# Buy a Tivo Premiere or Lease with RCN



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

I've had a Tivo Series 2 for more years than I can remember and am ready to step up to the current model. I am a RCN cable customer in NYC and am not sure if I should purchase the device and rent a cable card from RCN or just lease the Tivo from them. According to the RCN website, it would cost $19.95 a month to lease the Tivo. They don't indicate what the cable card charge would be if I bought my own device. I'll probably stop using the old Tivo.

Any advice or guidance would be appreciated!


----------



## lafos (Nov 8, 2004)

If you buy a TiVo, you will need to pay the subscription and rent a cablecard. At the moment, TiVo is offering a free TiVo with two years at $19.99/mo service, or for $99 with one year commitment at that rate. The rates may change after the holiday promotion ends, as will the low-cost TiVo box.

Sounds like RCN is charging you mostly for the TiVo subscription. One advantage is that if it breaks, it's RCN's problem.


----------



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

Usually, I prefer to purchase rather than rent. However, given that I would have to rent a cable card along with the purchase of the Tivo, the rental of the TiVo seems to be a better deal. RCN could, of course, raise the cost of the TiVo rental down the road.

If I were to purchase a lifetime subscription, I would save in the long run, but it would take quite a few years to recoup my initial investment in the subscription and the cost of the TiVo itself which would not be free.


----------



## ak3580 (Mar 13, 2007)

I am facing this same decision with RCN in Chicago. I am thinking of purchasing the Premiere for $99 and then $19.95 a month for 12 months versus renting the Premiere from RCN for $19.95 a month. The additional cost of renting the cable card will make buying the Premiere a little bit more expensive on a monthly basis. Does anyone have any information on what happens to the subscription rate once the initial 12 month period is up? If the subscription cost goes down this may help sway me towards purchasing the Premiere.


----------



## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jrak said:


> Usually, I prefer to purchase rather than rent. However, given that I would have to rent a cable card along with the purchase of the Tivo, the rental of the TiVo seems to be a better deal. RCN could, of course, raise the cost of the TiVo rental down the road.
> 
> If I were to purchase a lifetime subscription, I would save in the long run, but it would take quite a few years to recoup my initial investment in the subscription and the cost of the TiVo itself which would not be free.


Have you check your on line TiVo account for upgrade offers? If you have Series 2 with an active subscription you should have an offer to upgrade it to a Premiere. The costs of a Premiere with lifetime with the upgrade offers has been either $470 or $500 depending on if your existing TiVo has lifetime or a monthly subscription. If you have the $470 offer it will be paid for in only 2 years versus a $20/mo subscription.

Good Luck,


----------



## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

If you are going with RCN, you are better off getting the Tivo through them, as it will be enabled for the special RCN video on demand feature. A "regular" Tivo will work fine with RCN, but will not access the RCN VOD feature.

RCN may have a purchase option, but I don't know for sure.


----------



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

atmuscarella said:


> Have you check your on line TiVo account for upgrade offers? If you have Series 2 with an active subscription you should have an offer to upgrade it to a Premiere. The costs of a Premiere with lifetime with the upgrade offers has been either $470 or $500 depending on if your existing TiVo has lifetime or a monthly subscription. If you have the $470 offer it will be paid for in only 2 years versus a $20/mo subscription.
> 
> Good Luck,


Thanks for the information. I'll need to check with TiVo customer service and find out what the cost of the upgrade plus lifetime subscription is. I'll still need to pay RCN's cable card fee which will lengthen the time it takes to recoup my investment.


----------



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

jfh3 said:


> If you are going with RCN, you are better off getting the Tivo through them, as it will be enabled for the special RCN video on demand feature. A "regular" Tivo will work fine with RCN, but will not access the RCN VOD feature.
> 
> RCN may have a purchase option, but I don't know for sure.


Thanks for the advice. I'm not a user of VOD and it does not have much value for me.


----------



## caddyroger (Mar 15, 2005)

You could just rent a RCN tivo and see if are satisfied with it before buying. It posible that you will not like if the HDUI is slow or freezes


----------



## PedjaR (Jan 4, 2010)

jrak said:


> Thanks for the advice. I'm not a user of VOD and it does not have much value for me.


