Why only one leased HD DVR when Cable leases more?

[riffjim4069]

How is it possible that my local Cable Co. will let me lease three HD DVRs with no money down, while Dish Network charges a $299 upgrade fee and will allow customers to lease only one HD DVR? Granted the SA8300HD DVR isn't in the same league as the Dish 622---and doesn't have an ATSC tuner---but they do provide all the basic HD DVR functions.

Are cable TV's pockets that deep? Is E* that cheap? Or is cable doing a much better job of keeping their hardware acquisition costs under control?

Offhand, I would say cable is doing a much better job keeping their costs under control. I've heard it mentioned that E*'s cost for the 622 is between $500 - $600 per unit. What ever happened to economy of scale and when can we expect Dish HD DVRs to drop down to an affordable $299 price point. Any idea what it costs cable for their HD DVR (SA or Moto)?

Besides the one time upgrade fee of $299, E* still charges a montly $6 leased HD receiver fee and, in many cases, an additional $5.98 HD DVR fee for each DVR on the account. Cable charges an $8.95 HD DVR rental fee, plus their $4.99 HD DVR fee coveres an entire account...all HD DVRs are covered. Plus, FiOS TV charges $13.95 per rented HD DVR but, like cable, there are no upfront lease fees and there are no additional charges for FiOS HD or DVR service...it's built into the rental price of the receiver.

 

[Bob Haller]

I am anxiously waiting for fios tv, the broadband part is working well here, 30 bucks a month for 5 mega bites

 

[BFG]

The mystery of satellite.

It would be great for satellite to remove the contracts and not charge lease "upgrade fees" but for some reason they don't seem able to do it.

Perhaps because satellite develops their own dvrs and they cost more, cable dvrs are massed produced.

 

[motorcycle_rider]

12 Million potential is not mass production?

 

[rc811002]

11,990,000 of these customers have only the abilty to s-p-e-l-l HDTV, with a que card! Most are still watching 19" RCA's and admiring the color picture.....

 

[motorcycle_rider]

11,990,000 of these customers have only the abilty to s-p-e-l-l HDTV, with a que card! Most are still watching 19" RCA's and admiring the color picture.....

I knew a comment something along those lines would come thru after I made mine. You are right most people are not interested in HDTV at all. A co-worker recently bought a LCD HDTV television and has absolutly no plans of subscribing to HD from any provider. I think that is going to be a situation also. The cost of upgrading is a huge restriction on upgrading. I would have ordered the 622 myself but I cannot justify the "lease upgrade fee" for equipment that is not owned.

Now to totally discredit myself. The advances in E* and D* equipment from what I have read and heard far surpases the Cable equipment. With the "fees" I believe that allows for more finances for R&D.

 

[riffjim4069]

I thought D* already had 1M HD subscribers....

 

[iKramerica]

Well, the volume on the 8000HD scientific atlanta family alone is quite high. They've been making it for quite some time (currently runs a 160GB drive, so improved over earlier ones).

I would also expect that because your cable company is local, it's easier for them to take your boxes back should you cancel, but I still agree, why charge $300? The 622 is a better product by far than the SA8000HD, 8300HD, but not $300 better. And the multi-room 8300HD is a cool product, though not sure how many companies offer it right now.

Dish right now can't make enough 622s to meet demand. And the costs to them seem to be very high. But you also can't forget that the $299 includes installation, and cable usually does NOT include installation, something that can get quite expensive depending on what you want them to do. Not sure if it approaches $300 expensive though, and cable doesn't make you pay extra install charges if you are already hooked up, while Dish won't "back out" the install charges even if you have all the dishes and cables already hooked up.

 

[navychop]

Dish will only lease one, right now, due to limited supplies. When the ViP622 is available in greater abundance, it will likely become the ONLY DVR available from Dish. And then they may allow leasing a second. In fact, I think today there is a limit of 4 leased DVRs (HD or SD) per account. I may have that number wrong.

 

[BFG]

There is a limit of 4 tuners leased. So that's 2 Dual Tuner DVRs, and if a new customer wants a second DVR they have to pay an additional $99

 

[gbjbany]

Is that an old policy. Is there an explanation of why ?
It seems a bit restrictive with all the dual tuner (sd and hd) activity and another good reason to own. For example, like many, i have 3 different rooms i wish to service and i want the benefits of dual tuners (PIP, watch and record) this policy would restrict me from that ?
just interested because that further vindicates keeping my owned 942.

 

[David Dietzel]

Cable pricing for hardware and content in my area can be interesting, to be polite.

Charter in my area also offers Scientific Atlanta crap boxes for next to nothing (exactly what they are worth) as Charter offsets the hardware cost with higher monthly programming rates than Dish Network. Cable users in my area very much indeed are paying more for their HD-DVR than the realize -- the cost is simply passed on in the higher content fees. Pretty simple.

Cable prices for programming and hardware vary widely from area to area, tho, so I suspect that one can find cable arrangements that are competitive with Echostar.

 

[riffjim4069]

Personally, I've used an SA8000HD, SA8300HD and parents Motorola DCT6412 HD DVRs. I also purchased a Sony DHG-HDD500 (ATSC/QAM) single tuner HD DVR and use the built-in to TV Guide On Screen to record OTA HD. IMO, the SA boxes are very good, and the Moto and Sony so-so...but all have done the job of providing basic HD DVR functions of recording, playback, etc.

Like most of us, I can justify paying the $299 lease upgrade fee or $649 purchase price for a 622...but does it really cost E* 300 more dollars to produce their HD DVR than it does Cable?

 

[navychop]

D* just published that it costs them about $550 to buy a DVR. I'd expect E* costs to be similar, or perhaps a bit more.

 

[SimpleSimon]

No - first, E* doesn't buy - they build their own.

Second, as has already been discussed, that $550 figure is certainly inflated.

 

[navychop]

I've only seen speculation that it's inflated. No facts. Simply reciting a few component costs doesn't cut it. We don't know their software development costs, hardware costs (though we can guess) or even what, if any, license fees or royalties they must pay. Remember the TV Guide bit? And now Tivo wants in on that action. We don't even know how many units they can spread these costs over. And I daresay there are other costs we don't even know about.

The $550 figure for D* may reflect some profit for the builder (another Rupert controlled company) but it must be fairly accurate. D* is held to some accuracy standard when they publish financial data like that. It seems to me that the E* STBs are now getting more features than the D* boxes, and that no doubt adds cost.

We'll never know. One thing is for sure- they must make money to stay in business. Even D* has gotten that idea. We may not like the ways they charge us, but they'll have to charge it one way or another. "How" may change, but the total won't, except to go up.