# Cancelled DTV, packed up TIVO



## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

Last night I called to cancel my DTV, sadly after only a year, I really thought I'd be with DTV for a long time, but my cable co really came through in the past year.

However with the cancel came the loss of my TIVO, this morning I already miss it. It was sad emptying out my NOW PLAYING list and packing it up. Over the past year I never worried about shows recording becuase TIVO had it covered.

The DTV rep almost got me to stay, offering me a HDTIVO for $200 off but I just couldnt commit to another two years.

Hopefully TIVO will be in my future again since Comcast will soon take over my cable co.

I have one question, does anyone know how a DVR with TIVO would handle Video On Demand services. I currently have among other things HBO and STARZ On Demand and they are pretty cool!

I plan to stick around these forums and hang onto my TIVO in case I return to DTV in the future, maybe if I place my TIVO next to my SA 8300HD it can teach it how to be a real DVR!


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

No TiVo DVR of any sort supports VOD. Unless OCAP leans toware the CE manufacturers, it is unlikely the S3 will support VOD.


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## W6FO (Mar 8, 2006)

I can't see COMCAST ever coming through here, I'm probably with D* for awhile. I just checked current pricing @ COMCAST and to match the number of channels I am getting now, it'd cost me an additional $25/mo to "ditch the dish". COMCAST also wants $14.99/mo for each DVR which they supply.


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## HogarthNH (Dec 28, 2001)

Daytona24 said:


> The DTV rep almost got me to stay, offering me a HDTIVO for $200 off but I just couldnt commit to another two years.


OK -- rant mode --

Resistance to commitments is for the paranoid.
Are you going to give up all television watching?

Furthermore, the commitment "early termination fee" is pro-rated -- so if you DO decide you can get a better offer somewhere, you can factor that in.

Would you skip getting married just because another woman may come along and offer to sleep with you more half-way through the second year? Would you get a divorce "just in case"?

Sometimes getting tied down a little is good for you.  It offers stability.

That's hyperbole, and an extreme analogy, but the fact of the matter is for almost everyone, it will not make any difference whom your provider is in two years. You'll be paying roughly the same amount, and getting roughly the same services. (Emphasis on roughly. Sure, one might be cheaper, and one might offer a few more channels, but in the final analysis, it really doesn't matter.)

I've seen at least two threads in the last week where people switched BACK because "we missed TiVo" or "insert provider name here" was better.

It's just TV, people. Seriously.

H


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

You know when it comes to commitments my wife will tell you she's the only thing I have always been sure of.

As for DTV, if the HDTIVO had the 6.2 update I think I might have at least kept DTV with the offer she gave me. But DTV (while TIVO's will still work) is moving away from TIVO.

For the 2 year commitment, its not so much the commitment its not knowing what your commiting to, sure they've got thier own DVR, an HD DVR down the road, maybe someday my locals will be available via satellite, and I loved (last year) the idea of the Home Media Center, as well as planned integration with XBOX 360 (although I dont have one yet) its all the unknowns of this stuff that makes getting into a commitment especially two years a little iffy.

Pro Rated is fine but the cable co just gave ME $200 for switching, I would never pay upwards of $300 to get out of a commitment.

Dont get me wrong I actually still like DTV, but my cable co simply said here, we have ok analog, great digital channels, plus all your locals in HD, a great HD package (I now have 8 or 9 "other channels in HD) and Video on Demand (which from somethign I read today will never be truley availabel from satellite), and no commitment.

No I am not going to give up watching TV, but I left cable becaue they couldnt provide the TV watching experience I wanted, this year it was just the other way around thats all.


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## newsposter (Aug 18, 2002)

HogarthNH said:


> Would you skip getting married just because another woman may come along and offer to sleep with you more half-way through the second year? Would you get a divorce "just in case"?
> 
> H


great poll question!


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## dtremain (Jan 5, 2004)

Daytona24 said:


> You know when it comes to commitments my wife will tell you she's the only thing I have always been sure of.
> 
> As for DTV, if the HDTIVO had the 6.2 update I think I might have at least kept DTV with the offer she gave me. But DTV (while TIVO's will still work) is moving away from TIVO.
> 
> ...


Yeah. Let us know when you get back.


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## Mr2sday (Jul 8, 2005)

Isn't cable taking the dish with them at least sort of a comittment? I hear they take everything out that makes the sat work. No multiswitch, splitters. The way D* is going, you'll have to pay to get these back if you return. They'd expect you to still have them from when you left. 

I heard this somewhere, please correct me if I'm wrong.


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## JimSpence (Sep 19, 2001)

If I should ever fall to the darkside, I have a dish and receiver I could use to give to my cable provider.


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

Actually they only needed 1 reciever and a card (of which I had an old one of both from a reciever that didnt work). I still have my dish, multiswitch, recievers and TIVO. I wouldnt have done the deal otherwise. Noone even came to the house I did all this at a local office.


