Some Interesting Dish Info

[Stargazer]

That's BIGGEST mistake of you and other "I'm agree" ppl !

Dish is TESTING the 'water', ie the market ! You miss the important point ! Re-read that Bolan's article closely.

Many of us are not going to agree to the fee that they are charging for external HDD capability through the usb port but if they do not have something to gain from these extra features that they are trying to give us, then we will not see them. There had to be some time and money involved with developing the software but I'm sure 90% of that $40 will be profit, depending on how many will end up using it. It is just like everything else, its about what the marketplace is willing to pay for something. If they find that many wont bite at $40 they will drop it to $30 and so on. They should make all receivers be dual tuners and then an upgrade to add DVR functionality with an external HDD and provide that for the $5.99 additional monthly fee. Perhaps they can provide a larger HDD or other ones that are nonproprietary for an additional fee per month. Many people wouldn't mind paying to get additional features but there is a limit to how much one can pay each month. They are trying to maximize their profits, as everyone else tries to do.

 

[Hall]

So external drive support and networking are coming to the 722 as well?

I believe P Smith has indicated that the 722 is no different than the 622 other than a larger hard drive. Similar to how the 522 and 625 are so closely related, down to running the same software.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I can't see hanging my hat on something that a handful of people saw on the DIRECTV website that was soon after removed and never mentioned again.

The story from ebononvic's source(s) was that it was never available. Sounds a lot like a weather balloon to me.

Does anyone have a clip of what the package included, or is this all WAG? Pricewise, it could have easily been Premier with HD and no DVR fees (or maybe even just Premiere with no DVR fees). I can't see them doing away with mirroring fees as everyone would load up on extra receivers.

I am not hanging my hopes on this at all. I am merely showing a contrast between the two sat companies and where they are headed in relation to fees , pricing for hd etc. THis thread was at dbstalk website and is over 10 pages long , and it was supposedly on the Directv website as a package you could sub to for a few short hours and then it was gone. Some think it was a mistake and some thought it was Directv testing the responses they got from it. They are supposedly interested in the responses they have received online about the proposed package.

IF this package come true with no additional receiver fees, no dvr fees and no extra costs for hd , this will truely be a killer of all other competition. THere is talk on the Directv forums that the PRemier pack will not include free dvr service any longer and that newer customers will not receive it for free. All older customers with PRemier will be grandfathered. If this is true then DIrectv will have to come up with another programming pack that does include free dvr service or they WILL be at a competitive disadvantage with DISH.

My point in the contrasts and speculation about the proposed pack is that DISH has been moving to more and more CAble like fees PER RECEIVER and Directv has always been PER ACCOUNT on their fees. DISH has the highest price for hd pack at 20.00 a month -inflated with the VOOM pack , and DIrectv has it at 9.99 or 10.99 and they are supposedly not going up when they add all the new hd channels. IF this All Access pack becomes a reality or something similiar with no additional receiver fees and no dvr fees and the hd pack is included- this will force a CHANGE in the way DISH does business to compete. IF this happens DISH subscribers will benefit. So LETS all hope that this pack becomes a reality so we can see a REDUCTION of fees , hd pack and the elimination of additional receiver fees.

 

[harshness]

I am merely showing a contrast between the two sat companies and where they are headed in relation to fees , pricing for hd etc.

I don't see it this way. If their offerings were in any way comparable, you might have a leg to stand on. Asserting that DIRECTV's HD package is somehow a better value is a difficult position to defend.

THis thread was at dbstalk website and is over 10 pages long , and it was supposedly on the Directv website as a package you could sub to for a few short hours and then it was gone.

Yet nowhere in that thread did anyone provide proof of what the package represented. This is why I suggested that it may all be WAG (wild-ass guessing).

Some think it was a mistake and some thought it was Directv testing the responses they got from it.

I have no doubt that it was a weather balloon. To suggest that this "slip" fortells the future is silly.

My point in the contrasts and speculation about the proposed pack is that DISH has been moving to more and more CAble like fees PER RECEIVER and Directv has always been PER ACCOUNT on their fees.

The only fee difference that you describe is the DVR fee (which is no longer included in the Choice Premiere package). I can't imagine how you could consider this a trend as it has been that way for many months. I suppose that if DIRECTV offered a multi-TV receiver, one might consider the dual tuner fee as an indicator, but they don't and they haven't showed any inclination since the 2005 CES to do so. To serve two televisions independently with DIRECTV receivers, you have to use two receivers, each with its own mirroring fee; no way of consolidating fees.

