$99 Tivo

[Hyperborea]

If you have been wanting a Tivo but wanting it cheaper now is probably the time. I've copied a news clipping from yesterday's "Good Morning Silicon Valley" a column in the online San Jose Mercury News.

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But wait, there's more. Buy an 80 hour TiVo today and we'll give you a share of our soon-to-be penny stock ABSOLUTELY FREE!: If you don't yet own a TiVo, now's probably as good a time as any to consider buying one. TiVo this morning lopped $100 off the price of its digital video recorders as part of a plan to rapidly increase subscribers to its service. Beginning Wednesday, TiVo will offer a $100 mail-in rebate that will drop the price of its 40-hour set-top box to from $199 to a more palatable $99. For TiVo, which today faces heated competition from cable and satellite TV companies, the rebate is a final attempt to reclaim some of its eroding market share before the cable companies begin rolling out their DVRs in earnest next year. Said Greg Ireland, a research analyst at IDC: "When you look long-term, we see the stand-alone machine as an endangered species."

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Not a bad price, but I wouldnt make a long term committment to the 'lifetime' service. I'd be surprised to see tivo still standing 18 months from now as a freestanding company.

They completely blew it. They had a "better mouse trap" years before the sat and cable companies needed the capability. The only reason why there isnt a tivo logo on every cable and satellite company's dvr's is because tivo management screwed it up. Probably asked for too much money or their idea of what their position was in the industry was a bit too grandiose. Maybe both.

The cable and sat companies figured out they can throw a box together with most of the features that most customers need for a small amount of money and that appears to be the way they're going to continue to go.

Tivo's latest foray into trying to become a content distributor and bypass the cable/sat companies, and taking the MPAA and NFL on in court over distributing their content appears to be a way towards a quick and painful expiration.

 

[JonnyM]

Don't say that...

but but but...

Tivo is my life. I can no longer tolerate live TV.

 

[mickeyd]

Would this Tivo deal be any good for me if I do not spend any time viewing the tube? My tube is mostly a dust collector, and a damn good one at that.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

Johnny - fear not, your cable or satellite company will gladly hook you up with their own setup. It wont be as good, certainly, but it'll work.

Mickey - you know whats funny? I hardly ever watched tv before I got a tivo. Football games, a movie here and there, and the bitch of it was in order to have a movie on that I hadnt seen I had to buy the directv 'platinum' package with all the movie channels.

I simply couldnt be bothered to organize my life around some network executives idea of program scheduling, and I dont have enough attention span to sit through commercials.

Now I can watch what I want when I want to. Whether thats a good thing or not is up to the beholder.

 

[yelnad]

I never watch commercials anymore and I no longer have patience for live tv.

 

[Hyperborea]

Yeah, that's my thinking too. I'd like to be able to get some of the shows that I do like but at times that make sense for me. I think that having the Tivo sniffing for shows that it thinks I'd like based on what I watch might catch some other interesting stuff too.

So, for those with one how good is the "sniffing for stuff similar to what you watch" feature? What about the "basic" Tivo that some of the 3rd party "Tivo" boxes come with (e.g. Toshiba Tivo/DVD). Finally, if Tivo goes belly up then what features would still be usable? Would it essentially be just a manual hard disk video recorder?

 

[KB]

I'm with you Yelnad, no comercials for me. I don't even know when my favorite programs are on...anymore.

I just look and see what has recorded. I get a surprise everyday.

 

[yelnad]

The sniffing feature is decent, but it depends on how much info you give to Tivo. When you are watching a show, you can give it 1, 2, or 3 thumbs up or down. I think much of the sniffing is based on that. So if you thumbs down cop shows, it won't tape any for you.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

It seems to take about 2 months for the thing to really lock in on what I do and dont want.

The feature seems more useful for occasionally snapping up one of a dozen or two shows as a 'suggestion' than for truly getting unusual and unique programming that fits with other stuff I like to watch. One of those features I wish they worked to optimize and improve rather than spending time figuring out how to spam me with car ads.

Your fate if tivo goes belly up depends on which box you have. If you have the directv box with tivo embedded in it, you get your 'guide data' from directv over the satellite and I dont think tivo's demise will affect you much, if at all.

If you have a standalone tivo, you end up with a manual recorder that will hen peck you about connecting for service updates. The good news is if you're somewhat technically literate - - if removing a hard drive and making/booting a linux cd on your pc doesnt sound too frightening there are already patches you can apply to make the henpecking go away, and there are already enterprising folks who know how to have the tivo get its own updates from free tv sources. Plenty of folks in canada, where tivo inexplicably still doesnt offer service, get their data this way.

Of course, some equally enterprising folks will let you send the tivo in to them to have these 'adjustments' made for a fee, just like you can get upgrades today.

Mine are all over four years old and on their 2nd and 3rd hard drives and second fans, and a second power supply in one, so I figure I've gotten my moneys worth and if tivo rolls over, I'll get the 'next thing'.

Or if I can get a reasonable non-comcast broadband provider, so I can dump them and their cable tv, I'd get directv with the directv/tivo receivers, sell my old ones on ebay for most of what I paid for them, and not worry about it.

 

[Hyperborea]

The good news is if you're somewhat technically literate

Well, I've spent quite a number of years writing operating system software so I think that counts as being "somewhat technically literate".  Thanks for the advice.  The existence of a good sized Tivo-hacking community (which I should have guessed) makes the purchase more palatable in case they do go bust.