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## Steve1212 (Dec 1, 2004)

Well Daytona must not be a fan of sports, because cable totally blows in that department. Thats the one of many reasons why i will always be a Directv Subscriber. March Madness!!!!


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

Actually I am a fan of sports, which is why i went back to my cable co. First off let me say that I do not wish to add another antenna to my roof to get locals, with that said, after watching sports in HD I couldnt even think about getting the NFL Ticket again and watching games in SD. And although we got our value out of the $200 or so dollars we paid for the ticket last year, having to add another $100 to get the HD Ticket was a little to much. Not to mention I didnt have an HD TIVO or reciever. Dont get me wrong the ticket was one of the reasons we almost at least kept DTV, but at the end of the day we decided against it since just to keep DTV for the rest of the year and get the ticket in SD was going to cost about $800 for this year alone.

Now I get to watch a majority of NASCAR in HD and the football games I watched last year in HD were incredible. I love sports, just not in the market to have to pay for all the different sports packages, I dont like sports that much.


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## dvrdrvr (Jan 25, 2006)

Steve1212 said:


> Well Daytona must not be a fan of sports, because cable totally blows in that department. Thats the one of many reasons why i will always be a Directv Subscriber. March Madness!!!!


I also love March Madness, but that's one area Cox cable in Vegas has Directv beat. It's free instead of $59.


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## aztivo (Feb 23, 2005)

Steve1212 said:


> Well Daytona must not be a fan of sports, because cable totally blows in that department. Thats the one of many reasons why i will always be a Directv Subscriber. March Madness!!!!


In AZ cox has 3 chanels that are just for March madness and it cost a whopping $0.00


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## tbeckner (Oct 26, 2001)

classicsat said:


> No TiVo DVR of any sort supports VOD. Unless OCAP leans toware the CE manufacturers, it is unlikely the S3 will support VOD.


Actually the Series 3 does SUPPORT VOD, using the CableCard 2 support. The current Series 2 TiVo will no longer be offered for sale in less than a year because of FCC rules. No devices, DVD, DVR, VCR, TV, etc, will be available for sale after March 1, 2007 if they only have a NTSC tuner.


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## jones07 (Jan 30, 2001)

[


Mr2sday said:


> Isn't cable taking the dish with them at least sort of a comittment? I hear they take everything out that makes the sat work. No multiswitch, splitters. The way D* is going, you'll have to pay to get these back if you return. They'd expect you to still have them from when you left.
> 
> I heard this somewhere, please correct me if I'm wrong.


They 'Comcast' took a beat up old receiver and some POS remote I had laying around. They Left the dish on the roof never even asked about it.. Not bad for $25 off my bill for 16 months and free HBO for 6 months. I love competition in the market place  
I'm loyal only to the best deal


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## davecramer74 (Mar 17, 2006)

i just dumped directv a couple weeks ago as well. 

Couple loopholes for you guys that are sports finatics like myself.

To get around the "fee" your charged for leaving early, you can "suspend" your account.

For me, im a nfl junkie. So what i did, is called up and cancelled all my recievers except 1. Left the HD on the account as well. Then i called through their automated system and "suspended" my account because its a "vacation" home. I am having it reactivated august 1st (it asks you when you want to) I think you can suspend for a maximum of 6 months and can only suspend 1 time a year. Thus, i will have my one directv reciever active for the 42 a month, plus ill add the football package starting in august. I have an 85 dollar credit from when i cancelled, thus i wont have to pay until october. My 1 year contract will be up in feb, right after football season and then i can dump them for good.

Why did i dump directv? because they wanted another 499 or something to "lease" that hd dvr. I was like "how is 499 a lease"? I was livid, to say the least. 

Called up comcast, i have 3 HD DVRS + on demand + every channel. It costs more than directv, But i am VERY Happy with it. 

My buddy here has Directv and he keeps getting that "boucing directv logo" when trying to tivo anything. If anyone has a "fix" for that, please pm me or point me in the right direction. He's about ready to dump directv.


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## HogarthNH (Dec 28, 2001)

tbeckner said:


> Actually the Series 3 does SUPPORT VOD, using the CableCard 2 support.


tbeckner -- S3 will not support CableCard 2. It only supports CableCard 1.1 ("multistream").

That's not to say they couldn't fix it with a software upgrade, but no purchaser of the S3 TiVo should expect VOD or PPV out of the box.

H


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## IOTP (Aug 7, 2001)

You went COMCAST, is it really worth the savings of $20-30 a month MAX?

You'll be back.

Personally, without TIVO. TV isn't worth watching.

I keep HOPING the boardroom at DirecTV gets wise and realizes not to DUMP the TIVO project/product line(s).


