Many online dealers sell DirecTivo's between $0 and $49. Many brick and morter retailers sell them for $99. The VOD fee recoups money Dish loses on R&D on DVRs. I think Dish aims their prices at cable more than DirecTV. Most cable companies are getting between $5 and $15 extra per month per DVR. Dish is compeats in that regaurd, but a very compelling argument can be made for DirecTivo over DishDVR.
Why DVR Fees?
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korsjs said:
I also PAID for my receivers. Why should I have to pay to use them monthly after I paid upfront.
gfr437 said:You pay money for gasoline to make that car run, eh?
It does take someone's effort to put the programming guide together. It
took developers and programmers to put it in a format that could be used
by the DVR unit.
They charge the $5/month because they can, and because TIVO charges
more!
If you purchase a 501 or 508 or 721 there is no DVR fee. You could
call dish itself and get a 501 for $99 if you were an existing member, even
less with credit-card auto pay and so forth. (1-800-333-DISH). Now, I
don't know if that promotion is still available.
You are comparing apples and oranges.
When you buy the car you buy it from one of the big 3. So, where does the gas money go to? Ford? GM? NO way! It goes to the oil companies. BIG DIFFERENCE.
If paying the DVR fee is for the software - fine then say it. But to be able to use a product that I already paid for is a bunch of horse "road apples".
dbronstein said:
Can one call dish and say "take the DVR fee off my bill I don't want to pay it?"
Would would dish do? Cancel your account?
Just curious...
They probably won't cancel your account, but will cancel the ability to use your DVR. The difference is that you are still paying but not able to watch anything.kvhollis said:
What makes you think that? They control the DVR software, and each box is addressable. It's trivial to have the ability to disable parts of the box.NightRyder said:
I've read here that Dish won't activate any 522s privately purchased. If a unit has to be activated to work, can't it be deactivated?NightRyder said:
Wishbone said:
They certainly can disable or refuse to activate the unit, but I haven't seen anything that would lead me to believe they have the ability to just disable the DVR portion of it. The last receivers they did have this control over were the DishPlayer 7100/7200. That software was written by MS not E*.
NightRyder
SimpleSimon said:
Remember were talking about E* programmers here
Seriously, I don't think that E* current DVR's were designed to function as anything but what they are. The stupid VOD fee was just an opportunistic $ grab by E*. They really have no reason to make it optional. This would be easy enough to verify. Someone with a 510 or 522 could call Dish and tell them they don't want to pay the VOD fee anymore but still want to use the receiver. The CS reaction should be pretty amusing.
NightRyder
Good point, but this brings up an interesting idea. If you refuse to plug in the phone line, can't they disable one of the tuners or face a charge? That is a pretty detailed level of control. This is, of course speculation on my part, but I think they can do anything with the box, if the proper hooks are in the software, except make it work properly..NightRyder said:
Wishbone said:Good point, but this brings up an interesting idea. If you refuse to plug in the phone line, can't they disable one of the tuners or face a charge? That is a pretty detailed level of control. This is, of course speculation on my part, but I think they can do anything with the box, if the proper hooks are in the software, except make it work properly..
On the 522 if you don't plug in the phone line they'll charge you $5 a month but I've never heard of a case where they diabled one of the tuners. I've always wondered what would happen if you disconnected the phone line from the 522 after install. How would Dish know unless it's set to call home every so often?
NightRyder
I have unplugged it when moving furniture and accidently forgot to plug it back in... After a couple of days, I got the warning message about the charge. I read somewhere here that they disabled tuner #2 if you left it unplugged and there would be a monthly charge to re-activate it... Not sure though.NightRyder said:
NightRyder said:Remember were talking about E* programmers here
Seriously, I don't think that E* current DVR's were designed to function as anything but what they are. The stupid VOD fee was just an opportunistic $ grab by E*. They really have no reason to make it optional. This would be easy enough to verify. Someone with a 510 or 522 could call Dish and tell them they don't want to pay the VOD fee anymore but still want to use the receiver. The CS reaction should be pretty amusing.
NightRyder
Yeah it would! Whoever decides to call - why not record the conversation and post it on the web for all to hear. I will even pay for the server space and bandwidth.
Khan
GaryPen said:
I heard that too! How 'bout this.. I test the phone line idea and you test the pop-rocks idea.. j/k
