For DISH Customers
 

As you know, we have been without an ABC Channel since July 22 while DISH is negotiating with the local channel's owner-- Apollo Broadcasting. During this time, I have phoned DISH (800/333-3474) each month and gotten an $8 discount off that month's bill to compensate me for this missing channel, or a total of $36-- so far. So I suggest all DISH customers might want to do the same. Not only will you receive at least token compensation, but if enough customers complain it might motivate DISH to reach agreement with Apollo. As I told the DISH rep I just spoke with-- this isn't a Mideast Peace Treaty, how hard can it be?

My sister, who lives on a farm in Indiana where cable options are pretty meager, was just talking about that ABC/Dish situation. A while back there was something she was desperate to watch on ABC and she saw one of those As Seen On TV things at Dollar General -- a Magic antenna or something. She decided to risk ten bucks and bought it. I assume it is just some kind of OTA antenna because it gave her back her ABC. She was thrilled. I know she has called to complain but I don't know if she does it regularly like you do. I'll have to suggest that to her. Thx.

kathy

I was thinking about calling Dish for a credit. I am paying extra for local network channels. We. Put that on my to due list for next week.

I don't know about Indiana, but I bought a $12 antenna at Best Buy and connected it to my television in The Villages. I didn't get any channels at all, NOTHING. But, at least I saved $188 by not buying the $200 attic antenna recommended by someone on TOTV.

That would depend on where in T.V. you live. Lots of homes around us have the "$200 antenna" and while I prefer cable for those folks that have OTA they say it works great except they have to rotate the antenna to get one of the networks (not sure which one). Maybe the extra $188 would get you some stations? :D

IMO no cable company you get want you want. They can break contract anytime they want , but you can’t. Comcast notorious for just dumping channels or wanting you to pay for channels you initial paid for. I thought it was fcc regulations that they have to provide local free channels?

My wife called Dish and got a monthly credit of $10/month for 6 months because of not having ABC.:MOJE_whot:

I heard last year that Dish lost a lot of customers because of Game of Thrones. Apparently they have the same problem with HBO that they have with ABC, but for a lot longer time. I heard they're having financial problems. Unlike Blockbuster who waited too long and let Netflix take over their customer base, Dish started streaming with Sling Box. I believe with Sling Box you can those channels that Dish satellite cannot get right now.

ABC. You are better off without them.

Cable tv is a thing of the past. Get high speed internet and a smart tv. Get apps several offer standard packages of the old channels like abc, cbs etc. if thats your desire. Half the price twice the channels.

I have a small rotatable outdoor antenna in the villages which gets me upwards of 52 channels including the three networks for 35 bucks

This would be helpful if
 

If you were to tell what, how and where.

Best antenna is a roof mounted one. I pick up 63 channels including ABC.

While it's true that DISH and Apollo are still fighting over broadcast rights and fees, and we still don't have ABC out of Orlando, we do have ABC on channel 20 (the ABC affiliate out of Gainesville. The only thing I really miss is Jeopardy, which they don't carry. At least in our area they've given us an alternative while the suits argue it out.

True

Switched to Xfinity for the same reason, so far excellent prompt service and cheaper.

I don’t agree. Still up north riding out the virus and I enjoy ABC. Want to watch Alex Trebeck’s last filming of Jeopardy which will show on January 11, I believe. What a great guy! Can’t believe Time Magazine excluded him from the Person of the Year candidacy and elevated NY Governor Meatball.
On the downside, watched my beloved
Wolverines lay another egg against winless Penn State.

Thank you for this tip. Just for an FYI, DISH tried to offer my just $3, then $5 and when I told them that one of my neighbors received an $8 credit, she agreed to that number. There is no retroactive credits, so you need to call each month.

Care to share
 

why???

