Help me decide what's the best option for my needs.

[TheForce]

I have a VIP722 and a VIP722K with 4 tuners. Those, Dish has been charging me rent since they came out of $24/month. I really like the way they operate and have added Sling boxes for remote internet viewing plus added hard drive for archive storage. we watch mostly OTA from my home roof top antenna and do not pay for Dish OTA channels. I also watch a couple news channels and CSPAN, History channel and USA. Rarely I watch weather channel discovery channel and a few others. I also subscribe to Showtime when they have the sale price. I also have AppleTV4K and several subscription services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and Netflix. I reviewed Hopper system and just do not care for them. So please, no debate on why you think Hopper is better.

My real question is whether I can pay a one time price for the VIP's DVR's I have installed now and working to my satisfaction, or would I need to let them pick these up and I buy a new VIP set that I own and is that worth it? I believe that soon we will have total IPTV plus my locals off rooftop antenna so I can ditch the dishes altogether but not right now.

Have any of you ever converted a rented DVR to owned DVR on your account?

 

[JSheridan]

I have a VIP722 and a VIP722K with 4 tuners. Those, Dish has been charging me rent since they came out of $24/month. I really like the way they operate and have added Sling boxes for remote internet viewing plus added hard drive for archive storage. we watch mostly OTA from my home roof top antenna and do not pay for Dish OTA channels. I also watch a couple news channels and CSPAN, History channel and USA. Rarely I watch weather channel discovery channel and a few others. I also subscribe to Showtime when they have the sale price. I also have AppleTV4K and several subscription services such as Amazon Prime, Hulu, Disney+ and Netflix. I reviewed Hopper system and just do not care for them. So please, no debate on why you think Hopper is better.

My real question is whether I can pay a one time price for the VIP's DVR's I have installed now and working to my satisfaction, or would I need to let them pick these up and I buy a new VIP set that I own and is that worth it? I believe that soon we will have total IPTV plus my locals off rooftop antenna so I can ditch the dishes altogether but not right now.

Have any of you ever converted a rented DVR to owned DVR on your account?

Rented or owned doesn't matter, the monthly fee is the same.

 

[dishdude]

First one should be no charge, second $17/mo.

Loyal customer DVR fee is $7/mo which would equal $24/mo in equipment fees.

Fees are the same no matter who owns the equipment.

 

[navychop]

The only advantage to owning is you can call and shut off and later on, service, as you see fit. Might save a tiny bit doing so.

Keep in mind, the ViP series is on the way out. You may not have too many more years out of them.

 

[TheForce]

Keep in mind, the ViP series is on the way out. You may not have too many more years out of them.

I did not know that. I once owned a 960? I believe it was called. I had it a year and then Dish discontinued the service. Don't recall why but I was forced to get the VIP. If what you say is true and based on my past experience with that first DVR, if they discontinue the VIP series, I will just cancel totally.

Been looking at the Tivo Edge. I had one many years ago and know about the service fee. But they have a lifetime buyout that I would do. This looks like a nice system. I also have the new Apple TV 4K and like it a lot but I do need something for local broadcast channels. I have excellent signal as I can see the tower farm from my roof.

Dishdude- Thanks for the explanation on the $24 fee. That settles it then. I will shift my plans to total "dish cutting" rather than owning another DVR from Dish. Besides, With our Florida rains here I still get rain fade on my smaller dish but not on my 30" 61.5.

 

[Bruce]

Been looking at the Tivo Edge. I had one many years ago and know about the service fee. But they have a lifetime buyout that I would do. This looks like a nice system. I also have the new Apple TV 4K and like it a lot but I do need something for local broadcast channels. I have excellent signal as I can see the tower farm from my roof.

Look into the Tablo, whole home DVR with just one Box, never have to worry about space on the hard drive ( depends on how big of a HD external you hook up to it, I have a 8 TB on mine which is over kill), lifetime is $150 for the Guide, machine has been perfect, never has missed a recording which is great for us since we binge everything after the series is done for the year, it also does commercial skip.


Sent from my LML713DL using the SatelliteGuys app!

 

[HipKat]

Look into the Tablo, whole home DVR with just one Box, never have to worry about space on the hard drive ( depends on how big of a HD external you hook up to it, I have a 8 GB on mine which is over kill), lifetime is $150 for the Guide, machine has been perfect, never has missed a recording which is great for us since we binge everything after the series is done for the year, it also does commercial skip.


Sent from my LML713DL using the SatelliteGuys app!

Heck, I might have to check that out!

