# Roamio Plus Discontinued ... (rant)



## motech (Jun 9, 2011)

we are an AV Integration company out of NYC. we sell TiVos on almost every job we do as we are a big fan. Recently TiVo announced the bolt, which besides the funky form factor thats going to mess with our racks, looks like a good product.

The problem is they are half assing the release. I understand they want to get new product out to get new users for the holidays, but discontinuing the 6 Tuner roamio plus early really hurts us. The only other 6 tuner tivo available is the Roamio Pro which is not worth the price. Our clients lose value. Half of our sale is that they are saving money with tivo, which does not work out so well with the Pro.

I'm just here venting, wishing tivo didn't screw me. the guy that sells a few hundred tivos a year for them, and constantly talks to everyone about how great tivo is.

no 6 tuner tivo for us. 
4 tuners just isn't enough when using minis.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Who said anything about the 6 tuner Roamio being retired now? That is not the case- in 2016 a new 6(+?) high end box will be released, and in the meantime the Roamio continues to be the box of choice for most of the higher end users here. (4K is the big new thing with the updates of other features now becoming available on Roamios)


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## stevewjackson (Nov 2, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Who said anything about the 6 tuner Roamio being retired now? That is not the case- in 2016 a new 6(+?) high end box will be released, and in the meantime the Roamio continues to be the box of choice for most of the higher end users here. (4K is the big new thing with the updates of other features now becoming available on Roamios)


He didn't say the 6-tuner Roamio, he said the Roamio Plus, and he's correct. They dropped the 6-tuner Roamio Plus but kept the 6-tuner Roamio Pro, which has a larger storage capacity and significantly higher price. A Roamio Plus is now only available as a refurb or from other sources.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

I had not seen that announcement, though I see it online. I would think there are tons of these out in the wild to purchase for quite a while.


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## mdavej (Aug 13, 2015)

Works for me. But I don't think a pro installer would want to give his customers used or refurb units.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

mdavej said:


> Works for me. But I don't think a pro installer would want to give his customers used or refurb units.


In the same vein, I wouldn't think a pro installer would rant over a $200 price difference for the Pro since there is some value for the $200 namely the larger hard drive.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I surprised they even had the Plus unit given the ease of upgrading the drive. It must have hurt sales of the Pro. I think they may have learned from that mistake and will make the new Bolt Pro a single size.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Whats the big deal! Just go to weaknees and get the configuration you want. You can even add the warranty.


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## foghorn2 (May 4, 2004)

Basically the rant is he cant buy the cheaper one so he can put his own bigger harddrive in it as opposed to Tivo or Weineess offering the same thing for a little more money but with warranty.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

foghorn2 said:


> Basically the rant is he cant buy the cheaper one so he can put his own bigger harddrive in it as opposed to Tivo or Weineess offering the same thing for a little more money but with warranty.


When I look at the increment in price over the basic model
$399 for 1TB or $469 for a 3TB

I just don't get the complaint especially when you wind up with a passle of low end drives you had to pull out.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

So you're saying it might be a good time to sell my Roamio Plus if I want out.


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## HD_Dude (Sep 11, 2006)

UCLABB said:


> In the same vein, I wouldn't think a pro installer would rant over a $200 price difference for the Pro since there is some value for the $200 namely the larger hard drive.


Correct, Saying the Pro is not worth the price is dumb.

What he means is, he can't mark it up as much as he marked up the Plus.


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## CoxInPHX (Jan 14, 2011)

I would suspect the MSO branded TiVo T6 are mostly the 1TB version.

So it does seem odd TiVo would discontinue the retail version, if they are still building them for the MSO market.


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## UCLABB (May 29, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> I surprised they even had the Plus unit given the ease of upgrading the drive. It must have hurt sales of the Pro. I think they may have learned from that mistake and will make the new Bolt Pro a single size.


So what if the Pro sales are hurt? A sale is a sale. And, by offering a lower cost Plus it would perhaps induce more overall sales because it would be more attractive to people who don't need more than 1TB.

