Dish

Today I took the jump and went from cable to satellite TV.

I’ve always had cable TV, so this was a big move for me – but with Time Warner constantly raising their rates, I feel the need to give it a shot.

I am keeping Roadrunner for my internet access and decided to go with Dish Network for my TV.  If everything is as they say it will be, I will be getting more and paying less.  I had to sign up for a two-year contract and for the first year I am getting $15 off a month from their regular price.  The first year I will be saving $34.99 a month and the second year $19.99 a month (including what I will be paying Time Warner for internet) from what my cable bill was previously.  That’s as long as the lady I spoke to at Time Warner was right about what I will be charged for just Roadrunner…  I won’t trust what she told me until I actually see the bill.  Anyway, that comes out to a savings of $333.49 the first year (I deducted the $79.99 + tax I was charged for the ‘one time installation fee’) and $239.88 savings the second year - so over the two years I will be saving almost $600.  There’s a lot I can do with that kind of $$$    And from what I understand, when the contract is up, customers are offered all kinds of incentives to renew, so maybe I’ll be able to save more down the line.  We’ll see.

I haven’t had the new system in for even a day yet, but so far I’m liking it. 

Pros so far:

- $$$avings

- I now have DVR on two TV’s instead of just the one I had before

- The way the DVR is set up, I can start watching something I saved on one TV and finish watching on the other (very cool!)

- The remote they gave me works on the box and my TV… now I only have to deal with one remote instead of two!  (except if I want to use the timer)

- The DVR has almost four times the storage space that the Time Warner DVR had

- The DVR has a ‘lock’ feature so that you can prevent a saved show from being accidently deleted – that could come in handy

- I like the search feature better… it can look for shows over the week instead of just for a day

- You can set the DVR to record new episodes only of a show… this is great for not missing an episode of something if it gets moved temporarily

- The remote has a cool commercial skip feature that I really like a lot

Cons so far:

- It’s going to take me a while to get used to the different stations being on different channels… the system they have is wacked compared to what I’m used to

- The new box doesn’t have a clock on it

- I haven’t been able to get my DVD player to work with the new box yet… but I haven’t spent much time at it either…

- The new remote doesn’t have a timer on it, so I have to use the TV remote if I want to fall asleep to the TV

 

Not sure if it’s a Pro or Con yet:

- I now have a satellite dish on the front of my house

- I lost a few stations and gained a few others… neither that I have/would watch(ed) much – but a glaring omission is the absence of Canadian stations

After a few weeks I should have a better idea if I made the right move or not – here’s hoping I did!