I've noticed Time Warner Cable and Dish Network competitive adds against Directv have picked up lately. I hope that gives Directv something to think about (Stop charging $10 HD access fee and don't charge for MRV) LOL.
Directv may have to evaluate their strategy for paving the future demands for HD and technology improvements. Do they want to do it with less subscribers paying more? That didn't work for Dish! And I think it would be a mistake to hand us a rate increase in the form of a fee revamping scheme.
I think most of us want more HD and MRV but I at least think that Directv should value their increased subscriber base and use that and potential increases in subscribers to pay the bill the old fashioned way. Offer the most at a sensible cost. When I switch service providers, the first thing I look at is what is this going to cost me. And do I need all their offered services or can I save more money by substituting something else with another subscription. There may be a lot of people that decide if they want MRV, they will pay for it with their Directv budget rather than cheerfully handing over the increase on a monthly basis.
My brother is a miser when it comes to TV services. He has a lot of good techno products and buys high for entertainment reasons. But when it comes to handing Directv an additional $120/year to watch it in HD, he refused and still doesn't have HD access or the newer HD DVRs or the increased hard drive space which really doesn't matter that much when he's only recording SD only.
I had the Vip722 and it had two modes for tuning the second tuner. Dual and single mode. In single mode, the second tuner could be utilized for picture-in-picture via the STB even if your TV wasn't capable for picture-in-picture. In dual mode, the second tuner went to another room along with access to DVR but all this done on the SD format and no HD capability for 2nd tuner output. I prefer dedicated DVRs per room so I'm not limited to SD only or one tuner per room. There is a trade-off of capabilities to get the two room DVR. And I also could not record two shows at the same time being that I chose TV out to feed my daughter's TV unless I actually went to her room and setup the recording myself. Otherwise, she would not be able to record anything at all. So basically, sharing a DVR means losing one tuner to the second room unless you're sharing your recordings between your bedroom and livingroom. Sling technology is more capable but expensive. I also had the capability to copy/move via a portable USB hard drive but they wanted $40/receiver in addition to my portable HD for that capability. A completely different approach to MRV.
Just my thoughts on the topic...
