322, 522, 625, 622 will be eligible Feb. 1st for FFA

[Stargazer]

322, 522, 625, 622 receivers will be eligible for FFA on Feb. 1st, 2006.

 

[BrettTRay]

What is FFA? I know I've seen this somewhere but I'm drawing a blank right now!!

 

[JamesJ]

isnt it free for all?

 

[rdinkel]

What is FFA? I know I've seen this somewhere but I'm drawing a blank right now!!

Here:

FREE-FOR-ALL OFFER
$149.99 ~ $199.99
Buy a 1- or 2-receiver satellite TV system.
Subscribe to one of our eligible entertainment packages.
Monthly credits back on your bill, making your satellite TV system FREE*.
Additional receivers (2, 3 or 4) on your plan cost an additional $5 per month, per receiver.
FREE Standard Professional Installation.
*20 monthly credits of $10.00 each for a 2-receiver satellite system.
*15 monthly credits of $10.00 each for a 1-receiver satellite system.
Dish Video-On-Demand Service $4.98 month.
Dish Home Protection Plan ~ $5.99 month (All Equipment/Wiring Installed by Installer)
Up-grade to a DVR Receiver ~ ADD $200
Up-grade to an HD Receiver ~ ADD $300

 

[Stargazer]

Now you will be able to save $5 on the additional outlet fee and if you want the 625 receiver as your primary receiver then you only have to pay the difference instead of the full price as an add on.

Those details that you have for the FFA promotion are old. You get 30 monthly credits of $5 each with the 1 receiver system and 40 monthly credits of $5 each with the 2 receiver system. You get 3 free months of Starz as well. If you want the 625 then you will only have to pay a $150 difference.

 

[jbcheshire]

Is this for new or existing customers?

 

[Stargazer]

You can currenty activate them for existing subscribers but these receivers will be eligible under the FFA (Free For All) promotion where retailers will get paid as they do now with the 111/311.

 

[jsanders]

You've posted a lot of rumors lately Stargazer. You write like you are an authority, but you don't always sound like you know what you are talking about.
For instance, you said that the 622/962 will have one SD tuner and one HD tuner. It sounds like this thing is going to be a 942 with a new broadcom chip to do MPEG-4 decoding, a bigger hard drive, and an ethernet port. That equates to three HD tuners.
Then you said that no MPEG-2 receivers will be allowed to be activated after February 1.
And now you are saying that a bunch of MPEG-2 receivers will be FFA starting February 1. Maybe that is why they are FFA, cuz they aren't worth anything because E* won't let you activate them!
You could clear things up by adding just a little more details to your speculation/rumors/inside information.

 

[Stargazer]

These are not rumors/speculations/etc, these are facts. I got a Facts Blast directly from Dish Network themselves. I do not see how I write like I am an authority. I am just giving you information as I received it. How do I not sound like I always know what I am talking about? If you think I am lying about these things then believe what you want to believe. I am here to give everyone information that I found out about. There are others here that can confirm what I have stated.

You are twisting my words around. I think you need to go back and reread what I wrote. When I said no more MPEG-2 receivers after Feb. 1st that is for new HD activations. Everyone that currently has an MPEG-2 receiver receiving HD channels will remain using them at this time.

What other details do you want?

 

[Stargazer]

Here is a link to backup the 622 info that I have. It is the same info that is being presented at the CES. If you do not believe me then you can see some of the information that will be posted over the next several days from the CES.

http://www.satelliteguys.us/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/61/cat/500/ppuser/1

 

[jsanders]

These are not rumors/speculations/etc, these are facts. I got a Facts Blast directly from Dish Network themselves.

It is curious that you replaced "inside information" with "etc." from reply #8. From reading your reply, "inside information" is what you have. This will become fact if what you say actually happens on February 1. It was also stated that the 921 would have activated firewire ports two years ago. While the people at E* who told us that information believed what they said, it did not become a fact. That factoid was even printed in the 921 specs. What you are saying probably will come true if you have a good source, it is inside information.

