# Why the $3.00 charge for mrv



## dudester (Feb 16, 2012)

It is what it is , but i got to thinking of why are they charging for mrv? I am on unsupported, ran all cat 6 myself, using my own network switch and connecting through my own internet service, and watching it on boxes i am already paying a leasing fee for.There isn't a charge for connecting a ethernet to a dvr for use without mrv. I am just not getting where the expense is to have to charge for mrv and the only thing it allows me to do is watch the drv recordings on my non dvr h21 connected to my own network.I still have 3 other h20's and cannot get mrv on them.( no ethernet on those). They will not send me refurbed 21's for those whenn 2 of them fried so i could hook mrv in those rooms unless I upgrade. I have the premier package and am at 180 a month and starting to think about dumping Direct and going to a Netflix setup. Already have the locals hd on over the air. Just don't see the value in it anymore.


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## MikeW (May 16, 2002)

There is a cost to DirecTV to provide help for this service. There are many people who don't understand some of the basics of networking and now DirecTV needs to provide tech support for those users who can't get MRV working. There is also the ongoing R&D. If they couldn't make any money on it, why would they do it.

I too am at a pretty high level for programming. Now that Sunday Ticket has been added to the bill, I am north of $200. The extra $3 isn't going to make me leave.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

Very old news.
$3/month for using your own networking is because the feature can be charged for.
You don't want to pay it, drop the line item from your bill.
There is no support for "unsupported" MRV.

The connected home networking/DECA is another story.
There were deals to upgrade when it first came out.
Those that chose to not take advantage of it have found "the deals" have passed.

I too *****ed like hell as to why $3, but marketing found a gold mine and is mining it for all it's worth.


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## armophob (Nov 13, 2006)

Like VOS said. The answer is pretty much that they will charge what the market will allow. If no one signed up and payed $3, they would try $2 and then $1. But it is popular. When they increase it to $4 or $5, that will tell how many people really want it.


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## CCarncross (Jul 19, 2005)

If you call and move to supported MRV they will replace the 20's for free as part of the upgrade...Pay for the supported MRV install(usually around $149-$199) and they will hook up everything for you and fully support your setup that way.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

armophob said:


> Like VOS said. The answer is pretty much that they will charge what the market will allow. If no one signed up and payed $3, they would try $2 and then $1. But it is popular. When they increase it to $4 or $5, that will tell how many people really want it.


HD fee $10
DVR fee $8
MRV fee $3

With new customers these are now grouped into one $20 fee for ARS.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

Actually, if his H20s really are broken then DirecTV should replace them for free (but they usually charge $20 for shipping). They should be replaced by H21, or newer receivers since they no longer send out H20s as far as I know.

Now if they are not broken then they won't replace them unless he switches to supported Whole Home DVR like CCarncross said.

Now that I think about it though, I imagine they would also be replaced for free if they were hooked up to 3D TVs since they won't work with 3D.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

Pardon if this is answered elsewhere - I just didn't search long enough.

Is MRV required to have an HR34?

Any opinions on whether it will be required in an HR34 & RVU client arrangement?

I have MRV now and an HR34 (and HR24). MRV is a nice feature, which should be free, but of no use in our household.


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## dennisj00 (Sep 27, 2007)

If your bill is $180 a month, I'm not sure why you're complaining about a $3 a month charge when you have 2 H20s that are 'fried'.


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## wahooq (Oct 19, 2011)

+1


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

dennisj00 said:


> If your bill is $180 a month, I'm not sure why you're complaining about a $3 a month charge...


Well after all it's 2% of the bill. :lol:


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## MRinDenver (Feb 3, 2003)

veryoldschool said:


> Well after all it's 2% of the bill. :lol:


So, what happens if I turn the supported MRV off, now that I have a full setup installed? Can they shut it off from on high?

Just curious.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

MRinDenver said:


> So, what happens if I turn the supported MRV off, now that I have a full setup installed? Can they shut it off from on high?
> 
> Just curious.


Check your whole home menu and at the top it says authorized.
Drop the line item from your bill and watch that change. 
This isn't any different than any of the other things like you program package, HD service, DVR service, etc.


