# When will Mini be for sale?



## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

For kicks, when do you think the TiVo Mini will actually hit the consumer market? (poll above)


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I hope it will be released before Thanksgiving. Unfortunately I expect it to be released 1st quarter next year. They don't even have Android support yet for the Stream. So who knows how long it will take them to get the software for the Mini working for it's release.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

The Mini doesn't have to work with 3,997 models of Android devices. It only has to work with Series 4 TiVo boxes, which is really only two devices: 2-tuner and 4-tuner.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I want it now, today, yesterday... badly. But sadly I think it might slip into Q1.


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## NotNowChief (Mar 29, 2012)

Obviously, getting it out by Thanksgiving would be a HUGE sales push for Premiere's this holiday season.

With that being said, and remembering that we are talking about a TiVo product, it could be at least another year before this thing sees the light of day.

The WORST thing they could do would be to release this AFTER the holiday season, as people may be less eager to drop another chunk of change while they are paying off their holiday purchases.

Just think of the holiday bundle prices they could offer with a 4 tuner premiere, wireless adapter, and 1, 2 or 3 Minis, maybe even something combining a Stream too. But no, undoubtedly this will be done at a bad time.

Its just frustrating when they "play it up" at these technology shows, and then it takes years to get out to retail. Its almost like you lose a bit of interest in it, and wonder what took so long.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

NotNowChief said:


> The WORST thing they could do would be to release this AFTER the holiday season, as people may be less eager to drop another chunk of change while they are paying off their holiday purchases.
> 
> Its just frustrating when they "play it up" at these technology shows, and then it takes years to get out to retail. Its almost like you lose a bit of interest in it, and wonder what took so long.


The WORST thing TiVo could do would be to release a half-baked product to retail. They need to implement the dynamic tuner hijacking and make the Mini compatible with the entire Premiere line before releasing it to retail.

I think its a safe bet that the Mini will be available to retail in Q1 2013. I think we will see it released to at least one cable operator before the end of the year. This release will likely be a limited roll-out to gauge reaction from the operators users.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Rather than reposting, I will just quote myself.



innocentfreak said:


> There was discussion over on Dave Zatz's site on one of his posts.
> 
> The new Mini supposedly needs the next update to work. The updates usually soak for around 2-3 weeks before mass launch. If the update launches this month then we should see mass rollout by Thanksgiving. TiVo is still saying the update will be this fall and we know the update is in testing. TiVo tends not to release anything after Thanksgiving due to limited staff because of the holidays. This then puts us at January and CES. TiVo would probably then have the Mini on display with the Series 5 behind closed doors under NDA. After CES and all the press releases die down, they would announce the Mini with price and a release data about a month later or in mid to the end of February.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> TiVo would probably then have the Mini on display with the Series 5 behind closed doors under NDA.


IIRC, TiVo abandoned the close door policy last year. In fact they were pretty open about their new products. I expect this "open door" policy to continue. I do expect that we will see the Whole Home Experience on display at CES along with a peak at next generation hardware.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

sbiller said:


> IIRC, TiVo abandoned the close door policy last year. In fact they were pretty open about their new products. I expect this "open door" policy to continue. I do expect that we will see the Whole Home Experience on display at CES along with a peak at next generation hardware.


I wouldn't say they have abandoned it, but they have definitely been more open about things. Or at least they were. They have been really quiet since the last patch and the Stream/Mini announcement.

I don't see it benefiting them to have the Series 5 on display unless they are ready to announce or take preorders. It does somewhat make sense to launch new hardware along with the Mini otherwise you risk alienating people over the fact they just bought a 4/XL4 and a Mini only to have a new box come out a month later.

If the product isn't close to ready, you risk people holding off on the Mini and TiVos until the hardware at CES is available assuming they are more forthcoming.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

sbiller said:


> The WORST thing TiVo could do would be to release a half-baked product to retail. They need to implement the dynamic tuner hijacking and make the Mini compatible with the entire Premiere line before releasing it to retail.


I agree that they need to at least implement a dynamic tuner solution of some kind. If they make the Mini 'lock down' a tuner from a Premiere (2 or 4 tuner model), then I'm out and will then move forward with a whole home theater solution setup that can use ONE M-card to feed as many TVs as you like. Each TV then simply uses a tuner when it needs it & its not locked into that HDTV.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think TiVo has come to their senses on the whole tuner hijack thing, and 4 tuner requirement, and will likely hold back the release until the dynamic allocation can be accomplished. Which means the release of the Mini, in retail anyway, will likely be pushed back to Q1 of next year. Unless they've stepped it up and manage to sneak the code into the Fall software update we're expecting any time now, then maybe we will see the Mini for the holidays.

