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[DONE] Thermonuclear - DirectTV 35 hour (Series 2) Tivo for $50 @ CC AR

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Originally posted by: FourDoor

And as for RossMan: Key to your situation is to make sure that Circuit City rung up your sale as an EXISTING customer. If not, then you may have to do a return buy and place your room mates info. I would call 1800DirecTV to find out exactly just to make sure you dont get charged for the non activation fee.
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Thanks, I will be calling the wife soon to ask her to look at the CC receipt 🙂

I should be ok since he asked if I was existing DTV and I said yes.

But even though I used MY CC to buy the DirecTivo and DTV is in my roommate's name, I should be ok?

Will we be charged $0, $5 or $10 monthly for two TIVO's?
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
Originally posted by: FourDoor

And as for RossMan: Key to your situation is to make sure that Circuit City rung up your sale as an EXISTING customer. If not, then you may have to do a return buy and place your room mates info. I would call 1800DirecTV to find out exactly just to make sure you dont get charged for the non activation fee.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I will be calling the wife soon to ask her to look at the CC receipt 🙂

I should be ok since he asked if I was existing DTV and I said yes.

But even though I used MY CC to buy the DirecTivo and DTV is in my roommate's name, I should be ok?

Will we be charged $0, $5 or $10 monthly for two TIVO's?
Click to expand...

Amount of tivos doesnt matter... its just $5 per directv account.
 
Wow this is indeed thermonuclear hot.

The CC salesguy also said they offer extended warranty on these, if ANYTHING goes wrong they don't fix it. They just replace it with a brand new unit.

3 years $29.99
5 years $39.99

What do you guys think about that?
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
Wow this is indeed thermonuclear hot.

The CC salesguy also said they offer extended warranty on these, if ANYTHING goes wrong they don't fix it. They just replace it with a brand new unit.

3 years $29.99
5 years $39.99

What do you guys think about that?
Click to expand...

Trust me WELL worth it.... directv also offers warranty but its $3-5 a month.... ALOT more then $40 for 5 years. These arent typically $99 so its worth it, normal price for exsisting customers is $249. For some reason its $29.99 for 3 years on ANY direct tv receivers.... $49 receiver or $700 sony hi def receiver. Well worth it. Prob only 3 years IMO tho since in 3 years youll likely replace it with something newer and better.
 
RossMan: How many activ DirecTV receivers will be in the house? (including the new DTivo units)

If you guys will just have 2 DTivo's and nothing else your pricing should go:

DirecTV Plan = ~$40+
Additional Receiver Mirroring Fee (2nd Dtivo) = $5
Tivo Subscription (covers ALL DTivos in the account) $5

If you want to activate a 3rd or 4th regular receiver or DTivo it would be an additional $5 per unit.
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
How has the reliability/repair history for TIVO's been?
Click to expand...

Hard to tell. But it has alot of things in it... standard receiver... 2 tuners, hard drive, and whatever else is in there. I know if the HD went out you and me would have no problem replacing it... but I doubt I could find a HD for $30 to replace it if it died hehe.
 
And as far as the CC extended warranty goes, I bought it with my first HDVR2. It's a good piece of mind insurance as they will replace the unit with a new one if it breaks and they no longer carry the unit in stock. People had said that when they bought the series one units with the CC extended warranties, they have been able to succesfully able to receive a free upgrade to the series 2 units since CC no longer carried them. of course this is a YMMV situation with teh B&M store...

I decided I didn't need to get the extended warranty on this second HDVR2 from CC...
 
Originally posted by: FourDoor
RossMan: How many activ DirecTV receivers will be in the house? (including the new DTivo units)

If you guys will just have 2 DTivo's and nothing else your pricing should go:

DirecTV Plan = ~$40+
Additional Receiver Mirroring Fee (2nd Dtivo) = $5
Tivo Subscription (covers ALL DTivos in the account) $5

If you want to activate a 3rd or 4th regular receiver or DTivo it would be an additional $5 per unit.
Click to expand...

AFAIK we have:

1 DirecTV satellite dish with 4 outputs

4 outputs:
1 living room DirecTV
2 another room with DirecTIVO
1 our bedroom with DirecTIVO

Since we only have 1 output we're going to need a multiswitch I gather.

So there are a total of 2 DirectTIVO's in the house with 3 DirecTV receivers (2 RCA's and 1 Toshiba).

