# TiVo Launches Multi-Room Pricing



## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Interesting way to market the pricing change. It really does make a mutli-TiVo home very competitive.

http://blog.tivo.com/2014/09/tivo-launches-multi-room-pricing/#.VBCilfldV8F



> TiVo Inc. today announced new multi-room pricing offering the TiVo Mini, including service, at $149.99 and the ability to get the TiVo experience in up to 12 rooms for a combined service fee of $14.99 a month, on a one-year plan, via a TiVo DVR and multiple TiVo Minis a major cost savings for entertainment buffs looking to extend the TiVo experience and access their recordings on every TV throughout their home.*
> 
> Providing the most comprehensive streaming and DVR entertainment experience on the market, the multi-room solution now comes at a cost savings. TiVo compared monthly service/equipment rental fees from various cable and satellite providers, and found that for a six-room solution, the TiVo customer could save as much as $650 per year in these monthly fees.**
> 
> ...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

"up to 12 rooms" 

Did they change the limit? Previously you could only have 10 TiVo devices on your account. Which meant if you had a Roamio Basic and standalone Stream there was only room for 8 Minis. Plus I don't know if there is a limit on the Roamio, but on the Premiere you could only stream 3 programs simultaneously. I think the Roamio increased that, but I'm not sure it has the I/O bandwidth to do 12 and record 6 things.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> Previously you could only have 10 TiVo devices on your account.


Under "TiVo device preferences", the limit is 10/12?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

What "combined service fee" are they talking about? Unless this is for existing customers w/o lifetime on their Minis, you have lifetime service on the Minis and are paying for monthly service on the DVR. $14.99/mo is the regular,non-MSD monthly rate.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

lpwcomp said:


> What "combined service fee" are they talking about? Unless this is for existing customers w/o lifetime on their Minis, you have lifetime service on the Minis and are paying for monthly service on the DVR. $14.99/mo is the regular,non-MSD monthly rate.


I think they just mean that the DVR service fee of $14.99/month is all you pay now that newly activated Minis effectively have no service fee any longer.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

c3 said:


> Under "TiVo device preferences", the limit is 10/12?


Is that on the TiVo itself?


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## lpwcomp (May 6, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I think they just mean that the DVR service fee of $14.99/month is all you pay now that newly activated Minis effectively have no service fee any longer.


My point exactly. They're not "combining" anything, they're simply eliminating the service fee on Minis. Does that apply to existing Mini owners who don't have PLS? This is just out of curiosity. I have no Minis and no plans to buy any.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

lpwcomp said:


> My point exactly. They're not "combining" anything, they're simply eliminating the service fee on Minis. Does that apply to existing Mini owners who don't have PLS? This is just out of curiosity. I have no Minis and no plans to buy any.


From other posts I have read, I think existing Mini owners currently on monthly service have to either keep paying the monthly fee or pony up $50 for "lifetime service". But you'd have to call TiVo to find out for sure.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For existing Mini owners on monthly they can upgrade to lifetime for $50 after their initial 1 year commitment is up.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Does this mean that an early adopter of the mini has to fulfill their 1 yr commitment and then pay $50 while new customers can purchase the mini with no commitment and no additional service fee?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

shwru980r said:


> Does this mean that an early adopter of the mini has to fulfill their 1 yr commitment and then pay $50 while new customers can purchase the mini with no commitment and no additional service fee?


It would appear that is the case. It doesn't seem that unfair to me though. I ponied up the full $150 for lifetime service when I activated my 2 Minis, and I am not getting any of that money refunded to me, so why should someone who went with monthly not have to fulfill their 1-year contractual commitment?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Based on what I read over in the Mini forum, yes. Anyone still within their 1 year period on a monthly Mini is going to get the shaft. And those that don't pay attention will continue to pay $6/mo forever.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Yeah sucks if bought a Mini 2 months ago. Oh so close yet so far.

On the other hand, $50 for lifetime is better than a 2nd year's worth of monthly payments.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I wonder if you could just pay the early termination fee and then reactivate it for free?


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

trip1eX said:


> Yeah sucks if bought a Mini 2 months ago. Oh so close yet so far.
> 
> On the other hand, $50 for lifetime is better than a 2nd year's worth of monthly payments.


LOL!! Once again Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown!

Why is this company so hell bent on screwing their loyal customers? DirecTV tried to pull this crap too.

When do the class action suits start?


