Equipment swap for NonDVR to HD DVR.

nighthawk777 said:

My brother is wanting to upgrade to be able to receive the new mpeg4 channels. His current setup is a H10 and an E1. He called Directv they offered him an HR20 or HR21 for free in exchanged for the H10. And for the E1 they offered him an HR20 or HR21 for $99. They also told him there would be a $100 charge for Labor. And with taxes on other fees the total would be $232 to have his equipment swapped out. Does the $100 Labor charge sound right, I thought in most cases they offered free installation. Has anyone else gotten a similar deal?

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install of 100 does sound about right.

Is your brother SURE he's being upgraded to DVR's and not an H20/H21 HD receiver? I thought the only way you'd get a free DVR is if you already had an MPEG2 DVR. Otherwise, I thought the offer was $100 (plus $100 install).

Also, does he know that he'll need to cables at each install location? If he wants them run through the wall, there will be an extra cost for that. I don't know if that's something they put on the work order for a standard cost, or if each installer sets their own prices.

Another option is to get an SWM (single wire multiswitch). It would cost around $200, but that might be cheaper than any custom install work you'd need. More details on what the SWM is and how it can help you can be found over in the installation forum.

OverThereTooMuch said:

Is your brother SURE he's being upgraded to DVR's and not an H20/H21 HD receiver? I thought the only way you'd get a free DVR is if you already had an MPEG2 DVR. Otherwise, I thought the offer was $100 (plus $100 install).

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That's exactly what the OP said his brother was offered.

Also, does he know that he'll need 2 cables at each install location? If he wants them run through the wall, there will be an extra cost for that. I don't know if that's something they put on the work order for a standard cost, or if each installer sets their own prices.

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Wall fishes are not and cannot be charged for by DirecTV directly. That is custom work payable to the installer, and different rates apply in different areas.

IIP said:

That's exactly what the OP said his brother was offered.

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My point is that he needs to check this. It's WAY too easy to make the mistake with very similar sounding model numbers. It's been seen many times here.

He may also want to see if they have some sort of free upgrade deal in conjunction with the sports packages available. Might be a better deal to get free install and equipment in exchange for subscribing to the football or racing package.

Actually my brother subscribes to the MLB Extra Innings packages. We plan to do any extra cable runs ourselves. Don't want the extra charges and up until this point we had always installed everything ourselves.