One Month of Dish Network: A Review

After having both Comcast and DirecTV come out to my tree-surrounded apartment and tell me they could do nothing to help me receive cable, I called up Dish Network. The previous tenant had a dish installed in the backyard and I figured the angle of the satellite was good enough to reach the southern sky.

The Dish Network installation was a little stressful, they had originally quoted me on a Sunday morning from 8-noon, and the day before, they called me and gave me a new installation window: noon to 5 p.m. Luckily, the cable guy showed up at about 12:30 so it wasn't like my whole day was shot. The installation took about an hour for hooking up 2 televisions, the satellite and the obstacles didn't scare him off like it did DirecTV.

Pros, So Far:
1. The coolest thing about the installation is that it only required one receiver for 2 TVs. Dish Network has a receiver that splits off into 2 coaxial cable strands, so you can watch 2 different things in 2 different rooms and only needing one receiver.

2. The onscreen guide on the Dish Network is much more intuitive than previous digital versions I've experienced. I used to have Comcast Digital Cable and when you hit the channel guide/preview button, it would take about 2 seconds of response time for the screen to appear. Likewise, the channels would have that delay so you really couldn't do any rapidfire scanning.

3. The reception of the channels is amazing. Of course, I haven't encountered any major wind storm yet, but my recollection of the Comcast Digital Cable was a lot of hurky-jerky pixellation and blue screen of death during vital parts of a movie. I have yet to hit a bump in the road with Dish Network.

4. Availabilty of channels is not bad. I opted for the cheapo special, America's Top 100. All I wanted was Turner Classic, IFC, GameShow Network, and ESPNews. I could really care less about the other channels. Do I really need 2 QVCs? However, within the last month, they were doing a free preview of the Starz channels, so it offered the chance to see some free movies. I'm assuming they do free previews of the channels you never ordered a lot.

5. The price is quite reasonable, especially since the Comcast Basic Cable in my area is ridiculously priced, and you don't get half the channels as you get on Dish Network satellite.

6. The NFL Network. I haven't hit football season yet, but I'm looking forward the NFL Network. It doesn't exactly match up to DirecTV's NFL Sunday Ticket Package, but you can't really beat the price, as it's including among "America's Top 100."

Cons, So Far:
1. Too many channels. Even with the guide available, there are just too many slots. The Dish Network channels range from 1 to 9999. Obviously, not every channel is filled but in the 9000s you get a repeat of all the local channels, so it's a lot of added clutter to an already dense selection of channels, and the listing includes the channels to which you are not subscribed. I have gotten lost looking for something to watch, or to remember what I was just watching. I suppose over time I will get used to the channel numbers and not correspond them to the basic cable system that I'm used to, but it's overwhelming at first. Additionally, it clutters up the playing field when you have multiple channels that just have a static message that says "Welcome To Dish Network."

2. Doesn't have NFL Sunday Ticket.

3. The music channels available haven't exactly impressed me. They pipe them off of Sirius Satellite Radio, and occasionally you'll hit on a pocket of good tunes, but then you'll be scrambling for the clunky remote to change the station.

Overall, I'm satisfied with Dish Network. Perhaps there is some troubleshooting I can do to get over my cons, but it really doesn't matter. No matter how many channels you have on your digital cable or satellite package, you're never gonna find anything worth watching.