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> "up to 12 rooms"
> 
> Did they change the limit? Previously you could only have 10 TiVo devices on your account. Which meant if you had a Roamio Basic and standalone Stream there was only room for 8 Minis. Plus I don't know if there is a limit on the Roamio, but on the Premiere you could only stream 3 programs simultaneously. I think the Roamio increased that, but I'm not sure it has the I/O bandwidth to do 12 and record 6 things.


According to the Roamio FAQ
Q: How many shows can I stream?
A: You can stream up to four shows simultaneously to four mobile devices in your home. Please note that to support two to four streams, you may need more than one DVR. Being able to stream four shows simultaneously also depends on the bitrate of the source recordings. For example, you may have difficulties streaming four high bitrate HD programs at the same time.

The standalone Stream FAQ says the same thing.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

Dan203 said:


> Is that on the TiVo itself?


No, I have a question about the limit of 10 TiVo devices per account that you mentioned. Is the number based on what's shown under "TiVo device preferences" in the TiVo My Account area? I have 9 devices over there, including 2 sold and 1 broken. If there is a limit of 10, then I'm very close to that limit.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> According to the Roamio FAQ
> Q: How many shows can I stream?
> A: You can stream up to four shows simultaneously to four mobile devices in your home. Please note that to support two to four streams, you may need more than one DVR. Being able to stream four shows simultaneously also depends on the bitrate of the source recordings. For example, you may have difficulties streaming four high bitrate HD programs at the same time.
> 
> The standalone Stream FAQ says the same thing.


The Stream can only transcode 4 streams at a time, so that's a hard limit that only applies to the Stream. The host TiVo feeding the Stream/Mini is limited by network bandwidth and I/O performance. With the Premiere it was capped at 3 streams because of a 10/100 Ethernet port and limited hardware resources. With a Roamio I don't think we've ever determined the max, but I do remember someone posting that they were able to do 5 simultaneous streams without issue.



c3 said:


> No, I have a question about the limit of 10 TiVo devices per account that you mentioned. Is the number based on what's shown under "TiVo device preferences" in the TiVo My Account area? I have 9 devices over there, including 2 sold and 1 broken. If there is a limit of 10, then I'm very close to that limit.


There is no limit to the number of devices listed. The limit applies to the number of devices you can have sharing recordings. The limit use to be 10, but sounds like they may have bumped it to 12-13 now? I think if you have more devices then the limit you can disable some by unchecking the "video sharing" preference on the website and the rest will continue to work.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Banker257 said:


> When do the class action suits start?


I think we all signed away that right last Summer? http://zatznotfunny.com/2013-08/opt-out-of-tivo-arbitration/ lol


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> The Stream can only transcode 4 streams at a time, so that's a hard limit that only applies to the Stream. The host TiVo feeding the Stream/Mini is limited by network bandwidth and I/O performance. With the Premiere it was capped at 3 streams because of a 10/100 Ethernet port and limited hardware resources. With a Roamio I don't think we've ever determined the max, but I do remember someone posting that they were able to do 5 simultaneous streams without issue.


The Premiere 4 and 4XL and stand alone Stream all have gigabit support, though so at least the network part would work. I do know that it recommends that after the third simultaneous stream that another TiVo might be needed for the fourth because of network resource or DVR hardware concerns. I was bored so I thought I'd do a test. Using the stand alone Stream, I got four shows streaming at the same time from the Premiere 4 to four iPads and another two shows from a second Premiere to two more iPads. 5Ghz gigabit router and network. I guess the Stream hardware is pretty hardcore.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> The Premiere 4 and 4XL and stand alone Stream all have gigabit support, though so at least the network part would work. I do know that it recommends that after the third simultaneous stream that another TiVo might be needed for the fourth because of network resource or DVR hardware concerns. I was bored so I thought I'd do a test. Using the stand alone Stream, I got four shows streaming at the same time from the Premiere 4 to four iPads and another two shows from a second Premiere to two more iPads. 5Ghz gigabit router and network. I guess the Stream hardware is pretty hardcore.


Using a single Stream? That's not possible. The encoder chip in the Stream can only transcode 4 streams at a time. You have 6 simultaneous streams going there. Do you have multiple Streams? Or a Roamio Plus/Pro?

The 3 stream limit use to be software locked. If you tried to do a 4th it would throw an error. Maybe they removed that when they released the new Haxe UI and freed up some resources.

