Poor DirecTV Guy at BestBuy Didn't Have a Chance

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TheOsburnFamil

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Poor DirecTV Guy at BestBuy Didn't Have a Chance

#1

Post by TheOsburnFamil » Mon Apr 27, 2015 11:21 pm

Funny quick story-- thought I'd share.

Wife & I walked into BestBuy yesterday afternoon just looking in the cheap bluray bin (always looking for a cheap $5 bluray I don't already have to rip & add to my HTPC). A BestBuy/DirecTV guy(kid really-- looked like he *might* be 18yr old) politely walked up to us and asked if we didn't mind talking about our TV usage at home.

Now, my wife & I both keep a very close eye on Dish, DirecTV, Charter DVR (we are a Charter region), Comcast XFinity, and a couple others. We weren't in any rush and figured hey-- let's give this kid a chance to really polish his pitch.

So he asks us, "Do you have cable or sat today?" Cable-- Charter.
He follows that one up with, "That's cool-- so how many TV's do you have in your house on Charter?" We said 5--sometimes 4, sometimes 6.
He says, "Oh wow-- and are they all HD?" Yep-- all HD-- all HDMI.
He then says, "Do you have any on a DVR?" Yep-- all of them...
His eyes then got REALLY BIG. "WOW-- So that's a lot of 2 Tuner DVRs then you guys must be paying for!"
We said, "No-- not really. Just the one-- but it's not 2 tuners."

At this point his face went from "Man, I'm gonna get these guys with my Genie setup. This will be easy." to, "Oh crap-- what the heck are they talking about?!"

He says, "But you said all of them were on a DVR. Charter doesn't have a new whole-house DVR now do they?"
We chuckled and then let him in on the joke. "Sorry we weren't totally up front with you. We have a whole-house DVR setup with 10 tuners. 2 x 4Tuner CableCards and 2 x 1Tuner OTA Antennas-- all on a single HTPC with a single guide & shared recordings all connected with XBOX360's. The only money we pay is for the subscription package at $2 bucks for the additional cablecard. So-- with internet, it's around $120 a month."

He looks down at his clipboard-- looks up at us and says, "Yeah-- I got nothin'." Poor kid looks like we kicked his dog or something.
Matt O. ...tivo what? ...dish dvr--uh... huh? ...cable dvr fees--you're kidding, right?

adam1991

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#2

Post by adam1991 » Mon Apr 27, 2015 11:38 pm

His brother caught me at Costco yesterday. He asked me who my TV provider was. I laughed and said, dude, one week and 18 hours ago I cut pay TV from my life. Pay TV is dead to me. Doesn't exist. OTA all the way.

I got pretty much the same reaction from him.

But for what it's worth, I used to have your exact conversation with those guys all the time.

kd6icz

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#3

Post by kd6icz » Fri May 01, 2015 4:29 pm

My favorite line is when they say all of the channels on DirecTV are 1080p....

LuckyDay

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#4

Post by LuckyDay » Fri May 01, 2015 4:45 pm

We get the ATT Uverse kids at our door all the time. Usually they want to know more about my set up after I tell them I pay so little each month for what I have. I have never encountered a situation in the five years I've been using it where someone has known what WMC was when I told them.

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DavidinCT

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#5

Post by DavidinCT » Fri May 01, 2015 6:00 pm

Man, I could tell some stories but, I'm under a NDR....
-Dave
Twitter @TheCoolDave

Windows Media Center certified and WMC MVP 2010 - 2012

adam1991

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#6

Post by adam1991 » Fri May 01, 2015 6:33 pm

aka, "restraining order"

blueiedgod

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#7

Post by blueiedgod » Fri May 15, 2015 4:51 pm

Had a similar experience with DirectTV guy at BJ's.

"Who is your CableTV provider?"

Verizon FiOS

"How many TV's do you have?"

6 TV's.

"Do you have a DVR?"

Yes.

"Can you watch recorded programs on any TV, or just the one you recorded on?"

Any TV.

"Have you ever wanted to record more than 2 programs?"

Yes, we regularly record 6-8 programs at once, plus watch 4 more live. We have 12 tuners.

"WOW! Have you ever had to delete a program you wanted to save to make room for more recordings?"

No, never, we have 30TB for the recorded TV.

"WOW!. How much do you pay a month for service like that?"

Our Verizon bill for Phone, internet and TV, including equipment rental is $65/month + tax = $75/month.

"I have to be honest, I can't do better than this. Mind telling me how you get this?"

We use Windows 7 and Windows Media Center and rent a CableCARD for $5/month. Everything is controlled by remote. I can build you one, if you are interested...




He called 2 days later to have me build him a system.

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makryger

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#8

Post by makryger » Sat May 16, 2015 1:35 am

Lol, most entertaining TGB thread in a while...
My Channel Logos XL: Get your Guide looking good! ~~~~ TunerSalad: Increase the 4-tuner limit in 7MC

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#9

Post by UCBearcat » Sat May 16, 2015 3:51 pm

+1 on this thread. A good read for sure.
Generally, when I attempt to tell people that I run my own whole home DVR with WMC7 and XB360 extenders, their first reaction is "Is that legal??" They're shocked when I say "Yes, 100% legal."
When I attempt to explain it to them in layman's terms, they look at me like I'm speaking Greek. I understand that the whole concept comes naturally to me, given my line of work... but is WMC7 and CableCard REALLY that difficult to comprehend?

adam1991

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#10

Post by adam1991 » Sat May 16, 2015 5:05 pm

Face it: those same people think putting up an antenna and getting OTA broadcasts for free and without anyone else's involvement is suspicious. They've always lived in a world where "you pay for TV" and where there's always some news about the feds coming down on pirates. Low information voters put the two together, in a vacuum, and decide that "to get TV you pay the cable company and they put in this mysterious equipment and hook it up and that's that".

Throw in "yes, it's from the cable company but you don't need the actual equipment, just the card that validates you as a customer" and their heads explode.

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