DirecTV to offer games online without DirecTV sat subscription

[The Dean]

Yeah, but that's my affliction. I NEED to see all those 2 yard runs and incomplete passes and illegal procedure penalties. My name is gringo starr and I am a lifetime Bills fan.

 

 

I'm with you. Redzone can be fun and is even a bit addictive, but it isn't really watching football, IMO. And its not enough for a Bills game. A replay is nice if you have no other option, but watching live is the only way to go, IMO.

 

And, if I have to, I'll watch on a 13" standard def TV. Hell, I'll watch in B&W if that's all that is available.

[Cugalabanza]

All the bars closed in Atlanta?

No. That's what I've been doing for years now. It gets tired sometimes. It's nice to watch the game in the comfort of my own home.

[Leonidas]

Just suck it up and order the dish. Order the premier package for $79.99/month, get a free HD DVR, free premium channels, and free NFL Sunday Ticket for five months, then switch down to the "choice ultimate" package (keeping the HD DVR) at $59.99/month for the rest of the first year. From there on out it'll be $88.99/month until the end of your second year when you can cancel and go back to cable.

[slyng1]

I thought about doing this but have decided against it. Here's my thinking (as a NYC TV market customer).

 

I get 2 of the games automatically (Home/Away vs. Jets) so for me this is for 14 games. $350/14 = $25. $25/game is relatively steep to stare at my computer during game-time (sure, I can output to my TV, but who knows if this will actually be HD or if there will be studdering/streaming issues). If I do that, I also have to buy beer (because i can't watch the bills and not drink...it's just the way I operate). Lets assume I spend $10 every Sunday - so now it's up to $35/week.

 

So, if I can spend less than $35 at the bar on beer (which also has more & better TVs than I do) I'm better off just walking to my local bar and watching it there. Since a lot of bars offer all-you-can drink from 1pm-4:15pm for ~$35....I'll probably pass.

 

Now... perhaps my brother & i can split the cost and alternate weekends. Obviously can't have 2 different computers streaming at once from different IP addresses but sharing it might be the answer. Anyway, now i'm just rambling. Thx for posting this...

[Ed_Formerly_of_Roch]

Midnight on Sunday o neast coast. Also blacked again Monday night or anytime alive game is on. Essentially it's available after Sunday night game ends.

 

How soon after a game is over can you access it?

[Fezmid]

$25/game is relatively steep to stare at my computer during game-time

 

You're not interested in watching any other games? I've had Sunday Ticket for years now, and it's great to be able to watch games other than Buffalo.

[Gabe Northern]

How soon after a game is over can you access it?

 

Midnight on Sunday. But you have permanent access to the games. Easier than TiVo. Great for rewatching series to form your own opinions on players.

 

BTW, in the past, DirecTV has only opened the online to people who live in apartment buildings that don't have the dish. I THINK that this is opening that old arrangement up to everybody.

[Peace]

BTW, in the past, DirecTV has only opened the online to people who live in apartment buildings that don't have the dish. I THINK that this is opening that old arrangement up to everybody.

 

It is. Anyone can now get the NFL Ticket via the web. Hope the servers are ready.

[stevestojan]

$350 for 17 days of TV?

 

I just moved and unfortunately had to switch TO DirecTV. I have never had a more horrific 8 days of customer service in my life. When they first came out, which of course caused me to be home for 4 hours, taking vacation time from work, they set everything up, then got an "error" message. The installer told me he had to take the boxes back and I had to call a 800# to resolve. I called, and they were only open til 5ET and it was already 4:00 here (mountain time). I called the next day and they informed me I had a past due bill from 2003, which I knew wasnt the case since I have never had DirecTV in my name. They told me to prove it, I had to send it a COPY OF MY SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND MY DRIVERS LICENSE. They assured me "they would shred it as soon as they got it". I hung up. They called me back. They told me actually, what happened was someone with a SSN 1 digit off of mine had a past due account. Ridiculous! The earliest they could come back out was FIVE DAYS LATER, again "between 2 and 6 pm". I am now in an apartment, and they have a contract ONLY with DirecTV. I cannot say enough bad things about this service. Oh, and we had a monsoon last Friday, as we do on a regular basis in the desert. Sattelite went out for 20 minutes.

 

I miss cable. I miss cable bad.

[Peace]

$350 for 17 days of TV?

