I can't speak to the Internet and phone service, but I'm pretty happy
with Comcast's cable.
1) The Comcast DVR is just okay. One of ours works fine, the other
tends to be hit and miss in that it will sometimes freeze up, have
difficulty recording something, or either reboot overnight (and take
two days to regenerate listings) or need to be unplugged and rebooted.
As I say, this happens with only one of the two. The memory is only 30
hours, so that can be problematic. (Comcast also has an annoying habit
of running EBS tests in what they think is the middle of the night,
but is usually right when I'm watching something I recorded off of
TCM.) I do find the On Demand stuff to be pretty extensive, though.
2) I don't watch basketball, but looking at the listings just now, it
looks like we have NBA League Pass. I know we do have MLB Extra
Innings and the NHL package, but the NFL is still exclusive to Direct,
AFAIK.
3) In the five years we've had the digital cable, I can only recall
two or three times the service has gone out, and even those outages
were short. As I said above, though, the DVR/receivers can be tetchy.
I remember when we first got the boxes, I was in the Comcast office
and people were trading them in, so it's probably a not-uncommon
problem.
I can't help with 4 or 5 -- my ATT Internet is usually pretty
reliable, though there was a two-month stretch about six months ago
where our wifi network was inaccessible. We had techs come in and try
to figure it out, but (in spite of everything working as it should) no
one could understand what was happening -- then, suddenly, and for no
apparent reason, it started working again.
--Dave Sikula
1. I will be losing my TiVo. The guy said Comcast has its own DVR, but I got
the impression from him I should not expect it to be as good as a TiVo. This
would be a big loss for us. We hate the DirecTV DVR, but we have two TiVo
units that still work fine - plus word is DirecTV will be back in the TiVo
business again soon. Does anyone here use the Comcast DVR and able to
compare its strengths and weaknesses with either a TiVo or DirecTV DVR? The
sales guy said they also had some kind of on demand service that made a lot
of tv shows and films available whenver we wanted it for free, making a DVR
necessary really only for sporting events - is that true? Adding 3 Comcast
DVRs would apparently increase the monthly cost by $40.00, which seems high
(I have to check my bill, but I think we pay something like $20.00/month to
DirecTV for the 3 DVR units).
2. Apparently Comcast does have the NBA League Pass (though it is not clear
if I would be allowed to transfer the current pass I already paid in full
for from DirecTV to Comcast), but of course they do not have the NFL
package. He mentioned that they might get access to it in 2012. I have been
reading for years that DirecTV would be losing its monopoly on this, so it
sounds plausible. Does anyone know more details about this? I have been
thinking of economizing by giving up the NFL package anyway (I consider
access to all 82 regular season Laker games to be more of a basic necessity
than a luxury). If the NFL package was the main loss in the switch I would
probably make it.
3. How often does cable go out or become inaccessible? We live in a heavily
wooded area, and our window to the southern exposure necessary for line of
sight to the DIrecTV satellite is very narrow, and obscured. On stormy
nights (like tonight - we are actually expecting snow in the morning) and
even more windy days, we lose signal. Cable is appealing because it seems
like in our context it would be more reliable, but I do know there are
people who constantly bitch about the poor service from their cable company.
4. Can I just tell DirecTV to turn off my service, but keep the dish and
units in place for two years, in case I want to switch back after the
special price expires? I own the 2 TiVo units myself, I guess we would have
to give back the DirecTV unit we rent from them.
5. Is there anything else I should know about Comcast in particular or cable
in general that should inform my decision? I am tempted to do it just for
the better internet, as our DSL with ATT has gotten very slow, and they are
almost impossible to get help from.
--
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