TWC vs DirectTV HD

[Rocket Power]

Finally stepped into this century with an HD TV.

I currently have Directv and am going to either upgrade to HD with them or switch to TWC.

Who has the best HD service?

[MyP71Vic]

If you upgrade to HD with Direct you will end up in another 2 year contract which changes half way through it otherwise TWC does have some good deals on getting that setup which I actually could help you with. With TWC there is no contract. I have always had there service even before I started working for them while I was working for a Satellite company.
-Nick

[xxtremeteam]

I have dish network I also will be looking for HD service this month so I hope we get some good info in here

[davidrab]

I switched from DirecTV to TW later last year and I have to say that DirecTV HD is superior to TW HD. I had to
switch because the trees in my backyard finally affected the signal too much (did get a good price for TW though).
My friends still have DTV and I sigh a little every time I see HD on their 65" plasma.

[SSDude]

Been with Dish for the last 5 years. Last two years on their HD. Good picture and no major issues.
I don't care if it's TW, Direct or Dish they all charge to much! The local over the air HD is pretty good for the price= FREE. Make yourself the coat hanger antenna.

[Nix]

Pros and Cons to all of them. We have Direct and have been happy with it but sometimes as usual with sat it will go out. Very rare but it happens. Also if you are a NFL fan take in to consideration that Direct TV is the only provider that offers NFL Ticket.

Basically it's a "pick your poison" and be done with it. But when it's all said and done just sit back and enjoy the sweetness of the HD picture.

[pOrk]

TWC couldn't get a HD signal to my house after numerous home visits and numerous pole climbers out back. TWC Blows, they claim because I'm at the end of the line that theres nothing they can do. No refund for services paid for that I didn't receive either, so we only have over the air.

[Holeshot]

I have had em all . I started out many moons ago when dishes were 6 foot mesh. I had primestar then was bought by directv Had TWC and Uverse when it first came out. I know all HD signals are compressed but I think cable is compressed more.

"For the future, the cable and satellite industries have a few tricks up their sleeves to free up some extra bandwidth for more HD programming. Satellite companies are already moving to the more efficient MPEG-4 AVC standard, which allows for more HD channels. The cable industry is moving more slowly to new compression standards and also hopes to phase out a lot of the analog channels that are currently clogging up much of its bandwidth. Interestingly, that puts them in a similar situation to the one many broadcasters are now dealing with because of the digital television conversion: Many customers with older, non-HDTVs will require new set-top boxes to view content. Alas, the only other option is to keep on squeezing that signal.

quoted from http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/home-theater/4275063

[Moparjim]

I had TW for decades, HD for years and was happy but finally switched to DirectTV - depending on the deals when you sign up I got like free HD, free DVR and I think extra receivers for life, plus a heavily discounted rate for first few year MUCH cheaper like half the price of TW, and ongoing rate since I have the free upgrades for life is still 25% cheaper than cable.

I would say picture quality is much better overall as well, I was like Pork TW could never get good signal strength into my house even after rewiring the entire house, adding a booster, etc. I still ended up with HD channels pixelating occasionally and crap quality issues like that.

[Rocket Power]

I did have outage issues last time I had TWC and also had an issue with the install where the doofus that was in the house was supposed to call to have a guy that can climb a pole come to finish the install..... he never called. After waiting nearly the whole day,which I had taken off of work for, I finally called myself.

But I see TWC are running a special so I could get road runner and hd for about the price I am paying for low def DIrect tv right now.
Uverse isn't an option since apparently even in 2012 I can get that or DSL in the middle of West Allis.

I guess I'll see what kind of deal I can work with directv and compare it to the cost savings of TWC. I did watch the last quarter of the SB last night in high def over the air. It was awesome. LOL

[Holeshot]

You have to remember that OTA signal is not compressed. Thats why so many people like using OTA for their local channels .

[MyP71Vic]

Unfourtunatly alot of the elderly people do not want boxes on their TVs so analog is needed for them to receive any channels. Getting satellite installed in winter or fall is a bad idea because you might get some signal now but when leaves come back on the trees it could completely block out signal then if you don't pay for the home coverage it is at least $100 for trip charge even if it is not working right. Even when I worked for satellite they still wanted to screw me with crazy charges. The worst part of Sat is their contracts and how even if you can't receive service 75% of the year they will charge you a cancellation fee of around $600. Let me know before signing your contract again. 2623128212

[Rocket Power]

Getting satellite installed in winter or fall is a bad idea because you might get some signal now but when leaves come back on the trees it could completely block out signal then if you don't pay for the home coverage it is at least $100 for trip charge even if it is not working right.Not too worried about that, I put the dish back on my roof after I redid the roof, still fine 5years later. I would be fine if they would just ship me the stuff and I'd do it myself. The last time I had the Direct Tv guy over after I went back to them after trying TWC, he left coax clippings and crap all over the my basement floor. So I don't just complain about TWC. ;) LOL

[MyP71Vic]

Depending on the dish you have it most likely won't do HD about 8 years ago people with HD TV's needed a seperate dish for HD but now 1 dish does both so you most likely will need to replace the dish. I forgot you already have one up so it is not a new install.