I just ordered 2 more Minis, giving me 4 total. Once they get here I'll try streaming to all four Minis, my iPad and my iPhone all at the same time and see how it works. (I have a Roamio Pro connected via MoCa)


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Same as it wasn't possible for the other person to stream five? It's possible the 5Ghz network which has a lot more bandwidth then 2.4Ghz helped? Only one Stream, no Roamios unfortunately. 

I'm confused by your mention of the minis, do you mean you'll use them to tax the Roamio Pro? I still am suspicious of your router.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> Same as it wasn't possible for the other person to stream five? It's possible the 5Ghz network which has a lot more bandwidth then 2.4Ghz helped? Only one Stream, no Roamios unfortunately.
> 
> I'm confused by your mention of the minis, do you mean you'll use them to tax the Roamio Pro? I'm still suspect of your wireless network from other posts.


I think you're confused a little. We're dealing with a few different things here...

1) There is a TiVo imposed limit of either 10 or 12 total devices on your account that can have access to your accounts decryption key. TiVos, Minis and Streams all account toward this total. (Roamio Plus/Pro count as 2)

2) There is a performance limitation on the host TiVo as to how many streams it can send out to secondary devices. The Mini and the Stream use the same mechanism for this. The Premier use to have a 3 outbound stream limit, but that may have changed, the Roamio has no known limit.

3) The transcoder chip in the Stream is only capable of transcoding 4 streams at a time. This is a physical limitation of the chip itself. It's physically impossible for it to do more then 4.

My original post was referring to #1. I thought the limit was 10, but it looks like it might have got bumped to 12.

#2 and #3 have nothing to do with network performance. #2 does a little, but I/O is a much bigger factor. #3 is a hardware limitation. The transcoder chip in the Stream can not transcode more then 4 streams at a time. It only has 4 physical cores, each designed to transcode 1 stream, that it dedicates to each job. This is what makes your test impossible. Discounting all the bandwidth issues and source issue, the Stream itself is not physically capable of transcoding more then 4 streams at a time.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

Banker257 said:


> LOL!! Once again Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown!
> 
> Why is this company so hell bent on screwing their loyal customers? DirecTV tried to pull this crap too.
> 
> When do the class action suits start?


A better question might be why do you think TiVo is screwing its loyal customers? I bought a TiVo Mini with lifetime in January or February. I don't feel screwed. It's pretty typical with anything technology related that prices drop pretty quickly. I think this is just a component of that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Banker257 said:


> LOL!! Once again Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown!
> 
> Why is this company so hell bent on screwing their loyal customers? DirecTV tried to pull this crap too.
> 
> When do the class action suits start?


If TiVo had originally sold the Mini for $250, with no service and then slowly lowered the price to $150 over the last year and a half would you feel the same way? That's what happens with every other electronic item in the world. I bought a 60" Samsung TV less then 2 years ago and paid over $2k. Today I can get the equivalent model for about $800. There is always a cost to being an early adopter.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Oh wait I figured it out, there was a Roamio Plus left on the network from a demo I was doing and both the standalone and Plus were renamed "Stream" so the two just showed up as one I guess. lol


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

waynomo said:


> A better question might be why do you think TiVo is screwing its loyal customers? I bought a TiVo Mini with lifetime in January or February. I don't feel screwed. It's pretty typical with anything technology related that prices drop pretty quickly. I think this is just a component of that.


If it was just the hardware price dropping, I don't think there'd be near as much ill feeling, but when you "reward" the early adopters who bought lifetime by erasing the entire resale value of that lifetime...


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> Oh then I have no idea how it happened lol!


Were all four playing at the exact same time? And you could see them all playing? None were playing downloaded shows?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

unitron said:


> If it was just the hardware price dropping, I don't think there'd be near as much ill feeling, but when you "reward" the early adopters who bought lifetime by erasing the entire resale value of that lifetime...


They never should have charged a service fee for the Mini in the first place. We all knew that and some of us bought anyway. I never expected the Mini to have any resale value at all.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> Were all four playing at the exact same time? And you could see them all playing? None were playing downloaded shows?


I'll try it with the Roamio disconnected and try again.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> I'll try it with the Roamio disconnected and try again.


So you do have a Roamio, that explains it. The Stream inside the Roamio can still be used by Premiere units on the network just like a standalone Stream. You can tell which device is being used on the iOS device by clicking the gear icon and clicking Setup. There will be a check next to the one it's using. I'm assuming some of your iOS devices are linked to the standalone Stream and some are connected to the Roamio, that's how you got 6 going at once.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

I don't have a Roamio though, it was a unit I was borrowing and as far as I'm aware they all were linked up to "Stream".


