Price Hikes Are Your Christmas Present from Dish and DirecTV

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Bah humbug!

As families across the country come together to celebrate the holidays, satellite TV giants Dish Network and DirecTV are wishing them a Merry Christmas by hiking the cost of their service plans. In line with years past, both companies have confirmed that they will raise the prices of various television packages and increase service fees as well.
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More people will be wishing them a Happy 2014 with more cord cutting and cancellations.
 
If it were up to me my household would have long ago cut the cord. My wife can't seem to live without it though.
 
haven't paid for TV/cable since 2009 and even if I had money falling out of my pockets, wouldn't pay for it.

sure, there are some good networks (Science, military, discovery (or at least it used to be good) but without being glued to the TV all day I accomplish a LOT more stuff.

if public TV can make their stuff work for FREE with commercials, how the hell are pay providers needing to raise fees when they already have a large income stream.
 
Gotta love these companies, if you're a customer and there's a price hike they'll increase it, however if they change packages, or service rates for your benefit they'll happily keep charging you the old rate.

That said, I need to find a good HTPC setup w/ dvr like properties with a remote, then I'll switch to an antenna for locals, and online for everything else.
 
Q-BZ said:
More people will be wishing them a Happy 2014 with more cord cutting and cancellations.
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And next year the people who remain will see more price hikes because of it. I wonder if these companies realize that they're in the midst of a gigantic death spiral. I haven't paid for cable TV or it's satellite equivalent in almost 10 years. And it's only getting easier to drop cable between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and the stuff the networks stream off their own sites you don't miss much. And, of course, everything is available to torrent as soon as it finishes airing. Even if you paid the fees for all the streaming services you're still out less than $250 a year vs the $1200 a year you'll pay for cable with decent channel selection today.

Cable companies need to wake up to the fact that they are fast becoming nothing more than data pipes for internet access if they intend to try and save their TV business.
 
@Dwango - Data caps are the problem. I could easily blow through my 300gb cap if I were relying solely on my broadband for TV viewing.
 
Cable cutter back in 2006, sold the TV in 2012. Once Google Fiber hits the area I'm telling Comcast where to shove their overpriced crap. They too are raising rates in 2014. Hopefully Sprint doesn't buy T-Mobile as I plan to tell Verizon the same thing with their ridiculous prices.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Gotta love these companies, if you're a customer and there's a price hike they'll increase it, however if they change packages, or service rates for your benefit they'll happily keep charging you the old rate.

That said, I need to find a good HTPC setup w/ dvr like properties with a remote, then I'll switch to an antenna for locals, and online for everything else.
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My suggestion is MediaPortal for Windows. I've been searching far and wide for good HTPC software, and that's the one to get. Any Hauppauge video capture card will work, even the cheap SDTV ones will produce 1080p quality ATSC video. I think the Hauppauge HVR 1250 is like only $15 off Ebay. I have a HVR 1800 in my HTPC and when the cable goes out, or something bad happens we use live broadcast TV with MediaPortal to see what's going on.

Like everyone else, I still have cable but only because there's always someone who can't live without it. But price hikes might just change their mind and switch it off all together.
 
I only have basic cable and the only reason I have that is because it was cheaper to bundle it with my internet rather than internet alone. Albeit this is with Comcast but its all about tv providers.
 
Ashbringer said:
My suggestion is MediaPortal for Windows. I've been searching far and wide for good HTPC software, and that's the one to get. Any Hauppauge video capture card will work, even the cheap SDTV ones will produce 1080p quality ATSC video. I think the Hauppauge HVR 1250 is like only $15 off Ebay. I have a HVR 1800 in my HTPC and when the cable goes out, or something bad happens we use live broadcast TV with MediaPortal to see what's going on.

Like everyone else, I still have cable but only because there's always someone who can't live without it. But price hikes might just change their mind and switch it off all together.
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Thanks I'll give MediaPortal a looksie. does Hauppage make any external capture devices? I had a laptop or two sitting around that would make my life a lot easier over having to buy components to build a HTPC box
 
sfsuphysics said:
Thanks I'll give MediaPortal a looksie. does Hauppage make any external capture devices? I had a laptop or two sitting around that would make my life a lot easier over having to buy components to build a HTPC box
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There's tons of USB capture devices. I just like Hauppauge cause they update their drivers often, and the community has lots of support for their products. MediaPortal makes it easy to stream the TV signal to other local PCs. You can even use XBMC to receive it, and watch TV. My Android tablet I use for my niece has XBMC, and she can watch Live broad cast TV from the HTPC in my living room. There's an add-on for PVR built into the latest versions of XBMC, specifically for MediaPortal. BTW, you don't need XBMC for Windows PC, but you can stream live TV to XBMC, which works on non Windows devices.