If they do go with just one version, I hope it's the 1TB version so we can then put in a bigger drive on our own rather than TiVo marking up the cost.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I surprised they even had the Plus unit given the ease of upgrading the drive.


Upgrading the drive is not an officially supported feature.. (and IIRC never has been _except_ for a short while when I think Philips had an official drive upgrade process for series 1s somewhere around 15 years ago..)

(I wish it WERE an officially supported feature.. or heck, have essentially a 'drive bay' type enclosure.. or have the auto-upload-to-file-server (for non copy protected shows) work, reliably, more generally to any local network filesystem..)


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## HerronScott (Jan 1, 2002)

UCLABB said:


> In the same vein, I wouldn't think a pro installer would rant over a $200 price difference for the Pro since there is some value for the $200 namely the larger hard drive.


I thought it was only $150 difference between the Plus and the Pro? At least that was the difference, when they had the Loyalty deal. $450 for the Plus and $600 for the Pro and $100 of that was the lifetime service which was the deal.

Scott


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

motech said:


> we are an AV Integration company out of NYC. we sell TiVos on almost every job we do as we are a big fan. Recently TiVo announced the bolt, which besides the funky form factor thats going to mess with our racks, looks like a good product.


Are you an official TiVo reseller? My impression is they don't set the bar all that high. If so, have you asked them about offering you a better price on the Pro since the Plus is unavailable?

If you're reselling the TiVo's as-is, I would think you'd be able to up-sell your high-end customers on the benefits of a 3TB HD over a 1TB drive.

TiVo Suggestions are pretty sweet, and then there are features like TiVo will automatically record "box sets" of movies for you. NBA and NHL fans can get way behind on fall prime time watching.

Lots of stuff to do with the space, plus it's much less painful to start out big then to try to go big when the DVR has run out of space.


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## justen_m (Jan 15, 2004)

HerronScott said:


> I thought it was only $150 difference between the Plus and the Pro? At least that was the difference, when they had the Loyalty deal. $450 for the Plus and $600 for the Pro and $100 of that was the lifetime service which was the deal.


Depends on what loyalty deal you are talking about. The one offered a year ago, just after Thanksgiving, was $99 lifetime with a $399 Plus or $599 Pro. I still have my receipts. After that one expired there was another, better loyalty offer. Not sure when that one was.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

motech said:


> we are an AV Integration company out of NYC. we sell TiVos on almost every job we do as we are a big fan. Recently TiVo announced the bolt, which besides the funky form factor thats going to mess with our racks, looks like a good product.
> 
> The problem is they are half assing the release. I understand they want to get new product out to get new users for the holidays, but discontinuing the 6 Tuner roamio plus early really hurts us. The only other 6 tuner tivo available is the Roamio Pro which is not worth the price. Our clients lose value. Half of our sale is that they are saving money with tivo, which does not work out so well with the Pro.
> 
> ...


Sort of OT, but when you don't have FIOS available, how do you hide the TWC TA, and how do you deal with flaky TA's? I'd imagine your customers are the types who don't like screwing around with stuff and putting them on timers and stuff like people around here do.



UCLABB said:


> In the same vein, I wouldn't think a pro installer would rant over a $200 price difference for the Pro since there is some value for the $200 namely the larger hard drive.


Yeah, I would think the same. If they're paying a pro installer, they're shelling out some serious coin, and the extra couple hundred bucks for the 3TB TiVo should be an easy sell/ no-brainer.


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## motech (Jun 9, 2011)

1. I use network controlled power distribution which allows us to reboot boxes. 
2. Wealthy people don't just spend money to spend money. They will just use the cable supplied cable boxes if the $ doesn't work out. 
3. Why do I need to be put in the position to have to up sell them to the pro if they don't need it. The entire point of this thread is that they discontinued the plus too early.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

motech said:


> 1. I use network controlled power distribution which allows us to reboot boxes.
> 2. Wealthy people don't just spend money to spend money. They will just use the cable supplied cable boxes if the $ doesn't work out.
> 3. Why do I need to be put in the position to have to up sell them to the pro if they don't need it. The entire point of this thread is that they discontinued the plus too early.