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## dudester (Feb 16, 2012)

Ha , well if you guys want , go ahead and start donating a extra 2.% a month to your bill and maybe that would offset future price increases and pay for future technology . Yes my h20's truly went dead. No, they refused to replace them with refurbed 21 and they sent 20's. Was told i would have to upgrade and lock in for 2 more years to get refub 21. No they did not want the 20's back, ask them twice. I payed the shipping charges and the old ones went to a recyler the other day along with a couple older boxes. And remember, you guys laughing about it only being 2 % , slip on down to your local bank and see what they are paying interest for on YOUR money.


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## wahooq (Oct 19, 2011)

dudester said:


> Ha , well if you guys want , go ahead and start donating a extra 2.% a month to your bill and maybe that would offset future price increases and pay for future technology . Yes my h20's truly went dead. No, they refused to replace them with refurbed 21 and they sent 20's. Was told i would have to upgrade and lock in for 2 more years to get refub 21. No they did not want the 20's back, ask them twice. I payed the shipping charges and the old ones went to a recyler the other day along with a couple older boxes. And remember, you guys laughing about it only being 2 % , slip on down to your local bank and see what they are paying interest for on YOUR money.


I think what everyone is getting at is that pay TV is a luxury not a right.... and yes DTV should be paid for services they provide...look at how many services you get for no extra charge....If the $3.00 is a major deal then drop Whole Home...it is a choice to have it..... not required


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## Bill Broderick (Aug 25, 2006)

dudester said:


> Yes my h20's truly went dead. No, they refused to replace them with refurbed 21 and they sent 20's. Was told i would have to upgrade and lock in for 2 more years to get refub 21.


I agree with you. If you're paying for MRV service. You should have MRV compatible equipment. The supported/unsupported part is the home network, not the receivers.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

wahooq said:


> I think what everyone is getting at is that pay TV is a luxury not a right.... and yes DTV should be paid for services they provide...look at how many services you get for no extra charge....If the $3.00 is a major deal then drop Whole Home...it is a choice to have it..... not required


Luxury eh? At the risk of taking this thread way off topic...

The line for essential and luxury is very very fuzzy. Is local phone service a luxury? Apparently not since it's a highly regulated utility service. Is internet service a luxury?

I think history proves that what is luxury at one point becomes essential service at another. Gas, electricity, phone. I would suggest that TV is nearing that transition. (Sure, there is free over-the-air if you happen to live within range of a transmitter; that range is less with digital TV than it was with analog; lots of people that cannot get over-the-air.) Cable TV may not be regulated yet but it has been moving in that direction - cities have some control over that, maybe not programming and price but certainly monopoly status. Is internet service a luxury? Again I think the transition is in sight (most people get it through cable or local phone!).

Agree DTV should be paid for services provided - and with a reasonable profit. Can't say I think they should have a better deal than gas, electric, phone companies. They are just a *distribution* company.

DTV is in for a crude awakening. It's only a matter of time until the over-the-air/cable/sat distribution lock on programming is broken. Once internet delivery is on an equal footing then the business model will get interesting. (Any time Apple.) Spare me the "ain't never gonna happen" speech. No reason that it won't go the way of books, music, and movies.

Many services at no extra charge... also put another way, through massive bundling paying for many services that I don't want.

These nickel-n-dime feature charges are fine for the early-adopter stage. Helps pay for development and measures demand. But at some point they need to become included in the base. At this point who thinks that the HD conversion hasn't been more than paid for? Yet we "existing" (scum) customers are still paying $120/yr for it. Clearly gravy since DTV is now giving it away to new customers forever. DVR fee is likewise getting to be a joke. Whole Home is just a hack to fill the void until a correct solution came along. The HR34 and the RVU client are the correct way. nono2: is how I'll feel if I have to keep paying a Whole Home fee for RVU clients to use a HR34.)


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

unixguru said:


> Once internet delivery is on an equal footing then the business model will get interesting. (Any time Apple.) Spare me the "ain't never gonna happen" speech.


Let me know when U-who gets that working on par with DirecTV.


