Thursday, January 06, 2005

directv sucks

since i've been out of work you'd think i would be watching a lot of tv. but i'm not. i can't stand trying to find something worth watching. i just download the shows i want. but my roommate chris is a tvholic.

he recently switched from cable to satellite because he thought it would be a better deal. he was wrong. he was paying $125 for hidef digital cable and our 4mb cable modem. the first problem was they charged $10 more for the cable modem if you don't subscribe to digital cable. but he found we could get a 256kb connection for $25 a month. we tried it and it was fine. even when downloading files you don't notice a huge difference. instead of it taking 1 hour to download a tv show it takes 4. no big deal. plus we're already ahead $15.

so he calls directv cause a friend refers him. his friend got $50 which makes him the only one to get a deal. anyway they tell chris that they have a 3 room deal with tivo for free. sounds good. programing is $40 for the base lineup with local channels (why they charge you for local channels is beyond me) and $23 for hbo and showtime. plus they gave him the hbo and showtime free for the first six months. the savings now are $37/mo or $444/yr. not bad.

the first time the sat tech comes out he either doesn't knock or goes to the backdoor we don't have. anyway he finds the door bell on the second try. the guy was really cool and we talked about hacking the sat for free programming. as he was getting it hooked up he asked where the phone line was. we don't have one. both of us just use our cell phones. chris was told he only needed the phone line for pay per views. wrong. turns out you need it for the tivo as well. why you need it for tivo is beyond me since the sat already gets the program guide. this is the first big disappointment.

then once everything is done they have you call in to active your plan. when chris calls they tell him it going to be $40 plus $23 plus $15 for the boxes! the boxes they said where free actually cost $5 per each month. the free part was the hardware cost but they charge for the programming per box. needless to say chris was pissed. so now the total cost was $103 before the phone line and we had a slower modem and no hidef. i had an old voip box. so we ran a long ass coax cable from the office room where the modem normally is to the living room. we hooked up the modem and voip, it must not have been getting a great signal cause it took several times to connect to download the tivo updates or some shit. plus it has to test the line every fucking time it does anything. so after almost an hour its finally done.

chris is excited to try tivo for the first time. he goes to the tivo menu but no dice. it says he has to call to activate the service. what the fuck. so he calls and the first person says its done and to wait a few minutes and it should work. it doesn't. chris calls back and is told that it's an additional $5/mo for tivo! fuck them. its like they want to nickle and dime you to a slow death. to recap it's now $108 plus $15 for the phone line which is a big savings of $2 off the cable.

directv has an add that says friends don't let friends subscribe to cable. why not? is it because since your getting fucked on directv you want your friends to suffer too. kind of like when all your married friends connivence you to get married so you can be as miserable as them.

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