ReplayTV, Tivo, PVR

Gonz

Gonz

molṑn labé
Staff member
Great gadgets. Handy as hell. Better than VCR.

As an owner of a DP 7100 & never paid for the service, I have to ask, why do people spend $99. - $499 for a unit just to pay a monthly fee to use it?

RePlay & Tivo are $12.95/mo or $299. lifetime (per unit). Four hundred bucks for a VCR replacement? Dish has several, the DishPlayer 7100/7200 (webtv) units & they charge up to $9.99/mo to use the PVR features. Then, some years later, they introduced the 501/508 series...free DVR functions (forever?). That quickly went away when they replaced those models with the 510. Same unit (varying HDD capacity) but they charged those owners $4.99/mo. for th esame frigging unit. DirecTV has a deal with Tivo...$4.99/mo to use it. Cable is now following suit.

So, we purchase the unit, pay for the electricity to run it, pay for the TV service, do all the setup work ourselves & we get charged for the convenience. I'm currently "in negetiations" with Dish over mine. I won't pay for a service when there is no "service".

Does anyone else see the inherent problem here?
 
Hey now, you're not paying $4.99/month for the Dish DVR! You're paying $4.99 for the Dish-on-Demand service!
 
Inkara1 said:
Hey now, you're not paying $4.99/month for the Dish DVR! You're paying $4.99 for the Dish-on-Demand service!
Click to expand...
Isn't Dish-on-demand required to use the DVR?
 
If you have the DVR, then you're on the Digital Home Advantage plan which has leased equipment. So they know that way. In addition to that, the box has a "smart card" that's built into it now instead of being a separate card. That smart card has a number that you have to tell to Dish to have it turned on.
 
RadioShackBoy said:
Isn't Dish-on-demand required to use the DVR?
Click to expand...
Nope. 501/508/721 are 100% fee free. The (original) DishPlayer 7100/7200 is tricky. Officially Dish has dropped the $9.99 monthly fee. They have, however, forgotten to tell most of thier employee's. SO, call Dish & work your way up the chain & sooner or later you'll find somebody that made that Christmas morning meeting. Some people have actually had tyo call the executive offices to have the fee removed.

Talk about outstanding customer service. :rolleyes:
 
It works well for people who think "well, I can just have cable installed and plugged right into the back of the TV without having to pay for equipment."
 
Yep a Vid cap card and a mega large hard drive does that.
And then you can burn the show to DVD.
What's the advantage of these TIVO things?
It makes it so you don't have to look up the program times and program the recording?
 
Don't have to look it up? What, they're voice activated?

"Hey, Tivo, record Maury for me today"
 
Got a call form The Executive offices at Echostar today. My PVR is on, forever, for free. Now I have to get a larger HDD & program it so we have more than 17GB(?). They still couldn't explain the discrepancies in prices. For once, a bitch session did somethign positive.
 
Gonz said:
Great gadgets. Handy as hell. Better than VCR.
Click to expand...

I beg to differ. Tivo worked perfect for me until I wanted just ONE SHOW to be recorded. To be safe, I found two times, even found the exact episode, and hit 'Record this episode'. The bastard didn't record it either time.

Damned Tivo.
 
I've had a TiVO for about 5 years now, and it's never "just not recorded" on me. Have you checked the logs to see if it's giving you a reason?
 
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