PVR Wire

1. Well.. at those numbers.. I may as well look at Dish or Comcast again... I can't see Tivo living very long with numbers climbing higher that actual content providers. How sad.

Posted at 4:47PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Steve

2. Huh..?
"This is great for TiVo subscribers who will not have the ability to get TiVo service with no upfront hardware costs," said Tom Rogers, TiVo's CEO.
Makes no sense...
Even the actual quote, which is,
"This is great for TiVo subscribers who will now have the ability to get TiVo service with no upfront hardware costs,"
... isn't much better. How is it great for us when they put the price up $4 - $7 a month and take away lifetime subscription..? The boxes were only $50 recently, so the hardware cost isn't really the barrier to sales IMHO.

Posted at 4:47PM on Mar 8th 2006 by GadgetGav

3. Doesn't this suck for TiVo customers that want a life-time subscription? Any idea what will happen at the end of the 1-2- or 3-year subscription? Will you have to pay an additional $200-$400 for additional years? I don't like it one bit.

Posted at 4:54PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Paul

4. CRAP CRAP CRAP we've been thinking of buying another TiVo, looks like now's the time. We paid for the lifetime subscription for our original TiVo and that paid for itself about 9 months ago (over the monthly subscription)

Now since we already have a TiVo we could get the discounted $6.95/mo subscription cost for our second unit but that would still pay for itself in less than 4 years, so we would still likely go with the lifetime.

Perhaps now is the time to get the second TiVo, I predict a run on TiVos in the coming days.

Posted at 5:31PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Robert Aitchison

5. Very sad. As a TiVo addict, with 3 models with lifetime subscription, I think this is a real shame. The lifetime subscription was what kept my buying more. But that was at $250 forever, not $500 for 3 years (a couple of my units are already more than 3 years old).

And I was *so* hoping that TiVo would pull out of their downward spiral. Very disappointing.

I think the only possible thing that can save them now is by going into software, licensing their excellent UI to other hardware vendors. All I really care about is the UI and great remote.

Posted at 5:33PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Will

6. So does this mean that when I got the "free" TiVO a few months ago, agreeing to a higher price for a year with the understanding that after the year it would drop down to the regular lower price, that I'm screwed basically and will be paying the higher price?

Well shit...maybe it's time to fire up the Sage box again...

Posted at 7:15PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Craig

7. Only thing I can figure is that their existing strategy to destroy the company wasn't working fast enough.

Posted at 7:57PM on Mar 8th 2006 by Quinapalus

8. Are they stupid? I have a TiVo...I love it, but I would never get one at those prices. I also have a DVR from Cablevision, and while it doesn't come close to being as good as TiVo (the interface anyway), it is cheaper, has HD, and 2 tuners. Why would anyone buy a TiVo anymore when they can get a mostly better product from the cable companies? Are they trying to go out of business?

Posted at 8:40PM on Mar 8th 2006 by RS

9. Keep in mind those '$50' boxes were after rebate. The MSRP was $200, plus sub. These prices are also MSRP, and so will be less any rebates, discounts, etc, just like the old prices. And those were 40-hour boxes. I wonder if they're going to standardize on the 80-hour only, or if you could get a 40 hour for less, or a 140 for more.

These new prices encourage two things:
- Signing up for longer periods
- Pre-paying instead of paying monthly

If you pre-pay, you save a bit over paying monthly. The longer you commit to, the less it costs per month.

Prepay for a year and save $15.40, two years and save $85.80, three years and save $141.20.

From past conference calls, fewer than 20% of TiVo subscribers opted for lifetime. And that was on a downward trend, especially since they introduced multi-unit discounts. So this isn't going to be a big deal for the overwhelming majority of users. And they did test pricing like this last fall, with a great deal of success.

