Here’s a little PSA for anyone on DISH network. DISH had a little spat with AMC, they kissed and made up, but DISH is a little passive-aggressive, so they moved AMC out of their regular lineup of channels to the channel ghetto where the Korean broadcasting network and Brigham Young University TV hang out (the 9600’s). If you have your DVR set for Mad Men, you’ll need to change it.
Apparently, the DISH/AMC spat was due in part to AMC’s decision to put past episodes of Mad Men and other popular programs on Netflix and to sell current episodes on Amazon and iTunes, which according to DISH “devalued” the networks. They have a point: it costs $70/month to have a DISH package with a DVR and AMC. If you’re only watching a couple of shows, like Mad Men, it makes more sense to get a Roku or Apple TV, buy those shows at $2/each, and cancel DISH.
But here’s what doesn’t make sense: pissing off the rest of your customers by making an unannounced channel change right before the last two weeks of Mad Men is about to air, which means that all their DVR timers are fucked up. I realize this is a first-world problem, but since I just threw down to help fund this Kickstarter project so I can finally cut my cord, I think it’s also a problem for the bottom lines of the cable providers.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
Maybe DISH ought to do the smart thing and offer Netflix access with their system, allowing people to access Netflix without having to have yet another box. They could also put a blu ray player in their box. Then people could start thinking that having their box is all you need.
Coco Laboy
Oh the horror of it all
WereBear
It has been so long that any cable company had to do any smart thing that I believe they are institutionally incapable.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
DISH sucks in more ways than one. Shitty company for starters. I have a friend in that bidness and they pay for shit, work people do death, spit them out and find a new crop.
Many years back we switched to DirectTV and were amazed at how much better our service became.
Punchy
Cant speak for Dish, but the hands-down worst cable company of all time, without question, is Surewest. Or as we say, SureWorst. Like the spawn of an abortion who married a bacon milkshake.
BenA
I’d cut the cord now, but my wife likes the traditional model. I don’t know why… I mean we DVR most of a season anyway and don’t end up watching it until a month after the season ends.. I mean I’ve got like 30 hours of Grimm and The Walking Dead to deal with. I certainly would be fine with waiting until the end of the season and watching it on Netflix or Amazon.
Live sporting events are a little more problematic but even that’s getting a better online presence. If our local high speed internet were better and I could get reliable HD sports I would drop DirecTV now… or at least cut way back on the number of channels I’m getting.
jibeaux
i think that Simple.tv thing is a great idea. I cut the cord 2+ years ago and really don’t miss it. I definitely don’t miss the $110 a month cable bill. The thing is, I only have so much time. There’s only so much I can watch, and it maxes out at maybe one 1/2 hour to an hour show in the evenings, and a movie on the weekends. With a Mohu to pick up channels, and then hulu and netflix, there’s still more shows out there that I want to watch than I have time to see.
Scott S.
Arbitrarily shifting channels around is an especially dumb move, because people looking for the show they just missed are going to check to see if it’s available online, watch it there… and maybe start wondering if they can watch *more* of their shows online, so they won’t have to deal with the cable/satellite provider being dickheads.
The Red Pen
I buy Mad Men at $2 a show. I watch off-air TV (which is in HD). The only downer is having to wait for most shows to make it to Netflix or DVD (finally saw Game of Thrones Season 1).
rikyrah
Well, I feel for ya. I don’t like it when folks mess with my DVR.
Fargus
@The Red Pen:
Likewise. If I get stuff on Amazon, it’s available the next day, it’s $8/month for a show that I like, only over the period that the show’s on, and only for the stuff I can’t already get on Hulu. This means stuff like Mad Men, Justified and Breaking Bad. If all three are on at the same time, I’m dropping $40 a month at most including Netflix and Hulu Plus, and I still get to see my stuff pretty close to the air date. Works for me.
Cacti
This topic should be featured at White Whine.
J.W. Hamner
Uhm, Windows Media Center will DVR things for you. Why not just build a tiny media PC and get a HD antenna? I don’t understand why people would rather have all these little boxes so they can be constrained by the manufacturer’s whim.
jehrler
@J.W. Hamner:
And, for those with an old mac mini or macbook sitting around, Elgato’s EyeTV with a usb tuner (like Elgato’s One TV) will do this for your Mac.
Works great.
Violet
@BenA:
This is where the TV providers get you. The person who figures out how to provide sports without having to have a TV provider will be rich.
mistermix
@J.W. Hamner: I’d buy a mac mini if I were going there, but I’m not right now – I want a whole house solution that works on multiple devices: computers, TVs, and tablets. I have that with Netflix and Amazon.
salvage
Meanwhile I download all the shows I want off bit torrents because it’s the quickest and easiest way and the only ones who make money is my ISP.
I’d love to give the rightful copyright owners their fair cut but the problem is to do so I have to buy a bunch of shit that I don’t want.
So until they figure that out, oh well.
Freddie deBoer
Not having cable, I’ve been watching the NBA playoffs online. The TNT experience is only about a B-, because TNT doesn’t show their main camera feed or replays/graphics on theirs. But for ESPN? Identical experience to watching on the network, just without commercials, provided you have a fast enough connection to stream the video.