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## wahooq (Oct 19, 2011)

unixguru said:


> Luxury eh? At the risk of taking this thread way off topic...
> 
> The line for essential and luxury is very very fuzzy. Is local phone service a luxury? Apparently not since it's a highly regulated utility service. Is internet service a luxury?
> 
> ...


lux·u·ry (lgzh-r, lksh-)
n. pl. lux·u·ries 
1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.

Yes pay TV is a luxury...you don't need it to survive


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## hasan (Sep 22, 2006)

wahooq said:


> lux·u·ry (lgzh-r, lksh-)
> n. pl. lux·u·ries
> 1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
> 2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.
> ...


Clearly a luxury.

It really comes down to:

D* charges for MRV because they can.

It's then up to the consumer to decide if the feature is worth the $3/mo.

For me, it is, as it is nearly the most used feature of the boxes, other than doing the recordings in the first place. I guess I'd rank things like this:

1. Recording/Time shifting
2. Playback/Trickplay
3. MRV

in terms of what features/functions I use and value the most.

It's well worth the three bucks to me (although I resented it when they decided to charge for the home network setups). I use it so much, I no longer care whether I am being charge for home networking, and I eventually went DECA for nearly everything anyway.


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## Beerstalker (Feb 9, 2009)

dudester said:


> Yes my h20's truly went dead. No, they refused to replace them with refurbed 21 and they sent 20's. Was told i would have to upgrade and lock in for 2 more years to get refub 21.


This sounds very strange, as far as I knew they were not sending out H20s anymore to anyone. How long ago did this take place? Did they ask you if you used OTA?

The next time one of your H20s breaks and you call in to get it replaced be sure to tell them you don't use OTA. If you do that they most likely will be replaced with an H21 or newer HD receiver.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

wahooq said:


> lux·u·ry (lgzh-r, lksh-)
> n. pl. lux·u·ries
> 1. Something inessential but conducive to pleasure and comfort.
> 2. Something expensive or hard to obtain.
> ...


Obviously. The same can be said of many things that are considered essential.

Landline phone - only 911 is essential.

Gas - only for heating/cooking is essential.

Electricity - again only heating/cooking is essential.

Anything beyond that is a luxury. So why aren't these other utilities only regulated up to the essential level with the rest being unregulated luxury? For example, any phone service beyond 911, gas or electric usage beyond minimal level, etc.

Luxury isn't black and white.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> Let me know when U-who gets that working on par with DirecTV.


Obviously not there - yet.

From a technological standpoint it's possible now. The now discontinued Vudu box, the Channel Master box, etc. Things have slipped back a bit as they apparently think that pure streaming is good enough - it's not, especially with full HD. And less than full HD is a fail.

The only thing preventing it is the content providers and their tightly controlled distribution channels. They mistakenly believe that they will be able to avoid the fate of the music and book industries.

"Quality" content has become mostly an oxymoron with the "networks". A few successes mixed with a lot of failures. This is exactly like the music industry used to be - forcing people to buy an entire "album" rather than just the songs they want. It's gonna end for TV.

Movies are already widely available on many internet services. Vudu looks like the best at the moment.

If DTV were wise (which they evidently are not) they would be driving this revolution. The choice is lead the wave or be crushed by it.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

unixguru said:


> Obviously not there - yet.
> 
> From a technological standpoint it's possible now.
> 
> If DTV were wise (which they evidently are not) they would be driving this revolution. The choice is lead the wave or be crushed by it.


If you're talking about one show at a time, sure, if you have enough bandwidth from your ISP.
What happens when there is more than one viewer?

DirecTV already has a delivery system in place, why reinvent the wheel?

U-Who has a delivery system, but it isn't there yet and it is their game.

"Snatching" a show of the net every once and a while, doesn't really show "from a technological standpoint" it's really possible to feed enough to enough people.


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> If you're talking about one show at a time, sure, if you have enough bandwidth from your ISP.
> What happens when there is more than one viewer?
> 
> DirecTV already has a delivery system in place, why reinvent the wheel?
> ...


