# Judge Orders DIRECTV to Stop HD Ads



## jones07 (Jan 30, 2001)

JUDGE ORDERS DIRECTV TO STOP 
RUNNING FALSE HD ADVERTISING

STAMFORD, CT, February 5, 2007 - Federal District Judge Laura Taylor Swain of the Southern District of New York today ordered DirecTV to cease running two national television ads that falsely claim that DirecTV's HD service is superior to Time Warner Cable's. The ads feature celebrities Jessica Simpson and William Shatner. Under the Court's injunction, DirecTV is prevented from running the ads or "any other advertisement disparaging the visual or audio quality of TWC or cable high-definition television ("HDTV") programming as compared to that of DIRECTV or satellite HDTV programming" in any Time Warner Cable market.

Judge Swain also ordered DirecTV to cease running website banner ads in any market in which Time Warner Cable operates that falsely purport to show a side-by-side comparison of DirecTV and cable's picture quality. The ads enjoined from running any ads that represent "that the service provided by Time Warner Cable, or cable service in general, is unwatchable due to blurriness, distortion, pixilation or the like, or inaudible due to static or other interference" and specifically enjoined DirecTV from running ads featuring the images of NFL football players Eli Manning and Kevin Dyson, among others, which the judge found grossly distorted the representation of cable's picture quality.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16995870/

http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/02/05/ap3397037.html

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## TyroneShoes (Sep 6, 2004)

About time.

Now if the judge could just get the DTV CSRs to stop claiming their HD is superior to DTV subscribers.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

I'd like to see a judge rule against the misleading cable ads against satellite.


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

Now if the judge could also get the CSR tell customers that the dish has a built-in antenna for receiving locals...


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## jones07 (Jan 30, 2001)

JimSpence said:


> I'd like to see a judge rule against the misleading cable ads against satellite.


What misleading cable ads?


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## Citivas (Oct 12, 2000)

JimSpence said:


> I'd like to see a judge rule against the misleading cable ads against satellite.


Truth is an absolute defense. A legal cornerstone. D* didn't have it on their side. If my local Comcast provider made the same claim against D* though, they would. The HD PQ is vastly superior. We all know about D*'s HD-Lite...


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## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

Citivas said:


> Truth is an absolute defense. A legal cornerstone. D* didn't have it on their side. If my local Comcast provider made the same claim against D* though, they would. The HD PQ is vastly superior. We all know about D*'s HD-Lite...


Comcrap's PQ on HD and SD sucks down here. Hell, they can't keep your cable on for more than a week at a time.   
That's why I dropped them in 2000.

They run some ads down here that put down SAT service all the time.
That judge is as a$$.....They need to shut down a whole lot of ads of cometeting companies then. Our wonderful legal system at work......


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## jfischer (Oct 14, 1999)

DirecTV is on some serious crack if they're touting the quality of their HD channels. They're mediocre at best.


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## terpfan1980 (Jan 28, 2002)

Comcast has run oodles of ads in my area that insult the intelligence of anyone that has even a hint of knowledge of satellite TV service -- either Dish or DirecTV.

I'm in agreement that the judge in this apparent case is a azz-hat. I don't begin to claim that DirecTV is showing a pristine HD image, but for most people it's acceptable and it is still better than SD.

For the basic channels and anything not on the digital tier, in my area, DirecTV blasts Comcast out of the water. The Comcast signal is so horribly washed out, noise laden, and generally unacceptable that anyone that is paying for it should be getting one heck of a refund from Comcast. I've been able to compare the products side by side for a long time. There really is no comparison.

(But there is also really no comparison between over-the-air HD and the signal that DirecTV calls HD for channels like TNT-HD)


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## rminsk (Jun 4, 2002)

> I'm in agreement that the judge in this apparent case is a azz-hat. I don't begin to claim that DirecTV is showing a pristine HD image, but for most people it's acceptable and it is still better than SD.


Why is the judge "azz-hat"? TW brought suit against DirecTV for false advertising. TW produced evidence that there picture quality may be better than DirecTV in some markets. DirecTV could not defend it's claim nation wide. The judge ruled on the evidence presented. The judge would be "azz-hat" if she ignored the evidence.