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## squint (Jun 15, 2008)

c3 said:


> No, I have a question about the limit of 10 TiVo devices per account that you mentioned. Is the number based on what's shown under "TiVo device preferences" in the TiVo My Account area? I have 9 devices over there, including 2 sold and 1 broken. If there is a limit of 10, then I'm very close to that limit.


I have 15 devices on my account now and a few that I haven't added yet. I was told via online chat with TiVo that the limit is of the number of TiVos with video sharing enabled. I assume Minis don't count toward this number because the option to enable video sharing for Minis is absent.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

JWhites said:


> I don't have a Roamio though, it was a unit I was borrowing and as far as I'm aware they all were linked up to "Stream".


It "might" switch over automatically. I have two Roamios but I don't have enough iOS devices to test.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

squint said:


> I have 15 devices on my account now and a few that I haven't added yet. I was told via online chat with TiVo that the limit is of the number of TiVos with video sharing enabled. I assume Minis don't count toward this number because the option to enable video sharing for Minis is absent.


Hmmm... I was told a while back that both Minis and Streams counted toward the total. They don't have the option because without it they would cease to function.


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## ncted (May 13, 2007)

unitron said:


> If it was just the hardware price dropping, I don't think there'd be near as much ill feeling, but when you "reward" the early adopters who bought lifetime by erasing the entire resale value of that lifetime...


Early adopters always get screwed. It goes with the territory. I paid $400 for a 5GB iPod back in the day. They came out with a 20GB version for the same price half a year later. I decided to be more patient in the future.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

ncted said:


> Early adopters always get screwed. It goes with the territory. I paid $400 for a 5GB iPod back in the day. They came out with a 20GB version for the same price half a year later. I decided to be more patient in the future.


I don't feel screwed. I got my first two Lifetime Minis when they launched in March 2013. I paid $250 for each of them. I have been able to use them for the last eighteen months. I don't feel screwed at all. They were well worth it. Then I got a free lifetime Mini earlier this year and just yesterday got another one for $90. And I also got a free Slide pro this year too. TiVo has treated me very well over the last 18 months. I have no complaints.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Okay so just that I understand, this new multiroom-pricing thing does not affect having multiple TiVo's on the accounts only minis, and only new customers?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

It's just a fancy way of saying they eliminated the service fee for the Mini. Nothing else has changed.


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## jwbelcher (Nov 13, 2007)

Dan203 said:


> There is no limit to the number of devices listed. The limit applies to the number of devices you can have sharing recordings. The limit use to be 10, but sounds like they may have bumped it to 12-13 now? I think if you have more devices then the limit you can disable some by unchecking the "video sharing" preference on the website and the rest will continue to work.


I found this out the hard way this week when activating two more Minis. I had old devices still on the account that pushed my active devices count up to 13 and caused all kinds of whole-home problems. All my Minis, not just the new ones, lost access to their host. The host and the minis thought they were on different accounts; at least according to the error messages. Once I moved the older device to a "spillover" account, the Minis and Hosts got well. I'm at 12 now and everything is working fine. Tech support confirmed the 12 limit and thought it was a hard limit due to some internal constraints.



squint said:


> I have 15 devices on my account now and a few that I haven't added yet. I was told via online chat with TiVo that the limit is of the number of TiVos with video sharing enabled. I assume Minis don't count toward this number because the option to enable video sharing for Minis is absent.


In my situation, the Minis counted, at one point I had 3 DVRs and 10 Minis activated when the failures started. I think it randomly selects 12, and if the host DVR isn't picked, you lose access to your host DVR. I moved one DVR over to the spillover account, which is now listed in both accounts as active, but once that DVR got its new MAK, it resolved my other issues. I wish I would've tried disabling sharing on that one DVR to see if it helped though.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

I bought my 3 Mini's a year ago with Lifetime. Oh well. They depreciated a lot I guess, but I was planning on keeping them for a while anyways...


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## jwbelcher (Nov 13, 2007)

Bigg said:


> I bought my 3 Mini's a year ago with Lifetime. Oh well. They depreciated a lot I guess, but I was planning on keeping them for a while anyways...


I share your pain.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Dan203 said:


> It's just a fancy way of saying they eliminated the service fee for the Mini. Nothing else has changed.


Now I want a mini  but I have a TiVo on the three TV's in the house and each is used to record stuff. lol


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## lcrowe (Feb 1, 2004)

jwbelcher said:


> I share your pain.


