"free upgrade"

[opticalcarrier]

Ive got a HR10-250 HD-Tivo and today they told me I was eligible for a free upgrade to the mpeg4 DVR. I asked some questions and found out that there is an additional 2 year commitment, plus its a lease. But supposedly theres no monthly lease fee.

I dont know if its gonna be a HR20 or 21 or how big the hard drive will be.
Is it just not possible to buy one from them? Id like to own one that I could later mod....Is this a good deal?

Can I mod the leased box?

[stevel]

You cannot buy an HR20/21 - they're all leases. The drive will be 320GB.

The only mod possible is a larger drive, and most people would suggest that you do this with an eSATA drive and not open the box.

[jwciv]

...most people would suggest that you do this with an eSATA drive and not open the box.

is this simply a warranty issue or is there another drawback to replacing the internal drive?

[stevel]

Just a warranty issue. I've opened both my boxes and replaced the drives with bigger ones, but the eSATA route is so easy.

[opticalcarrier]

You cannot buy an HR20/21 - they're all leases. The drive will be 320GB.

The only mod possible is a larger drive, and most people would suggest that you do this with an eSATA drive and not open the box.

there seems to be plenty of hr21 units available from ebay and froogle searches. are they all leases that you in initially pay for, then also pay an extra monthly lease fee?

[stevel]

You pay a "lease upgrade" fee up front. After that, you pay the standard receiver fee if you have more than one. This is sometimes listed as a lease fee, depending on what the primary box on your account is, but it really is a mirroring fee.

It would be very very unusual to find an HR21 not a lease, and you'd likely have to pay $700 or more for it. As far as I know, the only possible source of a non-lease HR21 is from a beta tester (like me, but I'm not selling), as we "own" the boxes.

[superleo]

I just upgraded two of my receivers to HD, one to a regular HD receiver and the other to a DVR HR-21. I called them up ahead of time and asked them for my alternatives. One of the alternatives was for me to buy my own equipment, no lease no commitment, but at the same time I had to do my own antenna install.

I bought my dish for $55.00, h20 for $99.00 hr21 for $169.00 plus other miscellaneous stuff. If you are willing to put up the upfront expense and the time to do it yorself, the option is there.

[opticalcarrier]

You pay a "lease upgrade" fee up front. After that, you pay the standard receiver fee if you have more than one. This is sometimes listed as a lease fee, depending on what the primary box on your account is, but it really is a mirroring fee.

It would be very very unusual to find an HR21 not a lease, and you'd likely have to pay $700 or more for it. As far as I know, the only possible source of a non-lease HR21 is from a beta tester (like me, but I'm not selling), as we "own" the boxes.

how about a HR20? thats the one I want. there are a few of them on ebay. I'm getting the RID from the seller to call DTV and check to see if its a lease

EDITED: DTV verified its a lease. I guess the people selling them on ebay are gonna get hit with the buy fee???

[drpud]

The actual answer lies between the positions tendered here. There is a $199 up-front "lease fee" that covers use of the unit for 2 yrs as they will replace, repair, etc. HOWEVER, at the end of the 2-year contract, you do, in fact, become an owner of the unit. You may chose to trade it in for a new unit or use it as a doorstop, etc with no repercussions. So the long and short of it is that you lease for 2 yrs after which you have "bought" the unit. Make any sense??

[jt1134]

HOWEVER, at the end of the 2-year contract, you do, in fact, become an owner of the unit. You may chose to trade it in for a new unit or use it as a doorstop, etc with no repercussions. So the long and short of it is that you lease for 2 yrs after which you have "bought" the unit. Make any sense??

Incorrect. I'm guessing a csr told you this?

http://directv.com/DTVAPP/global/con...ssetId=1100106

[jwciv]

how about a HR20? thats the one I want. there are a few of them on ebay. I'm getting the RID from the seller to call DTV and check to see if its a lease

EDITED: DTV verified its a lease. I guess the people selling them on ebay are gonna get hit with the buy fee???

ebay has been sporadically canceling auctions of H/HR 20/21, here's a sample explanation of why:

"You recently listed the following auction-style listing:
150226xxxxxx - HR20 Brand New Sealed Box DirecTV HD DVR MPEG-4 HDTV
The listing was removed because it violated eBay policy. We notified members who placed bids on the item that the listing has been canceled.
The rights owner, DirecTV, Inc., notified eBay that this listing violates intellectual property rights. When eBay receives a report of this type of violation, we remove the listing to comply with the law."

[stevel]

Yeah, that's the eBay VERO system at work. They canceled an auction I had for a Bose SoundDock and never told me why. After some digging I figured it was either that I had been willing to ship internationally (which Bose apparently doesn't like) and/or I cribbed descriptive text from their web site (understandable.) I was able to relist once I addressed those two items.

In the case of the HR20, I'd expect that DirecTV might object to auctions promoting NIB HR20s as "to own" when they will be leases. The low price assumes a kickback that DirecTV gives to the retailer.

[jwciv]

Yeah, that's the eBay VERO system at work. They canceled an auction I had for a Bose SoundDock and never told me why. After some digging I figured it was either that I had been willing to ship internationally (which Bose apparently doesn't like) and/or I cribbed descriptive text from their web site (understandable.) I was able to relist once I addressed those two items.

In the case of the HR20, I'd expect that DirecTV might object to auctions promoting NIB HR20s as "to own" when they will be leases. The low price assumes a kickback that DirecTV gives to the retailer.

it was listed as a lease, however, I did cut and paste info from an HR21 sell sheet to highlight features, maybe that was the "intellectual property rights" violation.

[kfosburg]

I finally got the call from DirecTV the other night to upgrade... deal was two new HR21's and a HD receiver and 5 LMB dish and install to replace my 10-250's and E86 - free with 24 month commitment. I keep my old stuff (beta test units anyhow) and I will OWN the new hardware after my commitment is up. They "recorded" the call so there's a record of what the CSR said.

The HR21 has some nice features, but lacks a couple of key features of the 10-250: OTA input and tuner swap!!!

[stevel]

OTA is coming in the form of an external tuner box which connects by USB - the AM21.