Time to Digest

Well after the long holiday weekend I had time to digest the ruling that came out on Friday between Echostar/Dish Network and Tivo.

While it sounds like a $200 million dollar payout is a lot of money for Dish Network to pay, I don’t really see it that way. Dish Network was ordered to pay $2.25 a month pre DVR subscriber fee for each month during the contempt period. That’s not to bad considering Dish Network charges their DVR customers $5.98 a month per DVR. So subtract $2.50 from it and it still leaves Dish will a hefty profit of $3.48 per month per DVR.

An the judges ruling even seems to favor Dish Network in saying that “the Court declines to find that EchoStar’s contempt has been willful.” This could help Dish greatly in its ongoing appeal.

And if Dish does manage to win this one it could spell the end for Tivo who recently filed lawsuits against AT&T and Verizon for violations of their patients. (Which for the life of me I don’t understand… why is Tivo suing the MSO’s when they should be making the manufacturer of these infringing products that in this case appears to be Motorola?)

So ultimately $2.50 was a little more then Dish wanted to pay in fees (Dish wanted to pay $1.25) but they are still making out well because of the DVR fees they charge their customers.

Perhaps when this lawsuit is said and done Dish Network will do something for its consumers and that is drop the per DVR service fee and do like DirecTV does and charge a single DVR fee for all DVR’s on a customers account. That would be a novel idea; its too bad Judge Folsom can’t order that in his rulings.

DirecTV Kicks Off Mobile Football

DirecTV is getting ready for this weekends kickoff of the 2009/2010 NFL season, and just in the nick of time has released it’s DirecTV Supercast software.

DirecTV’s Supercast software will allow DirecTV customers who subscribe to the NFL Sunday Ticket Superfan package to watch all of the NFL action on their mobile phones. The application was released last week for the iPhone, Palm devices and Windows Mobile Phones. A Blackberry version of the Suprecast software should also be released soon.

But even if you do not subscribe to the Sunday Ticket Superfan package the free application is still useful for football fans as it provides users with updated scores and news updates.