What does charter charges using S3 for HD?

[jym]

I just had Charter turn off my three Moxis and cancel all my HD programming and digital cable We now just use Charter for analog SD and I have DirecTV Tivos for all our HD content.

When I turned off the Moxis I could not believe what I was paying per month. My bill went down, I think, 40 something dollars a month.

Now I see people are using the S3 in replacement of the Moxi. This seems like it might be a good direction for us in the future. I am in St. Louis and curious what Charter charges a month for using the S3? Just like a rough idea what it is for 1. I assume you pay

- Each cable card? Assume you have two in a S3?
- Digital cable
- HD programming
- What else?

What charges are per TV or even cable card and what is one time?

I have two of the very first Tivos that can have their life time service moved at any time. This is different than what ended recently. So I don't need service for these but I would need service per month for the third. I was not forward thinking enough to move our lifetime S2 service to a S3. My screw up. What is the monthly Tivo charge for service? Before there was a published price, I think $12.95 and then a price you could push them to, I think, $6.95.

Also, do you have OTA and cable card tunners with the S3? So like a HR10-250? You can then buffer and record 2 channels?


Thanks!

[murrays]

Lot's of questions here, but I'll tackle a few:

Charter (here in Madison, WI) charges $1.50 per cable card. A tech needs to install these here and they may charge you for the service.

They will provide the local station's HD programming for free and charge $7 for the "HD Tier which includes ESPN, Discovery, HDNet and a few others. I don't have or want digital cable.

FWIW, you should be able to transfer your S2 lifetime over since they don't seem to be concerned with when you buy the S3.

The monthly charge for the TiVo service varies and you will qualify for the "multi unit discount" ($6 off the published rates). See the website.

I am using OTA and cable for program sources. I can record or buffer two channels (either OTA or cable) at the same time.

-murray

[CraigHB]

I just had Charter turn off my three Moxis and cancel all my HD programming and digital cable We now just use Charter for analog SD and I have DirecTV Tivos for all our HD content.Just curious, if you went with DirecTV TiVo's for HD, then you must be using the old HR10-250's, right? DirecTV does not provide TiVo DVR's anymore. The current units are designated HR20 (HD) or HR15 (SD) and use a non-TiVo operating system. Right now you're on a non-TiVo upgrade path. The HR10-250's will not be able to receive the new MPEG4 HD programming that D* is migrating too. To receive the new programming, you would need the updated 5 LNB dish and a set of HR20 DVR's.

In any case, if you want to stay with HD TiVo, you need to go with S3 and cable. There are no currently offered TiVo solutions for satellite and HD.

As far as cable DVR versus TiVo, it really boils down to whether you're willing to pay up-front or not. Cable is month to month for everything. TiVo requires payment up-front for everything (best savings with 3 year pre-pay subscription). Working out the expense over serveral years puts the cost fairly similar between the two. With one TiVo, the cost is equivalent within 4 years. With more TiVo's, it's not so good. The cable DVR service fee covers all DVR's in the household where the TiVo subscription incurrs costs on a per-box basis.