So, at my current resident the landlords have DirecTV. I don't pay for it, so I can't speak to value or customer service responsiveness, but I can speak to the consumer experience. When I lived alone in LA, I had Time Warner cable for several years both as ISP and TV provider and never had any issues, felt it was a pretty good value and found their customer service responsive. If I had to choose between the two (and there was not a major price or channel lineup difference) I would go back to Time Warner.
PROS ON DIRECTV:
Huge selection of channels (duh)
Plenty of room on the standard DVR and the ability to DVR/view in multiple rooms
Having access to EST broadcasts from the west coast - it's nice in California, for example, to find Mad Men on your DVR ready to view at 7pm PST on a Sunday
Having access to DirecTV's original programming/exclusives - I don't watch any of it, but they're generally known for quality programming and occasionally they co-produce and make exclusive deals (like co-producing and getting first air rights for existing shows like Friday Night Lights).
CONS ON DIRECT:
Far fewer HD channels than Time Warner - I think this is because there's less bandwidth on their satellite signals than in a cable. This can be very frustrating if you have a nice HD tv and are forced to watch programming in grainy, pixilated standard def. It might be a good idea to make a list of your most watched channels and then check to see how many of them are broadcast in SD. Two examples I find frustrating: Al Jazeera America, which airs consistently excellent, original investigative reporting you won't find on CNN or MSNBC, is broadcast in SD and looks terrible. Pivot, a fairly new channel, is also in SD. They recently aired a rather excellent limited series called FORTITUDE starring Stanley Tucci, Michael Gambon and a glittering international cast. It was set in a remote arctic village and featured stunning vistas of the tundra and artful cinematography, all of which was greatly diminished when watching it in SD. Picture quality in HD, when available (and dependent upon your tv as well, of course) is excellent.
I have the good sense to live in sunny Southern California and not some God forsaken place on the east coast where you are, apparently, almost constantly assaulted by major weather events. So, I haven't experienced major outages here. That being said, I still have noticed minor signal disruptions that happen more often than I recall on cable. A slight "stutter" on a program or a moment where the picture gets oddly pixilated or distorted for a second. It's not a constant interruption, but it does happen occasionally on both live tv and recorded DVR'd programs.
DVR navigation - I found the Time Warner DVR/On Demand navigation to be much more intuitive and faster to respond than DirecTV's. It can take a LONG time to find something if you don't know exactly what you want to watch.
On Demand programming - depending upon the channel, you will find far less On Demand programming than you will find on Time Warner. Their On Demand channels also make frustrating omissions. For example, say you only caught on to True Detective well after it aired. On Time Warner's On Demand you'd be much more likely to find all of the eps available On Demand whereas on DirecTV, for many shows, only some episodes will be available. (This is just a made up example; HBO shows seem to be better represented on DirecTV On Demand than others). Even more frustrating, there's sometimes an odd gap wherein Episodes 1-2 are available and then episodes 4-6 are available. Or everything but the pilot is there. Also, many of the OnDemand programs are only available in SD - even some for which the original airings are show in HD. And, depending upon your internet connection/time of day, OnDemand programs can take a LONG time to download to your system.
Updated On: 4/22/15 at 11:15 PM
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