So, they call me up with this terrific promotion, they want to give me HBO and Showtime free for three months and all I have to do is commit to service from them for 24 months! The guy actually was shocked when I told him no! As a matter of fact I am considering the switch to Direct TV. Anyone else have their dinner interrupted with this lame offer?

No. But when I called to complain and tell them to get their S&#@ together and get KATU back on they gave me a credit for 3 months @ $5.95 per month which is how much the local channel package is.

Then they gave me 1 year of the Cinemax channels for 1 penny.

I didn't have to sign up for any specific length though.

I might switch to Direct TV also as Lost is going to start on Wednesday 21-JAN and I want to be able to record it.

Both sides seem to be holding their ground on this one.

When it comes to the movie plexes I think other than HBO and Showtime they are incredibly overpriced. Cinemax for a penny give me a break most of the shit they show I would imagine you can pull from Dish's OnDemand service for free. As with Comcast.

And after watching some of the shi% on Cinemax for the last couple of weeks, I think it was overpriced at a penny!

I made the switch to DirecTV a month ago and never looked back. The technology is light years ahead of Dish and you get all the sports packages plus K2. Dish has been pushing the HBO deal for a while now. I had it offered to me too. DirecTV is making the same offer. Dish should be scared. They are hemoraging customers right now. You want my opinion, switch.

We complained about losing KVAL from Fisher....they (dish) told us to watch CBS shows from the CBS website. No offer to improve our deal with them. I have been told by someone in TV that the Fisher/Dish mess is just the tip of the iceberg ad there will be many more issues like this, this year.

I gotta be one to give kudos to Dish Network ... maybe because they are losing customers to DirecTV.

When my cousin and I bought the restaurant in October, he talked to his friend who sells Dish Network in Coeur d'Alene ... he hooked us up with three different signals for my three TVs in the Schmizza, I pay $80 a month for all three. Combined. With the extra sports channels (an absolute necessity for me).

The only crappy thing about it is something that can't be helped, when we had over five feet of snow, we had no TV ... I have since gone on the roof and sprayed Pam on the satellite dishes, and it works great on deflecting the snow away.

I'm one little guy that is happy with Dish Network (even if I ain't so little).

Brian,

Go to a hardware store and get some stuff called Tri-Flow. It's a teflon based lubricant and spray that on the sat dish. Works great and will say on the dish longer.

The snow problem would occur with Dish and Direct. None are immune. The dishes are basically the same and, truth be told, can be used universally. Yeah, there are subtle differences, such as two or three LNB combinations, but you can use one dish for the other, if need be.

You can drop the local package from Dish, and get the "Limited Basic" package from Comcast for about $10 per month. This price is regulated by the cable franchise board and varies a little by zip code. You get channels 2-31, which is all the locals plus community access channels. You can hook this up via coax and keep your dish receiver hooked up another way.

Personally, I just bundle with Comcast. I wouldn't ever give up my OnDemand. I guess DirecTv does offer OnDemand now, but it relies on an internet connection instead of a private fiber network like you get with the cable co. I'm guessing the web-based on demand with satellite isn't as reliable, but I could be wrong.

I USED to work for Comcast, so I don't have a dog in the fight anymore.

You know, someone could probably make good money by inventing a dish warmer to melt snow and ice.

Here:

http://www.skyvision.com/store/d_dish_cover.html

One way you could theoretically lower your monthly bill would be to share with the neighbors.

Of course that would require running a wire from your dish/multiswitch to the neighbor's house, and they would have to have a receiver(which could be purchased secondhand). Then you could add their receiver as a 'bedroom' in your house for an extra $5/month, and split the bill.

Unless of course your neighbor already had their own dish in place, then you wouldn't have to run a wire over, just add their receiver to your account.

Heck, if that were the case, you wouldn't even have to be neighbors.

Hypothetically speaking, I mean.

As I understand, if you have a cable line in your house you supposedly [might] already have access to the analogue cable channels less the scrambled stuff (naturally). Some friends of my Mum's who live in Camas bought a house about 15 years ago that was already wired for cable (and I assume already being fed a signal) so he plugged their big Trinitron straight into the cable, and badabing, they were watching cable channels. To date, they haven't yet received [so they tell me] one bill or C&D letter from Comcast, AT&T, TCI, Columbia Cable...........

I've never tried it out myself with my own equipment, to be honest. On the other hand there's free to air QAM, but again, I haven't yet tried that out either because I don't have access to a cable line right now.

(This is all in theory, based on my observations, so *please* don't take this as authoritative!!)

To date, they haven't yet received [so they tell me] one bill or C&D letter from Comcast, AT&T, TCI, Columbia Cable...........

Oh, they wait. Then bill you with a big one. You may deny it, but they have photos of you laying on your couch watching The Sopranos 5 years ago.

I may or may not be making this up, but unlike other posts made by certain others in this forum in recent days at least its plausible.