If DirecTV wants to shut down the cable ads then they have to sue the cable companys.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

jones07 said:


> What misleading cable ads?


The ones that mention loss of signal during rain, but don't mention that it only lasts a few minutes. Or that show people falling off their roof installing a dish.


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## pkscout (Jan 11, 2003)

JimSpence said:


> The ones that mention loss of signal during rain, but don't mention that it only lasts a few minutes. Or that show people falling off their roof installing a dish.


I've had a rain related outage last an hour or more during the heavy rain season in NC, and that was with all transponders at 95% or better during clear weather, so I'd be hard pressed to say that an ad mentioning signal loss during rain isn't true, at least to some extent. Ditto for falling off your roof installing a dish. If you do a self install on your roof, you could (and I bet someone has) fallen off.

So both claims are likely "true enough" to pass legal muster.


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## Citivas (Oct 12, 2000)

gio1269 said:


> Comcrap's PQ on HD and SD sucks down here. Hell, they can't keep your cable on for more than a week at a time.
> That's why I dropped them in 2000.
> 
> They run some ads down here that put down SAT service all the time.
> That judge is as a$$.....They need to shut down a whole lot of ads of cometeting companies then. Our wonderful legal system at work......


Are you seriously basing your comparison to Comcast based on 7 years ago? What's the point. 7 years ago DirecTV was better than it was today. Comcast may have sucked here 7 years ago too. I wouldn't know. I do know that in my market, they are rock solid now. And they have more channels, better PQ (I tried it free for a while while maintaining my DirecTV account so I can say on exactly the same TV's, they smacked down D* on HD PQ) and WAY better pricing (for $10 mroe per month than I am paying now for my cable modem service, I could get the equivilent of Total Choice, plus locals plus the HD channels, plus a radically better pay-per-view and on-demand service, etc.).

Comcast grew a lot through acqusition, so I am positive their quality will vary widely from market to market, so perhaps they do still suck in your area. But if your last experience was 2000, I wouldn't assume it. As I said, D* has gone way down hill in that time, so everything changes. And I say that as a customer since 1995...


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## drew2k (Jun 10, 2003)

I've seen cable ads that compare satellite with cable, and state that the satellite companies "get you" with all of their hidden fees that you don't face with cable, that satellite service is affected by weather, that you can't bundle services with satellite, and that with satellite you need to have a box on each TV. 

Well, cable has tons of hidden fees: franchise fees, taxes, outlet fees, etc. Cable is also affected by the weather (at least in my area). You can bundle Verizon home/wireless/satellite services. The only argument that stands is the last, about needing a satellite receiver for each TV, but I think that will fall by the wayside as a deterrent as digital channels become the norm and people still use their old analog TVs.


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## john-duncan-yoyo (Oct 13, 2004)

pkscout said:


> I've had a rain related outage last an hour or more during the heavy rain season in NC, and that was with all transponders at 95% or better during clear weather, so I'd be hard pressed to say that an ad mentioning signal loss during rain isn't true, at least to some extent. Ditto for falling off your roof installing a dish. If you do a self install on your roof, you could (and I bet someone has) fallen off.
> 
> So both claims are likely "true enough" to pass legal muster.


The Local Cox franchise has had rain fade in the past as well. It's pretty sad when a dish the size of a short bus gets blown out by a down pour. Of course their wiring was gawd awful as well. Any time it rained hard the wires would get wet and the signal would drop out.


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## TonyD79 (Jan 4, 2002)

pkscout said:


> I've had a rain related outage last an hour or more during the heavy rain season in NC, and that was with all transponders at 95% or better during clear weather, so I'd be hard pressed to say that an ad mentioning signal loss during rain isn't true, at least to some extent. Ditto for falling off your roof installing a dish. If you do a self install on your roof, you could (and I bet someone has) fallen off.
> 
> So both claims are likely "true enough" to pass legal muster.


Oooooh. You had ONE TIME that you had an extended outage? I will bet that the cable company in the area had problems, too, if the rain was that hard.

I have had D* since 1997 and have had ONE rain fade over 3 minutes in all that time.

