Dish Unveils New $30 'Flex Pack' Skinny Bundle → Re: This seems very much like Sling TV

There is no fee for the first receiver. If you want a DVR then there is a $10 fee.

So, $120 a year for the privilege to record something on a $50 hard drive....

Yeah, and that's not even counting the $40-$50/year added to one's electric bill to keep those notoriously power-hogging DVR satellite boxes running 24 hours a day. I measured the consumption of one (older) DISH model at 46 watts, which seems ridiculously high

With better engineering that figure could probably be cut by at least 90% (at least when idle and not recording), but as with cable boxes, the providers aren't paying utility costs, and there's no competition for equipment, so they have very little incentive to design with efficiency in mind.

yes, but its also not mandatory and more than sling gives me.

Dish uses the receiver to power the LNB with 18-21 volts 24/7.

A lot more features than just recording. Like multiple tuners for recording multiple channels at the same time, pause/rewind/FF live programming, built in Sling to watch anywhere, apps like Netflix/Pandora, etc.

I know, but this LNB power accounts for only a small fraction of a receiver's draw, about 5W if I remember right, which can be checked by disconnecting, then reconnecting both incoming coax lines while watching a Kill-a-Watt meter on the AC input.

Also, with a better system design, where guide, DVB table and authorization-data downloads were sent on a schedule and clocks carefully kept in sync (like how cellphones and their serving towers coordinate to allow mobile receivers to remain off most of the time while still receiving calls), there would be no need for 24/7 LNB power when the receiver is "off".

Only the RAM, clock, and remote control receivers (IR & UHF) would need to remain powered, while preserving near-instant wakeup capability... you'd probably want to turn on that LNB a second or so before it's needed to give the PLLs and other analog circuitry time to stabilize.

I'm not under any illusion that this will ever happen, since most customers don't care or even know about this issue, hence the providers have zero incentive to put any effort into making improvements.

Ours gets turned off overnight and when no one's home (via latching-relay, triggered when CdS photocells around the house sense all lights are off). It does its guide & system info downloads in early morning instead of overnight, which works fine on a 22-watt 322 model. The DVR models with their internal hard drives probably wouldn't be so happy with this arrangement.