January 22, 2004
Free TiVo?!
The UPS man brought me a strange parcel the other day -- a TiVo I didn't know I should be expecting. Yet, there in my living room was a brand new 80-hour Series 2 TiVo, shipped directly from the company's Tennessee facility.
As an existing TiVo customer, I can log into tivo.com and check my account status and do various other things. Examining that revealed that, yes, a new 80-hour DVR had been added to my account. What was curious was that the Account Status for that unit was listed as "TiVo Evaluation Unit," whereas my current unit is shown as "Lifetime Service."
Confused, since I didn't order this unit, I called the friendly folks at TiVo's sales support. They didn't know what "TiVo Evaluation Unit" meant either, so they said they'd call me back. I hung up fearing that I had just looked the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. But then, keeping the unit and being charged later for the purchase price and/or setup fee wasn't what I hoped for either, so it was a damned-if-you-do-damned-if-you-don't situation.
A couple hours later, the lady from TiVo sales support called back and told me that yes, this was apparently a free TiVo and that I should keep it and hook it up. I hung up the phone and did a little dance. I guess clean living pays off once in a while.
Now I need to go buy a new S-video cable and a 4-way powered cable splitter so I can cram the new unit into our A/V setup at home. While I'm still not entirely satisfied with our DVR setup -- TiVo's can't tune any kind of QAM cable signal, HD or otherwise, so we're limited to recording only analog cable channels (ch. 2-78) -- this will certainly do for a while. Hey, you can't argue with free.
The other thing that intrigues me about this is if I'm not the only one who was "gifted" with a Series 2 recently. If TiVo is dumping inventory, that either means they're trying to get out of the hardware biz entirely (a risky proposition) or they are gearing up with a new model (an exciting possibility). Hopefully, we'll figure out what's going on one way or another with our favorite DVR company.
Posted by Craig | PermalinkCouldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
Posted by Bob at January 22, 2004 11:07 AMTwo Possibilities:
1) As TW and other cable company offer integrated DVR STB's, they may be concerned about keeping you.
More likely...
2) HD TiVo is on the way. The DirecTiVo units are promised for 1Q04 and standalone's can't be THAT far behind, so you may be right, they may be dumping inventory.
Posted by Joe Schueller at January 22, 2004 01:14 PMJoe: DirecTV DVR's with HD TiVo capabilities are indeed coming, but I *really* don't think that a stand-alone HD TiVo is on its way. Here's why...no, wait, this is long enough for me to make its own blog entry. Check back tomorrow when I'll have posted it :-).
Posted by Craig at January 22, 2004 04:29 PMOh boy... here comes the broadcast flag. ;-)
I agree with you, a stand-alone HDTiVo is a pretty dumb thing. The cable companies will commoditize the market by slashing prices, and unless TiVo integrates CableCard into the unit so it can act as a single STB, they're dead outside the DSS world. I really never got the point of standalone TiVo's anyway. Having 2 tuners is the only way to go.
So my point is, sending you a new standalone unit is a good "holding" strategy to keep you loyal to the brand while they figure out what the heck to do while everyone and their mothers release HDTV PVR STB's (acronym soup) to the cable companies.
As a DirecTV subscriber, I'm pleased as punch I will get to keep the TiVo interface as I venture not-so-boldly into the world of HDTV (about 12-18 months from now). Most importantly, my wife has learned TiVo, I'm not that interested in another learning curve.
Personally, I've stayed out of HDTV, because as cool as it is, the benefit of increased picture quality is FAR less than the numerous benefits of TiVo. TiVo changed our lives (not hyperbole) and I wasn't giving that up in favor of a better and more expensive picture. My hope is that in the next 18 months, I can move up to HDTV by spending about $500 on the new HD DirecTiVo unit and about $2500 on a new DLP TV. I'd prefer waiting for a 3 chip 1080p DLP TV, but I'm probably not THAT patient.
Looking fwd to your post...
-Joe
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