Though my HTPC is also loaded with tons of videos for her to watch, and I even have a remote control that turns on MediaPortal. You can watch cable channels too, which was a pain in the ass to setup. Especially cause HDMI disables analog ouput, and getting EPG data for free isn't easy, which I question cable companies actions when they're just giving me a bigger reason to cancel. But yea, local broadcast TV is easy to setup.

hauppauge_usb2stick-thumb.jpg
 
And cable TV's response? Cox Broadband in Az just went up 7$ a month. Oligopolies protected by filthy politicians = SUX
 
in cities you can the equivalent of a cable tv subscription for free use digital-over-the-air (DTA) / coverter boxes that can bring in like 30-60 channels (in a city). also you can get free-over-the-air (FTA) satellite dishes too which can bring in a respectable amount of stations
 
eth3ton said:
@Dwango - Data caps are the problem. I could easily blow through my 300gb cap if I were relying solely on my broadband for TV viewing.
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I am a pretty heavy user of my internet service. Between YouTube, Hulu, Amazon Instant Video, Netflix, Steam and Origin I probably bump right up against my cap if not exceed it on a regular basis (maybe not every month but I know I've soundly broken it several times). I have had three different service providers in two different locations and have never gotten a nastygram from any of them bitching about me breaking my cap. Now granted I'm not running a business out of my house or a 24/7 game server but I do watch 4 to 5 hours of streaming stuff almost daily and probably run 30-40 gigs of game downloads between my computer and consoles almost every month.
 
I wish I could cut the Cable cord at my current location; however the lady in the house can't live without it. So we divide a ~$250 cable bill between three parties each month. The only thing I use is the ~$65 50/5M Internet. I don't even have anyway to watch the "Cable" in my room and I don't venture out into other parts of the house. Huge waste of money IMHO.
 
Building my Ncase M1 just for this task of getting rid of cable, will be fun.
Only thing I will miss is Science channel.
 
Q-BZ said:
More people will be wishing them a Happy 2014 with more cord cutting and cancellations.
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That depend on where you live, beside it well know that with both Dish and DirecTV that always jackup the cost ever year in february to march.
I can't get cable and antenna not much of an option as I would need put at lease a 50+ tower and do some antenna stacking/combining by building some kind omni directional antenna for at lease 100+ miles.
 
And here I am in a 2 year contract with DTV. Maybe they'll be nice to me since I've been with them 10 years.
 
Scooter30 said:
And here I am in a 2 year contract with DTV. Maybe they'll be nice to me since I've been with them 10 years.
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Nah, probably not. They generally screw over "loyal" customers and reward new ones. That's what I'm doing, 1 year with 1 provider for the low new customer rates and then switch back to DTV. Saves quite a bit of money.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Gotta love these companies, if you're a customer and there's a price hike they'll increase it, however if they change packages, or service rates for your benefit they'll happily keep charging you the old rate.

That said, I need to find a good HTPC setup w/ dvr like properties with a remote, then I'll switch to an antenna for locals, and online for everything else.
Click to expand...


I still pay DISH (I'm under contract for one more year), but I find myself just torrenting most of the shows. I don't feel at all guilty on that, since I'm paying someone (DISH) for that content.

If one wanted to, I'm sure you could script it to just auto-download whenever a new episode came out for a particular show.

Adapt or die, I say.
 
We just got Google Fiber TV and Internet. Love the internet speeds but don't watch much TV.
 
Dwango said:
And next year the people who remain will see more price hikes because of it. I wonder if these companies realize that they're in the midst of a gigantic death spiral. I haven't paid for cable TV or it's satellite equivalent in almost 10 years. And it's only getting easier to drop cable between Hulu, Netflix, Amazon Prime and the stuff the networks stream off their own sites you don't miss much. And, of course, everything is available to torrent as soon as it finishes airing. Even if you paid the fees for all the streaming services you're still out less than $250 a year vs the $1200 a year you'll pay for cable with decent channel selection today.

