Better living through saucers on the roof

April 24, 2020 11:35 AM

I am about to break down and order satellite TV. But which one?

I am tired of only having 14 channels through my antenna.
There is no cable.
There is no fiber optic network. We are out in the sticks.
I am not interested in their phone services. I already have phone service I like.
I don’t care about their internet. I already have better internet. (150 GB streaming)
The prices don’t concern me. They are basically a wash.
I don’t care about 120 channels v. umgillion channels. I can find a package I like

I do care about an easy, smooth user interface. I have used Direct TV at my father's house and I think it is clumsy, and ugly, and hard to use. But I’ll take it if Dish is no better.

Is the Dish interface better than the Direct TV interface?

posted by SLC Mom to Technology (3 answers total)

Interesting, in my experience, DirecTV had the best interface by a county mile, but not sure if that has changed since they were bought by AT&T (been on Verizon Fios for years now). If you don't like what you see, and have good internet service, you may want to look at some of the TV streaming services (Youtube TV, Hulu + Live TV, Sling). I hear they're pretty good interface-wise.
posted by General Malaise at 11:42 AM on April 24, 2020 [2 favorites]

I think the DISH interface is better, unless DirecTV's Genie set-up, including voice commands, works where you live in which case they're pretty comparable. Without Genie, DirecTV's interface is a clunky annoying mess.
posted by carmicha at 11:45 AM on April 24, 2020

I've only had limited experience with DTV, in hotels and hospitals, which are probably not a good sample, but I did not like it. 15 years with Dish has been good. My only complaint is that shortly after I finally got the Hopper, they changed their voice-controls to require that you use Google Assistant, which I won't do.
posted by Kirth Gerson at 10:05 AM on April 25, 2020