PVR Fee on 921? Who cares

[Kagato]

I was thinking about the PVR fee on the 921. I thought about it and came to the conclusion that I don't care. Why? Because I currently pay 5.99 a month for locals. Locals almost always seem over compressed. According to the Tech Chat Dish will be paying tribune to collect DTV information, including subchannel information. It's a wash as far as I'm concerned. I get to drop locals, I have to pay a fee.

Does this mean I'll be the first one to buy a 921? No. I will most likely wait until the HD Tivo comes out. Or at least enough is peiced together from the Beta program for me to decide what way to go. However, the fee won't be an issue for me.

Now if I had a 522, yeah, I'd start to care. But I already have a 721. I've got everything I need.

[lonnman]

My only concern is somehow they will force or push all 501, 508, and 721 people off when they need a replacement, or just say there is now a fee for all DVR boxes. They don't seem to have a clear plan. I am on the fence with the 921/HD Tivo, its all going to depend on price of the box, features of each box, HD content available, and the monthly price for HD content. Maybe we can find something out on the next Charlie Chat?????

My only other theory on the Dish DVOD fees is that they may know something that we don't about D* via the merger, or they are floating the fee increases, kind of like an airline would do and hope that D* also increases them as well. Time will tell.

Jeff

[Peluso]

My only concern is somehow they will force or push all 501, 508, and 721 people off when they need a replacement, or just say there is now a fee for all DVR boxes. They don't seem to have a clear plan.

Oh, I think the plan is very clear. To keep it short, if the current VOD/PVR model works, you will see dish do everything in it's power to shift every single customer onto the a pay plan.

I am on the fence with the 921/HD Tivo, its all going to depend on price of the box, features of each box, HD content available, and the monthly price for HD content. Maybe we can find something out on the next Charlie Chat?????

I was very happy with Dish when I had my first Dish Player... It was an inexpensive way to get PVR functions with nothing down. Still now, i'm in a better position financially and i'm an HDTV nut. I probably couldn't have described my fence sitting better than you did except to add one major factor "availability" Dish will have on absolutely major selling point over DirecTV HD Tivo and that is there is a very real chance that only Dish will have an HD PVR available for six months or so.

If i'm in a position where my wife lets me buy this Christmas and a 921 is available and HD Tivo isn't available, then guess who i'm going to purchase? I would only slow my purchase if I had seen some very strong indicators of a HD Tivo product in the imminent future.

[Bob Haller]

Gee for 1K it should have name based recordings and all the extras. Besides does ANYONE think the 921 will be bug free or even really stable?

[Peluso]

well the comment on name based recordings and all the extras is a moot point b/c the 921 will have a different feature set than any other PVR on the market. namely the ability to timeshift HD programs. Different product = Different price.

And NO I don't think it will be more stable, heck, i'd be happy with stability level of my old Dishplayer which only worked about 70% of the time. I personally am under no illusions about first generation product reliability. If I wanted reliable i'd wait another three years for the first major upgrade to the second generation of HD Tivo.

[Bob Haller]

Honestly so far neither service has a HD DVR box out. Given previous delays who here thinks the 921 will be out on schedule?

[Peluso]

Well i'm starting to think that we may see the trickle begin on November 1st. That date is very near, very specific, and it's been said by the CEO to retail partners. To me that's enough of a strong date where it probably wasn't pulled out of someones behind. My guess is that is when the engineering department said it would be ready.

I did say trickle, and that's what I mean. It will take some time to ramp up production and to fix the bugs, but it also gives Dish bragging rights for a good long time.

[lonnman]

I'm personally going to wait until both Dish and DirecTV HD boxes are out, or yet another stupid Marketing move from E*. I too had a DP7200, and was mostly happy with it until the end, but I have learned that it doesn't pay to be an early adopter with E*. This is especially true when my wife tells me she just wants to watch TV, how complicated can that be? I'll also have to add in the cost to go to the SuperDish and DishPro stuff as well.

It's too early to tell anything and frankly I'm not expecting much from the upcoming Charlie Chat. I would love HDTV, but will not sell my soul for it, nor will I be an early adopter of E* equipment. With Dish Equipment it could lead to bragging rights or ridicule, time will tell.

[jcrash]

I'm personally going to wait until both Dish and DirecTV HD boxes are out, or yet another stupid Marketing move from E*. I too had a DP7200, and was mostly happy with it until the end, but I have learned that it doesn't pay to be an early adopter with E*. This is especially true when my wife tells me she just wants to watch TV, how complicated can that be? I'll also have to add in the cost to go to the SuperDish and DishPro stuff as well.

It's too early to tell anything and frankly I'm not expecting much from the upcoming Charlie Chat. I would love HDTV, but will not sell my soul for it, nor will I be an early adopter of E* equipment. With Dish Equipment it could lead to bragging rights or ridicule, time will tell.


For yet another. what $1500 incl. Superdish, I can afford to wait and switch to DirecTV when they come out with a HDTivo for less than half the price of a 921.

$1500? You'd think I didn't already pay them $1000 a year to watch their freaking service.

[tm22721]

With the dearth of HD programming why would anybody want a $1k PVR when a 721 is half that price with 95% of the features ?

Makes me wonder if they will kill the 721 soon.