See
http://www.tivo.com/products/source/cable/tivo-rcn/index.html
RCN Tivo does not get Netflix and Amazon on Demand, but gets RCN on Demand.


----------



## audioscience (Feb 10, 2005)

Also take into account the installation fee. It seems ridiculous but when I called RCN to inquire about the RCN Tivo Premiere they said there was a $50 installation fee and a tech would have to come out. I asked if I could just pick up the unit and install it myself like I did with my current Motorola box and they said it was not possible.

So call RCN and see if they are still charging an installation fee. If they are you'd want to add that $50 to the rental costs.


----------



## PedjaR (Jan 4, 2010)

audioscience said:


> Also take into account the installation fee. It seems ridiculous but when I called RCN to inquire about the RCN Tivo Premiere they said there was a $50 installation fee and a tech would have to come out. I asked if I could just pick up the unit and install it myself like I did with my current Motorola box and they said it was not possible.
> 
> So call RCN and see if they are still charging an installation fee. If they are you'd want to add that $50 to the rental costs.


They _may _charge you for cable card install on non-RCN Tivo, so that may be a wash.


----------



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

Thanks to all for the advice and guidance. I decided to lease from RCN. They will install the device at no charge and I decided that, for now, I wanted some flexibility should the product not meet my expectations.


----------



## Worf (Sep 15, 2000)

FYI - leased TiVos may not get Netflix and Hulu Plus - the cable companies are preventing TiVo from offering such services on leased TiVo DVRs...

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...flix-or-hulu-plus-on-tivo-made-cable-dvrs.ars

If those features are important to you, buying may be better.


----------



## morac (Mar 14, 2003)

Worf said:


> FYI - leased TiVos may not get Netflix and Hulu Plus - the cable companies are preventing TiVo from offering such services on leased TiVo DVRs...
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...flix-or-hulu-plus-on-tivo-made-cable-dvrs.ars
> 
> If those features are important to you, buying may be better.


Actually it's not the cable companies that are blocking Netflix and Hulu, but the movie studios. The cable company, Suddenlink, said it would love to offer Netflix on it's version of the Premiere, but Netflix's contracts with movie studios don't allow Netflix on boxes that can access cable VOD. The reason being that movie studios make money on every VOD purchase. Not so much so with Hulu and Netflix.

http://gigaom.com/video/suddenlink-tivo-netflix/


----------



## jrak (Dec 13, 2010)

I have first generation DVD player attached to my home theater and will be replacing it with a player that can provide higher resolution as well as access to the Internet and Netflix. With all the choices that are available now and all the choices that will be available in the future, I'm keeping my options open.


----------



## djdanska (Sep 30, 2004)

I just moved back to chicago and knew i would be able to get rcn again. I decided to buy my own. The rcn one had No netflix, no amazon on demand, no hulu plus (im told coming soon), i was told and might be wrong, no tivo to go, and besides, i don't own it. If i move outside rcn's area, i lose all my recordings. The cablecard was only $1.50 a month and im getting installed tomorrow so i hope it all goes well.


----------



## djdanska (Sep 30, 2004)

djdanska said:


> I just moved back to chicago and knew i would be able to get rcn again. I decided to buy my own. The rcn one had No netflix, no amazon on demand, no hulu plus (im told coming soon), i was told and might be wrong, no tivo to go, and besides, i don't own it. If i move outside rcn's area, i lose all my recordings. The cablecard was only $1.50 a month and im getting installed tomorrow so i hope it all goes well.


And the rcn tech had NO clue how to install a cablecard on a tivo. An hour and a half later he left with it not working. He insisted you don't go through the guided setup. It does it all by itself. Once he left, went through the guided setup and im up and running! I'm thinking the rcn tivo's are different in that regards, which is why he kept saying that.)


----------



## rcnman (Mar 4, 2010)

djdanska said:


> I just moved back to chicago and knew i would be able to get rcn again. I decided to buy my own. The rcn one had No netflix, no amazon on demand, no hulu plus (im told coming soon), i was told and might be wrong, no tivo to go, and besides, i don't own it. If i move outside rcn's area, i lose all my recordings. The cablecard was only $1.50 a month and im getting installed tomorrow so i hope it all goes well.


