Tata for now Tivo, or, Core Features Please November 16, 2006
I’ve been a Tivo user for the past 5 years or so. I’ve been an HDTV subscriber for about 5 months now. With HD, I tended to use Tivo less often, because I’d rather see programs in high definition, and Tivo can’t record HD content.
There were a couple of options. I could cough up at least $600 for the Tivo series 3 which can record HD, an outrageously high price if you ask me. I can then suck up the additional $7 a month charge every single Tivo user is about to face, raising Tivo service from $13 to $20 a month. The second option was to ditch Tivo altogether. I’ve always known about those DVR’s the cable companies offer, but remained loyal to Tivo, until now. I’ve switched from Tivo to a generic DVR, and saving $20 at the same time!
I had an additional cable box just for Tivo which I can now ditch and move that $5 to the new DVR service and drop the $20 a month for Tivo service! Not bad for switching to a box that can actually record High Definition content, and record two shows at the same time while watching a third! In core feature comparison, the Tivo was quite crippling. Right now HDTV is just that much better.
The biggest thing Ill be missing out on is the Online scheduling through tv.yahoo.com, and the interface niceties I’ve grown to love (wishlist searches are pretty innovative). Then of course there’s all the extra fun stuff, such as the RSS reader, and Home Media Engine applications, my favorite being Audio Faucet.
Core features won me over.
Update: When I called Tivo to cancel, they offered to lower my monthly rate to $6.95 a month for life, even if I added a series three Tivo in the future, which I’d love to do as soon as the prices come down. Not a bad offer, especially because there’s no contract involved, I can cancel at any time. I accepted, and will move my Tivo into a spare room, while still returning the extra cable box to save that $5. If anyone is thinking of “pretending” to cancel in order to get that savings, I shared with the rep just how disheartening my decison to cancel was, you may need to do the same.