Dish Sets DVR Recordings Free, For A Price

(Mis)Uses of Technology

from the ha-but-no dept

EchoStar, which owns Dish Network, has released a set of portable video players that let users import content from their Dish DVRs as well as other sources. Like TiVoToGo before it, Dish shoots itself in the foot by limiting the devices that can be used to play back shows recorded from DVR. Users should be able to play back the content on any device they want, not just the three EchoStar has approved (and presumably gets a cut from). It may sound great that Dish DVR owners can now placeshift as well as timeshift their TV, but all these devices do, really, is serve as tools to lock in users. Comcast’s latest idea on time-shifting is a little different. It wants to charge people $17 to watch a pay-per-view movie and then send them the DVD of the film in the mail 2 days later.