Since when was upselling an inconcenience for a salesman?


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## motech (Jun 9, 2011)

We don't rely on profits from tivo. We push tivo because they make our systems more stable and they reduce service calls overall.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

As others said, have you reached out to TiVo to see what price they have on the Pro for you now? They might have dropped the price especially with the $599 Pro with lifetime promotion.


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## motech (Jun 9, 2011)

I'll double check. 
I'm looking forward to the 6 tuner bolt. Hopefully it's out soon.


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## dmurphy (Jan 17, 2002)

HD_Dude said:


> Correct, Saying the Pro is not worth the price is dumb.


Actually, he's spot on. The ONLY difference between a Plus and Pro is the HDD size (1TB vs. 3TB).

Right now, at retail price, I can buy a 1TB WD Red drive for $65. The 3TB is $109. That's a $44 delta in cost, which TiVo then tacks another $156 on to as pure profit.... And I'm sure TiVo isn't paying retail prices for HDDs.

I don't begrudge them making money; but either the Plus was priced too low or the Pro too high. The difference in price is not commensurate with the benefits.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

motech said:


> 1. I use network controlled power distribution which allows us to reboot boxes.
> 2. Wealthy people don't just spend money to spend money. They will just use the cable supplied cable boxes if the $ doesn't work out.
> 3. Why do I need to be put in the position to have to up sell them to the pro if they don't need it. The entire point of this thread is that they discontinued the plus too early.


1. Interesting. Are they set to reboot on a schedule, or do you have some sort of support/service contract with your clients where you do it manually?

2. Right. But if they're wealthy enough to be able to afford a custom A/V integrator, and busy enough to not have the time to do that stuff themselves, they are the audience that would value having the most possible storage. And that's a HUGE feature differentiation from what Verizon/TWC/CableVision offer. And when looking at expensive custom A/V systems with high-end screens and audio, a couple hundred bucks for more HD space on a TiVo is just trivial.

3. The Plus really never made any sense. I could see why people loved the thing, as you could basically get a Pro for way cheaper, and the hard drive swap was trivial compared to what was required for the Premieres and S3's, but at the same time, streamlining the product line makes sense, and I would expect the same thing from the Bolt. I'd expect the minimum size available to be somewhere in the 4-6TB range, as the users that want the higher end units with 6 tuners want the storage to go with them.

I think TiVo made a mistake by allowing the Plus to ever exist. The Pro has way better margins, and by having the Plus, it just made them look greedy with the Pro.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

Bigg said:


> 1. Interesting. Are they set to reboot on a schedule, or do you have some sort of support/service contract with your clients where you do it manually?
> 
> 2. Right. But if they're wealthy enough to be able to afford a custom A/V integrator, and busy enough to not have the time to do that stuff themselves, they are the audience that would value having the most possible storage. And that's a HUGE feature differentiation from what Verizon/TWC/CableVision offer. And when looking at expensive custom A/V systems with high-end screens and audio, a couple hundred bucks for more HD space on a TiVo is just trivial.
> 
> ...


Just go to weaknees and order the plus with the disk size you want. Who cares about ordering it from Tivo.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

dmurphy said:


> Actually, he's spot on. The ONLY difference between a Plus and Pro is the HDD size (1TB vs. 3TB).
> 
> Right now, at retail price, I can buy a 1TB WD Red drive for $65. The 3TB is $109. That's a $44 delta in cost, which TiVo then tacks another $156 on to as pure profit.... And I'm sure TiVo isn't paying retail prices for HDDs.
> 
> I don't begrudge them making money; but either the Plus was priced too low or the Pro too high. The difference in price is not commensurate with the benefits.


You're right and wrong.

You're 100% wrong. The difference in price between the Plus and Pro isn't $200. The plus is discontinued.

You're 100% right. The 3TB is about $50 more then the 1TB drive. I'm using current Provantage pricing for the WD AV-GP series. It no longer makes sense to offer, and stock, both models. Why stock and market 2 different models differing in price by around $75? Current hard drive pricing suggests $200 is not a salable upgrade.