I am sorry to see it go away myself, since I'd prefer to pay once and never again - and have the equity in the box for resale, but I can understand that the demand isn't sufficient, and the old lifetime pricing was too low for TiVo. How about $549-$599 for the box and lifetime? :-)

Posted at 9:12PM on Mar 8th 2006 by MegaZone

10. So I just picked up a 80 hour at CompUSA, will work out to $19 after rebate, got the lifetime subscription as well.

Posted at 2:03AM on Mar 9th 2006 by Robert Aitchison

11. I doubt there will be much in the way of rebates and discounts now. After all, how can you discount from free. They are pushing this pricing plan as free hardware. I would expect the only discount to be the one, two or three year pre-payment over per month.
Even if you pre pay for three years, you're not really saving any more than you were with the $50 after rebate deal ($141 over a $200 MSRP) and the other deals are worse, so how is this great for consumers..?
We all know the Tivo interface is better than the CableCos, but that's what they're fighting. With this model, they're competing against $10 a month from the CableCo, so $17 - $20 seems like a hard sell.
Does this mean there will only be Tivo service on Tivo brand hardware from now on..? No more DVD / Tivo combos..?

Posted at 8:19AM on Mar 9th 2006 by GadgetGav

12. As Series 1 early adopter, I paid $50 for lifetime after rebate. That was money well spent. I've done the HDD hack, the tivonet hack, turbonet, cache-card, etc, tivo-web, modded the unit and had not thought of getting another unit until I saw the DVD recorder units from Pioneer, Toshiba, and Humax.

But rather than get one of those units and then have deal with a $300 lifetime sub, I opted to build my own PVR using MythTV. I'm experienced at building PCs and have been dealing with Linux for the last few years, so this was not a problem for me and its actually quite fun! Need another tuner card, just add one. Need to upgrade to a Hi Def card, no problem. We I need to upgrade to Blu-ray and/or HD-DVD, I have no doubt that it'll be a snap.

It's all going to boil down to this:
The people technically capable of rolling their own will do so. Those who don't know or can't be bothered will stick with the offerings from TiVo, ReplayTV, Comcast, DirecTV, DishTV, etc.

I think this latest move on TiVo's part will prompt more people to look elsewhere. Too bad for TiVo.

Posted at 11:23AM on Mar 9th 2006 by Matt E.

13. Screw Tivo! I love my series 2 Tivo, but when it dies, I'll be buying some other form of PVR! There is no way in hell I'm going to shell out almost $500 dollars for 3 years of service! Bye-Bye Tivo!!!!!

Posted at 12:16PM on Mar 9th 2006 by Bigmrj

14. Sad..as a stand-alone tivo lifetime subscriber I dont see how this would encourage me to purchase another tivo? I keep waiting for the series 3 tivo so I can record hd without having to get a box from my cable co. If I cant pay for a lifetime sub on the series 3, why wouldnt I just get the box from my cable co?

This is not a good deal for the already stale series 2 units.

Posted at 12:17PM on Mar 9th 2006 by Bill

15. Screw Tivo! I love my series 2 Tivo, but when it dies, I'll be buying some other form of PVR! There is no way in hell I'm going to shell out almost $500 dollars for 3 years of service! Bye-Bye Tivo!!!!!

Posted at 12:23PM on Mar 9th 2006 by Bigmrj

16. Screw Tivo! I love my series 2 Tivo, but when it dies, I'll be buying some other form of PVR! There is no way in hell I'm going to shell out almost $500 dollars for 3 years of service! Bye-Bye Tivo!!!!!

Posted at 12:27PM on Mar 9th 2006 by Bigmrj

17. "This is great for TiVo subscribers" I challenge Mr. Rogers to ask subscribers how "Great" they think this is. With the rise in DVR competition, I'd think the management at TiVo would do more to keep their customers happy. Looks like they prefer to piss 'em off instead.

Posted at 9:29AM on Mar 10th 2006 by Edward

18. "This is great for TiVo subscribers" I challenge Mr. Rogers to ask subscribers how "Great" they think this is. With the rise in DVR competition, I'd think the management at TiVo would do more to keep their customers happy. Looks like they prefer to piss 'em off instead.

Posted at 9:33AM on Mar 10th 2006 by Edward

19. So they are trying to destroy my love for the product. I am a lifetime subscriber. If they ever release a stand alone HD unit I guess I would be stuck paying fees for years for this. I don't win in this scenario. I guess my TiVo will retire now and I'll sufer with HD cable box at a lower fee and lower grade interface. What idiots made that decision. They should at least consider raising the lifetime subscription and still having it available.

Posted at 10:23AM on Mar 10th 2006 by TiVoMiKe

20. Any word on if multiple units per household get a discount?

Posted at 7:22PM on Mar 10th 2006 by dirtboy