DVRs, TiVo CEO promises lower-priced HD TiVo this year
By Paul Miller 
posted Mar 8th 2007 10:30AM
posted Mar 8th 2007 10:30AM
Yeah, that Series3 HD recorder is great and all, but it's about time TiVo started talking about an HD DVR with even a semblance of competitive pricing -- $800 + service just isn't cutting it anymore, especially with Windows Vista's CableCARD support looking oh-so-promising. Luckily, TiVo CEO Tom Rogers has some encouraging words for us in his quarter results commentary, stating: "We will be highly focused this year on launching a lower-priced, mass appeal High Definition product." Sure, that doesn't quite explicitly guarantee an cheap HD TiVo this year, but we figure that in nine whole months they can probably (hopefully!) come up with something to relieve this situation.
If they had one for $399 I'd probably buy one. $800 plus the cable cards and service is a bit pricey.
I love my Series3 TiVo. I got it for less than $550 shipped from Dell. Also many cable companies (including my Comcast) don't charge monthly fees for cable cards. I paid $1.91 for both cards total.
http://www.comcast.com/customers/faq/FaqDetails.ashx?ID=2651
I think he is referring to how expensive tivo service is now.
Does anybody know the status of TiVo's partnership with Comcast? Last I heard, TiVo was going to port its software onto the Comcast's Motorola cable/DVR boxes. I've grown pretty accustomed to those Motorola boxes since the $7 a month fee beats $600 plus TiVo subscription, even though the software sucks in comparison; sure would be nice to have TiVo software on there.
Comcast DVR is $12/mo.
The Tivo software will be an extra charge, as well.
I agree the current s/w sucks balls, but unless they ALSO allow you to expand/upgrade the HDD I don't see myself sticking with it much longer (120MB isn't even 15 hrs of HD-TV).
Where are the effin dual-QAM tuners for Vista already?? The only ones we've seen so far at CES were single-tuner only..
VJ, Deployment of the Comcast Motorola TiVo software will begin this spring. I expect some regions will get it before others as it's not as simple as just deploying the software. Changes/additions must be made to the cable operator's head ends. No word yet on any additional monthly fee, but I expect there will be one.
It is unfair to say that a TiVo Series 3 costs $800. Why quote MSRP? According to pricegrabber.com, you can have one in hand for $625. Most people pay $659 through Amazon. So it is getting cheaper everyday as we get further away from the product launch.
It's fair because we are compareing MSRP vs MSRP, it is impossible to compare street price since it changes from place to place.