First Look: Dish Network's DTVPal Digital Converter

That would be freedtvshop.com. We're waiting for a Friday update to know if Dish is changing the price on the retailers retroactively.

With launch 8 days away, where the heck is dtvpal.com on some basic information? That place is a skeleton site -- no date, no price, no store locations, no news.
 
freedtvshop - that was it.

Perhaps 59.00 is a "list" price. We very well may see lower.

Here's what mosquito of {some website which shall remain nameless} said yesterday:

If your head is exploding, mine is a mushroom cloud. This news is as surprising to me as it is to all of you. At this point, we are planning to honor all pre-orders so long as our wholesale pricing does not change. I, unfortunately, don't have Charlie backing my business, so I can't afford to lose money and waste time on these boxes if they decide to change the price on me. I was making peanuts on it as it was, but felt it was important to stay as close to that quoted $40 price point as possible.

I will certainly keep you posted on what I find out regarding all of this.
 
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I have a feeling you will not be getting a box from him. While not official yet, I am still hearing that the DTVPal is going to be $59.

BTW I got to add that if I would have saw all this promotion of freedtvshop I would have removed it a long time ago as he is not a sponsor of this site. So that makes all the promotion of them nothing more then spam. If I were to let everyone advertise here for free the site wouldnt be here and no one would pay for advertising. However it is my fault for not catching it earlier so I have let it slide to this point. Thanks for your understanding. :)
 
I have a feeling you will not be getting a box from him. While not official yet, I am still hearing that the DTVPal is going to be $59.

BTW I got to add that if I would have saw all this promotion of freedtvshop I would have removed it a long time ago as he is not a sponsor of this site. So that makes all the promotion of them nothing more then spam. If I were to let everyone advertise here for free the site wouldnt be here and no one would pay for advertising. However it is my fault for not catching it earlier so I have let it slide to this point. Thanks for your understanding. :)

BINGO!
 
Scott Greczkowski, I am Sorry for all the spam I started :(
In all honesty I did also mention other retailer too.
I was only trying to help those with coupons and was not trying to advertise for anybody.

I know your sponsor dishstore said they wouldn't be accepting coupons.
We'll be stocking them soon, however I will not be accecpting the coupons.
I also know Claude was also told at some point that it would be $39.99
...The problem from the retail side of things, there is simply no profit. From what I have been told, the cost to the dealers on these things is $39.99, plus I got to pay a few dollars to ship these from Echostar to my office.

Once I sell them for $49.99 im making like $8 on the entire deal!....

Because my pre-order might not go through as well as others.

Do you know of any retailers or sponsors that people should be looking to get the DTVPal from with a coupon?
 
But let's make the distinction between MSRP and wholesale price commitments already made. The other (no plug) online retailer raised prices and changed the MSRP. My guess is he reordered, and that everyone will see the price change after the first order, which is probably a contractual agreement.

A price increase does not mean we get no box. If Dish breaks the wholesale agreement, it may mean the choice of paying more or cancelling, but it doesn't mean no box unless the retailer challenges for breach of contract. And there's no indication of that, since the retailer did not get notice of a price change, and I would think it's shipping as we speak.
 
Scott: I have a couple of questions regarding the box itself:

1. Can you manually add/delete channels or are you force to start over with a new scan? As some digital channels are only available to me when I adjust the antenna a certain way, it would be annoying if I had to always go into the menu & select "scan now".

2. Are you able to adjust the aspect ratio for each channel individually? On my 4X3 tv, some channels look better using the 4X3, 16X9, or even the "stretch" mode. Again, it would be a hassle adjust the picture everytime I switched networks.

Thank you.
 
Woah, settle down. I have in no way been advertising my site here, and have no affiliation with Malouff or any others that have posted my site. If I thought there would be a market for low end OTA digital TV converters on a satellite forum, I probably would advertise here, so no need to go overboard.

Anyway, the bottom line is that our agreement to sell this box was through standard distribution channels used by Sling Media. We're a Sling authorized reseller, and I did a lot of legwork to get the DTVPal into my distributor's catalog. Yes, the MSRP was announced at $39.99, and the distribution agreement was based on trying to hit that target, but the wholesale price ended up just being too high to support that, so we had to offer it slightly higher. It's incredible how many people think we're making so much money off these boxes. In this case, we were bound to make less than the royalty payments that are due for each box. LG is the real winner here, plain and simple, but I'm getting off the topic, so more about that for another time.

It appears as if Charlie's anouncement was a big old screw you to the new Sling side of the house. If they can solve their problems internally, we will still offer the box at whatever price it may be, but I think the end result of this is that many people are going to be turned off from the Echostar brands. Maybe they don't care about that side of the customer base. I'm not sure how many converter box owners would eventually turn into satellite customers anyway.
 
I was actually VERY pleased with the reception I am picking up in my office. For my testing I am using my Touchsmart PC as my television monitor, this computer has a built in TV tuner and the TV tuner is tuned to channel 3. For an antenna I am using an antenna I paid $2 for at a computer show. My office is on the 29th floor of an office building in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. Regular television has been hard to pick up here in the office.

This brings up a question I've kind of wondered about. You mentioned your office. Is SatelliteGuys.US your business or a side venture?
 
Scott, can you please add a picture of your $2 antenna? I want to see what's pulling in those stations so well. ETA: oops, never mind, I see it. :)
 
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BTW, Dishstore should have these boxes as soon as they are available.

Im looking at selling them for $10 over dealer cost. So if my cost is $39, im selling them for $49.

The only downside is that im not messing with the coupons.
 

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