Why does it cost 5$ extra to sub a tivo?

So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?


Maybe because I bought the tivo at a subsidized price the 5 dollars over
time more than makes up for that?

3years x 5 x 12 months = 180

180 + 99 (orignal price) = 279

279 plus the money they receieve from me being a subscriber... puts it a
little more.

To tell you the truth I would rather pay the whole price for a machine that
I owe and can operate at the same cost as another reciever and not be
tricked into some pay as you go scheme...

I think that is why most people are in debt. Because of the 0 APR, 90 days
same as cash, no intrest for a year crap that the corp world is selling the
public.


plus if I keep the unit say for more than 3 years thats even more money that
DTV can make from a "service" fee that provides no "service".

At least it is not $12.95 that the SA TiVo costs per month.

http://www.tivo.com/1.2.asp

Jerry

"Ted" wrote in message
...
So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any
other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?


Maybe because I bought the tivo at a subsidized price the 5 dollars over
time more than makes up for that?

3years x 5 x 12 months = 180

180 + 99 (orignal price) = 279

279 plus the money they receieve from me being a subscriber... puts it a
little more.

To tell you the truth I would rather pay the whole price for a machine
that
I owe and can operate at the same cost as another reciever and not be
tricked into some pay as you go scheme...

I think that is why most people are in debt. Because of the 0 APR, 90 days
same as cash, no intrest for a year crap that the corp world is selling
the
public.


plus if I keep the unit say for more than 3 years thats even more money
that
DTV can make from a "service" fee that provides no "service".

"Ted" wrote in message ...
So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?


The program guide for a DirecTV DVR is *not* the same as that for a non-DVR
DirecTV receiver. The DVR program guide has up to 13 days of extended detail
enabling searches for actor, program description keywords and other things.
Until you begin using a DirecTV DVR you won't understand the value of
the $4.99 monthly fee.

The monthly DVR fee enables unique TiVo features not available on other
recording devices. If you don't want to pay that fee, subscribe to TV Guide, look
up the programs listed for a week at a time and record them with a VCR. See if you
can figure out how to make your VCR automatically not record repeat episodes or
record every program starring Jennifer Aniston.

You can't get a TV Guide subscription for $5 per month which will integrate with
a recording device to schedule and record programs.

If you can't afford to own or want to pay the price for a luxury automobile, you buy
what you can afford and shouldn't bitch about what other people are willing to pay.

"Jack Ak" wrote:
The program guide for a DirecTV DVR is *not* the same as that for a
non-DVR DirecTV receiver. The DVR program guide has up to 13 days
of extended detail enabling searches for actor, program description
keywords and other things. Until you begin using a DirecTV DVR you
won't understand the value of the $4.99 monthly fee.

This isn't entirely correct.

DirecTV has two streams of guide data on their satellite. The original
Electronic Program Guide (EPG) only goes out a couple of days and
doesn't have much detail to it. They added the Advanced Program Guide
(APG) sometime before TiVo and UltimateTV came around. This goes out 13
days (or so), and has the detailed information TiVo needs.

Both guide streams are available to all receivers, it's up the the
receiver's developer which to use. Obviously, using the APG is more
complex. My first no-frills freebie DirecTV receiver used the APG, and
had some wishlist-like features. DirecTV doesn't charge people anything
extra if they have a non-DVR receiver that uses the APG.

While my old receiver could even be setup to trigger a VCR to record
programs similar to a season pass, it was a far inferior interface (I
never did use it, so I can't comment how well it handled shows that
moved around, conflicts, and such. I suspect it didn't do a good job).

--
script language="JavaScript"// Scott Seligman
for(var i=0;i73;i++)document.write(String.fromCharCode((" lsYrsiwb7pir~~|=~fr"+
(i)-("P2Y*!$1E5#()2*-"+
(i)+32));/script

Ted wrote:
So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?

You're paying for Tivo. Once upon a time you were paying that
company for their rather decent product. Now it appears that DTV
bought them out for dtivo service.

And I know in my case, it's well worth it. With two recorders and
80gigs of drive space, I get 3-4 times the viewing out of the satellite
service than I would if I were only watching live, or recording to VHS.

--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

In article ,
"Ted" writes:

So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?

Because DirecTV is paying TiVo for the TiVo software and TiVo-specific
services (such as Showcases). The details of the DirecTV/TiVo arrangement
are not public, but it seems unlikely that TiVo's getting nothing from
DirecTV, and DirecTV's got to pay those costs in one way or another.
Charging DirecTiVo subscribers is a logical and fair way to do it.