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

I'm just curious when people say "You'll be back" do they mean because of TIVO only or becuase of DTV? If DTV shut off everyones TIVOs today would everyone jump ship?

I'll admit I just told my wife I wish this DVR had folders like the TIVO did but that dosnt mean I regret jumping to cable, certainly not when I am enjoying all the HDTV content and certainly not last night or this morning when I was watching HBO and STARZ on demand, and not when I was setting up a recording last night for a movie on STARZ HD. Plus my wife loves having a DVR of her own upstairs, and its HD capable if I ever get an HDTV up there.

I make no bones about TIVO being great, but DTV didnt provide me with an option to get the content I want for deal I wanted. I was not going to purchase an HDTIVO for even $200 that would never be mine, and I was not going to put an antenna on my roof to get HD locals with satellite (I could do that for FREE), and with all the "what if's and rumours" just what am I commiting two years to?

Why would I want to come back (at least right now)? People we watch TV, not TIVO and if you think TV isnt worth watching without TIVO then your probably not interested in watching TV in the first place.

What if DTV went to 600 channels stricktly of infomercials but kept TIVO would you TIVO hours of infomercials and only watch that? Its content, TIVO is just what makes content fun, and the content I wanted was somewhere else.


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## tbeckner (Oct 26, 2001)

Daytona24 said:


> I'm just curious when people say "You'll be back" do they mean because of TIVO only or becuase of DTV? If DTV shut off everyones TIVOs today would everyone jump ship?
> 
> I'll admit I just told my wife I wish this DVR had folders like the TIVO did but that dosnt mean I regret jumping to cable, certainly not when I am enjoying all the HDTV content and certainly not last night or this morning when I was watching HBO and STARZ on demand, and not when I was setting up a recording last night for a movie on STARZ HD. Plus my wife loves having a DVR of her own upstairs, and its HD capable if I ever get an HDTV up there.
> 
> ...


Your post points out a truism. We all watch TV for the content and TiVo just makes it easier to have access to that content. Some of us dont care if the content is in SD or HD, the quality of the picture presented is important, but a quality SD picture was an important reason for switching almost 12 years ago from analog cable to DirecTV and for some a quality HD picture is important.

The real rub for most DirecTV customers who wanted HD locals and an HD DVR, was that DirecTV didnt provide the locals, and the DirecTV HD TiVo was a large out of pocket expense for some. So, for those people who wanted HD locals and/or didnt want to pay anywhere from $1,000 originally to almost $300 today for the DirecTV solution for each TV, it really makes sense to go cable, because there is little upfront costs. If I had to have HD today, I would dump DirecTV and go cable, but I am waiting until around 2009 before making the jump.

We all know the DirecTV would NEVER shutoff the DirecTiVos, but if DirecTV did shutoff the DirecTiVos today, I would be fully on cable by this afternoon and would absolutely never to return to DirecTV, ever. But that is not only highly unlikely but utterly impossible, unless of course Murdoch was completely self destructive, but then if that was the case the board would toss Murdoch out into the street in a moments notice.

I currently have both DirecTV and digital cable (basic service only), because I wanted local news and because DirecTV switched to XM RADIO, it was the only way to get MUSIC CHOICE which I listen to 24 hours a day. The chatter on XM RADIO was a real problem while I was sleeping or working. I leave the SOUNDSCAPES channel on (same as Audio Vision channel on XM RADIO, but without the chatter) while I am sleeping and while I am working on IT development and support projects.

In their own way DirecTV pushed me back to cable (based upon content) and in a few years when I finally buy into HD and since my current Nielsen DMA is 196, there is no doubt that I will be back to cable for all of my video content and DirecTv will have lost a long-term high value customer.


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

Just curious why you picked 2009 to make the jump to HDTV? Thats seems like an awful long to time to miss out on HD. Of course I hadnt planned to make the jump either but HD actually came to me, both in the timing of the TV and the content.


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## tbeckner (Oct 26, 2001)

Daytona24 said:


> Just curious why you picked 2009 to make the jump to HDTV? Thats seems like an awful long to time to miss out on HD. Of course I hadnt planned to make the jump either but HD actually came to me, both in the timing of the TV and the content.


The biggest reason I am waiting, is that I believe the amount of actual available true HD content (not upconverted SD) is too small at the moment to make the jump. And at the moment, I am and have been very happy with the SD picture quality that I originally switched from cable to DirecTV for in 1994.

The second reason is access to that content, because currently Bend Oregon is only 196 on the Nielsen DMA list, but we are the fastest growing town in Oregon and ranked 74th in the nation, and the county (Deschutes) is ranked 39th in the nation in growth. So, I am hoping that DirecTV by sometime in 2008, with their planned 1,500 HD locals and 150 other HD channels will support my location. Because at the moment I will have to go to cable to get quality HD signals, because the OTA signals where I live really suck, even though they are rated as A level which is the highest rating, and I have lived here for 23 years now and do not plan on moving real soon.