If people can start getting enough live sports through streaming, that might make a big difference.
The Other Bob
I signed up for one of the DISH contracts for like $25 a month for 2 years. It is hell trying to keep them to honor their contract and keep the price from rising within the two-year term.
In the fall I am thinking of dumping them, but wonder if DirectTV is any more honorable.
Fargus
@salvage:
What about a la carte episode (or season) purchases from Amazon, or something like Netflix or Hulu? Those cover a pretty broad spectrum of what’s available. It’s not everything, but it’s at least some of it, and it would allow you to give those copyright owners some of their fair cut while not getting stuff you don’t want, or at least not much of it.
cthulhu
Dish is currently in a new battle over offering a DVR that actually removes all the commercials when it is recording so you don’t even have to fast forward on playback. Regardless Dish is regularly ranked well below DirecTV in customer satisfaction and I’ve also heard their CEO is, even for CEOs, quite a jerk. These two things might explain while they would be willing to screw content providers on their ad revenue if they think they can get away with it and increase their shrinking customer base.
BenA
@Violet:
It’s ALMOST there, but it’s till not reliable enough, and DirectTV does a good job of doing value add. Maybe next year I’ll try out MLB.tv again instead of the DirecTV package. I have ESPN360, which does a decent job, but it’s more convenient to watch college sports on TV and the picture quality is better.
My main personal issue is lack of decent broadband. It probably will keep me a DirecTV customer for a couple more years.
hitchhiker
Said goodbye to Comcast last week. Roku with + a paid MLB subscription + Clearwire in the house = good cheapness/cheap goodness.
The only thing I miss is Rachel in the kitchen while we’re making dinner, but I can tell that’s going to go away quick. Pandora is much nicer for evening background, and her podcast is available within an hour of the show’s end.
JenJen
Speaking of Mad Men, and without spoiling anything, I’m still a bit unsettled and disturbed by last night’s episode. :-(
askew
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Problem with that is that Dish bought Blockbuster.
Even with this nonsense, they are cheaper and deliver better customer service than DirectTV.
hells littlest angel
Thanks for the heads up. I wouldn’t have noticed AMC was missing from my channels list until it was time for the next season of Breaking Bad.
askew
@The Other Bob:
DirectTV is not more honorable. They found all sorts of reasons to not honor their agreements. Plus, their equipment broke all the time and they made us pay to replace it.
karen
What happens when the internet companies give you the slower service speeds and make Netflix, Amazon and hulu impossible to stream or download?
I may be wrong but I heard that Comcast is enforcing caps on data and that their own programming doesn’t go towards that cap. How much of this would affect the cutting of the chord.
What I’d really love is to be able to watch TV shows from the UK or other countries without having to use a proxy to do it because the US doesn’t have the rights to show it.
As more people cut the chord, I see the internet data caps getting smaller and smaller.
different-church-lady
Where’s the White People Problems tag?
Oh, wait… ooops.
The Red Pen
@Fargus:
Can I take that as “Justified is worth buying”? They tried to tempt me with the first episode free. I really liked it, but found myself wondering whether it got better after that, or started to suck quickly like “Sons of Anarchy.”
The Red Pen
@J.W. Hamner:
Done and done.
The problem is that PC tuner cards don’t have quite enough space to get the geometry they need to really tune the signal properly (so I’m told). An HD antenna hooked up to my TV picks up a bunch of channels, but hooked up to my well-reviewed tuner card? Nada.
I’d mess around with it to get it to work, but most of what I watch off-air shows up on Hulu+ the next day anyway.
Epicurus
@The Red Pen: “Justified” is unquestionably one of the best shows currently on TV. Timothy Oliphant is amazing, as is the rest of the cast, particularly this season’s villain. Well worth the price, in my humble opinion.
Quicksand
I’m about to cut the cord myself.
I have been an 8+ year subscriber to DirecTV — and honestly, I have been entirely, 100% happy with their service. It works, it’s very nice, and (unlike others) I have never had trouble with customer service. But it’s expensive! And the last year especially, with a four-year-old in the house, very little TV has been watched, except for occasional Disney DVDs, Go Diego Go, Sesame Street, etc.
So I picked up a refurb TiVo Premiere for $50. Already have an Apple TV.
For the monthly $15 TiVo fee plus $8 for Netflix, and possibly a little more for Hulu and/or Amazon (which I haven’t tried yet), I’ll be able to cut out a $110 monthly satellite bill.
I’m sure I’ll miss Food Network and NHL games a little, but I’ll deal.
RSR
Simple.tv reminds me of SageTV, which was a computer based DVR/server. Sage had a line of extenders to connect to various TVs around the home, and clients for viewing on other remote computers.
Sage was acquired by Google a year or so ago, and basically disappeared.
Also, the HDHomeRun is a networked tuner. I use a few of those. It’s simply the tuner, and needs Windows Media Center or Sage or Myth. But it works quite well.
Due to live sports I still haven’t cut the cord, but at least we’re down to just one cable box and its monthly fee.