Jumping The Dish Ship

[dennispe]

I've been a Dish subscriber for several years but all the negative talk about fees, new receiver delays, high costs of new receivers, etc. has me thinking about leaving Dish. So what's the best DirectTV deal for someone who has never been a DirectTV subscriber and currently has Dish, an HDTV, and who is looking at jumping ship and wants to record HDTV? My current setup is a single Dish 6000 receiver w/8VSB/8PSK and dual dishes.

[dennispe]

Sorry, I didn't notice the other thread about this started by the administrator... However, after reading thru the other thread, I realized it was only for DTV PVR's and not a complete DirectTV/HDPVR solution. Any help is appreciated.

[boba]

Check out the dealers in the other forum most will sell you complete basic packages or Tivo with additional receivers. Don't let those low prices fool you Directv is cheaper to get into than DISH especially if you are a new customer.

[Glenn]

Jumping ship might be more appealing if there were some guarantee that D* wouldn't immediately announce that they were hiking their DVR fees and charging per receiver. After all (as they might reason), E*'s doing it, why not us?

[Jacob S]

Good point. DirecTv was charging $9.99 for the service and dropped their price to $4.99. Now that Dish is going to charge $4.99 for theirs in which their hardware is higher priced and the software is not as good, DirecTv could raise their price to $9.99 and still say that they have the better software and cheaper hardware and have some type of justification for their pricing.

[DTV]

Good point. DirecTv was charging $9.99 for the service and dropped their price to $4.99. Now that Dish is going to charge $4.99 for theirs in which their hardware is higher priced and the software is not as good, DirecTv could raise their price to $9.99 and still say that they have the better software and cheaper hardware and have some type of justification for their pricing.

Not likely. Unlike the idiots at Dish, DirecTV is trying to push the PVR. They realize that the PVR subscriber usually has a higher programming bill and is less likely to churn. DirecTV has never charged per TiVo unit. It is also highly unlikely that DirecTV will raise the price back to 9.95 since they no longer have to pay TiVo for support.

[Jacob S]

I agree with you DTV and was going to say that I would doubt that they would raise it back to $9.99 if they originally lowered the PVR price to $4.99. The thing is, how would them raising their cost to $9.99 be any different than Dish raising theirs from $0.00 to $4.99?

[dennispe]

"Jumping ship might be more appealing if there were some guarantee that D* wouldn't immediately announce that they were hiking their DVR fees and charging per receiver. After all (as they might reason), E*'s doing it, why not us?"

Obviously there are no guarantees until we all decide it's all BS and guarantee all of the providers that we will not stand for all these extra fees by voting with our wallets.

[Jacob S]

When one company raises the price or charges for something then the other is more likely to do so. This reminds me of gas stations in how one will raise the price and the others will follow. I see this quite often, then sometimes one will drop the price back again to get more business because they are cheaper again. Could Dish have done this by offering free PVR for a while after the Dishplayer was out then decided to start charging for it again once the DirecTivo was out for a while? I thought Dish started making their own line of PVR receivers so they would not have to charge a DVR fee?

[spanishannouncetable]

Competition will keep Directv from jacking rates any time soon.

E*'s DVR fee is $0 for AEP, $4.98 for AT100 & AT150, $9.99 for AT50 or less. DPs are seperate.
D*'s DVR fee is $0 for TCP, $4.99 with any other package. UTV users get charged $9.99 due to their contract with Microsoft.

E* charges DVR service per unit like cable companies' DVRs (except for DP users - all DPs are covered by their fee, whatever it is, like UTV).
D* has never charged for DVR service on each box, always tied to the account. Even UTV users get service on all their receivers for $9.99.

You can almost hear the marketing weasels in Colorado as they were devising this whole scheme -

- "At 4.98 for DVR service, we are cheaper than Directv" (unless you have more than one)

- "At $4.98 per box, we're cheaper than digital cable" (except cable subs don't have to BUY the friggin' box to use it)

- "At 100 hours, we offer more recording capacity than either" (until Samsung releases their DirecTiVos with 3x the current capacity, or the customer upgrades the drives himself [something nigh-impossible on an E* DVR])

I guarantee E* will go this route in selling these boxes. Make sure you notice what they will not / do not / CANNOT say in their ads :p

[Chris Freeland]

- "At $4.98 per box, we're cheaper than digital cable" (except cable subs don't have to BUY the friggin' box to use it)

- :p

That is not quite true for new E*DVR subs because E* is giving that first DVR510 box away Free with a 2-year contract for new subs, however I agree with you on the rest of your post..

[spanishannouncetable]

That is not quite true for new E*DVR subs because E* is giving that first DVR510 box away Free with a 2-year contract for new subs, however I agree with you on the rest of your post..

Yes, but a 2-year contract is not required for any cable DVR. You can keep it a week and hand it back without penalty.

The new E* free 510/301 deal requires 2 years of $4.99 DVR fees and $4.99 extra receiver fees as both receivers have to stay active. They are using this as a roundabout way of charging $240 for the equipment. Cancel early, and you will be slapped with up to $360 in penalties.

You are still paying for it, it just takes 2 years or $360.