The Truth behind Dish DVR's and TiVo...
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Nope, you're paying the $5 DVR fee because dish likes to nickle and dime us. Has nothing to do with Tivo.
Dish put the fees on the DVRs before the TiVo lawsuit. After they saw the money DIRECTV was making, they decided to switch from free DVR to fee DVR. They even went farther than DIRECTV and do a per DVR fee, where DIRECTV does a per account fee.
In fairness, the money to develop new DVRs has to come from somewhere, which is the excuse they give for what we pay. Basically, you're paying to shake down the 922. Maybe some day a portion of you $5 per month will go to TiVo, but not currently.
No, it won't be a portion of the current fee, should Dish ultimately lose this case, Dish will increase the DVR fee, blame Tivo's lawsuit, and we will all pay more.
You know Dish used to have DVR's that did not have a fee when they first became available.
I personally think it was a great idea, but the issue was that there was a considerable upfront cost for the customer which people did not want to pay. What DISH Network ended up doing was switching to the Fee based model, gave the DVR away for FREE and then just charged the customer a DVR fee forever.
The members on this board see the value to spending a little bit of money upfront to save on DVR fees over the long run, but the typical un-educated customer would rather have it the other way around as long as they can get everything for Free upfront.
Its sad but true!
I personally think it was a great idea, but the issue was that there was a considerable upfront cost for the customer which people did not want to pay. What DISH Network ended up doing was switching to the Fee based model, gave the DVR away for FREE and then just charged the customer a DVR fee forever.
The members on this board see the value to spending a little bit of money upfront to save on DVR fees over the long run, but the typical un-educated customer would rather have it the other way around as long as they can get everything for Free upfront.
Its sad but true!
It is very hard to blame Charlie for eventually charging a DVR fee when all the cable companies and Direct TV were charging them and getting all the revenue that Dish wasn't getting. Not a great way to keep up with the always escalating costs of competing with much deeper pocket companies.
However, it would be nice if Dish would put a max DVR fee for say 2 DVR's. They are killer fees.
Perhaps they can develop a way for a Non-DVR receiver to share the hardrive in a DVR much like fios does Instead of having the VIP211/222 hook up to a EHD why not hook up to a server that would have a hardrive big enough to handle the whole house
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Very unlikely to happen at least in the form of CAT 5 cabling. If they can do something involving standard RG-6 cabling that's probably doable. But I really doubt that they want to have installers messing with networking gear along with satellite gear.
They claim that HomePlug is 85Mbit/sec, which is quite a bit faster than 802.11g. I'd still rather see a hardwired ethernet solution, but you have a point about installers having too much to handle as it is.
Or Dish could join MoCA, but they'd have to re-engineer the multiswitches to allow non-satellite traffic between the ports.
Or Dish could join MoCA, but they'd have to re-engineer the multiswitches to allow non-satellite traffic between the ports.
What's wrong with CAT5 ? It's capable of 1000Mb/s. U-Verse uses, or can use, CAT5 for in-home wiring for connecting set-tops inside a customer's home.
DISH went from providing DVRs without DVR fees, to now charging more DVR fees than DirecTV, because DirecTV only charges one $5 fee no matter how many DVRs you have.
Despite the fact I think TiVo's current contempt charge is total BS and DISH will win on appeal, I think the higher DVR fees might have to do with the TiVo suit, because the lawsuit has cost each over $120 million (want I heard) since the contempt proceeding in 5/08. Lawyers and court proceedings are not cheap.
As far as MRV, TiVo just recently filed suits against ATT and Verizon for infringement of three patents, one of them is the same as in the TiVo v. DISH case, the other two are new patents, one of which has to do with MRV invention. Notice DirecTV is working on its MRV openly, but TiVo cannot sue DirecTV because they have an agreement not to sue.
If DISH is not rolling out its MRV, it could be that they want to wait for the air to clear with the TiVo v. ATT/Verizon lawsuit. On the other hand, under DISH's request, the PTO has recently rejected part of the TiVo's old patent related to the TiVo v. DISH case. If the PTO rejection stands, it can also make it unlikely that TiVo can win its case against ATT/Verizon because both the two new patents (the MRV patent being one of them) are based on this old patent.
So it is my guess that both the higher DVR fees, and the MRV development may have to do with the lawsuits.
Despite the fact I think TiVo's current contempt charge is total BS and DISH will win on appeal, I think the higher DVR fees might have to do with the TiVo suit, because the lawsuit has cost each over $120 million (want I heard) since the contempt proceeding in 5/08. Lawyers and court proceedings are not cheap.
As far as MRV, TiVo just recently filed suits against ATT and Verizon for infringement of three patents, one of them is the same as in the TiVo v. DISH case, the other two are new patents, one of which has to do with MRV invention. Notice DirecTV is working on its MRV openly, but TiVo cannot sue DirecTV because they have an agreement not to sue.
If DISH is not rolling out its MRV, it could be that they want to wait for the air to clear with the TiVo v. ATT/Verizon lawsuit. On the other hand, under DISH's request, the PTO has recently rejected part of the TiVo's old patent related to the TiVo v. DISH case. If the PTO rejection stands, it can also make it unlikely that TiVo can win its case against ATT/Verizon because both the two new patents (the MRV patent being one of them) are based on this old patent.
So it is my guess that both the higher DVR fees, and the MRV development may have to do with the lawsuits.
My original point, Dish Network customers are paying more,
a fee per DVR were with DirecTV it's one fee per account.
I have two DVR's so I'm paying more having Dish then with DirecTV.
So switch to DirecTv.
You look at your total bill and what you get for it. Then you look at DirecTv and how much they would charge for the same level of service. Pick the lowest and go for it.
