DirecTV Adds Eleven New HD Channels for Fall

[Shane]

DIRECTV, the nation's leading satellite television service provider, continues to set the stage for its unprecedented expansion of HD services. With agreements in place to launch four Discovery HD channels, five HD channels from Starz, CNBC and Chiller in HD, along with recently completed deals with The History Channel and A&E, DIRECTV is on schedule to roll out up to 100 national HD channels by year-end to satisfy the appetite of its HD customers, who have doubled over the last year.

[url=http://www.hdtvmagazine.com/news/2007/05/directv_adds_el.php]Read the Full Article[/url]

[jognog]

I am so GLAD I switched over to DirecTV from CC. The programming is better, pictures are clearer, sound is great,,,no, better too. I am so glad I made the switch. I am truly looking forward to exercise my HD TV with the new HD stations being launch. Comcast has never solved an issue with sound quality after 1 year. I gave them that long to deal with the headache. No achaches now....all enjoyable DIRECTV. Go get'em DTV.
Thanks for having a valued service to your customers.

[jhecondevsys]

"Valued service to your customers"...? How much you want to bet that "Jognog" is really the DirecTV CEO.

[bergoffen]

Has Direct TV said if the new channels will require the 5 MPEG dish, or will they be available with the 3LNB dish?

[akirby]

I thought all of the new HD channels will be mpeg4 only and will require a new receiver and 5 lnb dish just like for DTV locals.

[jognog]

oh Yes! I wish I were the CEO...but no I am not. Just a little satisfied customer that had no satisfaction from Comcast for over a year. That included 34 days off of work to meet a 'tech', four time they never showed up, constant monitoring on my end ( I felt like the tech), no followup after a visit to tell what they were doing to resolve the issue (it was never resolved), and so on. By the way this problem has been noted by not only other people on my street, but many others as well.
Yes, I love my DirecTV and Customer Service as well.
I wish I were the CEO or even a part on that.

[jhecondevsys]

jeeze...

[zuuser1]

Jognog. Enjoy the few good experiences with Directv customer service because it is absolutely horrible. I switched in part to Dish because of Directv customer service. It turns out that Dish customer service is just as bad, if not worse than Directv. The bottom line is that we tolerate pathetic customer service for a superior product. Right now Dish has the most HD, however it appears that Directv will have more soon. Just how soon though is the question.

[rfowkes]

I seriously doubt that DirecTV will offer more HD channels than Dish for a number of reasons unless things change drastically in the HD distribution/availability chain. For one thing - Dish still has exclusive rights to the VOOM channels and that represents quite a few channels. And for another - most if not all of the "new" DirecTV channels that are planned are stations (like discovery and some of the movie channels, etc.) that Dish also has agreements with so I'm assuming that when DirecTV gets them Dish will also - unless some of the new birds don't make it up into the sky. Dish has always prided itself in offering the most HD channels in the industry and I don't see them reliquishing that any time soon without a fight.

I actually have both Dish and DirecTV (minimal DirecTV in order to get the YES network - one of the very few personal gripes I have about Charlie Ergen and Dish) and I also have friends with the DirecTV service. I can say, from personal experience, that I consider Dish technical support and service far superior. They aren'y even close in terms of response and othjer issues. For example, the DirecTV installers fraudulently double billed me for equipment I never ordered almost a year after the fact and it took some work from American Express to catch the perpetrators. Another example is a side by side comparison regarding the quality of SD offerings. DirecTV is just plain ugly and Dish is tolerable. And, based on what I've seen, the Dish HD PVRs just blow away the DirecTV PVRs in terms of features and functionality. And don't get me started about which of the two satellite services compresses their signals more. HD-lite has become synonymous with HD-DirecTV.

Yes, I would agree that both DirecTV and Dish are far better options than cable (at least here in suburban NYC) where CableVision defines the term "incompetent." And if you are a rabid sports fan who must have your NFL ticket and several other exclusives, then DirecTV is probably the way to go since you have no choice. But before we start annointing DirecTV the King of All HD Media let's see them get it right at least once.

In a related matter, I understand that FIOS TV from Verizon will soon be active in my neck of the woods (I already have FIOS Internet and it is superb!). The day that this happens I will dump my DirecTV box and get YES from FIOS instead. Then I can see how FIOS fits into the pecking order of TV and HDTV serice providers.

I'm a DirecTV user (reluctantly, as explained above) and certainly not the president of that company nor of the Men's Hair Club.

[ghuntybellsouth]

I thought all of the new HD channels will be mpeg4 only and will require a new receiver and 5 lnb dish just like for DTV locals.