I'm not sure which programming package he has but we get all the regular channels, plus HBO and local channels.
 
Originally posted by: Dulanic
Originally posted by: RossMAN
How has the reliability/repair history for TIVO's been?
Click to expand...

Hard to tell. But it has alot of things in it... standard receiver... 2 tuners, hard drive, and whatever else is in there. I know if the HD went out you and me would have no problem replacing it... but I doubt I could find a HD for $30 to replace it if it died hehe.
Click to expand...

The Series 2 in my opinion is a decent machine. All Tivo's are essentially is a PC running linux. If anything was to break, it would be the HD due to over usage. The original HD that comes with the HDVR2 is only a 40gigger. I'm sure you can find deals for 80 and 120gb HDs easily for sub $80. And if you want another 40 in there, I'm sure you can find those as well on the net for $30 as you described
 
Originally posted by: RossMAN
Originally posted by: FourDoor
RossMan: How many activ DirecTV receivers will be in the house? (including the new DTivo units)

If you guys will just have 2 DTivo's and nothing else your pricing should go:

DirecTV Plan = ~$40+
Additional Receiver Mirroring Fee (2nd Dtivo) = $5
Tivo Subscription (covers ALL DTivos in the account) $5

If you want to activate a 3rd or 4th regular receiver or DTivo it would be an additional $5 per unit.
Click to expand...

AFAIK we have:

1 DirecTV satellite dish with 4 outputs

4 outputs:
1 living room DirecTV
2 another room with DirecTIVO
1 our bedroom with DirecTIVO

Since we only have 1 output we're going to need a multiswitch I gather.

So there are a total of 2 DirectTIVO's in the house with 3 DirecTV receivers (2 RCA's and 1 Toshiba).

I'm not sure which programming package he has but we get all the regular channels, plus HBO and local channels.
Click to expand...

Prob the $56 plan which gives one premium package + 2 room... so add +5 for tivo plus $5 for every receiver over 2.
 
CherryBOMB & RossMan-

The BEST deal I have found on Switches is the TERK BMS58 at Buy.com for $72. This is a regularly $150 unit from Best Buy or anywere mainstream.

-EEMan
 
Originally posted by: eeman
CherryBOMB & RossMan-

The BEST deal I have found on Switches is the TERK BMS58 at Buy.com for $72. This is a regularly $150 unit from Best Buy or anywere mainstream.

-EEMan
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

Are there any other manufacturers/models you'd recommend?

I want a simple but reliable and cheap switch.
 
I purchased my Multiswitch from eBay upon other peoples recomendations. The prices have been great and usually below $40 for a good quality solid state multiswitch. If you have long cable runs, above 100ft then I would highly suggest getting a powered multiswitch.

A couple things to check before doing your install.

1. Verify the type of DTV dish you have. Is it a Dual LNB oval/elipitcal dish or a Triple LNB as the one pictuted in the FAQ you looked through. The best way to tell is to look at your dish and see how many wires are coming down from the dish. If it is 2 cable wires, then you have a regular dual LNB. If you have 4 to 5 wires coming down from the dish, you have a Triple LNB setup.

2. If you have a just a regular dual LNB dish, you probably already have a 2x4 or 3x4 multiswitch which will need to be replaced by a 2x8 or 3x8 multiswitch.

This is how your wiring will go
Output 1 and 2 will be DTivo 1
Output 3 and 4 willl be DTivo 2
Output 5 will be RCA receiver 1
Output 6 will be RCA receier 2
Output 7 will be Toshiba receiver
Output 8 is empty

3. If you have the triple LNB dish, I'm not as familiar with this setup as it is a bit more complicated. You can follow the guides on tivocommunit on how best to wire all 3 LNBs.
 
One thing on the Extended Warrenties, if you plan on opening the unit to upgrade the hard drive, the warrenty will not matter. The Series One units had a sticker that basically got destroyed if you tried to do anything to open the unit.
 
My girlfriend got in on this deal, and she's already a DTV customer. Her receipt says 1 SL 1 PKG DIRECTVWEB. Anyone know what that means? She can't remember if the guy asked her if she was already a subscriber to DTV.
 
Someone above linked to the $99 Friends & family deal from directv - does anyone happen to know the promo code to enter for that?