Subsidies on DirecTiVo hardware, particularly for new subscribers, may
also enter into the equation. This is harder to be certain of, though,
since DirecTV subsidizes most new hardware, and that comes out of their
normal monthly rates, so at least some of the DirecTiVo hardware
subsidies should logically be paid for in the same way.

--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

"Scott Seligman" wrote in message
...
"Jack Ak" wrote:
The program guide for a DirecTV DVR is *not* the same as that for a
non-DVR DirecTV receiver. The DVR program guide has up to 13 days
of extended detail enabling searches for actor, program description
keywords and other things. Until you begin using a DirecTV DVR you
won't understand the value of the $4.99 monthly fee.

This isn't entirely correct.

DirecTV has two streams of guide data on their satellite. The original
Electronic Program Guide (EPG) only goes out a couple of days and
doesn't have much detail to it. They added the Advanced Program Guide
(APG) sometime before TiVo and UltimateTV came around. This goes out 13
days (or so), and has the detailed information TiVo needs.

Both guide streams are available to all receivers, it's up the the
receiver's developer which to use. Obviously, using the APG is more
complex. My first no-frills freebie DirecTV receiver used the APG, and
had some wishlist-like features. DirecTV doesn't charge people anything
extra if they have a non-DVR receiver that uses the APG.

While my old receiver could even be setup to trigger a VCR to record
programs similar to a season pass, it was a far inferior interface (I
never did use it, so I can't comment how well it handled shows that
moved around, conflicts, and such. I suspect it didn't do a good job).

--
script language="JavaScript"// Scott
Seligman
for(var
i=0;i73;i++)document.write(String.fromCharCode((" lsYrsiwb7pir~~|=~fr"+

(i)-("P2Y*!$1E5#()2*
-"+

(i)+32));/scrip
t


Exactly... And the search feature for the actor in wishlists is built into
the software. Its not some service that is done upon request.. I am still
trying to find the service provided in the "service fee"!!

"Jason O'Rourke" wrote in message
...
Ted wrote:
So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any
other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why
would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?

You're paying for Tivo. Once upon a time you were paying that
company for their rather decent product. Now it appears that DTV
bought them out for dtivo service.

And I know in my case, it's well worth it. With two recorders and
80gigs of drive space, I get 3-4 times the viewing out of the satellite
service than I would if I were only watching live, or recording to VHS.

--
Jason O'Rourke www.jor.com

While I agree that the unit itself is great. The product is great. But the
service is just a scam. What service is provided? What extra service is
provided by using a tivo rather than a normal reciever. Sure it can do extra
stuff but that is all hardware.

"Rod Smith" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Ted" writes:

So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any
other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why
would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?

Because DirecTV is paying TiVo for the TiVo software and TiVo-specific
services (such as Showcases). The details of the DirecTV/TiVo arrangement
are not public, but it seems unlikely that TiVo's getting nothing from
DirecTV, and DirecTV's got to pay those costs in one way or another.
Charging DirecTiVo subscribers is a logical and fair way to do it.

I am unfamilar with the showcases and how it is a service and not some
feature of the hardware / software.
Licenseing fees for TIVO should be paid when buying it.

Subsidies on DirecTiVo hardware, particularly for new subscribers, may
also enter into the equation. This is harder to be certain of, though,
since DirecTV subsidizes most new hardware, and that comes out of their
normal monthly rates, so at least some of the DirecTiVo hardware
subsidies should logically be paid for in the same way.

...



--
Rod Smith,
http://www.rodsbooks.com
Author of books on Linux, FreeBSD, and networking

"jawilljr" wrote in message
...
At least it is not $12.95 that the SA TiVo costs per month.

http://www.tivo.com/1.2.asp


True... but at least they are providing the service of having the phone
system to dial into to get the guide data. This is a service. If they didn't
provide this service the guide data would not be available. In the case of
Directv the guide data is provided via the stream and no matter how many
days it accepts to store is up to the hardware.



Jerry

"Ted" wrote in message
...
So why does DTV charge 5 dollars more for a dtivo then it does for any
other
reciever? You still get the same guide. You bought the hardware? Why
would
DTV need to charge 5 dollars more from an operating cost point of view?


Maybe because I bought the tivo at a subsidized price the 5 dollars over
time more than makes up for that?

3years x 5 x 12 months = 180

180 + 99 (orignal price) = 279

279 plus the money they receieve from me being a subscriber... puts it
a
little more.

To tell you the truth I would rather pay the whole price for a machine
that
I owe and can operate at the same cost as another reciever and not be
tricked into some pay as you go scheme...

I think that is why most people are in debt. Because of the 0 APR, 90
days
same as cash, no intrest for a year crap that the corp world is selling
the
public.


plus if I keep the unit say for more than 3 years thats even more money
that
DTV can make from a "service" fee that provides no "service".