+1


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

JWhites said:


> Okay so just that I understand, this new multiroom-pricing thing does not affect having multiple TiVo's on the accounts only minis, and only new customers?


Correct.


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## JWhites (May 15, 2013)

Darn. Oh well.


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

As much as it's a shaft for those who have paid monthly and after a year or more, they must pay a $50 upgrade fee? That's BS! 

It's even worse for those who bought the Mini and paid for lifetime, as much as $100 more in each Mini compared to the new offer. I spent $450 in just lifetime service fees in the past 5 months of to mention $225 for just the minis I have without service, by invoking "I have been a two customer since 2004" , why should I get the shaft for being a loyal customer when some new customer comes in now and pays a third less? 

Now to make matters worse, if the rumor about the new Mini which more should be know in Jan 2015, they will be incorporating a element of home automation which is something I'm converting my house to with RF led lights and controls. So if such is true, I will have to sell my existing minis if I want them to be part of my automated home. 

The $50 upgrade fee is extortion and ignoring existing lifetime service purchasers is bad business plan. There is no reason that existing monthly Mini customers shouldn't automatically receive lifetime at no additional cost once their service commitment is complete and likewise, a credit based on activation date be given for those who paid for the box and bought lifetime service. I purchaseed lifetime service on my minis for two reason, save money in te long run and to have a item better resale value should I decide to sell later, which Tivo has destroyed both. 

Sure there should be a cut off but I dare to say the majority of Mini purchases for most Tivo users have been in the last 6-7 months when they started more aggressive Roamio sales. Right now I have so little interest in buying anything Tivo just because of the them giving current customers the shaft.

What are they going to do next, give away TiVo's for free and just charge lifetime service fees? If their intent is bruise their loyal customer base, they have a good start. I'm really going to second guess any future purchases that I might consider. 

They were wrong to charge a service fee for a product that wouldn't work without paying a service fee on its connected host which I applaud their correction, but their implantation plan is horrible. The #1 marketing source is existing customers, you ruin your grassroots supporters and you ruin your company. It almost they have been hanging around the cable companies too much as this s something the cable companies do in treating current customers like garbage.


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## waynomo (Nov 9, 2002)

eboydog said:


> It's even worse for those who bought the Mini and paid for lifetime, as much as $100 more in each Mini compared to the new offer. I spent $450 in just lifetime service fees in the past 5 months of to mention $225 for just the minis I have without service, by invoking "I have been a two customer since 2004" , why should I get the shaft for being a loyal customer when some new customer comes in now and pays a third less?


I don't see people ranting against Intel when they drop the price of a CPU.

Would you feel differently if they hadn't offered the Mini with the service option and just charged a straight $250 at the time? (I don't recall the exact price of the Mini with Lifetime service.) Even if it was $300 total, here we are now and they are charging $150. To me that is pretty typical of price drops with anything technology related.


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## meoge (Oct 8, 2008)

eboydog, I feel your pain. I've got a graphic's card sitting in a drawer that I paid $650. That same card was less than $500 within a year and of course now I can get a card of equivalent power for about $150. It makes me a little sick to the stomach to think how much I paid just to be the first to have the card, but I'm certainly happy that prices fell so much. It's just part of being on the bleeding edge.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

Don't buy anything then you will never have a problem.


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

waynomo said:


> I don't see people ranting against Intel when they drop the price of a CPU.
> 
> Would you feel differently if they hadn't offered the Mini with the service option and just charged a straight $250 at the time? (I don't recall the exact price of the Mini with Lifetime service.) Even if it was $300 total, here we are now and they are charging $150. To me that is pretty typical of price drops with anything technology related.


Why did they EVER charge a "service fee"? What exactly where you paying for?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Banker257 said:


> Why did they EVER charge a "service fee"? What exactly where you paying for?


The same thing you pay the service fee for on the DVRs.


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## timchi29 (Feb 26, 2005)

I paid $600 for a DVD player probably 13 years ago. I needed a VCR at work and went to Goodwill and paid $1.50. LOL!!!


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

waynomo said:


> I don't see people ranting against Intel when they drop the price of a CPU.
> 
> Would you feel differently if they hadn't offered the Mini with the service option and just charged a straight $250 at the time? (I don't recall the exact price of the Mini with Lifetime service.) Even if it was $300 total, here we are now and they are charging $150. To me that is pretty typical of price drops with anything technology related.


