Need a DirecTV Review

[Towen7]

I know I've talked about cutting the pay-tv cord but I haven't pulled that trigger just yet for a variety of reasons (that we can talk about later). I may have an opportunity to switch from Uverse to DireTV soon and save a fair amount of money. There are a few things about Uverse that I really like; wireless STBs that work really well, a single whole-home DVR, the ability to control any STB with a remote app on my phone...

Anyway, I have zero experience with DirecTV. Are there any of you that can give me a fair and honest review of the DirecTV product? Ignoring the cost of the service and/or the hardware ... what are some things you really like, things you hate, are there any capabilities to stream content to mobile devices (in the home or out), what other features that you know of but never use, install and daily use considerations ...

If I make the switch I'll be looking for;
service to 6 TVs but we'll never use more than 3 at a time
at least one wireless STB if that's an option

 

[heeman]

Tom,

We have had DirecTV for about 7 years now. We have 1 HD receiver in the HT and 1 HD DVR in the Living Room.

Prior we had TimeWarner Cable.

DirecTV has great customer service when ever we reached out to them.

Video is great and their programming options are good, we have the Choice Xtra Package and we also pay for the Palladia, etc package for about +$6/month.

Tiny bleeps in signal during nasty storms, but nothing like loosing cable for days.............

We just use the simple features and functions, no pay-preview or movies through them, just old simple folks, you know!

Not sure about your present provider, but we are very happy with DirecTV, even though I am still planning on going OTA with the Roku.

 

[Akula]

I've had DirecTV for several years. As with heeman, signal reliability is good; much better than it was in the early days (my parents had it back not long after it became a thing). You will still lose signal in heavy rain (like when a major cold front is pushing through), but it takes a fair amount of weather for that to happen and it is extraordinarily rare for it to be out more than a few minutes.

The equipment is (generally) excellent. We have four rooms hooked up. We have a HR34 Genie, C41 Mini Genie, and one each H23 and H24 receivers. The only one of the four I am not fully satisfied with is the Mini Genie client box- it doesn't play all that great with our Logitech Harmony remote (it works, but is really sensitive on remote direction), it's slow to process (sometimes painfully so), and is generally not up to the level of the other units. The Mini Genie clients connect directly back to the main Genie box and use the tuners there (so if you run a Genie client, that counts as one of the shows you can watch/record off that Genie at once). The advantage is you get to pause/rewind/fast forward live TV on that client connected box. The disadvantage is as I said- not quite as responsive as a regular DirecTV HD box. You can indeed watch shows off the DVR on ALL boxes, Genie, mini-Genie, or regular box. I do like the way DirecTV handles their software and guide grid... much more so than any cable box I've ever seen.

You can stream content to mobile devices dependent on channel. Some will stream live through the DirecTV app, some through their own apps (like HBOGo and MaxGo). With the appropriate gear you can even watch shows off your DVR on mobile devices, but we aren't set up for that so I can't say how well it does or doesn't work.

I have used DirecTV On Demand movies... if we want a PPV flick it's better than trying to find it on the few PPV channels. The downside is that the DirecTV servers tend to parcel it out slowly. You can't really, in practice, buy a PPV movie and watch it immediately as it downloads. If we want to do this I try to start the download a few hours early so there's no hiccups (you aren't charged until you actually start to watch the movie).

I've never once had an issue with their customer service. Always helpful and polite. I'd probably recommend the Genie as your DVR, skipping Genie clients unless absolutely necessary, and adding whatever other goodies might be needed.

 

[Towen7]

It looks like all the offer anymore is the Genie and the mini. How do the mini's connect to the main DVR?

With the Uverse setup I have now all STBs including the DVR connect to a central gateway via cat5. So I already have 2 cat5 runs (one for TVs and one for devices) going from every room to an equipment closet. I don't want to run coax all over the house and that may be a deal breaker if I have to.

 

[Towen7]

Oh...

Thanks for the feedback so far.

