I got DTV/Sunday Ticket last season, but it wasn't installed untill the regular season began. This being my first preseason, does having DTV give me any preseason games I wouldn't otherwise be able to see?

Also, any tips on how to get a break on Sunday Ticket or Superfan?

Preseason games are not part of the ST package...however, every game is played, most via tape, on the NFL Newtwork that is standard to DTV.

I caught a break on Superfan last year, but I'm being billed for it this year...may call and pi$$ a storm one of these days and may get the price knocked down, but I've heard they're not being as flexible this year.

Fez is the master of DTV negotiations...I'm sure he'll chime in here with some tips soon.

I haven't started negotiating with them on Superfan yet, but I'm fairly confident I'll get it for free since they're giving it to new subscribers for free.

http://customerinfo.directv.com/directv/?U...RzJuyJE4BEpvy5U


And as Ned said, ST/SF doesn't give preseason games. The reason for that is all preseason games are broadcast by local networks - it's not national like the regular season and playoff games are. But they're usually all available via tape delay on NFLN (channel 212). Some of them are even aired live.

Thanks for the responses!

I kind of thought that I wasn't going to see the preseason games, but I wasn't sure with all the channels I get wheter seeing them would be any easier than when I had cable last year.

If you come up with any tips/strategies for getting SF for free let me know - godd luck!

Well, I just called and said, "I'm paying $9.99 for HD access, why do I have to pay again....blah, blah, blah...."

DTV rep then said, "How does 'free' sound?" I said I like the sound of that, etc...

Really didn't take much, but I read somewhere, maybe it was the DBS forums, that DTV isn't being as kind this year...who knows, it's worth a try.

Who did you talk to at DTV Ned? Customer retention or some other division. We've been getting both Sunday Ticket and NHL Center Ice for about 4 years now so maybe I can give it a try as well. Also pay for HD

Yes, I believe it was Customer Retention

I have never paid for superfan, and also got them to give it to my sister for free.

To the original question, its cool also that the forst half of the game will be one teams home announcers, second half will be the other team

So how many Bills games can you resonably expect to see in HD if you order or get them to give you the SuperFan? I assume that not every game is shown that way?

This year, every game is supposed to be in HD.

In the past, CBS only broadcast 3 games week in HD.

So we'll see if CBS really did upgrade their stuff or not.

I don't have specifics, but I think we got most of our games in HD last season. Maybe missed 2-3.

UPDATE: Called today and asked for customer retention. SuperFan for free...

Ok, here is a question for those of you that have negotiated with Direct Tv in the past. I have been a subscriber for seven years and FINALLY this year I'm ready upgrade to HD, but in a big way. I want to get 3 HD-DVR's for my three new HD sets. What are my chances of getting a price break on this order? Any strategy suggestions?

I have done quite a bit of arguing/negotiating with them recently. My honest opinion? It will be nearly impossible to get all that for free. They wouldn't even give me ONE HD-DVR for free and I have two subscription sports packages. But everyone is different, and if you play it right, you may get somewhat of a break.

My advice is to call DTV, and IMMEDIATELY ask for customer retention. Do not even speak to the main representative other than to demand to be transferred. They are a waste of time.

I would tell them exacly what you want and ask if there is any way that they can make it less expensive for you since you will be upgrading and getting all this new stuff. Be polite and personable and see what they say. It can't hurt to ask...

You should be able to get them for about $100 each.

They gave me my new HD DVRs for free. I did have the HD Tivos, however. Just FYI: The "DirectTV" HD DVRs:


SUCK!

Bring back TIVO!

Agreed.

I disagree... it's just different. TiVo's UI is superior, yes, but can Tivo:

- Determine that a game you're recording is blacked out, search for other simultaneous instances of it, and automatically pick them up, without any sort of special setup?
- Narrow down "Wishlist" hits by a group of channels? Can you search for "SABRES CCHAN 627 605 82"? The only way I found that it could limit by channel is if you altered your favorites list.
- For season passes, be intelligent enough to select the HD recording on the -1 subchannel if it is available?
- Have a network connection to allow you to purchase PPV with your remote and without a phone line, report issues with software through the cutting edge program, stream your recordings to your PCs without extensive hacks, and obtain on-demand content?
- Offers any customer the chance to be a beta tester to check out new features and provide feedback directly to DirecTV's engineers?
- Automatically pad your recordings by 10 seconds at the start, and 2 minutes at the end, if it doesn't cause a conflict with other recordings?
- Provide dual tuner functionality with just a single wire coming from the dish? And allow the use of splitters?
- Decode MPEG-4 streams, which provide much higher quality HD and take up less recording space?

