# TiVo Stream Cost



## chashd (Nov 25, 2006)

I have no problem paying 129.00 for something, but I was just wondering if anyone knows how TiVo came up with the price for this thing. Does the unit really cost that much to make? I'm no expert, but I have a hard time believing that the tech inside justifies that price. I know us diehards will buy it, buy for the mass TiVo, subscribers, .......?


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

I highly doubt TiVo is making much profit if any on the Steam. The "tech" is similar to a Slingbox Pro-HD or Solo without the inputs/outputs so it certainly isn't cheap to produce (the chipset is basically all of the cost).


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## farmermac (Jan 31, 2012)

There is no subscription cost. Why would you expect the item to cost what it actually sells for??


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

They're also giving the app away for free.

Considering the relatively small market for this, and the development and support costs, I think it's a great price.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

chashd said:


> I have no problem paying 129.00 for something, but I was just wondering if anyone knows how TiVo came up with the price for this thing. Does the unit really cost that much to make? I'm no expert, but I have a hard time believing that the tech inside justifies that price. I know us diehards will buy it, buy for the mass TiVo, subscribers, .......?


Well this device is designed for the masses that paid for a premium DVR and for iPhones, iPods, & iPads, all of which cost a pretty penny. Seems like $129 would be nothing comparatively and I would guess even at $129 the profit margins are allot less than any of those "i" devices.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

I expect TiVo is probably making about a 10 to 15% profit on each Stream sold, which selling at $130 isn't a lot in the stream of things (no pun intended). The Stream is likely a way to keep up with cable company provided DVRs, many of which already have this functionality built in. Basically it's a way to maintain sales of TiVo DVRs, which have been steadily falling since even before the Premiere was released.

We know the next TiVo series model (5?) will have the Stream hardware built in. My guess is that at some point, prior to the next model being released the Stream will end up being bundled with Premiere hardware. Probably for marginal cost (i.e. buy a Premiere, throw in a Stream for $50 or something).


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

It will always be a trade-off between raising the cost of the premiere with a higher end chip like the Broadcom BCM7435 which includes a quad transcoder and a lower end unit. I wouldn't be surprised if TiVo continues to market the Stream as an accessory for quite some time and releases a high-end gateway box onto the market that includes the faster processor with transcoding. The MSOs ultimately will drive the decision about what's in/out of the box. I think its easy to make an argument either way as to how much should be integrated into the gateway box.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Agreed. I would not want to necessarily pay for this functionality on a replacement box, especially if I had a stand-alone unit already. But, it makes sense to be added to a "high-end" box, especially for one that is the center of a larger home system.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

jrtroo said:


> Agreed. I would not want to necessarily pay for this functionality to be added to a "high-end" box, especially if I had a stand-alone unit already.


Since one box can handle multiple TiVo's, it seems like a waste to add the cost to each unit. For us multi-TiVo homes anyway...


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## smbaker (May 24, 2003)

I don't think multi-Tivo homes are the future. I think whole-home Tivo is the future, and that's where it would make sense to integrate the Stream.

Keep in mind that a lot of the cost of what makes up the stream won't need to be added to a Tivo. Only the bits that are doing the transcoding. The next generation will need a more CPU performance anyhow, to avoid the embarrassment that is the Premiere running HDUI. 

Furthermore, Tivo will have to complete with other DVR makers that will support transcoding on the box. If Tivo wants to market a premium DVR, it needs to be able to do at least what the cableco DVRs can do.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah the future is one TiVo with 4 or 6 tuners and Minis on extra TVs. My guess is that only the untra high end one (6 tuner) will have the Stream hardware built in. 

Dan


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> Yeah the future is one TiVo with 4 or 6 tuners and Minis on extra TVs. My guess is that only the untra high end one (6 tuner) will have the Stream hardware built in.
> 
> Dan


That would be great. A six tuner TiVo with the stream built in. Then I could sell my two Elites and just have a six tuner box along with two TiVo Mini boxes. I just hope that if they do come out with a six tuner box for retail that there will be an option with 3TB or 4TB of storage built in.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

morac said:


> I expect TiVo is probably making about a 10 to 15% profit on each Stream sold


If we're just talking hardware, I'm sure the costs are much less than that. But there's marketing, support, packaging, etc to consider. Also TiVo starts things at a certain price and then lowers it over time. If we hit $99 in the next 6 months, I wouldn't be surprised.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

davezatz said:


> If we're just talking hardware, I'm sure the costs are much less than that. But there's marketing, support, packaging, etc to consider. Also TiVo starts things at a certain price and then lowers it over time. If we hit $99 in the next 6 months, I wouldn't be surprised.


