DVR fees?!?

[dwarren2]

I remember when I was in grade school, they taught us how to use a rotary phone rather than pick up the phone and tell the operator what number we wanted to call.

BTW, from the OP's comment, I bet he's north of the border.

 

[navychop]

I remember a friend in college who's dorm room was raided because he had extra phones and was only paying for one.

I still can't get over that. They ACTUALLY raided him "to set an example" I guess. Good thing he was tipped off.

 

[3HaloODST]

Why a DVR fee?
Repeat after me:

Because they can.

And BTW the $6 doesn't account for the additional $3 DVR fee ($10 vs $7) per additional DVR receiver while they tout the "account level" DVR fee.

...and then there's the ridiculous extra $7 just for the ability to provide STANDARD DEFINITION (AKA OLD 1953 NTSC SIGNAL) to a second TV. Then there's the extra $3 for "whole home DVR" and the bogus $7 fee for the first Joey. The Hopper/Joey is a little more fairly priced than the Duo-ViPs though, in my opinion, at least they can actually provide WHDVR and HD to all TVs. $17 for the 622/722/722k is outrageous. At $14 per month the 222K is useless unless you have an SDTV on TV2. Even then you'd be better off with two 211Ks since they have DVR capabilities.

 

[Dishman1978]

I got your solution to get rid of DVR fees....

Go to good will, pick up a vcr, set it to record at various times, set your reciever to auto tune at those various times as well....

Im sure you can still find VHS tapes somewhere. Lol

 

[garys]

Got used to HD and dvr, vcr looks worse than old cable feeds.

 

[Dishman1978]

Got used to HD and dvr, vcr looks worse than old cable feeds.

True, and thats the price we pay for convinence.

By the way, the vcr idea is not a real solution, it'll "work". But it aint pretty.

 

[Claude Greiner]

DISH tried doing no DVR Fees with some of their first DVR receivers like the 501, 508 and 721.

The issue was that everyone who was signing up for service was too dam cheap to pay the $50 to upgrade to a DVR receiver and expected it to be free.

So they did what people ask, gave them the DVR for free and screwd everyone with a DVR fee forever.

 

[TNGTony]

Don't put all (or any) of the blame on cheap customers. Dish could have done it both ways and they did for a short while where they had fees for lease customers and no fees for people who bought their boxes. That changed about 10 years ago.

 

[MikeD-C05]

When there were NO DVR fees at all and they had the 501/508/721/921 pvrs to offer, DISH added more subs than ever before. Charlie even advertised it as:" Tapeless record for Free, while the other guys(DIRECTV) charged $9.99 to do the same thing." DISH charging no fees even forced DIRECTV to lower their dvr fees back down to around $4.99 to compete . Although now DIRECTV just hiked their dvr fees back to $8.00. IF DISH would go back to NO dvr fees they would once again slaughter the competition and add subs like crazy ,just like they did in the early 2000s ,when they offered the 501/721 pvrs. Which is exactly what DISH needs right now to survive and thrive: MORE Subs. Instead they seem to make up for the lack more subs by adding more FEES, on the remaining few that stay with DISH. Stupid and short sighted for a company to do .

 

[dare2be]

I'll have to go back to my old bills, but I signed up in 2001 with a 501 PVR and my bills all said "DishPVR plan with AT150" back then, no DVR fees. I believe that stayed like that until 2007 when I moved to a different house and got a DHA plan...still no DVR line item until 2009, I believe. I guess the "DishPVR plan" includes the DVR fee.

 

[TNGTony]

I still have an active and there is still no fee on that unit.

 

[upsss]

Many of you will not remember, but Ma Bell used to charge extra for every phone in your house. And, you had to get your phone from them. It didn't matter that you only had one phone line and could only hold one conversation at a time. Before that, you had a party line which only allowed you to use your phone when your neighbor was not using his.

Answer? Because they can.

They used to charge you also for "Touch Tone" vs. "Rotary".

 

[dare2be]

They used to charge you also for "Touch Tone" vs. "Rotary".

That was until they offered the "Touch Tone for Life" promo...

 

[Claude Greiner]

When there were NO DVR fees at all and they had the 501/508/721/921 pvrs to offer, DISH added more subs than ever before. Charlie even advertised it as:" Tapeless record for Free, while the other guys(DIRECTV) charged $9.99 to do the same thing." DISH charging no fees even forced DIRECTV to lower their dvr fees back down to around $4.99 to compete . Although now DIRECTV just hiked their dvr fees back to $8.00. IF DISH would go back to NO dvr fees they would once again slaughter the competition and add subs like crazy ,just like they did in the early 2000s ,when they offered the 501/721 pvrs. Which is exactly what DISH needs right now to survive and thrive: MORE Subs. Instead they seem to make up for the lack more subs by adding more FEES, on the remaining few that stay with DISH. Stupid and short sighted for a company to do .

