# Series 3 -- Yours for only $1500 -- OMG



## SethCrews (Mar 22, 2006)

I've read this forum for a few years, own a Series 1 and a Series 2. I've got Lifetime on the Series 2 and have enjoyed TiVo in all it's glory. Heck, I remember the old Infomercials way back when and yes, I paid around $300 for my Series 1 tivo plus the $200 Lifetime subscription (which i obviously got to transfer to my Series 2 -- thank you tivo!)

Ok, so today i was reading the fine print for the Idolspculation contest, and i noticed something rather interesting... The Estimated Retail value of the Grand prize -- $1500 for a Series 3 WITH Lifetime Service.

Ok, first of all, while I understand paying more for something when it first comes out is inevitable, I was still taken aback by this price "estimate". Even if you price lifetime service at $500 that means the value of the Series 3 would be $1000 bucks!! 

HOLY COW.

I just can't fathom paying anywhere near that much for a High Def TiVo. Especially when a Series 2 with a mail in rebate is like 50 bucks.

Anyway, I guess like everyone else I'm welcome to enjoy my paid for Series 2 and vote with my wallet for the price I like best. 

I just hope TiVo knows that like American Idol, if you're not the best (and just being TiVo won't cut it any more), you'll be packing your bags and going away the loser.


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## filburt1 (Apr 23, 2005)

As posted in several other threads and sites like PVRBlog, that price is arbitrary and includes the cost of service which itself could change in price, especially given that lifetime service is dead and now has a completely different, and higher, value.

At least, the price is arbitrary according to posts by official TiVo representatives. The Series3 will initially be expensive, most likely in the hundreds of dollars, including the unlikely rebate.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

To think I payed $1,199 for my first 40hr TiVo W/ Lifetime.  

Edit: I think it was 30 hrs, the 14hr would of been around $899


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

WOULD HAVE! WOULD HAVE! WOULD HAVE! AAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!!!!

I remember when a friend of mine gt the 14 hour model shortly after it came out, and it was around $800 or $900. I remember telling him that he couldn't possibly need a bigger HD... why would anyone want to record 9 hours (medium) of TV without watching it??


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

SethCrews said:


> Even if you price lifetime service at $500 that means the value of the Series 3 would be $1000 bucks!!


With lifetime being gone, the value of lifetime service may have been calculated simply as 12.95 times the likely life of the box. That alone could exceed $1k.


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

SethCrews said:


> I've read this forum for a few years, own a Series 1 and a Series 2.


You've read the forum for years and this is the first issue you thought to comment on?

Over the last three years, did you not notice the "Search" function? The mythical $1500 "value" of the Series 3 with lifetime has been talked about numerous times over the last couple weeks ...


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

Leon WIlkinson said:


> To think I payed $1,199 for my first 40hr TiVo W/ Lifetime.
> 
> Edit: I think it was 30 hrs, the 14hr would of been around $899


30 hrs $999, 14 hrs $499 plus sub. I paid $499 for 14 hr.


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## moonscape (Jul 3, 2004)

SethCrews said:


> Ok, so today i was reading the fine print for the Idolspculation contest, and i noticed something rather interesting... The Estimated Retail value of the Grand prize -- $1500 for a Series 3 WITH Lifetime Service.


and that's the amount the winner will have to pay taxes on.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

Leon WIlkinson said:


> To think I payed $1,199 for my first 40hr TiVo W/ Lifetime.
> 
> Edit: I think it was 30 hrs, the 14hr would of been around $899


And I paid $1800 for my first PC with a huge 10mb hard drive and a meg of ram. . .
times have changed


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## dagap (Dec 5, 2003)

moonscape said:


> and that's the amount the winner will have to pay taxes on.


Not necessiariarly. It's common for the "retail value" to be inflated in contests. I believe you can claim a lesser amount if you can provide proof that the same product is available cheaper.


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## lajohn27 (Dec 29, 2003)

It has been posted here numerous times by TIVO employees that was a number drawn up by lawyers... and little heed should be paid to it with regards to a box that isn't at retail yet.. being offered as a prize with a service you can no longer buy. (lifetime)

J


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## dt_dc (Jul 31, 2003)

Well you may not even be able to buy an S3 with *lifetime* service at all so ... Estimated Retail value = ?priceless?

Judge the pricing when it is actually announced / released.


