Nfl sunday ticket; Who's signing up?

[Lv-Bills]

Stagnant service? Have you not been paying any attention to the innovation that's been going on with ST?

 

* The Redzone channel (which is now available to other providers).

* Player Tracker - where you input players into your receiver and it informs you of what they're doing in real time - great for fantasy football fans

* Short Cuts - Every game cut down to 30 minutes, aired the next day

* Highlights - Short 2-3 minute highlights from every game, pushed to your DVR automatically

* Web viewing - Watch a game with a PC from anywhere, even if you're not home (I believe this is an extra pay option this year)

 

There's probably some others I'm forgetting as well -- say what you want about the price, but they've been adding a lot of features over the past 5 years.

 

As for the "without a single competitor" comment -- ever heard of a sports bar? Or going to the game? Those are both competitors.

And again, BS, because no fans wanted, or even asked for any of the garbage listed above. The only thing that is kind of cool is the player tracker, however, most fantasy football players have their laptops open and are getting real time scoring from things like Yahoo Stattracker anyway. The player tracker would have been much more up to date 7 years ago. Same with all of the stats, etc. Decent thought, but no one clamored for it, in order for DTV to charge you more for the service. It's garbage.

 

All of that above stuff is garbage. And that's why I hate DTV now. Keep trying to tell me how much I want all that crap. I DON'T. And I'm a hardcore football fan, and I would not pay for any of that stuff.

 

Garbage.

 

I will obviously still get Sunday Ticket, but I would switch to FIOS in a second if they had it.

[Fezmid]

And again, BS, because no fans wanted, or even asked for any of the garbage listed above. The only thing that is kind of cool is the player tracker, however, most fantasy football players have their laptops open and are getting real time scoring from things like Yahoo Stattracker anyway. The player tracker would have been much more up to date 7 years ago. Same with all of the stats, etc. Decent thought, but no one clamored for it, in order for DTV to charge you more for the service. It's garbage.

 

All of that above stuff is garbage. And that's why I hate DTV now. Keep trying to tell me how much I want all that crap. I DON'T. And I'm a hardcore football fan, and I would not pay for any of that stuff.

 

Garbage.

 

I will obviously still get Sunday Ticket, but I would switch to FIOS in a second if they had it.

 

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

I love the web viewing -- especially since I'm usually out of town for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

Short Cuts is also great -- lets you watch a few extra games in not a lot of time. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's garbage.

 

To each his own.

[Rob's House]

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

I love the web viewing -- especially since I'm usually out of town for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

Short Cuts is also great -- lets you watch a few extra games in not a lot of time. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's garbage.

 

To each his own.

 

How long have you worked for DTV?

[HurlyBurly51]

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

I love the web viewing -- especially since I'm usually out of town for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

Short Cuts is also great -- lets you watch a few extra games in not a lot of time. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's garbage.

 

To each his own.

 

Absolutely. I love the red zone channel. And the price is right - it's all included in the Sunday Ticket (except the web viewing part - another $50). Not sure why crankypants is complaining about innovation, when it's part of the package.

 

Also forgot to add the game mix channel - 8 games all on one screen, and all in HD.

 

Must suck to be a slave to a provider you hate, and for 348 days out of the year they don't even have the product you're there for in the first place. Now who's the dumb one in that scenario?

[Fezmid]

How long have you worked for DTV?

 

I'd love to work in their IT department, but I don't. Just a VERY happy customer -- heck, they just sent me a coupon for a free PPV movie a couple of weeks ago for no reason. Not as good as the free $50 credit they gave me last year for being a customer for 10 years, but still better than anything I've ever gotten from Comcast. Any cable customers get any cool freebees?

 

Also forgot to add the game mix channel - 8 games all on one screen, and all in HD.

 

I wanted to like that, but it was information overload - I couldn't keep track of everything going on!

[eball]

And again, BS, because no fans wanted, or even asked for any of the garbage listed above. The only thing that is kind of cool is the player tracker, however, most fantasy football players have their laptops open and are getting real time scoring from things like Yahoo Stattracker anyway. The player tracker would have been much more up to date 7 years ago. Same with all of the stats, etc. Decent thought, but no one clamored for it, in order for DTV to charge you more for the service. It's garbage.

 

All of that above stuff is garbage. And that's why I hate DTV now. Keep trying to tell me how much I want all that crap. I DON'T. And I'm a hardcore football fan, and I would not pay for any of that stuff.

 

Garbage.

 

I will obviously still get Sunday Ticket, but I would switch to FIOS in a second if they had it.