[GHOSST]

Fuck TWC. I've had them for 3 miserable years. Thank goodness bumfuck NC finally moved over to direct tv, and so did I eventually, so far so good. Once they establish a decent internet service down here, I'm kicking TWC to the curve for that too.

I say choose anything but TWC. Terrible customer service, shitty channels (in my area at least), and price fluctuations like no other!

But so far Direct HD is pretty good.

[wrath]

I have Dish Network. Top 120/HD, two DVRs, and a Sling (Dish/Echostar owns them) adapter with a 1000.4 eastern arc dish. ~$47/month for the first year then it goes up $15, the Sling adapter was free, and I got a $200 Amazon gift card. If you figure in the $200 gift card you basically are paying $47/month for two years.

You can get a pretty sweet deal on Blockbuster right now also (Dish owns them) which gets you access to movies faster than Netflix. We still have Netflix.

A new DVR receiver is supposed to be coming out any time that's even better than their current models.

[Rocket Power]

Went to TWC in mayfair today and signed up. The whole house hd dvr with 2 Tv's and one no box tv along with RR ended up being about $40 less per month than what I am paying direct tv for reg service with 1 dvr and two other tv's + RR.
Hopefully this time it'll go better. Lol
I'm a fan of saving money. Lol

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Ricky Bobby]

let us know how the install goes and if u have any problems me or travis on here can run out and fix it up quick if something goes wrong

[GTSLOW]

If TWC in WI is anything like NC stay the fuck away. I can not wait until the 14th when Direct TV gets setup. While our road runner may be fast the outages here out ridiculous, the limited HD channels suck, and TWC refuses to work with the NFL Network so I lost those two channels as well.

(oh and I need DTV's sunday ticket come next season) :D

[Rocket Power]

let us know how the install goes and if u have any problems me or travis on here can run out and fix it up quick if something goes wrongWill do. Thanks.

[Ricky Bobby]

and TWC refuses to work with the NFL Network so I lost those two channels as well.
thats 100% wrong...

[GHOSST]

thats 100% wrong...

May be wrong, but it still doesn't defeat the fact that TWC sucks balls for most sports. If your a sports guy, DTV is for you.

But if you like limited channels, hidden fees, terrible customer service, 12 month discounts (as opposed to DTV 24month), the by all means go with TWC.

[Ricky Bobby]

sure......

[03Seville]

may be wrong, but it still doesn't defeat the fact that twc sucks balls for most sports. If your a sports guy, dtv is for you.

But if you like limited channels, hidden fees, terrible customer service, 12 month discounts (as opposed to dtv 24month), the by all means go with twc.

Direct from TWC website

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz43/tewig1/timewarnerquote.jpg

Get the facts before you publicly state wrong information

[Lash]

I will NEVER get DTV again. We had them come do a multi-room set-up at our house to give it a try to see how we like it with their 30 day money back guarentee. Long story short, after multiple visits from multiple techs they could not get their service to work properly at our house. Just about every day we would lose service. They came to the conclusion (within 10 days of our original purchase) that their service simply would not work at our house for unknown reasons. They removed everything and said we would get our money back. Basically we were blaintently lied to. We called no less than 30 times asking when we will be getting a refund. We recieved answers from "it's in the mail" to "oh, there was a mistake....we're processing it now" to "our records show you've gotten it" back to "oh....we'll process it now". We finally gave up and are now out over $400 of our hard earned money. So DTV gets a big FUCK YOU from me.
I GLADY give my money to TWC. For us their service has been reliable and when ever there is a problem (which is rare) they take care of it with minimal effort on our part. Oh....and they issue refunds when they are owed, like when I made a mistake and purchased a UFC event on a sandard definition channel and in HD. They refunded my money without a single question asked. Or the other time I ordered a PPV event and was going to DVR it because I wasnt home at the time and the DVR didn't record it (I think it was actually my fault) they refunded my money no questions asked. We have been more than happy with TWC for the last 10+ years.

As far as the pice... anytime our TWC bill goes up after our price lock expires, all we do is call and they put it right back where it was for another 1-2 years.

[GHOSST]

Direct from TWC website

http://i812.photobucket.com/albums/zz43/tewig1/timewarnerquote.jpg

Get the facts before you publicly state wrong information

Ok, as opposed to 12 or 24 months with better incentives, that better? Fuck. Apples/Oranges, Pepsi/Coke, PS3/XBOX.

Some of you may love TWC, but through my personal experience, and that of others I know who switched to Uverse or Dish, or dropped TWC altogether, its always been the same story. But I guess its just like cell phone companies, some people like certain companies, while some people despise them.