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## beejay (Feb 3, 2001)

dagap said:


> Not necessiariarly. It's common for the "retail value" to be inflated in contests. I believe you can claim a lesser amount if you can provide proof that the same product is available cheaper.


Not sure how you'd prove that if lifetime is not available.

I think TiVo has indicated this is a "placeholder" value which will get adjusted by the time I actually win the contest.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

RoyK said:


> And I paid $1800 for my first PC with a huge 10mb hard drive and a meg of ram. . .
> times have changed


OT: 1 meg of ram seems like a lot if a 10MB HD was considered huge. Are you sure that was what you got? Just curious.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

samo said:


> 30 hrs $999, 14 hrs $499 plus sub. I paid $499 for 14 hr.


Actually when they were first released the 14 hour unit was $699. They dropped to $499 only a few months later, but the release price was $699.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> Actually when they were first released the 14 hour unit was $699. They dropped to $499 only a few months later, but the release price was $699.


I Thought I was correct on the price.

That first Infomercail was like crack.  I stole from two accounts to just get another hit!


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## dtreese (May 6, 2005)

moonscape said:


> and that's the amount the winner will have to pay taxes on.


Actually, I probably won't have to pay or will get it all back. I'm a medical student with no income but student loans.


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## d_anders (Oct 12, 2000)

SethCrews said:


> I just can't fathom paying anywhere near that much for a High Def TiVo. Especially when a Series 2 with a mail in rebate is like 50 bucks.


Classic Marketing. TiVo is going to milk all of the salivating early adopters for everything they can...then they'll likely reduce or rebate before Christmas, and then after Christmas the price will fall again.

I've seen a number of postings that people are already stating they're going to one or two right away regardless of cost....so what do you think TiVo would do (for at least 1-2 months?)

The only problem is that the they can pushing the classic adoption/pricing curve too hard. They're going to push more and more people to other DVRs if they think that the cadillac is beyond their budgets....


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## EwanG (Oct 14, 2002)

One thing I haven't seen in any of these discussions is whether it will even be possible to buy a Series 3?

IOW, with the new bundled options, it seems that at best you will pay $X for a box and sign up for a subscription committment. Which really doesn't tell you what the price for just a Series 3 box would be.

That's where I get curious about these folks buying lifetime subscription cards that they expect to use with the Series 3. It would seem that they would still have to pay for the amount of time they were committed to, or pay some additional fee to make up the cost of the box. As such, I suspect that those are not going to be all that good a deal...

Just my .02 worth,
Ewan


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

EwanG said:


> One thing I haven't seen in any of these discussions is whether it will even be possible to buy a Series 3?


That's because the box hasn't even been officially announced.

But it's almost impossible to imagine not being able to buy a Series 3 at Best Buy or one of the other retail partners (including the recently announced Radio Shack).

Tivo may not have generous rebates on the boxes, but not to sell the Series 3 (or Series 2) at retail wouldn't be a smart move.


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## filburt1 (Apr 23, 2005)

A CSR I spoke to about a week ago said that the Series3 will be sold in stores because it is not feasible to train salespersons in every single store for the tiered pricing model.


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## lajohn27 (Dec 29, 2003)

filburt1 said:


> A CSR I spoke to about a week ago said that the Series3 will be sold in stores because it is not feasible to train salespersons in every single store for the tiered pricing model.


Did you mean to say "WILL NOT BE SOLD IN STORES ...." Otherwise your statement makes no sense.

J


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## filburt1 (Apr 23, 2005)

No, I meant what I posted. To rephrase: it will sell in stores like the current sales method of the box and service being sold separately where the store is only responsible for the box. The CSR said that selling at the tiered model in stores would require training a lot of people, setting up in-store kiosks, etc, and it would be prohibitively expensive. The current system is much more efficient where people only need to be trained to know that service is required for the box to work instead of having to actually sell the service themselves.

I don't know if he was speculating or not, but it makes sense to me.


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## dtreese (May 6, 2005)

Yeah, but will NOT be sold in stores would also suck.


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## rainwater (Sep 21, 2004)

d_anders said:


> Classic Marketing. TiVo is going to milk all of the salivating early adopters for everything they can...then they'll likely reduce or rebate before Christmas, and then after Christmas the price will fall again.