This is not a issue of a lowered price of product as time and other products that came to market to replace it. At this time there is only one product, the Mini, no newer or faster version. The issue is that there were two separate parts to the purchase of a Mini, the cost of the item it's self and the payment required to use it (lifetime or monthly), now Tivo has removed the service fee component and only charges for the product.

If I purchased my Mini's 2 years ago with lifetime service, I wouldn't feel bitter but now after less than 6 months, I find my money wasted. If Tivo offered some type of consideration for those who in invested in both the purchase of the item and lifetime service that would be a decent proposal.

This has no comparison in any manner to a purchase of PC processor as such has no service fee involved with it's operation, it's a matter I paid for the product and also paid for all future service fee requirements and now Tivo removes the fee requirement for this device.

Again, I agree with TiVo's choice to remove the service fee requirement, it was wrong to begin with but there still needs to be some type of consideration for those who paid for future service by purchasing lifetime service esp for those I dare say, who purchased such in the last few months. For those completkng their monthly service commitment, those devices should automatically be give lifetime at no additional cost.

There is hardly no other products that can be compared to such a change as very few consumer products require a purchase price and then an addtional fee for service with a addtional higher priced fee to cover all future service requirements.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

timchi29 said:


> I paid $600 for a DVD player probably 13 years ago. I needed a VCR at work and went to Goodwill and paid $1.50. LOL!!!


I think you over paid at $1.50


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## eboydog (Mar 24, 2006)

timchi29 said:


> I paid $600 for a DVD player probably 13 years ago. I needed a VCR at work and went to Goodwill and paid $1.50. LOL!!!


The price of the item isn't the issue, the DVD player and older VCR player never had a service fee requirement to use it, not only that, we aren't talking about 13 or 20 year old electronics, but rather 6 month old electronics.

Tivo will weather the storm and will just wait until it all blows over. They have adopted the cable company customer service policy of "to hell with our existing customers". That's what happens when you hang out with low life's, they are simply adopting the poor business practices of their new poor quality friends they associate with.

These companies have the opertunity to treat their customers fairly but chose not to, for example, if I was a new cable company subscriber with my cable provider I could save over $130 a month for the next two years for TV and Internet service but as a existing customer for the last 10 years, there are no discounts offered and in fact I'm being charged more due to lowered data caps imposed in the last two months which has resulted in $25 addtional charges for data overages (mostly due to using Netflix more). Their answer is I need to increase my Internet package to higher lever at addtional cost of $45 more a month with again, no discounts as I'm an existing customer.

I'm simply getting more frustrated with this constant abuse as a consumer, my income isn't increasing (I'm a fixed income household for the most part) I chose lifetime service as for the most part, monthly fees are going to increase (do you remember when Tivo dvr service was $6.95?) and I see such as an investment to have such if a time comes later that I can't afford it, I'm assurred the service. Sure prices on consumer products typically decrease as newer products come to market and when there are choices offered to consumers however I'm not aware of another source for a Tivo Mini other than from Tivo, after investing in the Tivo infrastructure in my home, I have no choice but take what Tivo offers.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

Banker257 said:


> LOL!! Once again Lucy pulls the football away from Charlie Brown!
> 
> Why is this company so hell bent on screwing their loyal customers? DirecTV tried to pull this crap too.
> 
> When do the class action suits start?


I don't understand what the basis for a class action suit would be. Did you pay TiVo according to the agreement you accepted and did TiVo provide service consistent with that agreement? If the answers are yes, I am not seeing anything. If you are whining because others that bought later got a better deal than you agreed to, I hardly think that is a basis for litigation.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

eboydog said:


> The price of the item isn't the issue, the DVD player and older VCR player never had a service fee requirement to use it


Semantics. You paid a flat fee for a product. The fact that they broke the amount into two values, one for the hardware and one for the service, doesn't really matter.

I bought an iPad 2 like 45 days before the iPad 3 was released and the price on the one I had just bought dropped by over $100. There was nothing I could do about it. The next year I decided to be savvy I waited until the iPad 3 became available as a refurb and bought. 32 days later they released the iPad 4 completely unexpectedly. The price of the iPad 3 refurb dropped by $200. There was nothing I could do about it.

Sometimes you just get unlucky and have bad timing. It sucks but it happens.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Six weeks ago I bought a refurb Denon 4520 for $1300. It was a good deal compared to the $2500 it used to cost when released in 2012. Of course five weeks after I buy it, people were getting brand new ones from BestBuy for $900. Sure it sucks to have a price drop but it usually happens. You just have to pick a price and be satisfied with it when the product is at that cost.


