t think I’ve paid a penny for subscription TV in 2019. Lulz.  I had been paying about $145 a month to DirecTV for an old Genie, two ancient boxes and wireless clients that never worked.

When my free DTV Now offers dry up (if that actually happens), then I’ll go back to YouTubeTV for $40 a month.

 

Yeah, I haven't cut yet but paying what I'm paying I sure as shit shouldn't have to "be on the same wifi network as your genie to view content online" as is required for some of the shows/channels to stream. 

 

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

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Yeah, my ability to stream network channels had never quite worked correctly when I was on full DTV, and wouldn’t have unless I got a new version of the Genie, which would have been a new two-year contract. Screw that.

So, I now can just go search for shows and watch past episodes. The biggest downside with streaming is the annoying forced commercial breaks, so no fast forwarding thru those. If you watch your recorded version in the first 24 hours or so, you can still FF. 

I don’t know how to get from one channel to another specific channel yet, but there’s probably a way, and I’ve been too lazy to investigate. In the meantime, I’m doing a lot of scrolling thru all 40 channels to see if something catches my attention.

But I’ve already saved what, $600 this year by dumping DTV? And even when I start paying $40 a month for YouTubeTV, I’ll save $1,200 a year. Yes, I also have WiFi Internet service, but I had that before.

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Eugene11

Eugene11 379

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Posted (edited)

What do you use to record a show or game? For instance fubo tv has plenty of games but I want to watch it tomorrow. We have Apple TV in anticipation of dropping directv in a month or so. 

Directv $220

hulu $12

netflix $25 I think

amazon prime ?$8 month?

plus ESPN go and cbs and fox sports access  ~$30

That’s what we are paying and what we watch mostly this last month is the streaming  haven’t turned the directv on in a week.  

So I’ll add hbo go $15 and fubo or sling $55 and drop directvas long as I can figure out a convenient recrording way.  there’s got to be a seamless way to do it in order to save just $150 a month. 

And next question is how do my other TVs in the House watch any of this stuff. None of them are smart TVs. 

Im not seeing a huge advantage yet for me for the price difference. I haven’t had the customer service issues that some of y’all have had either though. 

 

Edit. Looks like with fubo I could drop fox sports go and maybe even cbs sports go so there is another $20-25 I think. So now $175 savings but not the convenient ease of turning on directv and all my shit is recorded right there and don’t have to surf. We rarely watch live tv unless it’s sports. And sometimes that is even recorded for a bit to skip commercials and halftimes. 

Edited by Eugene11
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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, Okie State said:

YouTube TV is now $50. Just a heads up.

That sucks, but looks like they’ve added a few channels. But everyone else went to $50, so I guess they felt empowered. They also claim they’ll soon add Amazon devices, so that’s good.

Eugene, the streaming services offer you the ability to season pass record a show, or find an event in the future like a game and set it to record, just like your DVR. YouTubeTV allows 6 devices at once and unlimited DVR storage.

Give it a trial run, DTV Now as well. 

Edited to add you can buy a Roku for $30 that plugs into an HDMI port that turns your stupid TV into a smart one. This has been discussed here and in the cord cutters thread in Help.

Edited by Vito Andolini
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Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54252

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One thing I figured out that's really good about youtubeTV is that you can add multiple accounts and they don't seem to care.  So my daughter is getting youtubeTV in the Denver market for free off of my account, and so is my dad in Brenham -- because he has Directv and they're just screwing him by dropping channels from his package without warning. 

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Eugene11

Eugene11 379

Posted
Posted (edited)
35 minutes ago, Vito Andolini said:

That sucks, but looks like they’ve added a few channels. But everyone else went to $50, so I guess they felt empowered. They also claim they’ll soon add Amazon devices, so that’s good.

Eugene, the streaming services offer you the ability to season pass record a show, or find an event in the future like a game and set it to record, just like your DVR. YouTubeTV allows 6 devices at once and unlimited DVR storage.

Give it a trial run, DTV Now as well. 

Edited to add you can buy a Roku for $30 that plugs into an HDMI port that turns your stupid TV into a smart one. This has been discussed here and in the cord cutters thread in Help.

Perfect. I’ll look for that thread. Thanks 

Edited by Eugene11
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RPM

RPM 26322

Posted
Posted

I'd drop and go straight streaming, but my internet speed sucks. I'm one notch above dialup. If I try to watch in full HD it buffers a lot. Until they run fiber optic out here (which ain't gonna happen) I'm stuck with sat.