These are just some of the things that I really enjoy from my HR-20. YES, the UI isn't the best. However, the software has become a whole heck of a lot more reliable than it was six months ago. I haven't missed a recording all year, and I've been beta testing their software. If you give it a chance, and actually use it, I think you'll come around to it.

Pick the non-blacked out one and it's a non-issue... Has this really ever bitten you in the past?


I never used Wishlists - always used Season Passes... So no benefit for me.


Again, just program the SP to record on the -1... Not really an advantage to the DirecTV DVR IMHO.


PPV - meh, I never order that.

Stream recordings to the PC? I haven't seen that yet -- do you have a link on how to do that because I'd admit that'd be cool.


Meh... And I had access to the TiVo engineers on TiVoCommunity.com, so... We'll call this a wash.


Do you have to set that up or does it always do that? That'd be kinda nice.


Only if you're eligable for SWM - which 99% of people aren't. (and besides, I have 3 coax to each room anyway, so again, doesn't help me personally).


MPEG-4 is not inheritantly higher quality than MPEG-2, but yes it does take less space.


Does the new DVR learn what types of shows I like to watch and automatically record things it thinks I might like?

Does the new DVR record two live shows at the same time so that you can flip between the two tuners?

The new DVR also pretty much always has some TV video and audio running in the upper right hand corner of the screen -- which is really annoying when you're recording two shows, watching a recorded show, and then finish watching that show - now you get to see/hear the middle of a show you were recording to watch later (ok, not the best sentence in the world.. But you get my point. )

Fact of the matter is, all of your "advantages" would've been put into the new TiVo DVR if they had kept the contract. DirecTV just didn't want to pay TiVo a portion of the DVR fee anymore. Their product is functional, but it's not good; the TiVo interface is what made the TiVo awesome.


BTW - you forgot the biggest advantage to the DirecTV DVR: you can put in a larger harddrive and it automatically formats it so that it works in the DVR. No fancy homegrown TiVo tools needed. That's pretty cool, IMHO.

Oh - and for those who don't know, you can setup your DVR to record remotely -- http://m.directv.com -- pretty awesome (and does work with the HD TiVo as well as the new DirecTV DVR).

I upgraded to HD DVR last month, and just got my first bill. We paid $100 for the box, but on the bill there is a $4.99 leased receiver charge and a $3.79 Protection Plan charge. We weren't told about either of those, and am going to call but wanted to see if anybody knew what these were?

The $4.99 leased receiver charge is just the "extra receiver" charge. You don't own the box anymore, you lease it but as long as you stay with DirecTV, they never ask for it back. If you just upgraded one of your owned HD TiVos, you might be able to get them to let you "own" this one. It doesn't matter, the monthly charge is the same.

However, you said that you paid $100 for the box -- in that case I'm assuming you didn't have an HR10-250 (HD TiVo) beforehand? If so, the upgrade would've been free.

The protection plan -- you can tell them you didn't ask for that. It covers immediate repalcements, realignment of the dish, wiring issues, etc. In general I recommend not getting it and if you run into a problem call and negotiate -- tell them you'll get it if they waive any of the fees for the current call. Then cancel the replacement plan the next month so the visit only costs $5.

We upgraded our living room box from a standard def Tivo (3 years old) to the HD DVR. We took the Tivo box and replaced our box in the bedroom (5 years old) so now have 2 boxes. We're being charged $4.99 for the "Additional Receiver" which I assume is the bedroom one which makes sense, but on top of that an additional $4.99 for a "Leased Receiver" which never appeared on our bill before. I'm assuming they are charging us lease on the new box, but we paid $100 for it, so don't we own it? They also charged us $3.16 for "Leased Receiver" in the Adjustments section. We weren't told about any lease charges when we ordered.

Thanks about the protection plan, great advice.

If you only have two receivers, there should only be an additional receiver charge or a leased receiver charge (totalling $4.99), not two charges. The first receiver is "Free" and the second receiver is where the extra $4.99 comes from.

