[ccgegg]

I'm helping my mom make the move from Dish to D*. She's tired of their DVR crashing. But I'm trying to help her do this as cheap as possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

She wants a 2-room setup, with the secondary TV only activated during winter months-- so now til March (long story). I'm willing to let her use my old Hughes Tivo receiver, but D* is saying they can't activate old equip on a new installation. And if I lease one from them, then deactivate it in March, they'll come get it plus I'm breaking the contract. But what if I have D* setup a free DVR (non-Tivo, of course as the primary TV, then a free standard receiver as the secondary TV, then after the installer leaves, I put my Tivo receiver as the primary and move the D* DVR to the secondary TV. Will that work? Can I pop the card out of D*'s DVR and into my Hughes Tivo receiver without D* finding out? Or if they'll know, is there a penalty?

 

[bigpuma]

I'm helping my mom make the move from Dish to D*. She's tired of their DVR crashing. But I'm trying to help her do this as cheap as possible. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

She wants a 2-room setup, with the secondary TV only activated during winter months-- so now til March (long story). I'm willing to let her use my old Hughes Tivo receiver, but D* is saying they can't activate old equip on a new installation. And if I lease one from them, then deactivate it in March, they'll come get it plus I'm breaking the contract. But what if I have D* setup a free DVR (non-Tivo, of course as the primary TV, then a free standard receiver as the secondary TV, then after the installer leaves, I put my Tivo receiver as the primary and move the D* DVR to the secondary TV. Will that work? Can I pop the card out of D*'s DVR and into my Hughes Tivo receiver without D* finding out? Or if they'll know, is there a penalty?

You can't move the access card but your idea would probably work. Just have them do the installation then swap the receiver and call D* to activate your old DTivo. The only problem is that the installer will only run one line to the regular receiver. How much will they charge you for 2 DVRs? You could always swap one of those for your DTivo.

Also you can drop to 1 receiver without breaking the contract. The contract just says you must have a minimum level of service on one TV.

 

[rbtravis]

Put in the Oval dish and have them run two lines to each room for use by a future DVR. Surely they understand living on a fix income and that you are planning for future purchases rather than having to pay for them to come out twice. Put in one standard receiver and have the card remarried to your DVR at some time in the future.

 

[JimSpence]

Why not get just one DVR and have it feed both TVs? You can use an IR extender to control the DVR from the other room.

 

[jdmac29]

Get the free stuff they offer with the new installation and then in a month call and tell them you want to deactivate one of the new ones and install your tivo.
Call and make sure you can do that first but I would make them work with you if they want your business.
I have a 2nd generation rca directv receiver and if one of my dvr's goes out I want to activate the rca until I can get a replacement and they sure had better give me that option.

 

[SLOmike]

As long as you continue DirecTV service (at a minimum level) you are not violating the contract. It is not tied to the hardware, just to the subscription.

-Mike

 

[snickerrrrs]

The only reason I went with Directv was because of the Directivo. The Directv R15 locks up all the time so switching away from Dish over the DVR crashing will be moving out of the frying pan and into the fire. Tell Dish unless they send you a new dvr (that doesn't crash) you're moving to Directv. Have them send the new dvr and revisit your decision to move after the 1st of the year. There are bound to be more new choices to throw into the mix then. Good Luck

PS: Directv charges $30 for 40 channels Dish only $20

 

[Murdock]

I bought some refurbished DVR40's on ebay about a year ago and was able to open a new account and get them to change the equipment status to owned. I did the installation myself and when I called to activate they initially tried to tell me that I would need to get leased equipment from them. After several phone calls I was finally able to get them to actiate my account. Perhaps they are even more strict now than a year ago but it's worth a try. Personally I chose DTV over Dish because of the DTivo and because Dish charges the additional receiver fee per tuner not per receiver or at least at that time they did.