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NeverMarryAStripper

NeverMarryAStripper 21907

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I've been looking to drop directv for a while now because of the cost.  They finally pushed me over the edge when they wanted to charge me to mail a replacement box for one of theirs that died.  I had Amazon Prime and Netflix already and I just added PSVue with the HBO add on.  That immediately dropped my monthly cost by over $150.  I had already done a free trial of several of the streaming services and I liked Vue the best.  I watch a lot of LHN so I needed that.  It was missing one of the local channels (CW39) that I like to watch at night so I ordered a $14 flat booster antenna to hook up to my bedroom tv to try over the air.  Holy shit, I can pick up 60 channels perfectly.  I didn't realize that all of the local stations now had multiple over the air broadcasts.  With the over the air broadcasts, there is nothing that I watched on dtv that I don't have now.  My tvs are all pretty old so I tested both roku and fire devices and ended up using roku because I like the interface better.  I just need to get a couple of roku sticks for the tvs in the kids rooms and I'm done.

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  • 4 weeks later...
Beau Vine

Beau Vine 54252

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Posted
Quote

You may place a quality value on a service you pay for or subscribe to, but by the same token some of those businesses also place a quality value on you as a customer.

AT&T would seem to be one of those companies.

In comments (transcribed here) given by AT&T’s CEO & President, Randall Stephenson during a J.P. Morgan Conference this week, Stephenson explained how this year was a ‘clean up’ year for DIRECTV NOW.

Initially, these comments were in reference to the content with Stephenson pointing to contract negotiations as how the service was being cleaned up. Recently, DIRECTV NOW relaunched with a new channel lineup which placed a much greater emphasis on content owned by AT&T.

However, when padding out the answer, Stephenson also made it clear that this year was just as much about “cleaning up” the customer base as it is the content.

Stephenson explained how this was already in effect and can be seen in the significant subscriber losses DIRECTV NOW has seen in the past six months.

According to Stephenson, the customers leaving are primarily “low-ARPU” (Average revenue per user) customers with the suggestion being they matter less as they do not generate enough revenue for AT&T to be concerned about their departure.

Stephenson reiterated this statement by noting how once the “customer cleanup” has been completed, the service expects to be profitable thanks to the “high-quality customers” that are still on the books.

Reading between the lines, it does seem that AT&T views the current reduction in users to be not just an acceptable loss, but an encouraged one. This is in spite of DIRECTV NOW being the reason it has these low-ARPU customers in the first place - DIRECTV NOW has taken a highly aggressive approach in the last couple of years by greatly reducing the price of its plans (including completely offsetting the cost to some existing AT&T customers) in a bid to attract users to the video platform.

Now that it has what it considers to be enough users, it has begun to clean up the customer base by removing those individuals that don’t generate an acceptable level of revenue.

One of the reasons AT&T probably cares less about these low-ARPU customers is its upcoming direct-to-consumer solution which it expects to be a big-hitter when it arrives, attracting "tens of millions of subscribers."

Stephenson argued that people do not currently “have an appreciation for what this product will bring to bear” and pointed to the wealth of Warner Bros. content AT&T now has direct access to.

Speaking of which, Stephenson also suggested that wide pool of content will not just be available through the new WarnerMedia-focused streaming service, but will likely only be available through its service.

What was explicitly said is AT&T plans to bring “media rights, licensing rights back to ourselves” for the purpose of promoting the SVOD service. The clear suggestion here is some of the most popular shows now owned by AT&T won’t be available at the same time through other streaming services.

"Friends," "Seinfeld," and "The Big Bang Theory" were all name-dropped during the comments as prime examples of the content that is likely to be removed from other services in favor of exclusivity on the upcoming WarnerMedia service.

 

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bamachine

bamachine 1231

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Posted

Turns out that IFC is not in my package. IFC just had a free preview, that just happened to coincide with the entire Brockmire season, starting the day of the first episode, ending the day after the last episode. Sneaky bastards. AFAIK, Brockmire is the only IFC show that I watch. I guess next season, will just get a Blu-Ray when the season is finished.

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Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

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I was paying, what, something like $180 a month for shitty service, an antiquated Genie and a couple wireless clients that never worked before I dumped this shitshow in January. I still haven’t paid for “satellite or cable” since, using multiple free months of YouTubeTV and the far inferior DTVNow, but free is free. Looks like I’ve about run out of trials, though I may have another week of YouTubeTV and haven’t dipped into Hulu yet. Hilarious.

Oh yeah, why I’m posting. Just got a mailer from full DirecTV offering a plan for $35 a month with a new Genie and 155 channels. Most are those shitty.channels you have no desire to watch. The fine print reveals the $35 a month expires after one year, and yes, it’s the standard two year commitment. So, they will just wrangle you back into familiar territory. Nope.