And off topic, but my best friend used to contract for TWC, and according to him the volume of people getting "hooked up" was ridiculous, and I'm not saying anyone on here gets free cable, but I'm sure a lot of people love TWC's and its security measures...

[Rocket Power]

Well for me the sports crap doesn't matter. Im not paying extra for the Sunday ticket or any other package like it for any of the other sports.
I'm willing to give Twc another shot. If it blows all I'm out is time. Right now I'm saving $40/ month over what I'm paying direct tv for low def without the extra hd charges. I also tried searching the web to see how successful people were at getting a deal as an existing customer wanting an upgrade. I didn't find anyone that got the new guy price.
With Twc they have adjusted my roadrunner price down when I've complained.
I'm far from twc's biggest fan, but if I can get good service AND save $40+/month. I'm down with it.
So far I'm happy. If I end up unhappy, I can go back as a new customer, since direct tv doesn't give a crap about people who have had their service 9 out of the last 10 years, only new people.

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[Nix]

Like I said several days ago. Pros and Cons to both. Not everyone has the same experiences.

Pick your Poison...

[Ricky Bobby]

Are u really gonna go on a tangent about how many steal cable and twc's security measures. Really

Also I do work for TWC been there 8yrs am a svc tech and if I take care of it I take care of it so do me a favor and dont lump us all into one thanx..

[noeggs4u]

Plus one for Tony's work. He had to help the other tech that was also doing the install. He had all the rooms done and the other person barley had started the front room.

[pOrk]

I have 2 numbers in my phone I could call ( both TWC techs ) that would come and hook up cable under the radar for 50 bucks cash. Lots of shitty TWC employees, just like any company as big as they are.

[GHOSST]

Are u really gonna go on a tangent about how many steal cable and twc's security measures. Really

Also I do work for TWC been there 8yrs am a svc tech and if I take care of it I take care of it so do me a favor and dont lump us all into one thanx..

I didn't lump you into anything, if you felt that way, I apologize. I'm sure you do great work. I was just making an observation that baffled me, that some people (in general) never have an issue with something that is free.

But you work with them, so I understand why your pro TWC. If we had a DTV tech in here, I'm sure he'd bat for DTV. Its cool man.

[Rocket Power]

12 month discounts (as opposed to DTV 24month), the by all means go with TWC.I just looked at the latest DTV flyer I have for new customers, their deal is 12 months. So you have half the 24 month contract at a good price and half not.

[GHOSST]

So your telling me I'm wrong? I just recently signed up for DTV, with a 24month agreement, but who cares.

Ratings don't lie
http://www.jdpower.com/Telecom/ratings/television-service-ratings/

Direct TV has the east locked up, and At&t has the other 3 zones, no surprise TWC never leads DTV in any area, even though DTV isn't best either. Stats don't lie.

To each his own though.

[Lash]

So your telling me I'm wrong? I just recently signed up for DTV, with a 24month agreement, but who cares.



You are quoting a service that you are receiving 1,000 miles away. You don't think contract terms and conditions could be different here?


JDPower? lol

[GHOSST]

Who cares where I live, I'm not wrong in saying what DTV offers. Maybe that offer has come and gone there, its still fairly new to the south, that doesn't make it incorrect.

Why not JDPower, they don't just rate automobiles, and its not like their full of crap. Their reputable. But who really cares, its completely my opinion if I don't think TWC isn't top notch, DTV may not be either but I've yet to experience it. I've dealt firsthand with TWC's nonsense, lets leave it at that. The thread was DTV Vs. TWC, so I gave my honest opinion, if I offended TWC loyalist, I apologize.

[Lash]

Relax . It's only TV.

[GHOSST]

Well I just don't watch TV, I Direct TV.


not serious, lol. I know man, just posting, its cool.

[Rocket Power]

Install went just fine today, I really appreciated that the tech had some shoe covers on his boots so as to not track wetness/dirt in the house. Happy so far, he did apparently find some squirrel damage at the pole too,LOL.

[Ricky Bobby]

squirrels r our enemies lol

[Rocket Power]

Somehow the HD box in the bedroom knows what HD channels I want to watch and then makes them unavailable. :(

[Rocket Power]

Back with DirecTv. Hd picture is way better.

[JOHN 86GT]

Any other nightmares with Direct TV before I have it installed next sat ?

[SSDude]

We switched from Dish to Direct for the discount in August. Both companies work great IMO.
Just make sure you have a clear unobstructed view for the dish and it should be all good:thumbsup

[JOHN 86GT]

We switched from Dish to Direct for the discount in August. Both companies work great IMO.
Just make sure you have a clear unobstructed view for the dish and it should be all good:thumbsup

Cool ! Not any obstructions near house.

It's around $58/ month first year and $87 / month second year plus taxes . Another $16 / month for HBO if we keep it. Also got $200 Costco gift card with the "deal" . Will save a good amount for the first two years over TW cable.

Thanks.