Recent pricing is irrelevant to this discussion. Tivo has been offering holiday specials and loyalty specials. They may have been dumping inventory. Tivo might have taken advantage of an offer by WD to dump inventory.

Cable company units are also irrelevant. Order enough units and tivo will put whatever logo on the box and whatever size hard drive you want inside the box. A cable company might not want newer customers getting a larger hard drive. A cable company might value a nominal savings over a few hundred units. A retail customer isn't likely to value a $50 savings vs a larger hard drive.

OP makes an interesting point. Assume tivo thinks a $200 price differential is necessary to market and stock a different model. Will hard drive size make enough of a difference or will the cheaper model come with fewer tuners.

edited to add:

Tivo uses WD AV drives. Bolt is using a 2.5" drive. The largest AV drive WD currently offers in that size is 1T. Will a Bolt pro use a case which accommodates 3.5" drives? Will tivo wait until larger 2.5" AV drives are available? Use a non AV drive? I can't see tivo selling a unit with an external drive.


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## PvtPyl (Nov 15, 2015)

Why do we think Pro price is $599. Looks they added the free year of service thing meaning that net price is closer to $420 -- at least for the first year.


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## CinciDVR (May 24, 2014)

Bigg said:


> 2. Right. But if they're wealthy enough to be able to afford a custom A/V integrator, and busy enough to not have the time to do that stuff themselves, they are the audience that would value having the most possible storage. And that's a HUGE feature differentiation from what Verizon/TWC/CableVision offer. And when looking at expensive custom A/V systems with high-end screens and audio, a couple hundred bucks for more HD space on a TiVo is just trivial.


I find it interesting when people choose to "educate" someone about their business. I'm not trying to single you out Bigg, as other people in the thread have done the same thing. Your post just happened to be the last one I read.

The OP says he's sold a couple hundred systems. I would think that he would know his customer base by now. Trying to tell him what his customer wants would seem to be an insult to the OP's intelligence.

On the other hand, your additional comments about why it didn't make sense for Tivo to sell the Plus seem helpful. Perhaps they help the OP temper his disappointment in Tivo, and they might even help him formulate a strategy for working with Tivo.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

motech said:


> We don't rely on profits from tivo. We push tivo because they make our systems more stable and they reduce service calls overall.


Good selling points too. Anyway, if I was buying a new system with 4k tv I'd just hold out for the bolt pro and maybe even longer until 4k recording becomes reality.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

zalusky said:


> Just go to weaknees and order the plus with the disk size you want. Who cares about ordering it from Tivo.


That's doesn't address the cost issue.



lew said:


> Will a Bolt pro use a case which accommodates 3.5" drives? Will tivo wait until larger 2.5" AV drives are available? Use a non AV drive? I can't see tivo selling a unit with an external drive.


It will use 3.5" drives. It's going to be a rack-friendly case like the Roamio Pro, so there's plenty of room in there.



CinciDVR said:


> I find it interesting when people choose to "educate" someone about their business. I'm not trying to single you out Bigg, as other people in the thread have done the same thing. Your post just happened to be the last one I read.
> 
> The OP says he's sold a couple hundred systems. I would think that he would know his customer base by now. Trying to tell him what his customer wants would seem to be an insult to the OP's intelligence.


I just find it a sort of strange beef with TiVo. The Plus was great for enthusiasts who wanted to swap the drives out, but for a custom A/V integrator, the upsell cost is relatively minimal given the benefits of TiVo, and the benefits of having more disk space available. Sure, maybe having more options makes the customers feel like they're more in charge when spending the extra dough on the Pro, but it just seems like a really minor cost in a custom A/V setup, especially when it's often the core experience of what people will use the setup for day to day.



> On the other hand, your additional comments about why it didn't make sense for Tivo to sell the Plus seem helpful. Perhaps they help the OP temper his disappointment in Tivo, and they might even help him formulate a strategy for working with Tivo.