And falling off the roof? That is insane. You could fall off the roof fixing a shingle. They make it look like you HAVE to do your own install. You could fall off the roof adding a cable outlet to a bedroom, too.

The judge is a fool because she is setting precedent to end ALL advertising that compares any product.


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## gio1269 (Jul 27, 2006)

Citivas said:


> Are you seriously basing your comparison to Comcast based on 7 years ago? What's the point. 7 years ago DirecTV was better than it was today. Comcast may have sucked here 7 years ago too. I wouldn't know. I do know that in my market, they are rock solid now. And they have more channels, better PQ (I tried it free for a while while maintaining my DirecTV account so I can say on exactly the same TV's, they smacked down D* on HD PQ) and WAY better pricing (for $10 mroe per month than I am paying now for my cable modem service, I could get the equivilent of Total Choice, plus locals plus the HD channels, plus a radically better pay-per-view and on-demand service, etc.).
> 
> Comcast grew a lot through acqusition, so I am positive their quality will vary widely from market to market, so perhaps they do still suck in your area. But if your last experience was 2000, I wouldn't assume it. As I said, D* has gone way down hill in that time, so everything changes. And I say that as a customer since 1995...


No, it's based on feeding my neighbors Comcrap line into my TV and seeing a crappier picture than D*

Yes, D* PQ has gone down over the years as well as the CS. Still better than CC.

D* picture quality looked fine to me until I bought a new TV. On my 27" Toshiba PT, it still looks fantastic and much better than Comcrap. Their Analog signal is the WORST I have seen around here fro cable and the digital and HD is not as good as D*.

The only PQ I have an issue with D* is TNT-HD. The others look stunning IMO and I am happy. It's their SD signal that I am most unhappy about. I use OTA fro locals so no problem either.

Again in SFLA in Comcast is Comcrap! If that judge ssay the ads Comcrap runs here she would make them go out of business.

I had more rain fade with comcrap cable than D* in just 2 yrs with them. The cable goes out once a week at least even for 5 minutes because of something around here.

Yes, It improved when Comcrap took over AT &T Cable and it's not much better than the other cable I had which was Adelphia. They were the WORST I ever saw at everything!

The only thing I can say good about Comcrap was, after the hurricane many areas where the cable boex where had no power. Whether the neighborhood did or not. They went out and put generators at the boxes so whether you had power or a generator running your TV, you could getv a signal. Granted it took them 5 days but they did.


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## Lee L (Oct 1, 2003)

IMO, this was absolutely correct. No way D* can say their HD quality is better than COmcast. Several times people who have the technical capabilities have confiremd they were knocking the resolution down after thinking it looked worse.

NOw, I also agree with whoever says teh cable ads should be investigated. The ads do not say, you might have rain fade every once in a while. Every cable ad I have seen says that the signal goes out every time it rains or the wind blows, which cannot be farther from the truth.


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## Jonathan_S (Oct 23, 2001)

TonyD79 said:


> The judge is a fool because she is setting precedent to end ALL advertising that compares any product.


No, just the ones that can clearly be demonstrated to be wrong.

And even those you could probably sneak in. Kind of like all the car commercials that claim car X was found best in class for <carefully selected group or type of class> by company XYZ. That finding, however misleading, exists and was published, so the car company is free to use it to imply their car is better than all others.

If DirecTV had found some impressive sounding magazine that had run (or would run) a test that found the DirecTV HD signal somehow superior then they probably could have continued to advertise that test finding even if the test itself was seriously flawed.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Since cooming back to Comcast I've been able to do a comparison between some of the channels. On my 1080P TV I can se an obvious difference on the 1080i channels. On my 768P set I can't see the difference. I hope they stop showing those commercials everywhere. I always hated the fact that tehy claim they have the best picture yet DirectV downrezs to 1280x1080i. Comcast here keeps the signal at 1920x1080i. DirectV used to have an excellent HD picture years ago. But it seems to get worse and worse every year. i was amazed at the difference when i came back to Comcast. Even the SD channels on Comcast here are obviously better tha DirectV on an old 32" analog set. When my girlfriend comments on the difference it must be obvious.


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

Maybe TiVo should run ads for the S3 claiming that OTA is superior to both...!