Cable companies need to wake up to the fact that they are fast becoming nothing more than data pipes for internet access if they intend to try and save their TV business.
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All of those are going to go up in price as more drop cable/dish. It's just a matter of time. There's some nice stuff on Netflix, but it's not comprehensive and you need a fairly solid pipe to get top quality.

If you're single or your family doesn't watch a lot of TV or you all watch the same shows (at the same time), then you can make that work under the various data Caps that exist, but otherwise, you may run into problems.

The only thing that could change any of it is if there's more Fiber. But even then, I have to weigh the increased cost. $70.00 for 1Gb/s is great, but it's probably 10x-20x what 99% of the people need and as much as double what you can get from Cable. Yes the cable versions are Promos, but by most accounts, you can continuously threaten to quit and keep the promo rate.

There's a reason why AT&T is ready to jump on the Fiber bandwagon: $70.00 is quite profitable.
 
Getting rid of DirecTV in june next year after my contract expires. I was paying $45 when it started now with the price hike I am looking at $95 a month. I havent gotten better service or more channels but my price has more than doubled. Probably going to go with comcast because they keep offering me crazy prices to bundle.
 
I still watch too much tv to cut the cable yet.

I hate hulu, quality is crap and the damn commercials are enough for me to gladly keep paying DirecTV for their service.

As for a price hike, I expect it. cost of everything goes up every year. Cost of gas goes up, cost of food goes up... I don't go into the store yelling and screaming how "FUCK THESE GUYS, gallon of milk went up 20 cents. TWENTY FUCKING CENTS. DO YOU FUCKERS THINK I AM MADE OF FUCKING MONEY. RAISING THE COST OF EVERY FUCKING THING IN YOUR GOD DAMN STORE. FUCK YOU, I HOPE YOU ALL FUCKING DIE ON YOUR WAY HOME!!!!!!!!"

Years ago people got pissed when Netflix went up a few $$.



///AMG said:
Getting rid of DirecTV in june next year after my contract expires. I was paying $45 when it started now with the price hike I am looking at $95 a month. I havent gotten better service or more channels but my price has more than doubled. Probably going to go with comcast because they keep offering me crazy prices to bundle.
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Look at that again, those crazy prices only last a few months then they go way up.
 
I never had it growing up, and the only time I've had it as an adult was when my wife's druggie grandma lived with us and had to have it (she paid for the additional fee). However, with kids we don't have the time to take advantage of the programming...if I wanted something to watch. Netflix, OTOH, gets a fair bit of use for only a few bucks.
 
Exavior said:
Look at that again, those crazy prices only last a few months then they go way up.
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I know exactly what the contract stipulated. I got it at $45 for the first 10 months, $55 for 2 months after that, then $65 for months 12-24 which was decent. But for some reason or another service fees went up, and then it cost $75, and recently last month I paid $87.
 
Silicon Dust HD Antenna to Windows Media Player. I cut the cord/sat 3 years ago. My media PC cost $500. So 5 months and paid off. Have netflix and I'm swamped with too much stuff to watch.
 
Oh, and I just added a Nivida 650 and now have a Steam box as well with Big Picture.
 
People need to organize. If "everyone" would cancel their cable/satellite within 1 month it would be free. As someone else said, they can survive off of advertising, but only if they have to.
 
Exavior said:
I still watch too much tv to cut the cable yet.

I hate hulu, quality is crap and the damn commercials are enough for me to gladly keep paying DirecTV for their service.

As for a price hike, I expect it. cost of everything goes up every year. Cost of gas goes up, cost of food goes up... I don't go into the store yelling and screaming how "FUCK THESE GUYS, gallon of milk went up 20 cents. TWENTY FUCKING CENTS. DO YOU FUCKERS THINK I AM MADE OF FUCKING MONEY. RAISING THE COST OF EVERY FUCKING THING IN YOUR GOD DAMN STORE. FUCK YOU, I HOPE YOU ALL FUCKING DIE ON YOUR WAY HOME!!!!!!!!"

Years ago people got pissed when Netflix went up a few $$.
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It's not completely unwarranted to feel like that though. It's true companies raise prices or lower the quality of their product some to account for profit, but I would prefer to see how much of that raise in price gets reflected in employee payroll. That is directly attributable to how the economy works, and frankly, the economy hasn't merited much increase in company prices. Inflation is pretty crazy right now.
 
Signed up for PIA's VPN service on black friday, $32/year...
Less than half what I was paying for usenet ($6/month) which was already a great deal. Only thing I use TV for anymore is live sports.
 
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