It certainly can't hurt to give them a call. And having a "special" deal might be a good selling point, too, even if the dollars and cents of it aren't significant in the whole scheme of a custom A/V install.



jonw747 said:


> Good selling points too. Anyway, if I was buying a new system with 4k tv I'd just hold out for the bolt pro and maybe even longer until 4k recording becomes reality.


The HR54/C61k combo is ready to go when DirecTV puts 4k feeds up. They have already publicly stated they have the bandwidth for 50 UHD channels.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

Bigg said:


> The HR54/C61k combo is ready to go when DirecTV puts 4k feeds up. They have already publicly stated they have the bandwidth for 50 UHD channels.


Can't wait to see just how wretchedly bad the compression is for those channels.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

wkearney99 said:


> Can't wait to see just how wretchedly bad the compression is for those channels.


Considering that their track record with HD channels is second only to Google Fiber, I'd say they are probably going to look pretty darn amazing.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Considering that their track record with HD channels is second only to Google Fiber, I'd say they are probably going to look pretty darn amazing.


Indeed, one of the reasons I switched to DirecTv once upon a time was because they were so aggressive adding support for HD channels.

But I'm in no rush to upgrade my Plasma TVs to 4K nor to leave FIOS + TiVo.

It's funny... I wonder how many of us wouldn't have bothered upgrading to HD if the providers delivered DVD quality 480p (or even 480i) in OAS rather than over-compressed SD letterbox crap.


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## DevdogAZ (Apr 16, 2003)

I'd be curious how many of the Roamio Plus systems sold by the OP were installed at the customer's house with the 1TB drive, vs. the OP doing an upgrade to a bigger drive. I would certainly think that if I'm paying a professional to install an A/V system for me, I'd expect the system to be pretty awesome and not have a DVR that filled up with only 150 hours of HD recordings, especially when hard drive storage is so cheap.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

DevdogAZ said:


> I'd be curious how many of the Roamio Plus systems sold by the OP were installed at the customer's house with the 1TB drive, vs. the OP doing an upgrade to a bigger drive. I would certainly think that if I'm paying a professional to install an A/V system for me, I'd expect the system to be pretty awesome and not have a DVR that filled up with only 150 hours of HD recordings, especially when hard drive storage is so cheap.


Yup, that's what I would be thinking too. When somebody is dropping 10 grand or more on a nice A/V setup, you'd think a couple hundred bucks for more HD space would be a trivial cost.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

Bigg said:


> Yup, that's what I would be thinking too. When somebody is dropping 10 grand or more on a nice A/V setup, you'd think a couple hundred bucks for more HD space would be a trivial cost.


I agree with CinciDVR post. I'd think a person selling hundreds of custom A/V setups know what each customer needs. I'd think such a person would be selling whatever size hard drive is appropriate for the customers needs. I don't such a person needs our two cents worth.

JMO but a high end customer who buys blu ray disks, streams via netflix and records a modest number of shows might be fine with a 1 Gb drive.


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## HobokenSkier (Oct 14, 2015)

Bigg said:


> Sort of OT, but when you don't have FIOS available, how do you hide the TWC TA, and how do you deal with flaky TA's? I'd imagine your customers are the types who don't like screwing around with stuff and putting them on timers and stuff like people around here do.
> 
> Yeah, I would think the same. If they're paying a pro installer, they're shelling out some serious coin, and the extra couple hundred bucks for the 3TB TiVo should be an easy sell/ no-brainer.


Not the OP but the likely answers are that install is usually rack mount.

Install usually includes a wattbox IP controllable power block. Can power cycle on schedule or on demand with a button press from the control system GUI or with a remote connection.

TiVo is popular for custom as it is reliably IP controlled and reliable. Also the cable co does not do a box swap and stick the it bud on badly or not at all or switch for a different box with different commands.


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## HobokenSkier (Oct 14, 2015)

jonw747 said:


> Since when was upselling an inconcenience for a salesman?


Better things to upsell


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

lew said:


> I agree with CinciDVR post. I'd think a person selling hundreds of custom A/V setups know what each customer needs. I'd think such a person would be selling whatever size hard drive is appropriate for the customers needs. I don't such a person needs our two cents worth.
> 
> JMO but a high end customer who buys blu ray disks, streams via netflix and records a modest number of shows might be fine with a 1 Gb drive.


