Picture quality:

I have a $500 High Def projector and like to watch TV and movies 12 feet wide. I have heard that the HD being transmitted through Fios and Xfinity are 720 while Directtv gives you a true 1080 experience. It might be true. Although the picture quality is good from all three, DirectTV appears to my eye as a little bit better.

Cost:

The great deals and discounts provided by each of these companies makes it hard to determine which TV provider is the least expensive. Having used all three, I'd say that Fios is the most expensive followed by Xfinity then DirectTV. However, once the special rates, 3 to 24 months later, all services end up costing more than you want to pay. If you live where you have a choice, changing companies every couple of years is the best way to keep down costs. Calling your provider right before you drop them can sometimes get you an extension on the special rates that you currently have.

We started with Fios. We left because it was too expensive. We were supposed to pay hundred dollars a month but was being charged $300.The special deals we were promised when we started, took us a year to get. Then they were very stingy at reimbursing us the discounts for the previous year.  They restarted our contract meaning we couldn't leave for two more years before being charged a penalty.

Internet:

Fios Internet was rock solid. No complaints.

Xfinity's Internet blast speed was initially faster than Fios. But after two months, it went to hell. It became so bad that it was completely unusable. Many hours wasted over many phone calls over many weeks fixed nothing. Maybe it was two months?  That's when we decided to change providers. Finally we were handed over to a tech expert to make configuration changes in the Xfinity router and the Internet was once again stable. But we were so unhappy with Xfinity's's technical support that changing providers was an idea that was stuck in our head.

DirectTV has no Internet. It depends on Internet for it's On Demand feature. So when we dropped Xfinity TV we did keep the Internet. All that we changed is that our TV comes from the DirectTV satellite.  This change is only saving us $30 a month.

On Demand:

Fios has the largest and best selection. For example, it likely will have most or all of the episodes for any given TV series.

Xfinity is an OK second. It typically has all of the episodes of the current season and a couple for each of the past seasons. Unfortunately you have to pay an extra fee to watch many of the older episodes for a given TV series.

DirectTV has by far the smallest selection. It typically only has a couple episodes for a given TV series. Frequently it only has just one.

Ease of use:

Fios has the best layout of TV channels. They are grouped by subject. Low Def channels are separated from the Hi Def channels. The on-demand and Search and TV Guide all have a button on the remote. It was easy to record and playback recording's.
Xfinity's channel layout in the TV Guide was haphazard compared to Fios. It took a little getting used to. The search button on the remote is better than files. We gave up on the TV Guide and use the search to find everything. The buttons on the Xfinity's remote lit up when ever you moved it. This was a great feature. They now offer a voice search that you have to pay extra for.

Now that we have DirectTV we are suddenly not watching TV anymore. It is because we don't normally watch live TV. We live off of what will you recorded and what is in the On Demand list. There is a menu feature that gives you access to the on-demand TV and movies. The recent a lot there and it's mainly garbage. I accidentally discovered playing with the search that they were on-demand TV shows that were not in the on-demand list. I desperately wanted to search through the on-demand shows the way I had done with files and exit Xfinity.

I called tech-support to find out how to search the content by network. They didn't have a clue. I then pulled my hair out for two days trying to figure out how to search for on-demand content per TV channel. Yes, there is a way. It is a pain but here you go.

1. You press the menu button on the remote.

2. Go to smart search and type in the phrase On Demand

3. Select any TV network that appears with On Demand in the title

4. A new window opens with a list of TV shows or genre is on the left. Go to the bottom of this list.

5. At the bottom of the list is browse by channel!

Now you can browse by channel. You can see everything for that network that is On Demand. This is how we like to discover new TV shows and movies. It's free. We are bored so we will give a lot of long shots a try. Sometimes we find a great new TV show and binge watch.

Special features:

Many of the TV networks have apps for your phone and computer. They allow you to watch TV away from home. For example, Showtime anywhere, Max Go, HBO Go, etc. over the past couple of years, we had the problem that we frequently couldn't logon to these apps because our password was forever not working. We have to call tech-support to get it reset.

The Xfinity phone and computer apps are pretty good. I not only could watch TV with most of the Xfinity features but I can also program and watch TV shows off my DVR! Better yet, I could download TV shows and movies onto my phone from the DVR.  This is awesome for a mobile person like myself.

DirectTV offers wireless cable boxes. It's an extra fee. Being able to walk a box around your home and not having to run wires too inconvenient places will be a godsend some people.

Got-yas!

Fios was good except the price. We signed up for a special deal that they didn't give us. My expected bill of $99 was $230 a month that before I knew it went up to $300 a month. It took a year to get it fixed every time an adjustment was made my contract started over. This is important because If you cancel early to hit you with a large early cancellation fee. To steal you away from Fios, Xfinity will offer to pay the cancellation fee.

Xfinity's Internet is great when it works.

DirectTV gets it's on-demand and TV Guide from the satellite. After the initial installation DirectTV, it takes 24 hours for all of the features like I am demand to work. Live TV worked immediately. But not much else.

Last night suddenly the DirectTV cable box in my living room lost Internet connection. Powering the box off then on didn't help. There was nothing wrong with my Internet or router. The computers in the house were happily surfing the Internet. Tech-support had me reboot the cable box. When it was done I was back on the Internet but the on-demand didn't work! I had to wait 24 hours for the data to be re-downloaded from the satellite. Worse yet, it affected all the boxes in the house. My wife who was watching a streaming TV show suddenly couldn't. In the end we gave up in frustration and went to bed. The same problem with Fios or Xfinity has you back up and running in about five minutes.

If you have DirectTV, you better have good Internet. All on-demand shows, over the Internet. In my case, once the show is playing, all is fine. But if you start fast forwarding you can overrun the download buffer in the window appears telling you that you have to wait until more of the show is downloaded. You have to press the OK button to add knowledge. This is a pain.

I sometimes give crappy B movies a chance. I then fast forward to the good parts, A lousy 90 minute flick trimmed down to 15 minutes sometimes can be entertaining. With DirectTV, this doesn't work for very well for On Demand because it I keep overrunning the download buffer.   This is not a problem if you fast forwarding shows recorded on the DVR.