This change has been no secret. It's been all over the various news sites and was plastered on the front home page on Tivos site. In addition you don't have to do a 3 year commitment. You can do a 1 year for 224.00 which also give you the 80 hour Tivo box so there is no up front cost. They just spread it across the year subscription. I thought long and hard about buying one before the new rules took places so I could buy a lifetime then I decided against it. Lifetime follows the box and I wasn't confident that there wouldn't be a new cooler Tivo box in a few years. If there was I would then have to buy the new box and couldn't transfer my lifetime so I don't mind buying a new subscription every year or so.
I own a series 2 with lifetime and just purchased another and elected to go the one year route. I wanted two because I was tired of the kids taking the Tivo over. :) You can order them 1, 22 or 3 years right on their site. http://www.tivo.com/2.1.1.0.c.asp?productId=80dvr Or you can buy one at a store and go the 12.95 a month route. Not bad considering they have been selling these boxes at a loss. They need to make some $$$$ at some point. ----- Original Message ----- From: Jim To: [email protected] Sent: Monday, March 20, 2006 7:57 PM Subject: [TiVo Central] No more lifetime subscriptions / my analysis So TiVo has quietly stopped selling lifetime subscriptions to their service; a momentous event, to be sure! Clearly, TiVo has every right to take such an amazing deal off the table, but they've certainly muddied the waters for future DVR subscribers. For one thing, it's no longer a slam-dunk when it comes to recommending TiVo to friends. I've always told people that a cable/satellite DVR might be cheaper in the short term, but when you factor in TiVo's feature set and lifetime subscription, for the long term, they definitely want a TiVo. I actually had this very conversation with a friend a week or so ago. However, given her situation, I'm going to have to call her back and reverse my recommendation. Money is an issue for her, and I don't think she will care as much about the additional TiVo features as others do. She's also kind of a technophobe and having an additional box to set up will probably be less attractive than whatever her satellite company will set up for her. Now I'm a Time-Warner cable subscriber, and this decision also makes the future of my own DVR use uncertain. If I need to add an additional recorder to my setup, I'll have to consider whether the additional features on the new box are worth the "TiVo premium". Today, the best TiVo deal offered on the web is a free 80GB box with a 3 year subscription for $469.00 (note: this could be different tomorrow; it was certainly different yesterday). In any case, if I were to buy a new box today, at best I'd be looking at $20.03/month which breaks down as follows: $469 / 36 months plus $7 per month for the additional cable box. An additional cable DVR would be $12.95/month. So in my case, the "TiVo premium" is $7.08/month. Is it worth it? Well given that I already have TiVo, probably not. I wouldn't be able to transfer shows to a new cable DVR, but with TiVo2Go on my old boxes and the ability to send shows to my laptop or burn them to DVD, that's not such a big deal. As for the other features like Wishlists, they would still be available on my old boxes. My bottom line is that as long as I have at least one working TiVo in the house, future additions will probably be cable DVRs. Others will have to do the math for themselves to figure out their own "Tivo premium" and then weigh TiVo's cool-features against DVR "features" like "only one box", less setup and lower price. Some on the TivoCommunity forums are ready to declare that TiVo has doomed itself. I hope not, because they still make a great product with some wonderful features. But I think it can be argued that the fanatical camp of TiVo evangelists is about to get a lot less crowded. Jim SPONSORED LINKS Tivo Tv system Home entertainment system ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ YAHOO! GROUPS LINKS a.. Visit your group "tivocentral" on the web. b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/tivocentral/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
