watching internal & external hard drive contents withour Dish subscription

[kmmcdonald]

We are thinking of dropping Dish. However, if we do so, and if we own the receiver, can we still watch the contents of the internal hard drive, and the external USB hard drive?

thanks

 

[TroubleshooterMike]

Yes you should be able to access the hard drive content, just disconnect the sat feed to the receiver.

 

[dishrich]

HANG on a sec...from what I've seen (several) times this is only partially true...but I'll also add the disclaimer "others & YMMV"...

While you CAN access the internal HDD, you will NOT be able to access any external HDD's. You will have to x-fer any/all programs from the external HDD into the internal one BEFORE you disconnect service. (& yes, disco the sat feed from the receiver AFTER you've done you x-fers, but BEFORE you have them shut you off)
When I went through this when I upgraded from 722's to Ho's, the authorization to do HDD x-fers appears to die pretty quickly after the receiver stops having any dish signals sent to it; once this happens, it just flat out denies you access to the external HDD.

 

[dwarren2]

You might want to look into keeping the cheapest package. Since the ehd is keyed to the account, if you ever want to get Dish again, you will have a new account number and programs on the old ehd will not be accessible.

 

[ChadT41]

Also, if you disconnect the sat cable from the receiver, the. Disconnect, you can continue to watch programming until the receiver requires a callout and authorization. This is anywhere from 7-30 days(it cycles at a minimum of every 30 days but it depends on your last receiver auth and callout)

 

[boba]

Also the models react differently my 625 is still playing recorded programming months after disconnect.

 

[dishrich]

Since the ehd is keyed to the account, if you ever want to get Dish again, you will have a new account number and programs on the old ehd will not be accessible.

Are you 100% sure about being assigned a new account # if they disco & come back??? Why wouldn't E* just reactivate their old account# again???

 

[KAB]

Are you 100% sure about being assigned a new account # if they disco & come back??? Why wouldn't E* just reactivate their old account# again???

He's is 100% correct. Once cancelled, the account # is history.

 

[ChadT41]

That is 100% true. They assign a new account using "former customer promotions" to be able to utilize a new promotion code. Otherwise they couldn't apply the discounts for being a returning customer