Except that YoutubeTV + DECENT SPEED INTERNET equals just about what you will be paying for cable inc internet (or less if you get the right deal) anyway. IMO the savings just isn't worth dealing with streaming quite yet. I still prefer a hardware DVR. It's getting better but IMO not quite ready yet. Never had a rate increase (other than a buck or 2) on any cable renewal. You have to know how to deal with them to maintain their best "new sub" pricing forever.

I don't know what you mean by a hardware DVR. I have the Xfinity DVR service, but the recorded digital programming is stored on a remote server, not on a hard drive inside the Xfinity cable box, like it used to be years ago. Basically, the same way the streaming services do it.

We have been a multiple Tivo household for almost 20 years. It will take a lot to make me give them up and move to a streaming service instead of Xfinity cable. I read what people are paying monthly for YouTube, Hulu, and the like. We really don't pay much more for our cable tv. (We don't have any of the movie channels that you pay extra for but we do have a higher tier channel package.)

To each his own.

kathy

Xfinity X1 DVR stores BOTH on cloud and on DVR itself but mainly on the DVR for home watching. You can tell if it stored on the cloud if there is a tiny CLOUD ICON on the playback bar. 100% of what I currently have saved is on the physical DVR. Every once in a while 1 ends up on the cloud (usually Colbert's show for some reason). I have found anything stored on the cloud (with Xfinity X1) is horrendous because most of the time the 30second skip doesn't work well , the pause doesn't work and response is horribly slow. I have about 100 hours stored and it is all on the physical DVR. There is a 500GIG hard drive in the DVR. You can download most of your DVR programs to the cloud to watch off-site. They were trying a 100% cloud based DVR called the X2 about 5-6 years ago in certain areas but I don't think it was ever released other than test areas The "cloud" portion of the X1 is mainly used to allow you to stream programs on your other devices like cell phones. The X1 I have is the newer 4K version, however the original X1 has the same HD config. The 4K version X1 is about 1/4 the physical size of the standard X1.

X1 Cloud DVR FAQs

https://www.xfinity.com/support/articles/x1-dvr-overview

Stored Recordings
Storage Capacity: Currently, your X1 DVR can record approximately 150 total hours of HD and/or SD programming on the hard drive, and 60 hours of cloud DVR storage per X1 DVR (150 hours in some locations).

You can see the 500gig hard drive here on the X1's "secret menu". The "external" is the cloud currently "empty" and the internal has data.

Thanks. I have an X1 4K box. I can watch recorded programming on my phone or tablet, so I assumed that it was being stored in the cloud. I have never seen a cloud icon anywhere. I don't know how much storage capacity I have, but I currently have about 30 hours of HD and 45 hours of SD content, and it says that it is only 32 percent full.

You have the same storage as I have. Primarily the cloud storage is only used when you pre-dpwnload a file from the Xfinity Stream app to play on your phone otherwise you need to be on your own local network to stream it or on demand.

To access the "secret X1 menu":
Hold Exit button 5 seconds (may have to try a couple times)
Press Down arrow twice
push the #2 key

Some interesting stuff there if you want to geek out on your network & hardware.

Called Dish last night, supervisor gave me $20 credit for the first 4 months and I got a $5 credit last month when I called plus another $5 credit for next month. I told him that I had heard of people in my area getting as much as a $10 credit. He told me that for my tier level the most he could give was $5. I have the 200 channel package.

Spent about $70 for an antenna, mounting pole and some RG6 coax cable. Get everything but NBC due to WESH being a VHF station.

You can stack a VHF antenna or get a single dual band. Also depends on your location if even that works.

DISH owns Sling
 

Dish owns sling (slingbox is the apparatus that allows for the transfer of the program). Once a stand alone device, it is now built in to their Hopper receivers. Their AirTV Player and other devices. Sling is their streaming service (much like DirecTV Now)

Placement
 

You might want to try placing that antenna on different OUTSIDE walls before you give up on it. I didn't get too many channels, but did get 4, on and East wall. I think North (Ocala) might give better results.