Meanwhile, I’ve saved almost a thousand bucks dumping DTV this year, and actually have had more flexibility with the streaming services, as my old Genie had lost the ability to get On Demand. We are watching less TV and taking advantage of Prime more. 

I’m curious how DirecTV survives in the next five years, unless all the big players collude to fuck over the streaming options, and I suspect that’s already in action.

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  • 2 weeks later...
henrygandorf

henrygandorf 29192

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On 5/27/2019 at 7:53 PM, Vito Andolini said:

I’m curious how DirecTV survives in the next five years, unless all the big players collude to fuck over the streaming options, and I suspect that’s already in action.

they're fucked, and the cable companies too, eventually.  and the streamers will do the fucking, not the carriers, and not in an organized collusion sort of way.

it's all about who owns the content.  now that netflix, hulu, amazon, disney, apple, etc are all making their own content that they will own (obviously), then they'll control where it goes.  netflix/hulu have already taken advantage of gaining rights to other people's content (ability to stream friends, the office, etc).  at&t is in a slightly better situation, because they own directv, but also warners, hbo, turner, etc - but even that content doesn't require directv to access it (hbogo and such).

as long as there are interfaces like roku that will be able to carry access to everything, the need for any satellite/cable company will continue to decline.  news/sports (cnn, espn, regional foxsports) is pretty much the only reason people even keep any type of live tv (besides habit/laziness) - and if prices keep going up, they'll say fuck it.  

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housious

housious 468

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Posted
On 5/16/2018 at 12:30 AM, Atxhorn said:

Over direct tv but they all suck. Ready to just cancel everything and use streaming services only. 

Streaming only services suck more than the shitty cable services, unfortunately. And you won't be saving enough to notice unless you have a case of the poors. 

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Hate

Hate 20112

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Posted

That’s my worry. By the time I pay for all of the accounts or services I would need, I won’t actually be saving that much money. We have U-verse, but they recently dropped NFL Network and the Red Zone. My wife and I are big NFL fans, so that isn’t going to work for us. We are planning on switching to Directv in time for the upcoming football season.

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Okie State

Okie State 3821

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Streaming only services suck more than the shitty cable services, unfortunately. And you won't be saving enough to notice unless you have a case of the poors. 

I disagree with this. We switched from Dish to YouTube TV over a year ago. The cost isn't even close to what I was paying and the interface is significantly better. I'd drop TV completely before I'd go back to shitty satellite or cable service. Their product is garbage.
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Lhorn

Lhorn 4914

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On 5/28/2019 at 8:09 AM, JimmyHoffa said:

I am their dream customer. I am just too lazy to switch right now because I would have to teach my kids and wife (mostly) how to watch TV. 

Same here. I’ve always been basically happy with their service and product. It’s amazing how much I was overpaying though. Near $150 per month for a package with no premium channels, one $15 year old receiver (which is at a vacation home), two HD receivers with DVR, stupid local sports package which I think they required me to get in order to qualify to pay extra for LHN.  Getting rid of the LHN for the summer, local sports package and a taking my basic package down one tier, I saved more than 1/3. 

Ive never been closer to cutting the cord. Unfortunately my home backs up to a range of large hills which prevents me from getting any good local channels with antenna. I’d kill for MeTv. 

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77horn

77horn 216

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Got an email from DTV/ATT wanting me to "review my order".  What "order", I didn't order anything.  So I review it.  It seems they decided out of the kindness of their hearts to bill me for an additional genie mini that I don't have and didn't ask for.   Called customer service and the Indian woman tried to tell me that it was for the main genie.  I told her it was not on there before, and that the charges for HD receiver,  DVR, and whole home service was the main genie.  I told her that if she couldn't explain how the bogus order was created and take the added mini off my bill, I would call the state attorney general and file a  fraud complaint.  She sent me to an account supervisor who confirmed there was no record of the order, confirmed the equipment I did have, corrected the billing, and knocked $25/month off for next year.

Fuck them.

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Gardner Barnes

Gardner Barnes 1562

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The kids have been out of school now for a week or two and I have kept an eye on what they watch.

It’s literally 100% streaming.

Wife almost never watches TV and while I do watch DTV - I travel so much I hardly watch enough to justify the $200/month cost.

What is holding me back, however, is that I took an unlimited data deal with ATT for the 4 phones in our house if I tied our DTV and ATT accounts together.