 

[jsanders]

And if the competition does the same thing for less cost, or free, the customer will migrate as well.

Nobody has said we are asking for a free lunch. We are paying for DVR service, many of us paid for our DVRs, we pay subscription fees, access fees, HD enabling fees, hard drive access rental fees, dish wants to charge us for accessing reserved space on our hard drives, and now they are charging us to access external hard drive space. Give me a brake!

WOW!! All this anger by me just saying that these types of fees are not 100% profit. I never once said I was for or against the fee. So you give me a break!!!

Okay. What would you like broken? An arm? A leg maybe? Just kidding, I couldn't pass that one up because you said break instead of brake!

Seriously though - there wasn't any anger on my part. I do suggest making a counter argument to what I said rather than telling me that I am angry. More progress is made in an argument that way.

 

[jsanders]

Microsoft does charge a fee for adding drives to their equipment. Look at the cost of the 360 drives. Much more expensive than a regular drive. I guess you would be happy if Dish charges $180 (Best Buy pricing) to add a 120GB drive to your receiver.

Good point. I was referring to Windows, however, it looks like you are right about the xbox. $180 is a expensive for 120GB. It looks like they are doing this with some sort of lock on the hard drive. Looks like you can still use your own hard drive if you are wiling to put some time into it.

 

[VinceT3]

I find it odd what everyone is talking about with the codecs.. if they were paying for a licencing fee for the codecs it would be on each box not for the hd attached.. the codecs would be needed for recording and displaying all items.. so basically they are already paying for the codecs, again this is just free money for something they've already done and paid for..

As Borat says "GREAT SUCCESS!!"

 

[John Kotches]

Many of us are not going to agree to the fee that they are charging for external HDD capability through the usb port but if they do not have something to gain from these extra features that they are trying to give us, then we will not see them. There had to be some time and money involved with developing the software but I'm sure 90% of that $40 will be profit, depending on how many will end up using it. It is just like everything else, its about what the marketplace is willing to pay for something. If they find that many wont bite at $40 they will drop it to $30 and so on. They should make all receivers be dual tuners and then an upgrade to add DVR functionality with an external HDD and provide that for the $5.99 additional monthly fee. Perhaps they can provide a larger HDD or other ones that are nonproprietary for an additional fee per month. Many people wouldn't mind paying to get additional features but there is a limit to how much one can pay each month. They are trying to maximize their profits, as everyone else tries to do.

I'm not sure you have a firm grasp of the actual costs to deliver a software project.....

Besides the people coding (however many it is) -- you have to pay for systems to code on; ancillary hardware; test systems; test labs; project management staff and managerial staff.

Software is similar to developing CPUs or Pharmaceuticals. It may cost lots of money to get the first X out the door. X+1 X+2 ... X+N are simply a matter of replication. So the original X could have cost $3 million dollars or $300 million dollars (for some items; not this).

Here's the thing; you have to guess in advance how much of X you're going to sell... Then distribute all of the costs across the total units sold and allow for profit margin. If you guess wrong and you're low side of unit sales you've probably lost money. If you guess and sales exceed expectations that's a good thing.

I wish it was as simple as saying "It only costs a few dollars". Been there; done that.

Cheers,

 

[John Kotches]

I find it odd what everyone is talking about with the codecs.. if they were paying for a licencing fee for the codecs it would be on each box not for the hd attached.. the codecs would be needed for recording and displaying all items.. so basically they are already paying for the codecs, again this is just free money for something they've already done and paid for..

As Borat says "GREAT SUCCESS!!"

See my previous about costs.

The codec licensing costs for MPEG-2 / MPEG-4 / VC-1 are part of the price paid by Dish for the base decoder package.

However what it doesn't cover is costs for IP* involved in the DRM scheme and encryption.

IP == Intellectual Property aka Patents.

Cheers,

 

[stevvot]

Okay. What would you like broken? An arm? A leg maybe? Just kidding, I couldn't pass that one up because you said break instead of brake!

Um, it is 'break' instead of 'brake' in this case.

 

[navychop]

"If they charge a DVR fee on the 211 if an external hard drive is added then they should NOT charge the $40 fee and should PROVIDE the hard drive. That is no different than upgrading to a DVR and would be cheaper for Dish to do than to swap it for an HD DVR."