If they're putting out that kind of coin, they may as well get the 3TB model.



HobokenSkier said:


> Not the OP but the likely answers are that install is usually rack mount.
> 
> Install usually includes a wattbox IP controllable power block. Can power cycle on schedule or on demand with a button press from the control system GUI or with a remote connection.
> 
> TiVo is popular for custom as it is reliably IP controlled and reliable. Also the cable co does not do a box swap and stick the it bud on badly or not at all or switch for a different box with different commands.


Yeah, it would likely be rackmounted. I guess it could just be on a shelf behind a blank panel, since the user doesn't interact with it.


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## HobokenSkier (Oct 14, 2015)

Bigg said:


> If they're putting out that kind of coin, they may as well get the 3TB model.
> 
> Yeah, it would likely be rackmounted. I guess it could just be on a shelf behind a blank panel, since the user doesn't interact with it.


Spot the TiVo and TA.


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## mad.gunsmith (Jul 1, 2010)

HobokenSkier said:


> Spot the TiVo and TA.


looks cool :up:


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

HobokenSkier said:


> Spot the TiVo and TA.


The TiVo is about 2/3 of the way down. That's the easy part. Is the TA right below it? New meaning to a rack in the closet.


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## jonw747 (Aug 2, 2015)

I get the impression people (even wealthy people) don't like paying CI's for straight labor so the CI's do what they can to get their profit margin out of the equipment sales ... about 50/50.

Think about it? You hire a realtor, you don't pay them until the house sells. Interior decorators often get paid based on a % of the stuff you buy. Travel agents (do they still exists?) got a % of your airline tickets and other fees.

Skilled hourly labor is expensive and nobody likes paying it, but people also don't like paying more for something when they can click click at Amazon and its delivered the next day. On top of that, anybody who's ever plugged an AV system together and configured a remote figures they can be a Custom Integrator too, so there are a great deal of "trunk slammers" in the industry without enough experience to even figure out a profit margin correctly.

If there was a private label DVR, CI's would probably all flock to that rather than deal with TiVo who will run sales and deal directly with "DIY'ers" such as ourselves.


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## zalusky (Apr 5, 2002)

I do HATE the obfuscating method that many companies/people use for income. I would rather pay a provider on a straight hourly basis and have the materials at their lowest rates.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

zalusky said:


> I do HATE the obfuscating method that many companies/people use for income. I would rather pay a provider on a straight hourly basis and have the materials at their lowest rates.


Agreed. But it's not just people installing Home Theater setups. So many things have costs hidden in all sorts of weird places. Look at amusement parks with $20 tickets and $30 pizzas. Somebody has to fix the roller coaster. Or razor blades. The cable and satellite providers all have "free" or $49 installations when it costs $150 just to have the guy show up at the door, before he even puts a dish or cable drop up, do a bunch of wiring, set the boxes up, and activate and test it all. It's not free. And don't even get me started on healthcare. There are hidden costs all over the place in a hospital.

Cell phone contracts might be the single thing I can think of that have gotten significantly MORE transparent about where the costs really are since they no longer include the phones in the plans, and you have to choose whether to pay for them or finance them.


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## wkearney99 (Dec 5, 2003)

jonw747 said:


> I get the impression people (even wealthy people) don't like paying CI's for straight labor...


What's galling is paying hourly for someone to be learning on the job. That and learning how to automate living in a larger house (while they're some kid living in an apartment). Don't get me wrong, I've been that kid in the apartment.  Automation has had such fits-and-starts of failed potential that customers are rightly skeptical. Tivo, however, has continued to be a reliable solution. One that customers love and a smart CI would likely want to ride that wave of goodwill vs some private-labeled hack.

The trouble with excessively itemizing bills is time wasted quibbling over individual line items. Profit only comes after materials and overhead get paid. Breaking all those out invites unwelcome scrutiny that has no real bearing on the job being done. Which just wastes time for both the customer and the supplier alike. It's a challenge, to be sure.


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