civilservant

Good afternoon all

So having got my fix of the Would Cup curtosy of Overplay, I managed to convince the wife to shell out for Dish TV, so I'm not subjected to dodgy streams of the EPL matches from next season.

What's the NBC coverage like? Who are the anchors/summerisers? Am I going to have to put up with 'he put that ball right in the end zone'-isms all year?

I'm looking forward, having missed the entirety of last season, to getting to see some of my team (Man United fan ) do a little better than they did lsat year under the mini-Glaswegian...

Duncan Roberts

It's good. There are a lot of commentators, most are English ex-premier league players. I'd say that going with Dish was a mistake though!

civilservant

Well we haven't pulled the trigger, it was just a first thought. Going to look through the options tonight. Care to make a recommendation?

Bob

It's pretty decent and so are the apps for streaming, though they did crash a awful but a few updates seemed to have improved them a lot, especially on iOS...Android is still a bit iffy.

BritishGuy36

I'd say the coverage in general is excellent.

If you are a supporter of one of the top teams or Man U (couldn't resist that ) Then you will see the vast majority of your team's games live in HD and the rest are available on a stream, so you will want a PC connected to the TV if you want to watch it on the telly.

I'm a Liverpool FC fan and saw 32 of their 38 games last year in HD, of the few that I was at home to watch via streaming there were very few issues.

Last season they had Ian Darke and Steve McManaman as primary commentators, Ian is not my fave commentator but he's ok, Macca tries to be funny but isn't.

There are plenty of overnight game replays and highlights shows during the week too - although sometimes you have to look out for them on other channels, they use non-sports channels for some games and shows, like USA and your local NBC affiliate's main NBC channel.

Overall I am very happy that NBC got the rights to the EPL and long may it continue. I saw virtually none of Liverpool's games when Fox had the rights because my cable provider couldn't supply Fox Sports.

As to what platform to receive the NBC channels on I can't help there, I just subscribe to my local cable provider and they are all on there. The great thing is that all the channels carrying the EPL stuff are in with the basic cable package so I don't have to subscribe to a more expensive one.

scrubbedexpat099

Better than Fox, I agree.

Who to use is location specific, I was Dish now Direct TV.

lansbury

Whoever you choose, I have DirecTV, make sure whatever package you get has all the NBC family of channel. They show all the EPL games live and spread them across all their channels if they need to. Including as BG36 says their online channel.

I was always told DirecTV had the best picture quality because they comressed the signal less than Dish or cable. However I was in the Comcast store the other day and the picture on the screens they had there looked as good as I get.

If you get the internet from a cable company it might be cheaper to get a combined TV package from them. I would save if I went to Comcast just don't want to risk it over the possible dregregration in picture quality.

Duncan Roberts

I'm with DirecTV as well. It eventually works out more expensive but I've not had many issues and those that I've had got taken care of quickly and without too much hassle. Plus, the picture quality is great, the extras you get can be nice and they do throw a lot of free stuff your way throughout the year. The downside is that on demand is kind of crappy, although I do like being able to download shows from the on demand library to my DVR.

markonline1

Those 2 are the ESPN guys. NBC's main team were Arlo White and Lee Dixon. Robbie Earle and Robbie Mustoe are usually in the studio. The coverage is very good, all the commentators are British and if you watch their Match Of The Day show, Gary Lineker does a piece every week.

Funstuie

I am moving to the US next week and I had been planning how to watch the premier league next season. I have a subscription to an online service (I got an account before they shut up shop and went hidden) the quality is HD most of the time and I can stream on my iPad and airplay to the TV. But they do have issues when the weather is bad in Portugal (where they are based).

So I got a mag250 box and an iptv service for the year which has all uktv, sky, all US, Canadian and all the bein channels and it will work in the US. I sold my sky box and my wifi router from the uk and the money I got for them covered the 12 month iptv sub. Its a bit of a grey area so I am not linking to them but I will be able to use this service without a VPN (even though I have one anyway).

Not sure what service we will end up getting in the US. I will need Internet and it seems to work out better to get tv and Internet through one provider so I will probably end up with sports anyway.

Guindalf

I also have DirecTV and the service is generally better than Dish overall from what I've heard. Just don't be tempted to get their TiVo model. The Genie is a good DVR and it also has the Whole Home feature, so you can watch whatever is recorded in any room that has a client. It also has five tuners so you can record what you want, when you want. Dish's Hopper records the main four broadcast channels during prime time plus, I think, two others, so don't get fooled by the advertising.

If you sign up with DirecTV, you get the first year of NFL Sunday Ticket for free as well as a decent first year's price. As long as you remember to cancel before the second season, it's a nice bonus if you're a football fan.

Plus, as others have mentioned, you can get the NBC family for the footie. Just be sure that the service level you choose has NBCSN, which is the main channel for the matches.

Dodgykeeps

Has anyone got TV through Verizon FIOS? We have internet from them and I'm thinking of adding TV for footy and NFL etc. Interested if its better than regular cable?

Bob

It's okay...adding ESPN adds a big chunk of change to the rate plus the intro cheap rate doesn't include cost of the DVR boxes or HD service, so the rate goes right up before you even finish the promo rate.

Service is what it is though, no different to anyone else.

civilservant

We went with Dish in the end, solely because the first 12 months price was cheaper after adding the cost of HDTV and the DVR. They'll be here to install it tomorrow in time for the Community Shield on sunday

Guindalf

It's the SECOND and subsequent years that count!

IMHO, you made a mistake, but you could be one of the few that's happy with Dish. You can always swap out after two years if you're not happy with it. All I know is that when I worked for a cable company that had pretty poor service, we got call after call from people who left us for Dish, wanting to get out of their contract and come back to our crappy service because the prices they were paying went up a ridiculous amount at the end of the first year and the add-ons were crazy! .