Don't forget, that ViP211 was generally provided cheaper than the ViP622. No free hard drive.

 

[jsanders]

This no doubt due to the fact that Microsoft is not in the business of saving copyrighted material being legally streamed onto the drive (requiring encryption, and DRM), at least not where Dish Network/Echostar DVR's are concerned.

iTunes has DRM in it, and they don't charge you to add hard drive space. It streams video as well. They even invested actual R&D hours to develop the fairplay DRM.

Doing some sort of encryption doesn't have to cost a lot to develop. You can use pgp to encrypt and decrupt stuff on a gpl license. Dish has used GPL agreements in the past. Dish, has choices that cost almost nothing.

However, let's say that dish actually pays royalties to someone for DRM. Do you really think it would cost $40/seat? There is no way dish would pay anything like that. Maybe a couple of dollars, but not $40.

 

[8bitbytes]

It is a fee - plain and simple.

It's simply amazing that at the same time people want Dish to stop line item billing and just cram everything into one price, people are demanding that there be a line item justification for the one time enabling fee.

IT IS A FEE

Like "turning" on your home phone or "turning" on your water service. It's a fee - pay it or don't pay it. It doesn't matter what any other company does.

Everyone that rejects the fee immediately out of hand, send your properly composed emails to the ceo email address and tell them this is a bad idea.

Since it hasn't even been made available yet, you can't blame those who are willing to pay the fee for the fee not being thrown out so hurry up. We can all agree that free is better than fee!

 

[Smith P.]

OK, now I'm missing point of reading proponent's posts.

If you agree, you'll pay - why you came here and fight for the company's way to milk money from the air ?!

What is a value your posts have here ?

Assuring and pleasuring Dish in their anonced fee ?!

 

[8bitbytes]

You still posting in the Dish section? I thought you would have moved over to the cable/DirecTV section where external service is free.

I'm no proponent except apparently where you need to make your own "helpful" posts...

I'll clear it up for you: It is a fee - pay it or don't pay it, your choice.

 

[Smith P.]

So, should we not see your [Dish] propaganda here anymore?

 

[8bitbytes]

So, should we not see your [Dish] propaganda here anymore?

Save your labels and accusations for the kids forum...

 

[JAG72]

Okay. What would you like broken? An arm? A leg maybe? Just kidding, I couldn't pass that one up because you said break instead of brake! .

Your right I did say break because that is they way to spell it in the context it was used. You must want me to fix your brakes on your car.

 

[MikeD-C05]

I don't see it this way. If their offerings were in any way comparable, you might have a leg to stand on. Asserting that DIRECTV's HD package is somehow a better value is a difficult position to defend.Yet nowhere in that thread did anyone provide proof of what the package represented. This is why I suggested that it may all be WAG (wild-ass guessing).I have no doubt that it was a weather balloon. To suggest that this "slip" fortells the future is silly.The only fee difference that you describe is the DVR fee (which is no longer included in the Choice Premiere package). I can't imagine how you could consider this a trend as it has been that way for many months. I suppose that if DIRECTV offered a multi-TV receiver, one might consider the dual tuner fee as an indicator, but they don't and they haven't showed any inclination since the 2005 CES to do so. To serve two televisions independently with DIRECTV receivers, you have to use two receivers, each with its own mirroring fee; no way of consolidating fees.

I am not saying that Directv is better than DISH or that their existing offerings in HD beats DISH. I am saying if the All ACCESS pack become a reality and it includes no dvr fees, no additional receiver fees and no extra cost for hd , then it will be a superior offering in PRICING and it will cause many new subs to go to Directv as well as many DISH subs too. Especially if DIRECT adds all the hd channels they say they will and THEY DO NOT GO UP ON PRICING as they have publicly STATED they won't. IF this becomes a true pricing pack then it will cause DISH to have to reconsider a lot of its FEES and its pricing on the HD pack. THE end result will be that all subs would benefit on both companies because of this. AINT Competition great?

 

[SpenceJT]

iTunes has DRM in it, and they don't charge you to add hard drive space. It streams video as well. They even invested actual R&D hours to develop the fairplay DRM.

Correct me if I'm wrong (as I often am) because I don't own an "i" anything, but doesn't iTunes charge for downloads?

Kind of like comparing lemons and limes don't you think? Similar, but overall so very different.