LOL

[BillnutinHouston]

For what it's worth, this info might help people. The auto-renewal price is $299 this year, and that includes HD. No more superfan this year. Last year it was like $270 plus another $99 for HD.

 

Where are you seeing the $299 price for auto-renewal?

[Spiderweb]

Ha! You must like down-rezzed, compressed HD-Lite! The PQ doesn't come close to DirecTV HD, and that's a fact.

 

You might wish to read a bit before this reply, I believe your "opinion" was sent to the Myth Busters and it has been busted.

 

Practicing propaganda?

[Spiderweb]

I haven't seen much Dish bashing -- in fact you know I routinely recommend people look at both DirecTV and Dish (I bash cable companies ).

 

I'm not spinning anything - it's true. Your modulation system is VERY cool -- but wasn't cheap and isn't easy for most people to understand/install. It's not quite as clean as the Whole Home DVR solution... And like you noted, you can't modulate HD. Facts are facts.

 

Regardless, I was mentioning the whole home DVR as a competitive advantage for DirecTV - since many people seem to think DirecTV has nothing other than Sunday Ticket. Another advantage for DirecTV (and I'm not sure if the same is true with Dish, but I know it's not for Comcast/TW/Charter) is that you can open up your DVR, plug in a huge harddrive, and it automatically formats it and lets you use the space. I have a 1TB drive in my main DVR and a 750G drive in my theater DVR, giving me near unlimited recording.

 

As for Dish's pricing policy - you didn't get grandfathered in to some package? My boss has Dish and he has the "All HD" package -- he gets no SD channels, but as Dish has added HD channels, he gets those too. The package isn't available for purchase anymore but he's been grandfathered in and he pays a pretty low monthly rate for it ($30/mo I believe?). Pretty sweet deal.

 

Actually I did try their All HD package (supposedly 39 channels). It wasn't being openly offered, but because I knew about it, they allowed me to try it. Unfortunately I have children and the exclusion of the Nickelodeon channel(s) killed my chances of keeping it.

[Spiderweb]

I haven't seen much Dish bashing -- in fact you know I routinely recommend people look at both DirecTV and Dish (I bash cable companies ).

 

I'm not spinning anything - it's true. Your modulation system is VERY cool -- but wasn't cheap and isn't easy for most people to understand/install. It's not quite as clean as the Whole Home DVR solution... And like you noted, you can't modulate HD. Facts are facts.

 

Regardless, I was mentioning the whole home DVR as a competitive advantage for DirecTV - since many people seem to think DirecTV has nothing other than Sunday Ticket. Another advantage for DirecTV (and I'm not sure if the same is true with Dish, but I know it's not for Comcast/TW/Charter) is that you can open up your DVR, plug in a huge harddrive, and it automatically formats it and lets you use the space. I have a 1TB drive in my main DVR and a 750G drive in my theater DVR, giving me near unlimited recording.

 

As for Dish's pricing policy - you didn't get grandfathered in to some package? My boss has Dish and he has the "All HD" package -- he gets no SD channels, but as Dish has added HD channels, he gets those too. The package isn't available for purchase anymore but he's been grandfathered in and he pays a pretty low monthly rate for it ($30/mo I believe?). Pretty sweet deal.

 

Actually I did try their All HD package (supposedly 39 channels or so I was told). It wasn't being openly offered, but because I knew about it, they allowed me to try it. Unfortunately I have children and the exclusion of the Nickelodeon channel(s) killed my chances of keeping it. The price was 34.95 or 39.95, if I recall correctly. Yet, I had to keep the Kids happy. Jeez.

 

Would I like to have a ATSC modulator? You bet, but those that exist are extraordinarily expensive and not intended for the general consumer. What my two receivers give me is two HD Boxes, and two SD boxes essentially, allowing me to continue to use 6 perfectly good older CRT NTSC TV's. This allows for four different Sat programs to be independently watched (2 in HD, two in SD) yet only use 2 receivers to accomplish it.

 

If and when Cable offers decent bandwidth, I may try out a PC option as Ceton is coming out with a cable card, 4 tuner PCI Express card. If I can figure out a cost effective way to give it a go, I might. For those interested, there is also HD Homerun, that in the right scenario, may fill the bill for many as well. Currently, the drawback is the signal on Cable, which when I tested it two years as go, was still crap.

 

With TV's and blu-ray players now incorporating Internet video streaming, I may find a basic Sat package may suffice and

supplement it with internet video instead of HBO, etc (premium channels). I can only hope and pray the technology is made available at a decent price point.

[mpl6876]

I am going to save my $300 plus dollars. I get too frustrated when they loose and play like poop. This is going to be a long long season. I will just read about how bad we lost on the web and papers. Less frustrating...Lets face it guys, the Bills wanna make me PUKE not shout!

