Do all PVR require a paid service? (1 Viewer)

[Barry.Evans]

Do all the PVR product require that you pay a service? I'm still reading about these things and am a bit turned off by the $10/mo or $250 activation fees. The show info they collect is free on the web right, so it's only a matter of time before some of them will be able to parse this right? Kinda the same way CDDB lookups occur now on CDs?

Are any PVRs available that don't require activation/service? Even if it means you record based on time/date?

-Barry

 

[Stephen Tu]

The show info they collect is free on the web right, so it's only a matter of time before some of them will be able to parse this right?

None of this is truly free. On the web it's free because you are viewing advertising to pay for it. The site offers it to you on certain terms (personal use, exposure to ads); another company can't just download all the data and use it commercially without getting sued. Also, the cost of the data itself really is only a tiny component of what that service fee represents. The PVRs with service fees are making practically nothing on the hardware itself, sometimes even losing money after rebates. The fee is needed to cover software development costs, to process the guide data in a useful way and integrate it with the recorder, which is not cheap. The software is a major portion of the value of the device. Also the fee has to cover marketing costs and some profit margin, at least that's the company's goal.

Just think about total cost vs. what you get. It shouldn't matter to you how that total price is divvied up between the hardware & software, it's the same money in the end anyway. The companies w/ service fees aren't willing to sell w/o them, since they'd make no money that way.

The RCA Scenium machine, for example, lists at $600, no guide fees. But one could get Tivo + lifetime service for ~500, buy a DVD player separately, and have much better software for less than 10% more.

 

[Patrick Sun]

If you can settle for older technology, the Panasonic Showstopper (based on Replay TV) has the channel guide lifetime subscription built into its original price, so it will always be Fee-less for the life of the unit. And if the channel guide service went away, it does provide for manual recording (but the channel guide makes it very easy to use). I recently bought 3 Showstoppers because I didn't want to fool with the subscriptions from the newer models, and I paid an average price of $225 plus shipping for each one.

 

[Chris Gerhard]

I use a Showstopper and the DirecTV with TiVo combo PVR. The Showstopper is free and The DirecTiVo costs 4.99 per month or free with the DirecTV Total Choice Premiere subscription. These are great products and the cost of the lifetime added to the cost of the PVR up front is the option to take. If you don't think the PVR is worth that price, which in total is less than an SVHS VCR I bought just a few years ago, then don't buy one of course. Picture quality, ease of use, sophistication of timer recording are all much better than that SVHS VCR. This in addition to not having to worry about having a videotape inserted. The Showstopper included the cost of a lifetime subscription in the purchase price when it was a new product. As Patrick indicated, a Showstopper or ReplayTV model numbered less than 4500 will have the lifetime service included. Used models are often available on eBay. I even found a brand new Showstopper in a box a couple of days ago. The only downside to a brand new Showstopper is that the software has to be upgraded before connection to the ReplayTV server.

Chris