 

[TheForce]

I did review the Tablo and their top of the line system was not as robust as the Tivo Edge but also less expensive. Thanks. I also looked at several others and none were as robust as the Tivo Edge.

I was pretty much surprised at the savings the first year over Dish. And now with them wanting to raise the rates? I think that is suicidal. But I'm sure many will stick by them. I used to have both DirecTV and Dish and finally decided having both was silly. I'm not in the business so it made no sense. Actually I also had Comcast cable too. My wife and I reviewed some channels that Dish had but we found all her favorites on You Tube so she is switching to YT now and viewing on her iMac.

There weren't too many reviews on the Tivo Edge yet but what I did see looked favorable.

So I am paying $24 per month for the 2 Dish DVR's and service. That's $288 per year. The Tivo lifetime service is $249. Then I don't need the Dish programming package which is about $75 a month or $900 a year.

The one negative I saw is a policy change at Tivo where they run a 30 second commercial ahead of all DVR playbacks. But they said you can skip them with the 30 second skip button.

One think I have noticed with all of these series is they do a lengthy recap that I also use the skip ahead to avoid watching. This helps reduce the time wasted for binge watching.

 

[navychop]

In light of LG’s announcement, and other expectations for next year, we may not have much more than five years for our current OTA tuners. Then we’ll have to buy ATSC 3 tuners.

So keep that in mind when you decide how much to spend. But then again, real world, should we reasonably expect more than about seven years out of such electronics?

 

[Bruce]

I did review the Tablo and their top of the line system was not as robust as the Tivo Edge but also less expensive. Thanks. I also looked at several others and none were as robust as the Tivo Edge.

I looked at the specs for both and really don’t see where the Edge is better then the Tablo Quad, both have 4 tuners ( the Tivo Edge’s Cable DVR has 6), while the Edge has some apps, that is what I have Rokus for, the Edge’s HD only has a 2TB HD ( and you cannot add a external to it), you can have up to 8TB on the Tablo, the biggest advantage is you plug it into your Router and every TV/ Computer/Tablet/Phone ( and with 4 Tuners watch something differently )in the House gets the signal, without hooking another box up to it like you would have to with Dish.




Sent from my iPad using SatelliteGuys

 

[HipKat]

I did review the Tablo and their top of the line system was not as robust as the Tivo Edge but also less expensive. Thanks. I also looked at several others and none were as robust as the Tivo Edge.

I was pretty much surprised at the savings the first year over Dish. And now with them wanting to raise the rates? I think that is suicidal. But I'm sure many will stick by them. I used to have both DirecTV and Dish and finally decided having both was silly. I'm not in the business so it made no sense. Actually I also had Comcast cable too. My wife and I reviewed some channels that Dish had but we found all her favorites on You Tube so she is switching to YT now and viewing on her iMac.

There weren't too many reviews on the Tivo Edge yet but what I did see looked favorable.

So I am paying $24 per month for the 2 Dish DVR's and service. That's $288 per year. The Tivo lifetime service is $249. Then I don't need the Dish programming package which is about $75 a month or $900 a year.

The one negative I saw is a policy change at Tivo where they run a 30 second commercial ahead of all DVR playbacks. But they said you can skip them with the 30 second skip button.

One think I have noticed with all of these series is they do a lengthy recap that I also use the skip ahead to avoid watching. This helps reduce the time wasted for binge watching.

I hate that recap. Such a waste of time

 

[dare2be]

So keep that in mind when you decide how much to spend. But then again, real world, should we reasonably expect more than about seven years out of such electronics?

I had my 722 installed in 2011. in 2018, one of the tuners started to fail and I had the box replaced. So yeah, 7 years sounds about right.

I'm good for another 5.5 years.

 

[TheForce]

Edge’s HD only has a 2TB HD ( and you cannot add a external to it)

Not that I would need a 2TB because I don't save programming forever, except for my juke box of 26TB of 3D movies but nothing I have seen on TV. But if I did need more than 300 hours of storage, I would pay the additional $50 and get the version with the eSATA hard drive expansion port. My VIP722K has at the most stored 42 hours of shows when I went on a 30 day trip. Most of the time, I only store 20 hours of shows before erasure. I think if I wanted to archive many shows forever, then the Tablo might have been a better choice.

More important to me is the capability to connect my kitchen, bedroom, and office TV to the Home theater Tivo via several methods. I'll have to experiment to see which I prefer once it is hooked up. I will probably use the ethernet connection because I am wired for ethernet.