I tried Direct TV for several years and did it because of the selection of channels available and for sports subscriptions like NFL Sunday Ticket or the one for the NBA. I also liked all the extra movie channels.

Here's the reality though: You can get sunday ticket and nba through your cable provider, enough movies and guaranteed service 99.9% of the time, but if it's raining, Direct TV is hit or miss. And it doesn't matter how well your dish was installed. That's what some Direct TV proponents will say as the canned response to reception problems. It's all about the clouds, if they exist and are heavy, your reception could go out. It only sucks when you're in the middle of watching tv of course, but that's usually when it happens.