DISH Network Vs. DirecTV

Which One Is Right For You?

Since I am a long-time DISH Network customer, I really cannot say too much about how I like DirecTV, or how it compares to DISH Network when it comes to service and reliability. When I made my selection over eleven years ago, I chose DISH Network at that time mostly due to programming choices. At the time, DirecTV seemed to be offering more sports programming, and since I am not much of sports fan myself, I decided to go with a DISH Network offer that was available at that time.

Historically, DirecTV has been a little more expensive than DISH Network. It also appears that DirecTV still offers more sports programming than DISH Network, while DISH Network clearly has the advantage for international programming.

As you might suspect, both companies are quite competitive when it comes to HDTV programming. They are both adding new HD content as quickly as they are able, and it's kind of hard to keep up with with the total number of HD channels both providers are offering at any given time. Check out DISH Network's current HD offerings online.

At this time, DISH Network is the only national provider offering 1080p HD for video on demand programming. DISH Network has also recently switched all programming to the MPEG-4 video coding standard, which is superior to the older MPEG-2 standard, and allowed DISH Network to offer more channels using existing satellites, giving subscribers more programming choices, especially local channels.

DirecTV was using a combination of both MPEG-2 and MPEG-4 to transmit their programming, but according to their website, they have already, currently are upgrading all their HD channels to the MPEG-4 standard. I suggest doing some of your own research if you want all the details on DirecTV's use of MPEG-4.

Both services offer music channels from the big satellite radio broadcasters, with DISH Network providing some from SIRIUS Satellite Radio and DirecTV providing some from XM Satellite Radio. I have listened to the music channels from SIRIUS on my DISH Network system, and they are actually pretty good.

Recently, a merger of SIRIUS Satellite Radio and XM Satellite Radio has been approved, and the company is now called SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio. I don't know how this might effect the availability of the music channels on DISH Network, but I suspect they will remain available, possibly with the channels being named a bit differently or something. So far, I have not seen any changes.

Since I work at home and don't spend enough time in my car to bother listening to the radio, I don't have SIRIUS installed there. If I was still commuting to work every day, I'd probably get SIRIUS for my car since I can hardly stand to listen to terrestrial radio any more due to the excessive commercial advertising. I'm not a Howard Stern fan, but I like the music on SIRIUS enough to make it a worthwhile purchase if I were still a commuter.