I do not see how I write like I am an authority. I am just giving you information as I received it.

That is the point. Read your posts again. If you write, as in post #1 of this thread, "322, 522, 625, 622 will be eligible Feb. 1st for FFA", you are speaking as an authority. Phrase it this way and it is different, "I got word from a reliable source at Dish Network today which informed me that the 322, 522, 625, and 622 will be eligible Feb. 1st for a free for all promotion." If you do that, you give credibility to your statement, and it doesn't make you the authority, it gives credit to someone who you believe to be an authority.

How do I not sound like I always know what I am talking about? If you think I am lying about these things then believe what you want to believe.

I mentioned "why" in post #8. I never accused you of lying, that is deliberate deceit. I suggested one of a few things, you rushed when you posted, you didn't understand what you were told, or that you were mislead. If you want me to re-iterate why I made that statement, I will.
In this thread: http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=51099
You wrote, "The cost of the MPEG-4 dual tuner 622 DVR will be the same price as the 942. It will record OTA SD and HD. The second tuner is SD 480i only."
The second tuner is an HD tuner according to Scott's thread:
http://www.satelliteguys.us/showthread.php?t=49000
In that thread it says the 322 has only a 480i second tuner.
It would appear that you confused a tuner with an RF modulator, or that you were posting a spec from a different receiver.

You are twisting my words around. I think you need to go back and reread what I wrote. When I said no more MPEG-2 receivers after Feb. 1st that is for new HD activations.

You're right, you did say it was only MPEG-2 HD receivers that didn't get activated! I mis-read that , and I'm sorry about that. I sure hope that one isn't true.

What other details do you want?

I would like to know what we do with these receivers if we can't sell them. Is there some upgrade path, or had we better put them on EBay before February 1??

 

[jsanders]

Here is a link to backup the 622 info that I have. It is the same info that is being presented at the CES. If you do not believe me then you can see some of the information that will be posted over the next several days from the CES.
http://www.satelliteguys.us/photopost/showphoto.php/photo/61/cat/500/ppuser/1

Thanks for the link Stargazer!
That clears things up a bit. It doesn't say what you said.
From the box it says:
"2 satellite tuners to provide two viewing options"
"Receives and records off-air digital/HD broadcasts"
It has two satellite tuners, and an over the air tuner. Three total. It doesn't say that tuner 2 is only SD. It says that TV2 outputs 480i. A tuner receives, a modulator prepares the signal for transmission. It isn't specific enough to tell one way or the other, it could only do SD picture-in-picture on the HDTV, but it is unlikely. The 942 does HD picture-in-picture, but that funky 921 only does SD picture-in-picture. It is most likely 2 SD/HD 8PSK tuners and an 8VSB tuner, the same as the 942.

 

[SimpleSimon]

Sanders, lots of people - even those that know better equate tuners with outputs. Let it be.

As for the rest, do you even know what a "Facts Blast" is? It's NOT rumor, speculation, or the like. It's announcements to us dealers as to what E* is doing RIGHT NOW.

 

[Stargazer]

I definitely did not want anyone to think this was inside information but information that has been released by Dish Network themselves. I put etc. to cover anything else that it would have been called.

As to whether these receivers should be sold on ebay, it seems as if one can get stuck in a situation as to whether they should sell a receiver for a lot less than what they have in them then have to shell out the full price for the new receiver when it comes out or wait to have their receiver swapped but not know when the swapout would be.

Maybe we will find out some more information at CES or the chats this month about the swapout time frames and if it will cost us a lot. It does seem as if they want to ween out the existing MPEG-2 HD receivers but are not yet weaning out the MPEG-2 SD receivers.

Please, don't shoot the messenger (me). I may have made an error myself and mistated TV1 and TV 2 outputs as tuners. When I said tuner 2 I meant to say TV 2. I am thinking that the 622 is going to be very similar to the 942 and even heard that it was going to look like the 942 even with perhaps the same software from what I have read from the other threads. We will have to see what they say at CES about this as well.