It's not classic marketing more than the cost of the boxes is actually higher in the beginning. It takes time to lower manufacturing costs. I don't think TiVos goal is to milk early adopters. They want as many subscribers to the S3 as possible.


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## dgh (Jul 24, 2000)

rainwater said:


> It's not classic marketing more than the cost of the boxes is actually higher in the beginning. It takes time to lower manufacturing costs. I don't think TiVos goal is to milk early adopters. They want as many subscribers to the S3 as possible.


It's both. I've set pricing schedules (for other companies) and it's based more on demand than cost. If possible you want to make as much of your R&D back ASAP so that when competitors show up, it's easier for you to compete on price. This means a much steeper ramp than manufacturing costs alone would indicate. (and early adopters frequently are willing to pay a bundle and some even prefer to.)

Of course this assumes you are perceived to be "first" with something. In some ways, TiVo is playing catch up with the S3 so it's not so clear.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

filburt1 said:


> No, I meant what I posted. To rephrase: it will sell in stores like the current sales method of the box and service being sold separately where the store is only responsible for the box. The CSR said that selling at the tiered model in stores would require training a lot of people, setting up in-store kiosks, etc, and it would be prohibitively expensive. The current system is much more efficient where people only need to be trained to know that service is required for the box to work instead of having to actually sell the service themselves.
> 
> I don't know if he was speculating or not, but it makes sense to me.


TiVo has always stated that you will still be able to "bring your own TiVo" and get the 12.95 or 6.95 monthky rate depending on whetehr you qualify for the discount on your account. So they will also continue to sell series 2 the same way as well. Now how rebates might work or if they even exist in the future is another question.

I would think though they could at least sell the TiVo all upfront as well in a retail store. Whats to train on - pay x dollars and it works for x years. I am sure we will continue to get the same professional sales representative we always get at a retail store.


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## TiVoStephen (Jun 27, 2000)

filburt1 said:


> A CSR I spoke to about a week ago said that the Series3 will be sold in stores because it is not feasible to train salespersons in every single store for the tiered pricing model.


There are no CSRs who have been told anything about our Series3 plans. I can't talk about them. Pony can't talk about them. Certainly any CSR who talks about them is speculating.


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## Leon WIlkinson (Feb 13, 2000)

TiVoOpsMgr said:


> There are no CSRs who have been told anything about our Series3 plans. I can't talk about them. Pony can't talk about them. Certainly any CSR who talks about them is speculating.


So, in 2 months you will post your plans. Sounds good!


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

filburt1 said:


> A CSR I spoke to about a week ago said that the Series3 will be sold in stores because it is not feasible to train salespersons in every single store for the tiered pricing model.


I believe that TiVo's intent is to offer the Series 2 (yes, Series 2) with the new pricing model at retail. They have stated that the delay is due to the time it takes to integrate the new pricing model with the retailers' point-of-sale and backend systems. Given that this is true, what do people expect regarding:

1) Buying a new Series 2? Will stores (and tivo.com) offer both pricing models, or just the bundled pricing? If just the bundled pricing, will there be a source of new TiVo (Series 2) boxes under the old model?

2) The Series 3? Given that TiVo seems willing to eat about $150 to get a new subscriber and then recover the rest over the course of the service contract, and the price of the S3 will be (let's say) $750, that means monthly payments of $63, $38, and $30 per month for 1, 2, and 3 year commitments, respectively (including service). Or will they just sell the box for $750 (with or without a rebate), and require a service-only subscription? I think the latter would appeal more to the HT crowd, but that would mean TiVo would have two pricing models at retail. On the flip side, if they use the bundled pricing, things could get confusing when the expected price reductions come to pass. Not to mention the end-of-committment price differential between service-only and the bundled pricing becomes gigantic. ("You can continue paying monthly at $63, or agree to a 1-year contract at $12.95/month..." Duh.)

My feeling is that for #1 the Series 2 will become more and more a bundled-only product, and for #2 the box and service will be sold separately, at least until the price comes down enough to offer reasonable bundled pricing.


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## filburt1 (Apr 23, 2005)

I only started using TiVo late into the Series2. Did the Series1 and Series2 coexist (both were sold at once) for a while? If so, then the Series3 could be released as the high-end TiVo sold at both tiered pricing and in stores, and the Series2 could be only tiered pricing (and more profitable).