Yeah, the cost of the components in the Stream probably are less than $75. I was trying to include design, marketing, etc in the cost.


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## csgraber (Feb 8, 2006)

I'm sure there is new tech, if I had to guess - its a temporary device. I would be surprised if new Tivos in a year or two don't have it built in.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

csgraber said:


> I'm sure there is new tech, if I had to guess - its a temporary device. I would be surprised if new Tivos in a year or two don't have it built in.


10 years from now they'll be unnecessary. Cable will have likely upgraded to H.264 encoding by then, so no need to transcode. And even if they haven't the iPads (or whatever) that are available at that time will likely have enough horsepower to decode MPEG-2 in software.

This is definitely a stopgap technology, but it's a nice addition to have given the current technology.

Dan


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> 10 years from now they'll be unnecessary. Cable will have likely upgraded to H.264 encoding by then, so no need to transcode. And even if they haven't the iPads (or whatever) that are available at that time will likely have enough horsepower to decode MPEG-2 in software.
> 
> This is definitely a stopgap technology, but it's a nice addition to have given the current technology.
> 
> Dan


10 years from now, there probably won't be any DVRs and cable as we know it won't exist. All TV will stream directly to portable devices. We're pretty close to that now.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I hope there isn't MPEG2 still around in ten years.


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## askewed (Sep 12, 2000)

I ordered my Stream yesterday by phone. I asked the rep if there was anything he could do for me, a 13 year TiVo customer, to help with the cost. He couldn't touch the Stream or offer reduced or faster shipping for free but he did give me a free slide remote. 

Just wanted to share. 

Best,
Scott


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

That sounds like an excellent deal to me.


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## csgraber (Feb 8, 2006)

askewed said:


> I ordered my Stream yesterday by phone. I asked the rep if there was anything he could do for me, a 13 year TiVo customer, to help with the cost. He couldn't touch the Stream or offer reduced or faster shipping for free but he did give me a free slide remote.
> 
> Just wanted to share.
> 
> ...


Son of a #@!, i should of called


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

askewed said:


> I ordered my Stream yesterday by phone. I asked the rep if there was anything he could do for me, a 13 year TiVo customer, to help with the cost. He couldn't touch the Stream or offer reduced or faster shipping for free but he did give me a free slide remote.
> 
> Just wanted to share.
> 
> ...


That's cool. Congrats on the deal.

Dan


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

It's simple: TiVo is charging the maximum price that they believe people will pay. It's called capitalism.


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## Flojomojo (Dec 30, 2001)

I think the price is fine for a nerdy niche item like this. Someone with a TiVo and an iPad is likely to have $130 as well. It's smart to keep it separate from the main TiVo unit until they can get the price down so far it's included in the main unit. As someone who just got two new Premiere TiVo units, I'm glad they're "upgradable" by adding this to the network. 

An external item like this will be a hard sell to casual customers.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

rainwater said:


> I highly doubt TiVo is making much profit if any on the Steam. The "tech" is similar to a Slingbox Pro-HD or Solo without the inputs/outputs so it certainly isn't cheap to produce (the chipset is basically all of the cost).


..and of course you have to pay $30 per device for the app (i.e. you have to buy the iPhone and iPad apps separately, it's not universal, right) for SlingBoxes.. So tack $30+ on the price for comparison.



morac said:


> We know the next TiVo series model (5?) will have the Stream hardware built in.


We know? I thought it was hypothesized so far, and it is logical to hypothesize, but how do we know it?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

morac said:


> 10 years from now, there probably won't be any DVRs and cable as we know it won't exist. All TV will stream directly to portable devices. We're pretty close to that now.


Nice idea, but unless it's available *without commercials* either VERY cheaply PPV, or on an all-you-can-eat model _including_ new programming I'll still have a DVR.

I would love to give up the DVR in general, dealing with multiple tuners, clipping, missed recordings (rare), etc.. But I have been a convert to being able to download shows, to save, or to simply make more space that way.


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Also, something to consider is that this will likely be rolled into the next generation of tivo boxes, so the cost of the stream will be zero when series 5 rolls around


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

mattack said:


> We know? I thought it was hypothesized so far, and it is logical to hypothesize, but how do we know it?


I think one of the hogher ups at TiVo (CEO?) said something aout the functionality being built into a future TiVo. No one ever mentioned Series 5 or said that it would be built into all future TiVos.

