Those who are thinking of getting a satellite TV service in order to watch TV now that HD has arrived usually are torn between two different offerings—Dish Network and DirecTV. Granted that whichever you choose, there will be tremendous similarities, and of course they both do the same thing, give you television entertainment through the same advanced technology. Now, comparing the two regarding promotions, programming choices, and of course package prices is where the dilemma comes in.
Interestingly enough, DirecTV and Dish Network have skipped offering free shipping or free professional installations. They have both decided that that’s a good selling tool for those who do not wish to have to do installations themselves. As far as guaranteeing that picture quality and audio will be guaranteed to be 100% digital, they both guarantee that same thing.
If free satellite systems, or free DVR’s are important to you, they both offer the same. You can also get free HD upgrades with either one. They differ a bit regarding equipment warranty though, as Dish Network ordinarily comes with 12 and 18 month’s warranties, but DirecTV is only 12 months.
There’s a rather substantial difference between the two in regard to additional TV fees, as DirecTV charges $4.99 per month per TV, whereas the cost is $0 for Dish Network. However, neither one has activation fees that other companies do!
Regarding monthly subscription fees all in all both come in about equally due to fluctuations in their basic offers and what the month costs eventually rise to once the “introductory” offers wane. Also, both DirecTV and Dish Network have the same amounts of channels, 250. However, there the difference ends. If you are basically a dedicated sports fan, you will wish to go with DirecTV for things like NFL Sunday games, NASCAR, etc.
One of the biggest differences between DirecTV and Dish Network is for the choices for International programming. Dish Network offers a tremendous amount of programming choices as well as language choices. Their international programming features are rather amazing, and they include the following international channel languages: Vietnamese, Urdu, Ukrainian, South Asian, Russian, Portuguese, Polish, Korean, Japanese, Italian, Israeli, Greek, German, French, Filipino, Chinese, Armenian, Arabic, and African! This may not be terribly important to some, but to others, it may make a world of difference. They also proudly offer DishLATINO Clásico in order to better their Spanish clientele. It seems that the Dish Network also has 35 Spanish language stations, thus they are definitely the way to go if you are Latino!
By the way, neither one is better than the other as far as carrying local stations and channels. Both deliver in this instance where the stations are available.
If some type of parent lock is important to you, once more there is no winner, as both supplies it and it can be totally relied upon. If pennies make a difference to you, however, it would seem that DirecTV is a bit more expensive than the Dish Network, but again they run similarly as far as cost is concerned.