Rumor: DirecTV to Block OTA Reception to former customers

[GeorgeLV]

Why would Directv risk pissing so many people off by doing something so stupid? That just shows you what nut jobs actually run these companies.

Perhaps they don't mind pissing off people who decided not to be their customers anymore?

 

[slacker9876]

Don't get too attached to that either:

Cable Wants to Kill the DVR and push more ads your direction.

That would be the small, crappy cable companies that advertisers can actually push around No, not really. Comcast is the largest pay TV service in the US with over 27M subs and I would think they would be close to, if not the largest ISP in the US. Check this out and let me know if you think Comcast is still planning on dropping DVRs due to advertising pressure. Cable and satellite make their money from subscribers. While I am sure the NAB TV networks would love to ban the DVR (or VCR for that matter) it will never happen ... no way, no how.

D* is still my sweetheart anyway, but I have admitted in other threads this will not be the case if they bomb the MPEG4 migration. With the top 12 markets rolling, soon we should have data from more than 500,000 subs on the actual PQ enhancementsfor SD as well as HD bitrates. I am just saying the 6412 is a killer DVR other than it's small HD recording capacity, and that comcast is on the right track to enter a geeks heart, at least in this market, for me.

 

[charper1]

I agree they make all outward appearance right now / today that they are commited to set-top recording, but if and when they find a cost effective and marketable way to control storage on their end it will be game over.

And here is your ISP list top 5:

1. AOL, 20.8M
2. Comcast, 7.7M
3. SBC (DSL only) 6.0M
4. Earthlink (all brands), 5.4M
5. Road Runner Brand, 4.5M

http://www.isp-planet.com/research/rankings/usa.html

 

[calypsocowboy]

I'm a little more comfortable with this if it's just the H20 ahd HR20-250. We just need to be more educated. We knew that the OTA should would without the sat signal on earlier modeles. I have a HLD_HD. As long as they keep it on new boxes I'm fine. It's not the greatest but I understand D* doing it.

 

[moonman]

I'm a little more comfortable with this if it's just the H20 ahd HR10-250. We just need to be more educated. We knew that the OTA should would without the sat signal on earlier modeles. I have a HLD_HD but on the Tivo side, they have known for a while that the OTA won't work without the D* subsription. As long as they keep it on new boxes I'm fine. It's not the greatest but I understand D* doing it.

I think you need to edit your post....The HR10-250 will not be effected by the
software download...the HR20-250(not released yet) will.

 

[jpn]

Here is a SatelliteGuys Rumor that I just got in from a source that I trust.

The rumor is this...

DirecTV is getting ready to roll out software updates to its High Defition Receivers, this update will shut off the OTA tuners in the receivers when a customer cancels DirecTV service.

I am told that if a customer tries watching an OTA channel they will see a "Service Not Active" (750) message on their screen.

I can see this causing some uproar. I guess DirecTV is trying to keep people from buying their receivers just to use them as cheap OTA tuners.

More as we know it.

This sounds more like a software bug or oversight than a conspiracy. Probably somebody coded the update to simply shutdown the entire STB upon service disconnect and did not specifically target the OTA tuner.

Or perhaps there is a hardware limitation which prevents disabling the D* tuner without disabling the entire box.

Development and distribution costs of software updates is a financial reason for D* to NOT take special steps against using the OTA tuner.

 

[calypsocowboy]

Doh, editted.

 

[slacker9876]

DIRECTV's ability to disable the ATSC tuner is limited to the H20 and HR20-250 only.

-Robert

Well this would certainly dispel this as a rumor! Thanks for the heads up Scott & Robert. I understand the position they are in though. Cbl vs Sat is a battle long from over, satellite has always been superior IMO, it is too bad that D* would rather this approach. I mean dang, you pay for the equipment one way or the other via retail or commitment, or even both!