DirecTV
March 25, 2006
I have had DirecTV for a couple years now and it has been pretty decent. On several occasions I have had ‘rain fade’ when rather large intense storms go overhead. It isn’t a common occurrence but a pain when it happens. The Tivo integrated into the receiver has been great, especially with my work schedule. I don’t have to plan my activities around a show if I want to catch it. The Tivo
takes care of recording what I want so I can watch when I want.
Things are changing though at DirecTV and from a consumer aspect, not really for the better. First DirecTV is dropping Tivo and is implementing their own version of a DVR. While change isn’t usually fun this change at best will be a slight annoyance, at worse it will be a bad interface and a PITA to use. I haven’t seen the new DVR interface so I really can’t judge. This also makes previous hacks and mods available for Tivo based DVRs possibly obsolete since the underlying OS and file structure could be different.
Hacking the DVR won’t be possible anyway since DirecTV has now moved to leasing receivers. Starting this past March 1st DirecTV started doing what the cable companies have been doing for years, leasing the receivers. My first thought was great I don’t have to buy anymore, but this is where DirecTV burns the customer. You want to lease a HD DVR from DirecTV, fine you pay $499.00 up front with a $4.99 a month lease fee, and sign a 2 year comment contract. Cancel before the two years are up, send back the receiver and pay a $300 early cancellation fee. I am not making this shit up. What use to cost the same before March 1 now cost the same to lease.
When comparing what the cable companies charge for a HD DVR receiver this is just crazy.
At some point I will be going HD with a DVR. I have been holding off doing this with DirecTV until the MPEG4 HD starts rolling out. But now that probably won’t happen. Me getting HD thru DirecTv, not the MPEG4 rollout. After the hockey season I will revisit the two local cable companies and see if they will be offering NHL Center Ice for next year. I know they both carry HD DVRs and I know they both don’t charge an up front large sum of cash to lease their equipment, they also don’t require a 2 year commitment.
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