[muggins]

Nice! I bitched a lot about the $100 HD charge.

[BillsFanNC]

After last year's disgusting play I was on the verge of dropping the NFL package. Wasting pleasant fall Sundays on less than entertaining football got me leaning toward freeing my time. For me my "beloved Bills" will never be beloved as long as Ralph Wilson owns the team. I detest that shyster.

 

I consider myself a grounded fan who is not blinded by loyalty to the team. By any measurement the Bills have been boringly bad for a decade straight. What I want as a starting point is entertaining and quality football. At this early rebuilding point I'm not going to demand much from the won/lost record as long as I can see some team development and improvement in play. I get the sense that Nix/Gailey understand how to build the team the right way and establish a foundation for sustained success. From what I have seen so far they are making solid moves (draft and free agent acquisitions) which are putting the franchise on the right path.

 

So I'm sticking with the NFL package.

 

 

I share most of your thinking, honestly the games were so bad last season I usually just switched to the red zone channel at half time. I don't even know can you get just the red zone channel on Direct TV? I'll probably end up getting the full package again though and fill my Sunday afternoons with bad football and frustration.

[bobinaz]

I think thats before the extra fee for HD as well isn't it?

 

I noticed that you don't need to buy the Super Fan package anymore to get the games in HD. But when I saw the new price of the subscription to just the ticket, I figured that's where they made up the difference.

[Clippers of Nfl]

Fez and other DTVers -- I had the "whole home DVR" system installed a couple of weeks ago and it is SWEET. I highly recommend it if you've got broadband internet. It literally quadrupled my storage and I no longer have concerns about deleting stuff -- I just record it on one of the other DVRs and can watch from anywhere.

 

I had beta-tested the DVR-sharing over wireless and performance was spotty (hard to FF, REW, etc. on programs from another DVR) but with the DECA system (over coax) the delays have been greatly minimized.

quick question for you since you have it. i got the watching/recording options. easy to understand. HOW ABOUT DELETING?

 

can my kid in her room erase something i recorded from the living room?

 

thats scary. thats whats keeping me from subscribing to the whole room service.

[bills_fan_in_raleigh]

quick question for you since you have it. i got the watching/recording options. easy to understand. HOW ABOUT DELETING?

 

can my kid in her room erase something i recorded from the living room?

 

thats scary. thats whats keeping me from subscribing to the whole room service.

if you allow delete yes but you can prevent delete remotely you can also prevent viewing from other room as well based on parental controls etc

[eball]

quick question for you since you have it. i got the watching/recording options. easy to understand. HOW ABOUT DELETING?

 

can my kid in her room erase something i recorded from the living room?

 

thats scary. thats whats keeping me from subscribing to the whole room service.

Each individual DVR can be set to allow (or not allow) both sharing AND deleting. So you can protect your living room programs by sharing them, but allowing deletion only from that DVR.

 

They really did a good job with this.

[Fezmid]

Another feature DirecTV has that I don't believe other providers do (correct me if I'm wrong) is that you can stream things from your DVR to your PC. That service is free and is pretty awesome. There's been a couple of times where I've had the Simpsons playing white I've done other things on my PC This would let you watch NFL games on your PC -- but only within your home network, so you can't make it work like a Slingbox.

 

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/dire...logy/directv2pc

[billsfreak]

One man's trash is another man's treasure.

 

I love the web viewing -- especially since I'm usually out of town for Thanksgiving and Christmas.

 

Short Cuts is also great -- lets you watch a few extra games in not a lot of time. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's garbage.

 

To each his own.

I agree, the annual raises have gotten a little bit annoying, but the worst part of the Sunday Ticket is that I get it mainly to watch the Bills, and they have been making my sundays miserable. I guess I am a glutten for punishment though because I watch sunday after sunday, curse under my breath for a couple hours after the game, then try to forget it when they lose. One game in each of the past few seasons I have had to work and I watched the game on my work PC using my DTV account so that has been great, although using it only a couple times I don't think I would pay extra for it. They also normally give me something on the anniversary of me signing up for DTV 6 or 7 years ago. This year they gave me the package for the NCAA basketball tourney, which seeing how I don't watch basketball, it didn't matter, but last year they gave me the Showtime package free for a year and that was great. Couple all this with getting to watch Friday Night Lights before anyone else with cable or another dish, is enough reason for me to stay with DTV.

[Clippers of Nfl]

Each individual DVR can be set to allow (or not allow) both sharing AND deleting. So you can protect your living room programs by sharing them, but allowing deletion only from that DVR.

 

They really did a good job with this.

thanks for info.