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

ChuckyBox said:


> I believe that TiVo's intent is to offer the Series 2 (yes, Series 2) with the new pricing model at retail. They have stated that the delay is due to the time it takes to integrate the new pricing model with the retailers' point-of-sale and backend systems. Given that this is true, what do people expect regarding:
> 
> 1) Buying a new Series 2? Will stores (and tivo.com) offer both pricing models, or just the bundled pricing? If just the bundled pricing, will there be a source of new TiVo (Series 2) boxes under the old model?
> 
> ...


1. TiVo seems determined to use the bundled model for their own sales. Yes, they say they want to convert the retailers as well. I think there is a decent chance the retailers will tell TiVo to go scratch; I don't think carrying TiVo is very important anymore to the major retailers; they may have better luck with Radio Shack, however.

I put the retail model as 1. stay the same, 2. accept bundled, 3. lose retail partner in declining order of likelihood.

2. TiVo obviously can't expect to recoup a large hardware cost in only one, or even two years with a high monthly fee. Some deeper thinking needs to go into that problem. Later on that.

True ALL Upfront pricing does make more sense for much of the high end crowd.


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## HTH (Aug 28, 2000)

Regarding $1500: How do you price unobtanium? Until it is actually available for purchase, prerelease acquisition as contest prize could be at any price. Same with the recent unobtanium of lifetime service.


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## Moebius (Nov 25, 2002)

HTH said:


> Regarding $1500: How do you price unobtanium? Until it is actually available for purchase, prerelease acquisition as contest prize could be at any price. Same with the recent unobtanium of lifetime service.


Wasn't that the element that made all the monsters in Scooby Doo 2?


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## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

HDTiVo said:


> 1. TiVo seems determined to use the bundled model for their own sales. Yes, they say they want to convert the retailers as well. I think there is a decent chance the retailers will tell TiVo to go scratch; I don't think carrying TiVo is very important anymore to the major retailers; they may have better luck with Radio Shack, however.
> 
> I put the retail model as 1. stay the same, 2. accept bundled, 3. lose retail partner in declining order of likelihood.
> 
> ...


I doubt very seriously Tivo will go to the bundled model at retail, at least not exclusively. Most retailers aren't going to want to have four SKUs for the same box.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

MickeS said:


> OT: 1 meg of ram seems like a lot if a 10MB HD was considered huge. Are you sure that was what you got? Just curious.


Yep - full load. 640 k of basic ram and 360k extended. 
Roy


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## MMG (Dec 11, 1999)

samo said:


> 30 hrs $999, 14 hrs $499 plus sub. I paid $499 for 14 hr.


Me too. $499.00 plus 199.00 for lifetime. (for just 14 hours!!!)


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

RoyK said:


> Yep - full load. 640 k of basic ram and 360k extended.
> Roy


Cool. And to think, the basic ram is STILL 640k on today's computers.


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## Dajad (Oct 7, 1999)

I paid $1,100ish, I think for my 30 hour unit and another $199 for lifetime. I'd happily pay $1,500 for a decent Series three with lifetime (if this were possible), assuming it has a decent sized hard drive (at least 200 gigs) or the ability to expand with a sidecar SATA drive and can record at least 2 HD shows simultaneously. Thankfully I'm grandfathered ... so I can do this ...

Again $1,500 with lifetime is much more preferable to be than, say, $600 without lifetime.

...Dale


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## ChuckyBox (Oct 3, 2005)

Dajad said:


> Again $1,500 with lifetime is much more preferable to be than, say, $600 without lifetime.


You'd pay $900 for lifetime? Wow, that's like a six-year breakeven, not even counting a reasonable rate of return on the money. Why, if I may ask, is that option so valuable to you?


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

With HD cable boxes renting their 15 hour HD DVR for $10/month and a unlimited warranty (on sight no less) Series 3 is not going to be an easy sell. I am sure that over time the cable com. will increase the record time without much if any extra cost to the user. Comcast already increased my HD DVR from 10 hours to 15 hours for nothing but the time to replace the box.


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## MickeS (Dec 26, 2002)

15 hours? Is that common for HD DVRs? If so, that's just pitiful. I would imagine that a Series 3 could be modified to hold much more than that.


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## filburt1 (Apr 23, 2005)

You can add external storage to the Series3, including currently-available 500 GB drives.

