HR10-250 Receiver Fee?

[iceisles]

Hey all - I'm returning to DirecTV in a few days and had a question about the HR10-250 I will be connecting. Will I still be charged the HD fee even if I only plan to use the receiver for SD (480i) only? I don't even own an HDTV at the moment, although that may not matter to DirecTV.

I mainly just want to record SD on this unit because it has a large drive, but if I'm going to be charged any kind of HD fee, then I will just use one of my smaller non-HD Samsungs. Thanks for your help.

[JimSpence]

I don't think you have to pay any HD fee on the HR10 in order to record SD content. You should also be able to record OTA HD.

[iceisles]

That's great to know. Thanks, Jim!

[John T Smith]

I have one HR10 and three regular DTivo receivers... and do not have HD service (I bought the HR10 for the 200 hours of SD recording, way back before WinMFS allowed me to clone and expand a drive into a larger drive)

I pay one DVR fee and three mirror fees

[kingwart]

Hey all - I'm returning to DirecTV in a few days and had a question about the HR10-250 I will be connecting. Will I still be charged the HD fee even if I only plan to use the receiver for SD (480i) only? I don't even own an HDTV at the moment, although that may not matter to DirecTV.

I mainly just want to record SD on this unit because it has a large drive, but if I'm going to be charged any kind of HD fee, then I will just use one of my smaller non-HD Samsungs. Thanks for your help.

I've had an HR10-250 for some time but I do not have the oval dish and all the other stuff that was necessary to receive HD. So I never actually received any DTV HD programming. When I bought this HR10-250 it had been discontinued, but since it had an access card that came with it, they let me used the old access card. Things have changed. See below.

Regardless, since I had an HD DVR, they assumed that I was receiving HD and have been charging me $9.99 monthly for HD access. I don't think that's completely unfair because they had no way to tell that I wasn't receiving HD access and I could have gotten it at any time simply by upgrading my dish/LNBs.

The main reason I got the HR10-250 and am keeping it is that much of what we watch is available OTA and since I strung up a UHF antenna I can get that in HD which this unit does just fine.

At this point, the HR10-250 will not receive DTV HD since they went from MPEG2 to MPEG4. So now I'm trying to decide whether to fight for them to stop charging me the $9.99 monthly since I am clearly not receiving HD from them. They also claim on my bill that my current HR10-250 is "leased" even though these units were introduced and then discontinued long before the leasing crap started.

The HR10-250 that I have is damaged because an electrical storm blew up the modem. Otherwise it works fine. So it nags me to make a phone call and I can't order PPV which I do on occasion. So I wanted to replace it with an equivalent.

So I bought on ebay a cheap replacement HR10-250 and it came with an access card. They would not let me use that access card, nor the access card from my old unit that I'm replacing. They insisted that I pay $20 for a new access card. They are off and on claiming that this replacement unit is also "leased" and want me to prove it is not.

So if you are a new customer and trying to put a older HR10-250 back in service, be ready for some hassle. On one phone call, I had been told that I COULD use my existing access card. No one there seems to know their own policy. I had also been told that it was clear my old unit was not leased and that the bill was a mistake. It apparently all depends on who you talk to.

[DougF]

When I activated mine a few months ago, they added the $9.99 HD fee. I found it on my bill a month later and called to have it removed. I don't get any HD programming (that I know of), except for two OTA channels and don't even have a high-def TV in the house.

[rock_doctor]

It is strange to say but when i call, i call in the middle of the night (1am and on). The night crew seems to know what is going on and I never have had an issue.

You will need to reactivate your existing account. If you don't they will consider you a new customer and will insist you need a new receiver and not let you activate used hardware. If it does go in that direction then let them send you the new receiver, leave it on the account for a week, then call and swap out the receivers.

[bengalfreak]

It is strange to say but when i call, i call in the middle of the night (1am and on). The night crew seems to know what is going on and I never have had an issue.

You will need to reactivate your existing account. If you don't they will consider you a new customer and will insist you need a new receiver and not let you activate used hardware. If it does go in that direction then let them send you the new receiver, leave it on the account for a week, then call and swap out the receivers.


Um, I think they have eliminated the night shift. The last few times I have tried to call, I have been told to call back between certain hours.

[iceisles]

You will need to reactivate your existing account. If you don't they will consider you a new customer and will insist you need a new receiver and not let you activate used hardware. If it does go in that direction then let them send you the new receiver, leave it on the account for a week, then call and swap out the receivers.

It's been a couple of years since I last had DirecTV. Will they still let me activate an existing account? I am concerned they will consider the equipment I have "used" when I have owned it all along.

[JimSpence]

There's only one way to know this, call and ask.

I think you meant "leased" not "used".

If they have your account on file, then the old equipment should be listed there. Make sure it is lised as Owned.

[rock_doctor]

A couple of months ago i was having receiver issues and was yanking off and putting receivers onto the account weekly. So as of a couple months ago they still had a night shift, that may have changed since then... They told me if the receivers ended production before the leased era it would be list it as owned. I doubt you will have any problems.

[Budget_HT]

I called DirecTV and told them that I was not getting the service I was paying for, the $9.99 HD satellite service and the $5 (or whatever) additional channels, since all I have for DirecTV HD is my two HD DirecTiVo's.

I had to work with a supervisor to even get someone to understand what I was talking about. She tried to convince me to swap my receivers for HR-2x units (without OTA, which I would have to order later).

In the end, for now I am keeping my HR10-250's, not getting any HR-2x units and I am not paying either HD fee. I still record my OTA channels in HD plus any/all of the SD satellite channels.

Clearly their documentation provided to the CSRs does not begin to cover this scenario.

[netringer]

You'll be signed up for a 2 year commitment for activating a DVR - even an owned one - whether they tell you or not, whether they tell you have no commit or not.