First of all, I'm not suggesting that "internet streaming" is a solution. The internet is not - yet - able to provide consistent high-bandwidth. However, a device can effectively shield the user experience from that issue using current technology. On Demand already does this; it's just (software) limited in *what* and *when* it will download.

Sat delivery system is extremely complicated and expensive. Requires dedicated dish at each subscriber location and all that installer cost. Not possible without bundling programming - getting a certain amount of $ on average per subscriber. Cable has same issue.

The internet is different. It's already in homes for other reasons. Using it for video entertainment delivery only requires additional investment in capacity - investment that is already going on. It's also source-neutral; that is, the delivery mechanism is completely decoupled from the source material and supplier. This allows true competition and pay-for-what-you-get.

Consider what has happened to music. Entire old distribution system was crushed. People used sneakernet to retrieve 600MB chunks of music (CD) from a brick-and-mortar store. Now you click with no thought of bandwidth or storage capacity. Plus you can now pay *only* for exactly what you want - and that price is very reasonable. You own what you purchased, within copyright restrictions, forever - play as many times as you want.

BTW, how successful are the satellite music services? Er, I mean service. Not so much. "Broadcast" is dying.

"TV" will go this way.

Just because we don't currently have a product out there that does exactly what is needed - and matches the characteristics of the internet - doesn't mean it isn't technologically possible.

I talked about this a little in my post.

The technology standpoint I referred to is that D* DVRs already has "On Demand". Select the program you want and it downloads to local storage. Watch at any time after a sufficient amount of the program is downloaded. It's not a technology limitation that you have to manually tell it specifically what program to download.

Consider a Series list that pulls new episodes over the internet as they become available. Configurable for when and how much bandwidth it tries to use (for example, 90% bandwidth from midnight to 6am and then 10% rest of the time). _(This will go away as the internet evolves.)_ Configurable for how many episodes to cache. Watch and delete one episode and the next available one is queued for retrieval at a later time (when next in line and bandwidth config allows). It doesn't need to grab it immediately because you've already got some number of unwatched episodes already downloaded. There should be 1 box in each household for this - like HMC - with RVU clients.

Nice side benefit: if your box dies the content was remembered in the cloud. The replacement box just re-caches.

If live program is absolutely needed - just "stream" it.

The installation/maintenance is done entirely by the user. (Or Geek Squad or similar.) No more difficult than plugging in a router.

For locations where internet service is not sufficient use satellite to deliver internet bandwidth. Imagine the bandwidth available if all D* sats used spot-beam for internet. Internet protocols also have routing features that could be used to deliver episodes with high consumption via a single nation-wide stream (like broadcast of new episodes).

What is stopping this at the moment is that a lot of programming is owned by distribution companies. They keep their distribution monopoly by limiting the availability of the content.


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## veryoldschool (Dec 10, 2006)

unixguru said:


> First of all, I'm not suggesting that "internet streaming" is a solution. The internet is not - yet - able to provide consistent high-bandwidth.


So when all the homes have fiber, this will be a viable method.
Before we have that type of bandwidth, it's too limited to replace the current systems providing entertainment.

And now: What the hell does this have to do with a $3 charge for MRV? 

Might I suggest this forum would be a better place for your topic: http://www.iptvconnection.com/


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## unixguru (Jul 9, 2007)

veryoldschool said:


> So when all the homes have fiber, this will be a viable method.
> Before we have that type of bandwidth, it's too limited to replace the current systems providing entertainment.
> 
> And now: What the hell does this have to do with a $3 charge for MRV?
> ...


There is lots of bandwidth available now when people are at work and sleeping. The whole point of what I described - *time-shift* the downloads.

As others have said, MRV charge because they can. That's what near-monopoly does. Internet breaks distribution monopoly. With real competition we wouldn't have charges like MRV and HD.


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## HiDefGator (Nov 20, 2005)

Beerstalker said:


> This sounds very strange, as far as I knew they were not sending out H20s anymore to anyone.


The last time I asked they said they always try to send out the same model of DVR being returned because it reduces installation issues.


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## wahooq (Oct 19, 2011)

HR/H20's are being taken out of circulation


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