Tivo HD--prospects for better features or prices?

[TiVoEvan74]

We're tempted by the Tivo HD or HD XL. We especially like the feature of being able to record off of cable and OTA at the same time! But two things have made us hold off-- the low capacity of the HD and the high price of the XL.

For $400, we can get an HD with lifetime service (using the upgrade program). That's a good price, but the capacity for standard def is only 180 hours.

The HD XL would give us a wonderful 1,350 standard def hours, but the price for one withe lifetime would be a whopping $700! (Again, via the upgrade program.)

What are the prospects for Tivo putting out an HD with larger capacity for the same price, or an XL with a lower price?

We'd probably jump at an HD with 360 hours or more OR an XL for $550 or $600 total price.

Note: We currently have 2 Series 2 Tivos with 204 and 80 hour capacities (DVD burning units), but would like more space and are getting tired of off-loading programs to DVDs.

I realize this question calls for speculation and no one knows for sure (except Tivo insiders), but still speculation can helpful and fun, and even grounded in past Tivo practices.

[ggieseke]

If it was me I would buy the HD and replace the internal drive with a 1GB drive. You can easily pull it off for about $100 or less, which would meet your target price. You could bye the MyDVR Expander, but that's just another possible failure point.

See http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784 for everything you ever wanted to know about drive upgrades.

[jcthorne]

Buy and HD and put a 1TB drive in it for $500 total cost.....

[yukit]

...
For $400, we can get an HD with lifetime service (using the upgrade program). That's a good price, but the capacity for standard def is only 180 hours.
...

You must have a special upgrade deal since my upgrade offerred to a TivoHD w/lifetime is $500.

An internal 1TB drive can be found for ~$80 online. You can probably get someone to do the drive swap for you for $20-50 if you are not comfortable doing that yourself. As ggieseke pointed out, I would probably skip the external My DVR expander option since the drive failure is really aggravating.

[TiVoEvan74]

Thanks for the recommendation... I'm a little leery of replacing the hard drive myself (read about the dangers of power supplies!), but the idea of finding someone who could do this appeals.

As to the pricing, our units are have been active for over 3 years, so that made the price of the HD $200... plus there's a discount offer on the lifetime of $200, making the total $400.

Now, I've read about some basic problems with the HD units (see http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7097497#post7097497) which makes me think I should go for the XL, but that will take a price drop!

[jjcool]

I too wish there was something in between the Tivo HD and the XL. THe ~21 hours of HD space is too small. During the TV season I could get by with probably around 50 hours very comfortably. I can't fathom having 204 hours and needing to offload programs. Do you just never watch anything?

[WhiskeyTango]

I too wish there was something in between the Tivo HD and the XL. THe ~21 hours of HD space is too small. During the TV season I could get by with probably around 50 hours very comfortably. I can't fathom having 204 hours and needing to offload programs. Do you just never watch anything?

The bigger your hard drive gets, the more you'll find yourself recording shows you wouldn't have otherwise watched. I've got over 300 hours of shows across 3 Tivos with shows dating back to 2007 that I haven't watched yet.

[yukit]

The bigger your hard drive gets, the more you'll find yourself recording shows you wouldn't have otherwise watched. I've got over 300 hours of shows across 3 Tivos with shows dating back to 2007 that I haven't watched yet.
+1

I suffer from tivo-rot. I just have too much content on my Tivos; just don't have enough spare time to watch them all now. Despite having 1TB on most of my Tivos, I have to trim the NPL occasionally to make room for new shows.

I used to move shows to my NAS frequently, but I have been just deleting them if they become available on DVDs.

[ZeoTiVo]

The bigger your hard drive gets, the more you'll find yourself recording shows you wouldn't have otherwise watched. I've got over 300 hours of shows across 3 Tivos with shows dating back to 2007 that I haven't watched yet.

I record stuff I might watch and can take my time to get around to watching it if at all. With my first 40 hour TiVo I did feel like I had to keep up with my now playing shows. Soon enough I added more space and got over that initial paradigm of feeling I had to watch everything recorded. Now I just watch what I want from now playing and appreciate the larger selection a large drive affords me.

The biggest benefit of this approach - I can avoid the annoyance of getting hooked on a new show only to have it yanked off the air. Now I can wait a bit and see if it will be around a while

[TiVoEvan74]

Yeah, you're right... we shouldn't have to off-load with 201 hours of space. (I realized later I was wrong-- the Toshiba has 201 not 204 hours of basic quality recording space! :)) But there are various series (Nature, Nova, Now, Frontline, Charlie Rose, etc.) that we accumulate, yet rarely get around to watching. We should probably just cancel the Season Passes or delete a bunch of the shows (something I'm now doing)... but it would be great to not have to manage things at all!

We also record movies and burn them to DVD for later viewing-- in collections of dramas, romances, comedies, sci-fi, etc. That frees up space, but then we're back to the piles of DVDs much as we used to have piles of VCR tapes!

Still, you're right... Something between the HD and XL in size (and cost) would be perfect for us. There's a huge gap between them--I mean the XL has over 7x the capacity of the HD!

[jjberger2134]

As to the pricing, our units are have been active for over 3 years, so that made the price of the HD $200... plus there's a discount offer on the lifetime of $200, making the total $400.


How do you get lifetime for $200? Do you have some sort of special deal? As far as I know, lifetime is $399(1st unit)/$299 (MSD).

I just used the upgrade deal to buy a TiVoHD and paid $498 ($199 Hardware + $299 Lifetime).

[TiVoEvan74]

Well, egg on my face! There's an upgrade offer on lifetime, too, which is $100 off... I thought PLS was $300, so that would make it $200. But, I just checked and PLS is now $400, which makes it $300.

Oops! That makes my HD or HD XL temptation much less!

It would be $500 for HD with lifetime or $800 for XL with lifetime...

Wow! That's a chunk of change! At those prices, I think I'll explore a Mac Mini and El Gato Eye TV!! :) Or hope for an Apple DVR or revamped Apple TV. (Actually if Tivo puts out an HD with 2-3x the capacity, $500 would be OK.)