Dan


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## JosephB (Nov 19, 2010)

Dan203 said:


> I think one of the hogher ups at TiVo (CEO?) said something aout the functionality being built into a future TiVo. No one ever mentioned Series 5 or said that it would be built into all future TiVos.
> 
> Dan


It's only logical that this would be built in on future models, and it's only logical that the next series will be called series 5


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

JosephB said:


> It's only logical that this would be built in on future models, and it's only logical that the next series will be called series 5


Logic rarely applies to marketing. Based on TiVo's recent naming scheme and the fact that the term "series 4" is hardly ever used, the next series is more likely to be called TiVo Supreme than series 5.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm betting the next unit released will be a high end unit that's still called a Premiere but has 6 tuners, a better processor and the streaming ability built in. They might even bundle it with a couple of Minis and sell it as a whole house solution. I bet it will still be considered a Series 4 though. Just like the TiVo HD was still considered a Series 3 even though it used completely different hardware then the original S3.

Dan


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## ShayL (Jul 18, 2007)

mattack said:


> ..and of course you have to pay $30 per device for the app (i.e. you have to buy the iPhone and iPad apps separately, it's not universal, right) for SlingBoxes.. So tack $30+ on the price for comparison.
> 
> We know? I thought it was hypothesized so far, and it is logical to hypothesize, but how do we know it?


Yes that is correct about the app price. You can run the iphone slingmobile app on your ipad, but it is pixeled doubled like all iphone apps that run on the ipad.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

ShayL said:


> Yes that is correct about the app price. You can run the iphone slingmobile app on your ipad, but it is pixeled doubled like all iphone apps that run on the ipad.


When I first got my iPad I accidentally bought the iPhone version of the app because I thought all apps were universal. It looked like crap on my iPad. When I realized there was an iPad specific version I complained to Apple and they gave me a refund for the iPhone one so I could buy the right one. Then after buying the iPad one I discovered my Slingbox was broken and couldn't maintain a connection for more then about 20 minutes (some known issue with capacitors) so it turned out to be a complete waste. 

In my opinion charging for the app at all is crappy, but charging the same ridiculous price for different iPhone and iPad versions is just gouging.

From what I understand there is a competitor to Sling now and their app is free.

Dan


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> When I first got my iPad I accidentally bought the iPhone version of the app because I thought all apps were universal. It looked like crap on my iPad. When I realized there was an iPad specific version I complained to Apple and they gave me a refund for the iPhone one so I could buy the right one. Then after buying the iPad one I discovered my Slingbox was broken and couldn't maintain a connection for more then about 20 minutes (some known issue with capacitors) so it turned out to be a complete waste.
> 
> In my opinion charging for the app at all is crappy, but charging the same ridiculous price for different iPhone and iPad versions is just gouging.
> 
> ...


WHo is the competitor? I've been using a Hava HD platinum for around 3.5 years which does what a Sling Box does. The app for my box is free but for the newer boxes which are called Vulkanos, there is a $13 fee for the app. But it can also be used on 4G networks. The free app can only be used with 3G and WiFi.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

That's the one I was thinking of. I didn't realize there were multiple apps. But $13 is still better then $30 and it's a universal app so it's not $13 for an iPad and then another $13 for a iPhone. Plus the device itself is cheaper then a Slingbox by at least $30.

Dan


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

What's worse is Sling provides absolutely no support. So if you buy the $30 app and have a problem with it your S.O.L. unless you want to go through Sling's paid support. Sling's stand alone products are basically coasting at this point. They are putting all their effort into their Dish combo products.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

From the Amazon reviews, apparently the episode guide for the Vulkanos has been messed up for month(s).. Though IMHO, I wouldn't need that, I'd just want to control Tivos and possibly my other recorder.

Looks like the ~$100 Vulkano has 2 composite and 2 component inputs. That's a lot more than the Slingboxes.


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## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

mattack said:


> From the Amazon reviews, apparently the episode guide for the Vulkanos has been messed up for month(s).. Though IMHO, I wouldn't need that, I'd just want to control Tivos and possibly my other recorder.
> 
> Looks like the ~$100 Vulkano has 2 composite and 2 component inputs. That's a lot more than the Slingboxes.


When I looked into Vulkanos originally, they could stream or they could record, but not both at the same time.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I don't see the point in having the Vulkano record if it's going to be hooked up to a TiVo. The TiVo does the recording. I have my Hava connected to a Premiere in my bedroom. From that box I have access to any recording from the Premiere and from my two Elite boxes.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

Though on one of the recent Engadget HD podcasts, they mentioned that you can do the "sideloading" with the Vulkano too? i.e. from any content you could connect to the Vulkano?

that makes it interesting.


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