Tivo To Go is a part of RCN TiVo...


----------



## rcnman (Mar 4, 2010)

djdanska said:


> And the rcn tech had NO clue how to install a cablecard on a tivo. An hour and a half later he left with it not working. He insisted you don't go through the guided setup. It does it all by itself. Once he left, went through the guided setup and im up and running! I'm thinking the rcn tivo's are different in that regards, which is why he kept saying that.)


Our Tivo's when the tech takes them out the door for install are already updated , paired and set-up (Guided Set-Up already completed) is probably why things didn't go that smooth as the we don't ask the techs to do this in the field. Sorry, hopefully all is well now


----------



## audioscience (Feb 10, 2005)

So does RCN charge to install a cable card? I'm quite sure it's something I could do myself, especially considering the story above.


----------



## rcnman (Mar 4, 2010)

audioscience said:


> So does RCN charge to install a cable card? I'm quite sure it's something I could do myself, especially considering the story above.


At this time we do.. however soon Cable Cards will be supported for Self Install


----------



## audioscience (Feb 10, 2005)

rcnman said:


> At this time we do.. however soon Cable Cards will be supported for Self Install


What's the current charge and what's the time frame for self-install?


----------



## phfaty (Jun 29, 2010)

Would it be possible to flash the Tivo Premiere without Netflix with firmware from other Tivo Permiere boxes that have Netflix on em? 

Anyone know where I can download non-stock alternative Tivo firmware for the Premiere?


----------



## audioscience (Feb 10, 2005)

Rcnman, do you know the time frame for RCN to allow cable card self-installs?


----------



## jfh3 (Apr 15, 2004)

phfaty said:


> Would it be possible to flash the Tivo Premiere without Netflix with firmware from other Tivo Permiere boxes that have Netflix on em?


No.


----------



## Ichinisan (Mar 14, 2013)

Worf said:


> FYI - leased TiVos may not get Netflix and Hulu Plus - the cable companies are preventing TiVo from offering such services on leased TiVo DVRs...
> 
> http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/news...flix-or-hulu-plus-on-tivo-made-cable-dvrs.ars
> 
> If those features are important to you, buying may be better.


This is incorrect. Could you edit your post? It still comes up when I Google for an explanation of the issue between TiVo and Netflix...so other people are seeing your post and getting the wrong idea.

Cable companies are not preventing it and they have no reason to. I work for a small cableco / ISP and I would absolutely love to have Netflix and Hulu on TiVo. It would make the unit more appealing to our customers.

The only thing preventing Netflix/Hulu is licensing restrictions between Netflix/Hulu and their *content providers* (movie studios, TV networks). The only way this will change is if many Netflix/Hulu subscribers give feedback expressing interest in using the services on leased TiVo DVRs. Then, Netflix and Hulu might consider correcting this issue when contracts are re-negotiated with movie studios and TV networks.


Netflix feedback: http://netflix.suggestionbox.com/
Hulu feedback: http://www.hulu.com/discussions/

I already gave my own feedback to both of them. If you're affected by this, you should too.


----------



## Johncv (Jun 11, 2002)

PedjaR said:


> See
> http://www.tivo.com/products/source/cable/tivo-rcn/index.html
> RCN Tivo does not get Netflix and Amazon on Demand, but gets RCN on Demand.


A Playstation 3 is better for using Amazon and Netflix then a TiVo, sorry to say. I would just rent the TiVo from RCN. Wish I could rent one from Cox.


----------



## ajwees41 (May 7, 2006)

Ichinisan said:


> This is incorrect. Could you edit your post? It still comes up when I Google for an explanation of the issue between TiVo and Netflix...so other people are seeing your post and getting the wrong idea.
> 
> Cable companies are not preventing it and they have no reason to. I work for a small cableco / ISP and I would absolutely love to have Netflix and Hulu on TiVo. It would make the unit more appealing to our customers.
> 
> ...


Ichinisan the deal is the cable company Tivo don't provide Netflix.


----------