 

I just moved and unfortunately had to switch TO DirecTV. I have never had a more horrific 8 days of customer service in my life. When they first came out, which of course caused me to be home for 4 hours, taking vacation time from work, they set everything up, then got an "error" message. The installer told me he had to take the boxes back and I had to call a 800# to resolve. I called, and they were only open til 5ET and it was already 4:00 here (mountain time). I called the next day and they informed me I had a past due bill from 2003, which I knew wasnt the case since I have never had DirecTV in my name. They told me to prove it, I had to send it a COPY OF MY SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND MY DRIVERS LICENSE. They assured me "they would shred it as soon as they got it". I hung up. They called me back. They told me actually, what happened was someone with a SSN 1 digit off of mine had a past due account. Ridiculous! The earliest they could come back out was FIVE DAYS LATER, again "between 2 and 6 pm". I am now in an apartment, and they have a contract ONLY with DirecTV. I cannot say enough bad things about this service. Oh, and we had a monsoon last Friday, as we do on a regular basis in the desert. Sattelite went out for 20 minutes.

 

I miss cable. I miss cable bad.

 

DirecTV sucks compared to cable but it's the only solution for some people.

 

When I tried to sign up for DirecTV (they ended up not being able to install it), they asked for all that **** RE license and social security. I asked them what they needed that for. The said it was for running a credit check. Credit check for the privilege of spending $100/month? You have to be kidding, right? So I asked if I could pay for the equipment up front and void the credit check (based on general principle, I don't care for people probing me). It took an act of congress to allow me to pay the $700 up front and avoid the credit check. Then, in the end, no service due to no line of sight.

 

If they ever lose the Sunday Ticket, it will gut the customer base.

[CodeMonkey]

DirecTV sucks compared to cable but it's the only solution for some people.

People can always find something to complain about whatever service they have. I have had DTV in the past and now I have cable. The dish was already installed when I moved into the house so I had no installation headaches. I did have the "rain fade" issue that others have mentioned from time to time, but all in all I was very happy with it as a service.

 

With Time Warner cable that I have now, the cable box software is absolute ****. It was bad before, but the software updated about 6 months ago and now it is the slowest and buggiest piece of garbage I have seen in a very long time. About once a month or so there is a issue with video or audio and the first few times I called customer service who told me to reboot the box by cycling power (unplugging). That solved the problem until the next time. Now I just cycle power when it !@#$s up once a month. I had them switch boxes out already and the issues remain. It seems to be a generic problem with these scientific american boxes.

 

There is no line of sight to the necessary satellites in my current house or I would switch off of this time warner **** in a heartbeat. Not sure if I would switch to DTV or Dish network, but clearly I would be off of cable.

Edited August 31, 2010 by CodeMonkey

[Mike in Horseheads]

$350 for 17 days of TV?

 

I just moved and unfortunately had to switch TO DirecTV. I have never had a more horrific 8 days of customer service in my life. When they first came out, which of course caused me to be home for 4 hours, taking vacation time from work, they set everything up, then got an "error" message. The installer told me he had to take the boxes back and I had to call a 800# to resolve. I called, and they were only open til 5ET and it was already 4:00 here (mountain time). I called the next day and they informed me I had a past due bill from 2003, which I knew wasnt the case since I have never had DirecTV in my name. They told me to prove it, I had to send it a COPY OF MY SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND MY DRIVERS LICENSE. They assured me "they would shred it as soon as they got it". I hung up. They called me back. They told me actually, what happened was someone with a SSN 1 digit off of mine had a past due account. Ridiculous! The earliest they could come back out was FIVE DAYS LATER, again "between 2 and 6 pm". I am now in an apartment, and they have a contract ONLY with DirecTV. I cannot say enough bad things about this service. Oh, and we had a monsoon last Friday, as we do on a regular basis in the desert. Sattelite went out for 20 minutes.

 

I miss cable. I miss cable bad.

All I can say is I switched to DISH in June and it was the WORST decision I ever made. Along with the fact that they don't have the MLB Net, ESPN Classic (extra) or the YES network I've had several lousy dealings with customer service. Sooooo... I'm back to DTV on Thursday and got many "gifts" to come back. Of course this is going to cost me to buy out DISH... grrrr

PS- They do offer the XTSY Channel for $29 a month DTV doesn't...sigh....