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## fertree (Mar 7, 2005)

JimSpence said:


> The ones that mention loss of signal during rain, but don't mention that it only lasts a few minutes. Or that show people falling off their roof installing a dish.


 I had rain fade during the first few minutes of the Super Bowl. Did I miss anything?


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## Cmmsh (Jan 2, 2007)

Citivas said:


> 7 years ago DirecTV was better than it was today.


I agree D* has a few problems, but that is a ridiculous statement. As horrible as Cox is down here, it still is better than it was seven years ago.


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## Cmmsh (Jan 2, 2007)

JimSpence said:


> The ones that mention loss of signal during rain, but don't mention that it only lasts a few minutes. Or that show people falling off their roof installing a dish.


Couldn't agree more. My cable went out a lot more than D* does. I have had D* for eight years and can count on one hand the loss of signal longer than 15 minutes. On cable, it went out for an hour or more at a time about once a month or two. They absolutely should not be able to talk about rain fades on their commercials.


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## SHOMan (Jun 2, 2005)

TonyD79 said:


> Oooooh. You had ONE TIME that you had an extended outage? I will bet that the cable company in the area had problems, too, if the rain was that hard.
> 
> I have had D* since 1997 and have had ONE rain fade over 3 minutes in all that time.


Depends on where you live...In the Pacific NW, larger dishes are needed to avoid rain fade. And it is not just about how hard it rains, because if the clouds are dense enough, we can have issues without having a "cloud burst". Where we are in relation to the birds also plays into the problem out here.

With respect to the cable company, I have Comcast for internet access and get the lowest teir basic package for about the same price as internet without any cable service. This give me the ability to know if the cable is still working when the Sat has rain fade. Comcast has never had a signal problem during a D* rain fade.

Yes, my dish is correctly installed, no line leaks, good signal...

My neighbor has Comcast, and here in Portland we are getting both HD and SD in digital now, and both are significantly sharper and have less artifacts than D*. It does cost more (after the incentives are over), but in this case, the extra $$ translates into something of value.

The downside for me is that I would have to go out and buy three S3 units to make all the TivoHolics in the house happy. That said, the first year incentives will more than pay for the first unit.

While I am not wanting to bash D*, it is really getting hard to think of them in a positive light. What good is MPEG-4 if you have to switch to a box that has even more issues than the HR10?


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## Fahtrim (Apr 12, 2004)

Citivas said:


> Truth is an absolute defense. A legal cornerstone. D* didn't have it on their side. If my local Comcast provider made the same claim against D* though, they would. The HD PQ is vastly superior. We all know about D*'s HD-Lite...


Vastly superior..................NOT.

Your local stations must be giving DirecTV bad source if it is VASTLY different.

IMHO, it is barely different.


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## alaskahill (Dec 21, 2001)

fertree said:


> I had rain fade during the first few minutes of the Super Bowl. Did I miss anything?


Not anything that was pertinent to the end result


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## Mr. Bill (Jan 18, 2006)

TyroneShoes said:


> About time.
> 
> Now if the judge could just get the DTV CSRs to stop claiming their HD is superior to DTV subscribers.


Why not just get your affirmation by saying it yourself?

_"I am a DTV subscriber, and I am superior to their HD, in spite of what DTV CSRs say."_


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## DeWitt (Jun 30, 2004)

For what it's worth, I've been comparing local Comcast to D* recently, while hoping FIOS speeds up it's implementation. 

Side by side, Comcast's HD here is Far superior. I can not tell the difference between OTA and the Comcast signal. D* is no where close to OTA. 

D* is not horrible, but the Comcast HD is very noticably better.


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## smak (Feb 11, 2000)

There's no way that cable would ever win in a yearly downtime comparison with D*.

In my 10 years of D*, i've had maybe 3 instances of rain fade for a few minutes, and 2 were during an El Nino back in the 90's.

I had to switch to DSL from cable internet due to all the outages which coincided with TV outages too.

-smak-


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## louiss3000 (Aug 5, 2003)

TyroneShoes said:


> About time.
> 
> Now if the judge could just get the DTV CSRs to stop claiming their HD is superior to DTV subscribers.


Huh?


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