The pro-rated $3.16 fee is because you added the receiver in the middle of a billing cycle. That's legit. But like I said, if you only have two receivers in the house, you should only be charged $4.99/month. To me it looks like they didn't disable both of your old receivers when replacing them with new ones. Your bill should include access card numbers next to each receiver, so check that.

And no, you don't own the box, not technically anyway.

Good call. That's what I got them for.

In today's Circuit City ad, the deal is, buy a HD TV, you get FREE Sunday Ticket, four FREE months of DTV programming, and a FREE HD DVR upgrade.

That's a damn good deal...think the ad sez you save about $900.

Same issue with me.

I had three SD boxes, and had two extra reciever charges. Once I upgraded to the one HD DVR box, I get charged for three extra recievers and the HD box. When I called and asked if they could turn off access to the one box I don't currently use, they said I would have to ship it back to them because I am just renting it. I've had it for about four years.

Oh, and they tried to stick me with the protection plan as well, which I told them to stuff...

CSRs are confused (like anywhere). If you've had it for 4 years, you own it. Tell 'em to shut it off (and let you keep it) or transfer you to retention. No ifs-ands-or-buts.

I enjoy technology-worthiness battles Fez, don't worry . I wouldn't be a software engineer if I didn't!

There's a piece of software in beta called "DIRECTV2PC". The beta group is quite large and I believe they are still taking additional participants. Check out the cutting edge forum on DBSTalk.com. I have tried it and have been impressed.

The auto-padding was just introduced in last week's CE software release. These are available for download to anyone, typically between the hours of 11pm-2:30am et on Friday and Saturday evenings. More details are again located at DBSTalk's cutting edge forum. For those of you not wanting to try out beta software, it's typical that new features like these will be released within 4-8 weeks of them appearing in a cutting edge software download. Through the cutting edge program, new features like 30 second skip (not SLIP), remote scheduling, and viiv media share have become available to the general populous a lot faster than they normally would have. Plus, geeks like ourselves get to check out these features ahead of time, and provide feedback that directly affects the product!

As far as the MPEG4/MPEG2 battle - MPEG4 is without question better on DirecTV than MPEG2 because they don't compress the hell out of it. MPEG2 is a bandwidth hog compared to MPEG4, so to compensate they deliver MPEG2 channels at lower bitrates. All of the old MPEG2 channels are now broadcasting off of DirecTV 11 as MPEG4 channels. Judge the difference for yourself (i.e., compare HDNet on 306 (MPEG4) vs. 79 (MPEG2)).

To each his own, I suppose.

I was able to watch Tivo recorded stuff on my laptop a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG time ago with "Tivo2Go". Of course, DirectTV didn't offer it or anything else involving networking so when I moved over to satellite, I lost that.

The DTV HD-DVR interface sucks and the thing is still clunky as hell. They should have stayed with TIVO and worked with them more closely instead of venturing out with this friggin' abortion. I'm glad I have more channels but I'd kill to have the best of both worlds and have Tivo doing it instead.

This argument reminds me of when Microsoft rolled out Active Directory. That crap is STILL nearly a decade behind Novell but people are defending it like they gave birth to it. Once again, better technology dies from marketing.

If I ordered Sunday Ticket tomorrow, how much would it be?

Same price as it is was on the 13th.

I'd have to look, but probably $249-$269.

Like I always say though - call up DirecTV, ask for Customer Retention, and see if they can cut you a deal. Chances are you'll have to pay full price for the Ticket, but they'll give you Superfan for free if you ask.

$57 for 5 months, balked at that.

So threw in super pass, hd, and $10 off my bill for 12 months.

$57 for 5 months?! That's REALLY high...

But with all of the extra goodies you got, it's almost free.

thanks for the tips, Fezmid.

I had to have my roof replaced and they didn't align my satellite properly. Tech can't make it to my house until Monday.

I was worried that I'd miss this week's game because I don't have Superfan. I called DTV and told them that the remnants of Ike blew my satellite out again (the original storm in April is what caused the roof damage). Told them that the ONLY reason I have DTV is for the NFL package...and I was pissed to miss Sunday's game because the dish was out again. Told them that I wanted Superfan (which they gave me for free in addition to paying for the tech visit).

Game on! - granted it will be my PC, but who cares???

I've read that aligning a dish isn't that hard, if you don't mind going up on the roof. There's tons of websites out there, and dbstalk.com might even have someone in your area willing to come by and do it for you if you wanted... Or you can wait until Monday