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

tarheelblue32 said:


> The same thing you pay the service fee for on the DVRs.


The Guide? Why did they charge twice for it?


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

Chris Gerhard said:


> I don't understand what the basis for a class action suit would be. Did you pay TiVo according to the agreement you accepted and did TiVo provide service consistent with that agreement? If the answers are yes, I am not seeing anything. If you are whining because others that bought later got a better deal than you agreed to, I hardly think that is a basis for litigation.


No idea what the basis is, I'm not a lawyer. Why did Amazon give me 5 e-books due to a class action suit against publishers?

Edit: Just got an email from Apple stating that they might owe me a couple of bucks (books) due to a class action suit brought against them.


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## Jayboy3 (Jan 2, 2010)

I can't figure out if I'm screwed or not -- I just recently bought 3 minis on promotional pricing ($50). They would have been $99. So I didn't pay anything for lifetime pricing.

I guess I will remain on $6.99 a month. Now, if I wanted to to wave a magic wand and make my deal into this new "no fee" arrangement, I'd have to pay $150 for my minis. You pay about $84 a year in fees, so that extra hundred is worth it pretty quick. 

But they probably won't let me swap them out and pay for $150 ones. I wonder if they would let me just pay the upgrade? I suppose I can simulate it by paying something when my contract is up. Is that one year typically?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

There is a discussion of this in the Mini forum. If you call and cancel them you will pay an early termination fee (someone said it was $25) then after that you can reactivate them and get free lifetime.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

eboydog said:


> If I purchased my Mini's 2 years ago with lifetime service, I wouldn't feel bitter but now after less than 6 months, I find my money wasted.


Why is your money wasted? You got the best price you could 6 months ago. You're still out the same amount of money today. You obviously thought enough of the product and pricepoint to buy in 6 months ago. Your product still works the same or better as it did 6 months ago. And you've got to use it for the past 6 months. If you waited then maybe you'd be paying cablecard or set top box fees from your cable company or maybe you would have chosen not to watch tv in your other rooms.


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

It's a little annoying, but I'm not super upset about it. I've been using my Minis for over a year now, so I don't feel like I got jipped. I knew something better was coming out, but I bought the Premiere because I needed a DVR. Didn't see this price drop coming, but I would have bought them at $250 anyways...


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

tarheelblue32 said:


> The same thing you pay the service fee for on the DVRs.


Not according to TiVo.

"After the column was published, Jim Denney, TiVos product marketing manager, explained to me why there was a fee for the Mini.

First, he reiterated my point that all of TiVos rivals, like the Dish Hopper, DirecTV Genie and cable-company boxes, also charge a fee for each second-TV box.

Second, he pointed out that the Minis $6 monthly fee is a lot lower than what youd pay for a second TiVo box ($15 monthly)."

What he left out is DirecTV will give you a full DVR for $6 a month.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Banker257 said:


> Not according to TiVo.
> 
> "After the column was published, Jim Denney, TiVo's product marketing manager, explained to me why there was a fee for the Mini.
> 
> ...


Off the cuff comments by TiVo's product marketing manager is hardly TiVo's official purpose for the Mini service fee. The main reasons usually given for the TiVo service fees are guide data, software updates, and to allow them to sell the hardware at a lower upfront cost. All 3 of those reasons applied to the Minis just like they do to the DVRs.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

The fee is there for the same reason as the cable or satellite company's fee. 

ie, To get the hardware to you at a cheaper up front price. And then hope you keep the hardware for 10 years while continuing to pay your monthly fee.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

The cost of the device is hardware + lifetime service, which is what I have always purchased in the last 14 years. If you pay monthly, you're leasing/renting instead of buying it.


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## Banker257 (Aug 4, 2014)

tarheelblue32 said:


> Off the cuff comments by TiVos product marketing manager is hardly TiVo's official purpose for the Mini service fee. The main reasons usually given for the TiVo service fees are guide data, software updates, and to allow them to sell the hardware at a lower upfront cost. All 3 of those reasons applied to the Minis just like they do to the DVRs.


What you left out is DirecTV gives you all that AND a full DVR for the same $6 a month.

Oh, and why are you paying for a guide on a Mini? Doesn't the Mini get its guide from the main box?


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

Banker257 said:


> Oh, and why are you paying for a guide on a Mini? Doesn't the Mini get its guide from the main box?