 

[sonnyboy11]

Ok, I am starting to get a little bogged down reading all this stuff. I will be at CES myself on Fri-Sat so I will talk to the E* guys then. What I really want to know is exactly what the heck to I have to do get a 622 when they become available. I have 811 right now but I have been wanting HD PVR for a very long time. Cripes I will pay for it, just tell me when and where!

 

[jsanders]

I had no intention of shooting the messenger, or Stargazer in this case. I appreciate that you were willing to share what you learned with us. It seems that we are all on the same page now, and everything has been clarified. I apologize if I was perceived as being too stringent. I was really just after clarification.
Simon, I am not a retailer, and I was not familiar with what a "Facts Blast" is. Thanks for explaining what that is. That gives the weight/credibility to Stargazer's words.
I think that also might give some insight into the issue at hand. What about MPEG-2 DVRs being of no resale value in a month's time? What about any possible upgrade paths for it?
It seems like an obvious lack of information was given to retailers with the Facts Blast. Would this mean that any upgrade options wouldn't be through a retailer, but through E* directly? It might explain why there are questions about it. It is important for retailers to know they can't sell or resell an MPEG-2 DVR after February 1. Not necessarily as important for them to know what the customer is supposed to do with their non-resellable recievers after 30 days.
Has there ever been trade-ins in the past? Does anybody know how that worked? Was it direct with E*, or was there a way to use a retailer to do it? What about those 5000 recievers when everything finally went to 8PSK?

 

[Stargazer]

There is an aweful lot of information that is coming down the pike all at once and it can get confusing and certain information can be vague such as with the MPEG-4 HD activations only. It did not say that it was for new activations only but that may have been what they were meaning in the Facts Blast. From what Scott said in a different thread it may be only applying to new activations.

I will not post information unless I know for sure that it is true to the best of my ability. I have made an error when typing some information that I should clarify. When I typed in my previous posts I typed tuner but meant TV Out. When I would mention tuner 2 I would mean Tuner 2 and it caused some confusion. Some thought I was talking about the actual tuner instead of the Tv Output to the television. I gave it the incorrect name. I apologize for the confusion. I was used to discussing about the 522 and 721 receivers that have been out for a while now with the two tv outputs and always referred to them as tuners.

I knew that this concern of the MPEG-2 to MPEG-4 transition was coming eventually and Dish knows they have to push this upgrade and with DirecTv pushing their MPEG-4 Dish has no choice but to push theirs to keep up. Certain things are needed to be done to ensure this to be done. There has been no mention of any particulars of upgrade options yet. We have seen limited promotions for the HD DVR's particularly the existing subscribers although I heard that a few got the $250 lease deal.

There is still a lot of unknown answers that we would all like to know. I personally think that Dish Network does not even know the answers yet and trying to figure out how to do all of this while affecting their bottom line as little as possible. We can still sell the MPEG-2 DVR receivers to new subscribers, just not for HD programming, for SD programming only.

In the past there has been an upgrade option directly through Dish Network for the 7100 to upgrade the hard drive for a cost to make it a 7200 essentially. It was an upgrade from 5 hours to 10 hours. This was before the 501 was released. From previous threads that I have read the 942 receivers may be able to be upgraded to a 942+ which would be comparable to the 622 but I am not certain of this information. Most generally all upgrade options that are available through Dish Network is also available through the retailer as well.

When everything finally went to 8PSK it was a part that the consumer could order through Dish Network or the retailer and they had promotions for the customers if they ordered HD programming. They had some pretty good deals a time or two. I believe once they offered it for $25 and announced that on a Charlie Chat and made it effective then if I am not mistaken.

 

[minnow]

Well I appreciate the information Stargazer and am sure 99% of us here do as well. There's always going to be that 1 % looking for a fight.

 

[Stargazer]

I try my best to do my part.