[The Dean]

All I can say is I switched to DISH in June and it was the WORST decision I ever made. Along with the fact that they don't have the MLB Net, ESPN Classic (extra) or the YES network I've had several lousy dealings with customer service. Sooooo... I'm back to DTV on Thursday and got many "gifts" to come back. Of course this is going to cost me to buy out DISH... grrrr

PS- They do offer the XTSY Channel for $29 a month DTV doesn't...sigh....

 

 

$29 a month for porn? Seriously? That's crazy.

[Fezmid]

$350 for 17 days of TV?

 

I just moved and unfortunately had to switch TO DirecTV. I have never had a more horrific 8 days of customer service in my life. When they first came out, which of course caused me to be home for 4 hours, taking vacation time from work, they set everything up, then got an "error" message. The installer told me he had to take the boxes back and I had to call a 800# to resolve. I called, and they were only open til 5ET and it was already 4:00 here (mountain time). I called the next day and they informed me I had a past due bill from 2003, which I knew wasnt the case since I have never had DirecTV in my name. They told me to prove it, I had to send it a COPY OF MY SOCIAL SECURITY CARD AND MY DRIVERS LICENSE. They assured me "they would shred it as soon as they got it". I hung up. They called me back. They told me actually, what happened was someone with a SSN 1 digit off of mine had a past due account. Ridiculous! The earliest they could come back out was FIVE DAYS LATER, again "between 2 and 6 pm". I am now in an apartment, and they have a contract ONLY with DirecTV. I cannot say enough bad things about this service. Oh, and we had a monsoon last Friday, as we do on a regular basis in the desert. Sattelite went out for 20 minutes.

 

I miss cable. I miss cable bad.

 

Weren't you the one who loved DTV, and told the story that after the hurricane, your neighbors had no service for weeks, and your dish was working fine...? Pretty sure it was you but I could be mistaken.

 

Sounds like a frustrating situation for you, but clerical errors like that happen. Happened when I was refinancing my house many years ago too, which ended up costing me a hundred bucks or so. Grrr...

[Mike in Horseheads]

$29 a month for porn? Seriously? That's crazy.

 

Sorry if I hit a nerve I was just]just making a point about DISH and DTV, if I want advice on porn I'll Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin LOL!!!

[The Dean]

if I want advice on porn I'll Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin LOL!!!

 

 

You'll what to Glenn and Sarah?

 

[Mike in Horseheads]

You'll what to Glenn and Sarah?

 

 

Whatever... I guess you get off on others e-mails.

[slyng1]

You're not interested in watching any other games? I've had Sunday Ticket for years now, and it's great to be able to watch games other than Buffalo.

 

No actually, not really.

 

But as I said in my post, the bar that I'll be watching the game at will have every game on a separate TV. From a pure cost perspective the $350 is not that competitive to me for a streaming service. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you won't be able to change the channel instantaneously if a great play happens in another game -- you'll jump to the game and then it'll have to buffer and then you'll get your game after some period of time. Seems like kind of a ripoff for a fan who only cares about one out-of-market team. I would think a more fair price would be ~$10/game or something along those lines.

 

I wasn't suggesting it doesn't make sense for some others just not for me. The great match-ups are usually flexed to Sunday nights anyway so it's not like I won't be able to watch good football.

[stevestojan]

Weren't you the one who loved DTV, and told the story that after the hurricane, your neighbors had no service for weeks, and your dish was working fine...? Pretty sure it was you but I could be mistaken.

 

Sounds like a frustrating situation for you, but clerical errors like that happen. Happened when I was refinancing my house many years ago too, which ended up costing me a hundred bucks or so. Grrr...

 

Good memory! It was indeed me. The service was not in my name, however, during both Hurricanes Gene and Francis, never lost signal. This past Friday, BIG monsoon here in Tucson, not hurricane force winds by any means, and the picture went out.

 

I guess I am so sensitive to it due to my job - I am a customer service manager, I run a call center of 250 agents, and if ONE of them treated me like the DTV people did (meaning, "let me take no accountability, let me transfer you to someone else, and let me give you the canned "sorry for the inconvenience", they would not work for GEICO the next day).

[The Dean]

Whatever... I guess you get off on others e-mails.

 

 

?????

 

That made less sense than "I'll Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin".

 

But to be clear, I really don't give a rat's ass if you or anyone subscribes to porn. I just find it hard to believe that anyone pays for porn anymore. There is an abundance of free porn today. $29/month seems a bit stiff, er expensive.

Edited August 31, 2010 by The Dean