Yes, if Dish or Directv offered the DVR for Free and didn't charge a DVR Fee they would probably sign up customers left and right and everyone would get a DVR.

You got to consider that DVR's cost satellite and cable companies more money to manufacture, and you got the ongoing maintaince issues because the hard drives do go bad and need to eventually be replaced.

The people on this board are tech savvy, and see the value in spending money upfront to save money on an ongoing basis.

I have been selling satellite for 14 years, and I can tell you from experence that 90% of the customers out there will not spend any money out of pocket unless they absolutly have to. All they want to hear is free free free.

Almost every customer on this board I sell to requests an HD/DVR with their installation. Typical customer calls me on the phone, and we are at about 60% who get DVR's. I had a lady yesterday who got Directv and wanted (2) TV's with HD. I have to fight with her for 2 hours, because when you don't get DVR with Directv they charge $99 for the second HD receiver.

So the option was get a DVR, spend $10 per month and we can upgrade both TV's to HD for Free, or spend $99 and get just HD on both TV's.

Ofcourse she wanted both TV's with (2) HD receivers for Free, and you just can't do that configuration for free on Directv with their current promotions.

Then I had to hear that she tried ordering Directv a month ago and they offered her 2 HD receivers for free and didn't require her to get the DVR. I knew darn well she was lying to me to try to get a deal, or she was sold a DVR and she didn't know it.

People just do stupid things to try to save a buck. I always look at it like this, what is the big deal about spending an extra $10 per month?

You go out to Lunch and its an easily $10, Two Gallons of Gas is almost $10, there are so many things people waste their money on every month, yet its impossible for some people to see getting a DVR,

 

[NotMe546]

When there were NO DVR fees at all and they had the 501/508/721/921 pvrs to offer, DISH added more subs than ever before. Charlie even advertised it as:" Tapeless record for Free, while the other guys(DIRECTV) charged $9.99 to do the same thing." DISH charging no fees even forced DIRECTV to lower their dvr fees back down to around $4.99 to compete . Although now DIRECTV just hiked their dvr fees back to $8.00. IF DISH would go back to NO dvr fees they would once again slaughter the competition and add subs like crazy ,just like they did in the early 2000s ,when they offered the 501/721 pvrs. Which is exactly what DISH needs right now to survive and thrive: MORE Subs. Instead they seem to make up for the lack more subs by adding more FEES, on the remaining few that stay with DISH. Stupid and short sighted for a company to do .

I don't believe adding more subs is in their business plan.

 

[Barry Erick]

There already is a usage fee for the toilet. The quarterly sewer charge. Since we are on a corner, we pay double.

 

[CK SatGuy]

Yes, if Dish or Directv offered the DVR for Free and didn't charge a DVR Fee they would probably sign up customers left and right and everyone would get a DVR.

You got to consider that DVR's cost satellite and cable companies more money to manufacture, and you got the ongoing maintaince issues because the hard drives do go bad and need to eventually be replaced.

The people on this board are tech savvy, and see the value in spending money upfront to save money on an ongoing basis.

I have been selling satellite for 14 years, and I can tell you from experence that 90% of the customers out there will not spend any money out of pocket unless they absolutly have to. All they want to hear is free free free.

Almost every customer on this board I sell to requests an HD/DVR with their installation. Typical customer calls me on the phone, and we are at about 60% who get DVR's. I had a lady yesterday who got Directv and wanted (2) TV's with HD. I have to fight with her for 2 hours, because when you don't get DVR with Directv they charge $99 for the second HD receiver.

So the option was get a DVR, spend $10 per month and we can upgrade both TV's to HD for Free, or spend $99 and get just HD on both TV's.

Ofcourse she wanted both TV's with (2) HD receivers for Free, and you just can't do that configuration for free on Directv with their current promotions.

Then I had to hear that she tried ordering Directv a month ago and they offered her 2 HD receivers for free and didn't require her to get the DVR. I knew darn well she was lying to me to try to get a deal, or she was sold a DVR and she didn't know it.

People just do stupid things to try to save a buck. I always look at it like this, what is the big deal about spending an extra $10 per month?

You go out to Lunch and its an easily $10, Two Gallons of Gas is almost $10, there are so many things people waste their money on every month, yet its impossible for some people to see getting a DVR,

I don't understand why people wouldn't want a DVR nowadays, especially a HD DVR. VCRs and DVD recorders aren't going to record shows in HD. In fact, I think the HD DVR is the only way to record shows in HD until we finally see some blu-ray recorders here in the U.S. (The UK and Japan seem to be enjoying those already.)

 

[dare2be]

The powers that be (read: MPAA) will never let that happen.

 

[navychop]

Hauppage.

 

[Mochuf]

Hauppage.

+1