That's how it was with us and Dish. We had 7 year old receivers, a dish that couldn't pick up half the programing we were paying for, no local channels and we watched NY channels for "over air" channels, and DVRs were fairly abundant. Dish wanted us to pay $500+ for a DVR, $99 for the 2nd receiver, and $75 for a new dish to pick up everything we paid a service for. I argued for a long time about it. After hanging up, I called Direct TV and ordered a DVR and 2nd receiver. As soon as it was installed, I called Dish to cancel and they were bending over backwards to get me to stay. Too late, they should have thought of it when I called the first time and before having Direct installed.
It may be time to pull it on Direct now since we are paying twice the amount for a simple DVR and 2nd receiver than new people are with 2 DVRs, 2 extra rooms, and free HD.
Anyone know if you can do the HD if you don't have an HD television? Can you still connect them up to an old tube tv? I don't have the money to spend on an expensive TV right now, but would like to get the HD for life before that would possibly disappear.