Not sure if this is a deal Or not....Our phone bill cost is $260 for 4 phones with unlimited data. 3 of those phones are on that att payoff plan at roughly $75/month

I would hate to lose the unlimited data option - as we use a lot of data.

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RPM

RPM 26322

Posted
Posted

Had a lightning strike last Saturday that took out both receivers and 2 tvs. Fortunately I have a spare to replace one of them. So I call DTV right after it happens and make them give me a US rep. Wound up getting the new Genie 2 system without having to sign a contract, but the soonest they can get here is next Saturday. So I'm involuntarily streaming only for a week. Wish I had better internet at home, I would dump them.

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RPM

RPM 26322

Posted
Posted (edited)
16 hours ago, kevwun said:

You may want to consider sacrificing a chicken, maybe a goat.  You are clearly cursed.

You don't know the half of it. Got home from work and find my internet is dead. They'll be here Friday. I'm down to my phone with 1 bar reception and broadcast tv.

I also fell when I missed a step going in to the garage Sunday night. My left side looks and feels like I tried to tackle Earl with a full head of steam.

Do you recommend any particular breed of goat?

Edited by RPM
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  • 2 weeks later...
RPM

RPM 26322

Posted
Posted (edited)

Update on my system. They upgraded me to a Genie 2 with no contract. New problem is the thing loses connection when I'm at work and I get an error message when I get home and have to fiddle with the coax and move the box around. So far it hasn't missed any recordings, but it's a pita. Not sure if the problem is the coax, the connector or receiver.

On the upside, I found a new channel with some excellent classic tv shows. JLTV (Jewish Life TV) runs some great old stuff late nights. My personal favorite is Jack Benny. His influence on modern comedy is as subtle as a B-52. Eddie "Rochester Van Jones" Anderson was a comic genius, too. Jack put together a talented troupe. 

I've been listening to his old radio shows on an app commuting from work, 2 30 min shows a night. Benny was genius at self deprecation. He's got me wanting to find old Fred Allen shows from their fake feud that ran for years. I'm only hearing one side of the joke.

But I digress.

Check out JLTV (DTV 366) and their lineup of classic programs.

 

Edited by RPM
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  • 2 weeks later...
Vito Andolini

Vito Andolini 9126

Posted
Posted

I shipped my shit back at the local UPS Store in January and haven’t looked back. Too many better options out there, and I’ve actually been taking advantage of Prime and Netflix and Hulu. Been watching more documentaries and catching up on great shows like the three seasons of Fargo. So glad I’m done with DTV.

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Dutch

Dutch 4474

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Posted (edited)

Fuck uVerse in the goatass (it’s quasi-related since both are AT&T). My uVerse service (had u300 w/ Sho and TMCs) went from $85 to $158 when the promo period ended. After 30 minutes of haggling, retention services offered me u200 w/o Sho for $113. Thanks, but no. The cord gets cut next Sunday. I figure I’ll add YouTubeTV when football season rolls around, but both the wife and I are both relieved to be done with it. Vast majority of what we (plus the kiddo) watch is Netflix or Prime. 

Edited by Dutch
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RPM

RPM 26322

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I'm convinced they want to drive away sat customers and move them to streaming because sats are so expensive to operate/expand and they already own backbone. Problem is their streaming app sucks balls and rural customers have poor access.

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JimmyHoffa

JimmyHoffa 1188

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52 minutes ago, RPM said:

I'm convinced they want to drive away sat customers and move them to streaming because sats are so expensive to operate/expand and they already own backbone. Problem is their streaming app sucks balls and rural customers have poor access.

 

Yeah they tried that song and dance with me a few months ago. I called to get my bill reduced and they didn't offer shit (yes, I was talking to customer retention department) he said we can offer you our DirecTVnow service and I declined and he asked if I wanted to continue with canceling my service. 

I hung up and called back a couple of days later and the CS rep I talked to dropped $60 a month off my bill at the drop of a hat. 

So strange. 

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C-Man

C-Man 27230

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Using Locast thru DirecTV to stream CBS in Dallas and the picture quality is shit. If I run it thru Fire TV, the picture is good but the sound sucks. Anybody else have experience with Locast? Tell me this shit will be fixed in time for football season.

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Landomatic

Landomatic 3813

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Posted
18 hours ago, C-Man said:

Using Locast thru DirecTV to stream CBS in Dallas and the picture quality is shit. If I run it thru Fire TV, the picture is good but the sound sucks. Anybody else have experience with Locast? Tell me this shit will be fixed in time for football season.

Get a fire stick.  Get PS Vue.  Problem solved.

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