The third reason is the cost of HD technology and how fast the technology is changing. In just two years, large LCD TV's will cost almost half as much as they do now and will all have 1080p capability. Although many people are happy with 720p, which I can understand since they came from 480i, most of those people haven't viewed 1080p content yet. And of course while the prices are dropping over the next three years (at a forecasted rate of about 24% per year) the quality is increasing. And in the case of LCD, the size and technology will change a lot over the next three years, like no backlighting and 60+ inch screens just to name a few (Plasma is forecasted to become an after thought, a minimal part of the market sales).

But maybe the most important reason of all, the only HD content I really miss, which is currently being broadcasted only about 60% of the time in HD, which is NFL Football, but by 2009 all NFL Football games should be available in HD.


Quantity of HD content, too small
Access to HD content, no access to HD locals, even OTA (except via cable)
Cost of HD equipment, should drop by over 65% in three years
One additional thought, my Sony Wega 32" TV will only be four years old later this year and it displays quality SD content, and the same goes with the other two Sony Wega TV's. Back in 2002, I wasn't ready to make the jump to HD but I had to the replace the 32" Sony that I gave to a friend, so I skipped HD back in 2002 and I am very happy that I did.

Additional Edit:

The chances are very good (a better than 95% possibility) that in two to three years I will have to dump DirecTV and go to local cable to make the jump to HD.


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## Daytona24 (Jun 8, 2005)

I get your reasoning but you can always play the waiting game, if your cable co. offerss all your locals then your missing the boat now. Sure 1080p HDTV's will come out but most broadcast are just getting around to HD at all, my guess is 1080p broadcasts (not DVD's) are a ways off. And in 2 or 3 years there will be something else on the horizon, then something else and on and on. Prices dropping will go hand in hand with the product, sure prices will drop but based on what you said they will drop on technology you dont want and stay high on those that are new. Your reasons are why I went to cable in the first place.

Its cool that you want to wait, I just wouldnt expect things to get easier, I already think that the introduction of 1080p and HD DVD and Blue Ray is coming WAY too early, you just have people jumping into HD and DVD's are common place. Now there asking people to buy into a NEW DVD technology (2 actually) and then tell them "oh by the way, thanks for getting into HD, but the TV you just bought is outdated how about buying this one".

A sense a technology backlash coming.


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## rifleman69 (Jan 6, 2005)

1080p broadcasts are a looooooooooooooooooong ways off. Portland tv channels aren't going to switch to 1080p anytime soon, 1080i and 720p will be here for at least the next five years if not longer. Right now, they're putting out the OTA signal for basically free, why upgrade to something else that's not only not filmed in that content, but would generate little to no revenue?


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## Johnsgoat (Feb 26, 2006)

Mr2sday said:


> Isn't cable taking the dish with them at least sort of a comittment? I hear they take everything out that makes the sat work. No multiswitch, splitters. The way D* is going, you'll have to pay to get these back if you return. They'd expect you to still have them from when you left.
> 
> I heard this somewhere, please correct me if I'm wrong.


Actually no... infact the cablevision was verry reluctant to use or touch anything directv. I had to say that I wanted them to use the wires and disconnect the satelite.... they took nothing with them


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## undertow (Feb 2, 2002)

I never thought I'd do it but I recently made the switch to Comcast because of the three price increases in three years that DTV has given us. (Yes, I'm aware that cable is the king of price increases). Their offer for my area is $29.99 a month for up to four digital boxes, HBO and Starz. This price/package is good for a year and then come the crazy prices. In a year, I'll have FIOS TV available and we'll see where things stand with DTV. There's no contract with Comcast so if I hate things after a month, I can cancel. 

The website stated that I would have to turn in my dish and a receiver and the cust service rep I ordered from said they'd need to see a current DTV statement to get the deal. The installer didn't ask for any equipment nor did he ask to see a statement. He actually arrived in the announced time slot and put all new compression fittings on my cables. I was pretty impressed. The boxes they gave me look like they were in the pack of a soldier in the Normandy invasion and they've got no S-video outs! I find I'm watching a lot VOD material even though I never thought I'd use it. They've got the last four Sopranos episodes on there right now which I was thankful for since it's been YEARS since the last episode was aired and quite frankly, I couldn't remember where things stood! I'm in an A+B area so I still have some analog channels. The analog is slightly worse than DTV channels but not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. Digital seems to be about the same in quality as DTV. I'm trying their HD DVR (no SD DVR available as far as I know) for $10 per month and I'm not crazy about it but I'll give it a little more time. Just to be on the safe side, I picked up a standalone Tivo and paid the lifetime fee. The dual tuners will be missed but at least the interface is there.


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