DirecTV NFL Fumbles on Week One

The official start of the NFL season on DirecTV’s Sunday Ticket package was off to a rough start with numerous fumbles, which had many viewers from around the country wishing they had some yellow flags to throw.

Here are a few of the issues that fans with DirecTV’s $368 NFL Sunday Ticket package with SuperFan saw (or in some cases didn’t see)

-          A number of viewers reported that picture and video was lost during game winning kick in the Packers / Eagles game.

-          There were numerous reports of no audio on the SuperFan Channel during the pre game shows. This issue was fixed however before game time.

-          A number of fans were unable to watch the late afternoon games via Sunday Ticket, their receivers which worked fine for the early games are now displaying an error message 763 (access card has expired) on their screens instead of the football games they paid for

-          Many fans trying to tune into DirecTV’s Internet based Supercast service to watch some of the games    online received MySQL error messages or a message telling them “We apologize as we are experiencing problems bringing you Supercast. Please check back in a few minutes."

Some were finally able to get in, while many others were never able to get video.

Later in the day DirecTV posted the following message on the Supercast Login Site “Wee apologize for the inconvenience, but SUPERCAST is currently experiencing overwhelming demand. Please try again later.” 

Many customers subscribed to the $99 SuperfFan package on top of the $295 Sunday Ticket package just so they could watch football online.

What I found interesting is where the video was coming from… http://nfl.directv.slingmedia.com yes, Slingmedia, the same folks who make the amazing Slingbox unit!

-          Non Football fans woke up Sunday and found many DirecTV channels were off the air including TNT-HD, most of DirecTV’s Pay-Per-View channels, the DirecTV MIX Channels, DirecTV’s Game Lounge, plus numerous other channels (Channels number offline were as follows: 222, 224, 227, 228, 314, 315, 320 and 324.) In addition subscribers to DirecTV’s Major League Baseball package felt like they were sacked andwere upset as DirecTV removed the special Extra Innings MIX channel and did not show any of the baseball games in high definition. These channels were temporarily removed to make space for both SD and HD games for the NFL Sunday Ticket and returned later in the night.

Chrlie Chat Tonight

One of the most unique nationally televised television shows returns to satellite tonight, as DISH Network’s CEO Charlie Ergen hosts another edition of “The Charlie Chat”

The show puts DISH Network customers in touch live with Ergen who take time to answer emailed and live telephone questions from customers of his Dish Network service.

We don’t know what tonight’s agenda holds for viewers, but it we were to bet we would guess that the industries to big letters “HD” will be a major part of the show.

The Charlie Chat will air LIVE tonight at 9:00PM Eastern Time on DISH Network Channel 101.