 

[Barney]

Towen, I loved satelliteguys.us back when I had DirectTV.
Great site, even covers your AT&T service & every thing else.

 

[Akula]

It looks like all the offer anymore is the Genie and the mini. How do the mini's connect to the main DVR?

With the Uverse setup I have now all STBs including the DVR connect to a central gateway via cat5. So I already have 2 cat5 runs (one for TVs and one for devices) going from every room to an equipment closet. I don't want to run coax all over the house and that may be a deal breaker if I have to.

The coax comes off the dish and goes into a multiplexer. The individual boxes (all of them) connect via coax to the multiplexer. The Genie has a Cat-5 connection to the home network.

There is a wireless Genie Mini (C41W), I've no experience with that one.

 

[Towen7]

The coax comes off the dish and goes into a multiplexer. The individual boxes (all of them) connect via coax to the multiplexer.

Yeah, that may be a reason NOT to use DirecTV. I'm not real interested in running RG6 from the attic to all the rooms.

 

[scubabob]

I've had Directv for a very long time, going back to the pirate days with first generation receivers. The service is consistent, with interruptions only during intense rainstorms. Snow/ice crystals interfere with the signal more than rain. My parents are always switching between TV providers. They were on dish with two big receiver boxes (didn't like how the guide operated), and are now on Brighthouse cable (like the guide operation even less). The directv guide and operations on this 'genie' box seem cleaner (to me). We have one wireless mini-box in the other room. Never had a problem with it. There is a slight lag in remote control operations and selection start-up with the mini-box. Once you get used to it, it becomes a non-issue. I've seen an ad for another Tivo software based directv receiver. For a time, a Tivo based HD receiver was available with directv. I consider the tivo look/feel/guide/remote/operation to be the best of them all. AT&T better not screw this up and cancel the supposed Tivo cooperation. Programs stored on the prior-to-genie boxes could be streamed to PCs with clunky/buggy software downloaded from directv. It usually worked, but frequently got lost when trying to start or navigate within a showing. I have not tried it again with the genie box, so maybe the bugs have been fixed.

 

[Akula]

The coax comes off the dish and goes into a multiplexer. The individual boxes (all of them) connect via coax to the multiplexer.

Yeah, that may be a reason NOT to use DirecTV. I'm not real interested in running RG6 from the attic to all the rooms.

Well, that would be for the installer to do, but still, I definitely understand.

 

[Towen7]

Does anyone have experience with the DirecTV app which stream live TV (from select channels) to a device or the one that streams content from your DVR?

I'm mostly asking about how well it works, I see that not all channels can be streamed and some can only bet stream within the home network. Uverse has an app that streams (fewer than DTV) live channels but I haven't had great success with it. There is no current Uverse app to stream DVR content. So my workaround for both is the Slingbox. I don't use it a lot but it's kinda nice when you "need" it; catch the game when your away from home, watch TV from a laptop in a room w/o a set...

 

[Akula]

I haven't really used the app for that enough to comment on it. What little I used it works fine, but I'd hardly say my experience with it is a good sample size let alone authoritative.

 

[MatthewB]

Tom I love Directv had them now for 14 years. I've just recently gone to their lowest tier package as I don't watch any sports and I've found with the recent "re-arrangement of channels" I now get all the popular channels in their lowest tier. With Hulu Plus via my brother in law, HBO Go via my mothers Dish account and with me paying for Netflix ( share with my mom) and my collection in Vudu ( whole family shares to keep costs low) I found the lowest package was all I need. Living in AZ it's very rare for service to ever go out due to storms.

I don't like that Directv makes you pay 20.00/month for the main box to get both DVR and HD service. This of course is shared with my two other mini genies. I bundle with Centurylink so get 5.00 off each month and made a deal with Directv to get an additional 10.00 off for two years if I didn't drop them so my monthly bill is 55.00 for service. I like the fact you can connect to their movie on demand via wifi but I rarely ever use that.