Recording 1920 x 1080 video with 5.1 audio takes up a lot of space.


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

MickeS said:


> 15 hours? Is that common for HD DVRs? If so, that's just pitiful. I would imagine that a Series 3 could be modified to hold much more than that.


10GB/hr is a decent rule of thumb. The S3 was rumored to come with about a 250GB drive as of CES.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

filburt1 said:


> I only started using TiVo late into the Series2. Did the Series1 and Series2 coexist (both were sold at once) for a while? If so, then the Series3 could be released as the high-end TiVo sold at both tiered pricing and in stores, and the Series2 could be only tiered pricing (and more profitable).


Series1s were on shelves for a while after the Series 2 was released.

The same for Series 2s, and 2.5s, and older 2.5s and new (with 7.2).
Until they come up with a budget alternative to the S3, S2.5s will be on the shelves for some time to come.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

classicsat said:


> Series1s were on shelves for a while after the Series 2 was released.
> 
> The same for Series 2s, and 2.5s, and older 2.5s and new (with 7.2).
> Until they come up with a budget alternative to the S3, S2.5s will be on the shelves for some time to come.


What is a Series 2.5 ? ?


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## HDTiVo (Nov 27, 2002)

lessd said:


> What is a Series 2.5 ? ?


Its what "we" call the newer versions of the Series 2.


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## SC0TLANDF0REVER (Dec 9, 2001)

lessd said:


> What is a Series 2.5 ? ?





HDTiVo said:


> Its what "we" call the newer versions of the Series 2.


If I remember correctly...

TiVo Series 2.5's are the boxes that came with the 'nightlight' in the front of the box.

Series 2:








Series 2.5:


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## MnGrn4Runner (Apr 24, 2006)

lessd said:


> With HD cable boxes renting their 15 hour HD DVR for $10/month and a unlimited warranty (on sight no less) Series 3 is not going to be an easy sell. I am sure that over time the cable com. will increase the record time without much if any extra cost to the user. Comcast already increased my HD DVR from 10 hours to 15 hours for nothing but the time to replace the box.


Actually, ComCast is not experimenting with RS-DVRs (Remote Storage DVRs) - all of the information is stored on their servers and served remotely over the coax lines. Similar to how On Demand works, but with recorded shows. With the way everything is going, I see this as being the DVR of the future - of course, the obvious problem is what if the cable goes out? That being said, TiVo's not going anywhere anytime soon.


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## ThreeSoFar (May 24, 2002)

My family had a very nice Mitsubishi VCR around 1988 that ran around $1000 I think.

If you can't afford it, don't buy it. A lot of idiots would do better in life if they stuck to that rule.


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## btwyx (Jan 16, 2003)

I payed $899 for an HD TiVo 2 years ago, I would have payed $999 if I hadn't got the $100 off. Though these days you should be getting more than 250GB for that price. Once you add in the price of the 600GB upgrade, I payed significantly more than $1000 for an HD TiVo.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

As long as I can buy the HR10-250 for less than $400 and only pay $6 a month to use it, there's no way I can recommend the series 3 to anyone at the prices people are suggesting Tivo will charge.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

With DirecTV switching to MPEG4 and the HR10-250 not supporting MPEG4 there is no way I would recommend anyone get one of those! Plus what about all the people who can't get, or don't want, DirecTV? The Series 3 is their only option.

Dan


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## Guindalf (Jun 13, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> *With DirecTV switching to MPEG4 and the HR10-250 not supporting MPEG4* there is no way I would recommend anyone get one of those! Plus what about all the people who can't get, or don't want, DirecTV? The Series 3 is their only option.
> 
> Dan


The move to MPEG-4 on anything other than locals is a long way off. So, if you can receive OTA locals, the HR10-250 _is _and option. It still has 200 hours of SD capacity as standard. And who are these people who "can't get" DirecTV? Apart from a very few whose home faces the wrong way, have trees obstructing the view or live in apartments without a private area to mount a dish, everyone can "get" DirecTV if they want it.

I live too far to get OTA HD, so I will be forced to upgrade when the non-TiVo powered HR20 is released if I want to watch Lost or anything else in HD apart from ESPN and rerun movies (oh, and the odd sunset or sunrise on Discovery HD!). I don't intend to watch the Steelers repeat in SD!!


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