I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that the Mini calls in to the TiVo mothership every day and gets and stores its own guide data completely separate from the host DVR.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> I don't think so. I'm pretty sure that the Mini calls in to the TiVo mothership every day and gets and stores its own guide data completely separate from the host DVR.


The Mini gets it's channel list from the Host TiVo when bringing up the guide


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

aaronwt said:


> The Mini gets it's channel list from the Host TiVo when bringing up the guide


But not the actual guide data.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

tarheelblue32 said:


> But not the actual guide data.


Yes, it seems to pull the info from the internet as you select a program like the Host box does.


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

aaronwt said:


> Yes, it seems to pull the info from the internet as you select a program like the Host box does.


Which, for the sake of clarifying, is done via real-time connection, and unrelated to the "guide data", as is usually defined as what gets downloaded by a regular/full TiVo, with each scheduled service connection.

If the Mini uses the host DVR for the "guide data", in the context just described, then paying for TiVo Service, which many see as merely "paying for guide data", makes more sense of TiVo's change to eliminating Mini monthly service fees.

The (scheduled connection) TiVo Service, which is more than just guide data, but still all that some see it as being, is also what verifies the TSN has service, associates it with an account, uploads logs and analytics data, downloads ad content, and downloads software updates, just to name a few things beyond the mere "guide data", often stated out of (full) context.


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## tarheelblue32 (Jan 13, 2014)

nooneuknow said:


> If the Mini uses the host DVR for the "guide data", in the context just described, then paying for TiVo Service, which many see as merely "paying for guide data", makes more sense of TiVo's change to eliminating Mini monthly service fees.


As I stated above, I don't think the Mini uses the host DVR's guide data. I think the Mini downloads and stores its own guide data independently. I'm pretty sure that I read that somewhere official-ish when the Mini first came out and people were all asking "why do I have to pay a service fee for the Mini?"


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## Bigg (Oct 31, 2003)

tarheelblue32 said:


> As I stated above, I don't think the Mini uses the host DVR's guide data. I think the Mini downloads and stores its own guide data independently. I'm pretty sure that I read that somewhere official-ish when the Mini first came out and people were all asking "why do I have to pay a service fee for the Mini?"


It's an irrelevant technical differentiation. Downloading the data costs basically nothing, it's the licensing of that data that costs something... So it doesn't really matter how it's being downloaded, if it's licensed per screen...


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## nooneuknow (Feb 5, 2011)

tarheelblue32 said:


> As I stated above, I don't think the Mini uses the host DVR's guide data. I think the Mini downloads and stores its own guide data independently. I'm pretty sure that I read that somewhere official-ish when the Mini first came out and people were all asking "why do I have to pay a service fee for the Mini?"


I was making an attempt to distinguish that when you "explore this program", and/or do almost anything to get more than the guide slot, it's pulling the data from the real-time service, and not from the downloaded "guide data", regardless of any arguments about if the Mini downloads it's own copy, or simply uses the host TiVo's copy.

Admittedly I'm not a Mini owner, and couldn't even come up with one good reason to jump on the current craze, even though I've been closely following it. I ran it by family also using TiVo, and also got "Meh, don't bother getting us any, we don't need them".

I have enough base Roamios to take care of all the TVs I want/need TiVo on.


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## lessd (Jan 23, 2005)

tarheelblue32 said:


> As I stated above, I don't think the Mini uses the host DVR's guide data. I think the Mini downloads and stores its own guide data independently. I'm pretty sure that I read that somewhere official-ish when the Mini first came out and people were all asking "why do I have to pay a service fee for the Mini?"


The Mini does not download any guide data, you don't even give the Mini your channel list and I just tested this out, on my Roamio I have most of the SD ch not checked, on my kitchen all the ch are checked, when I connect the Mini to my Roamio and look for a program I only see the HD version of that program, when I connect to the kitchen Roamio I now see both the SD and HD version of the same program, all the guide data is from the connected Roamio!, also one of the Roamios has connected late today and the program list goes out to Sunday, the other Roamio goes out to Saturday, this if from a Mini I just forced a connection home. The Mini is a slave to the connected Roamio. The daily call home is just for software updates and maybe extra data for TiVo itself.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

The money was never for the guide data so kind of a moot point in my mind.

The fees were a hardware subsidy. They framed it as guide data so they could continue to collect fees well after your hardware is paid off.

I think they thought they could get away with the Mini pricing more than they did because it was alot cheaper than getting another Roamio/Premiere. I don't think retail subscription numbers bore that out though.


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