I've tried ordering from CC, but theyre out of stock in the warehouse and for about 100 miles of me, store-wise. I'll try CC again before paying more with DTV, but I want to have a backup plan ^_^
 
Originally posted by: FourDoor
Some key points I wanted to share:

1. The DTivo unit WILL NEED TO CALL at least once via the phone line for activation. (If you really don't have a phone line to activate it with, there are a couple work arounds such as the serial cable method or bringing the DTivo unit to a friends house to activate. You can read up on tivocommunity if you really must go that route. But I think spending 10minutes initially with the phone line plugged in shouldnt be a problem for most people)

2. The DTivo (series 2) units DO NOT REQUIRE A PHONE LINE TO FUNCTION. You can unplug the DTivo unit and use it as normal just as long as you have a VALID subscription with DTV. People in tivocommunity have reported not having theire HDVR2s plugged in the phone line for months with no problem. The only problem you will encounter is that you will not be able to buy PPVs and you will receive a daily nag screen asking you to plug in the phone line.

3. Activating any NEW ACCESS CARD/RECEIVER will automatically renew your contract with DTV for 1 yeat.

4. And to the people who got the CC deal on the HDVR2 as a NEW customer, you should have had 2 rebates print out. 1. For the $50 MIR for the HDVR2, and a second one for NEW customer 1 room install.

5. Lastly just to avoid more confussion. DirecTV calls the DTivo's "DirecTV DVRs". This includes the Sony SAT-T60, Philips DSR6000, Hughes HDVR2, Philips DSR7000, and whatever other models I left out.

And as for RossMan: Key to your situation is to make sure that Circuit City rung up your sale as an EXISTING customer. If not, then you may have to do a return buy and place your room mates info. I would call 1800DirecTV to find out exactly just to make sure you dont get charged for the non activation fee.
Click to expand...


Actually I have found that when you first setup a new directv box without a phone connection you can order pay-per-views (I read somewhere the card has a $50 cap on it). I know I have ordered with my regular box (not connected) and then it stopped allowing me to do it. Also I have ordered Pay-per-view with the DirectTivo without a connection and ordered online by credit card and the tivo recognized that the event was payed for and let me record it.

On a side note, I figured that eventually I would have to hookup those units I ordered payperview on (actually 1 unit) and would get billed for the movies. When I replaced that unit with a tivo today and deactivated the card the cust serv rep told me I could throw out the card and they would issue a new one if I ever sold the reciever or wanted to use it again. Makes me think I should have loaded up on pay-per-views before switching the boxes. (sarcasm)

And I forgot about the initial setup needing a phone connection, pain in the butt running a 100' line across the house but gotta do it.
 
so there's no way to activate without a phone line? ARGG!! I just have a cell phone and no line in my apartment. I'll either have to get my neighbors to let me use their line or get a line for a month then cancel it.
 
I Just picked one up.. But the problem I'm having is that there is only one coax to my apartment.
Now in the wiring closet on my apts floor there is space on the multi switch but I don't have the extra coax run to here.. Any suggestions.. Anyone know if I can connect a multi in my room and tap from there..??
 
Originally posted by: JRKIO
so there's no way to activate without a phone line? ARGG!! I just have a cell phone and no line in my apartment. I'll either have to get my neighbors to let me use their line or get a line for a month then cancel it.
Click to expand...

you still need the phone line even after activating.
 
Originally posted by: JRKIO
so there's no way to activate without a phone line? ARGG!! I just have a cell phone and no line in my apartment. I'll either have to get my neighbors to let me use their line or get a line for a month then cancel it.
Click to expand...


They do sell those kits for like $30-50 that allow your sell phone to act as your house line for al the phones in your aprtment
 
VSOP is right they do make those things, but there are 2 problems. 1) They only work with the older Nokia 51xx and 61xx series phones, and 2) You have to push # after the number to begin dialing. #2 is where the problem with TIVO is, Tivo can't do that.

Now if someone want's one for other uses, I saw one of these on Clearance at my WalMart for like $15.
 
As for the MultiSwitch. A friend of mine is using the TERK 5x8 switch with his HDVR2 + 2 Sony traditional receivers. The TERK has a pretty clean amplifier in it and he gets great singal through his 3 Story house.

I can't speak for the other brands and variety of switches, but I know the TERK works well.

-EE
 
My building has the Directv sat shared with the all the floors they have at least 32 ports on each floor, and some heavy duty amps.. I noticed there was a free port. So I guess that I'll be stoping at lowes or HD tomorrow to pick up 100ft of Digital quality coax to make the run..
 
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