Dan


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Speaking of the fall update, it's ready to roll. Priority list is active:

http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/software-priority-request/index.html

It should have at least SOME of the functionality the Mini needs (remote recording).

We may see some early clues about Tivo's tuner solution in the menu screens... like whether or not that "choose between 0-2 tuners" screen is still there on 4-tuner models, whether (or how) it has changed, or if they hold back on those screens entirely which could hint towards a delay.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I think TiVo has come to their senses on the whole tuner hijack thing, and 4 tuner requirement, and will likely hold back the release until the dynamic allocation can be accomplished. Which means the release of the Mini, in retail anyway, will likely be pushed back to Q1 of next year. Unless they've stepped it up and manage to sneak the code into the Fall software update we're expecting any time now, then maybe we will see the Mini for the holidays.
> 
> Dan


Yeah I think the Mini is going to greatly depend on the release for the fall update. If this release goes smooth and they can do the mass roll out early, they would still have time to get the Mini out there. This is assuming the mini is under current testing. If it takes a month for roll out though, the Mini will be Q1 at the earliest.


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## NotNowChief (Mar 29, 2012)

sbiller said:


> The WORST thing TiVo could do would be to release a half-baked product to retail. They need to implement the dynamic tuner hijacking and make the Mini compatible with the entire Premiere line before releasing it to retail.
> 
> I think its a safe bet that the Mini will be available to retail in Q1 2013. I think we will see it released to at least one cable operator before the end of the year. This release will likely be a limited roll-out to gauge reaction from the operators users.


I see where you're coming from, I just feel that they shouldve made a better push in the last year to catch the "holiday rush" of shopping.

I see alot of problems with the Stream, and alot of DOA comments in that forum as well. The dynamic tuner idea is right on point. Locking a tuner down from the Premiere sounds silly to me. For the RARE occasion where all 4 tuners are being used on the Premiere to record, I can happily go to another room in my house and watch something on 1 of my 2 TiVo HDs. I cant justify rendering my new 4 tuner box instantly a 3-tuner box, because once a week for 15 minutes my wife wants to watch TV in the kitchen, where I look forward to putting the TiVo Mini.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Yea, I personally wish they would have released the 'mini' first before the 'stream' as I have no use for something that has no Android support, but I guess that didn't happen. I guess if there are a lot of problems with the stream, then it looks like the mini will likely get released sometime next year as I'm sure there are kinks to work out in that thing too. I originally thought Q1 of 2013 for the mini, but am now seriously thinking it could get pushed back even further & more likely be summer of 2013 at this point.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

That would suck.


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

Dan203 said:


> I think TiVo has come to their senses on the whole tuner hijack thing, and 4 tuner requirement, and will likely hold back the release until the dynamic allocation can be accomplished. Which means the release of the Mini, in retail anyway, will likely be pushed back to Q1 of next year. Unless they've stepped it up and manage to sneak the code into the Fall software update we're expecting any time now, then maybe we will see the Mini for the holidays.
> 
> Dan


My attitude to this is that if I wanted a full TiVo experience including live TV on another TV I would buy another Premiere. The functionality of the two tuner regular Premieres would be badly affected by having to give up one of their tuners.

If it was up to me I would market the Mini to retail as a limited extension to a Premiere that specifically only allows you to watch your recorded shows in another room.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

button1066 said:


> My attitude to this is that if I wanted a full TiVo experience including live TV on another TV I would buy another Premiere. The functionality of the two tuner regular Premieres would be badly affected by having to give up one of their tuners.
> 
> If it was up to me, I would market the Mini to retail as a limited extension to a Premiere that specifically only allows you to watch your recorded shows in another room.


If they make the mini "lock" down a tuner from a Premiere (2, 4 or possible future 6 tuner), then yes, I agree the functionality would be greatly affected/diminished and I would not get one.

I think most people here (including myself) want the 'mini' to be able to dynamically 'borrow' a tuner. This way it can be used when needed for an extra room and on occasion. Therefore, potentially no need to pay extra cable card fees each month. For me, Comcast is basically charging $8/month for additional cable cards. I'd rather not have to pony up more money to Comcrap for a TV I barely use in my basement. Hopefully, a mini will solve that problem.

Now, if TiVo releases the Mini with a monthly cost, then I'll probably be out as well. In this scenario, might as well just get another inexpensive Premiere (or even older S3) and stick a cable card in it.

If "locking" down a tuner and a monthly fee are imposed for the mini, then I'll be totally out & sure to go the SiliconDust/Ceton route with a whole home theater/DVR setup. Only time will tell.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

You left "When Hell freezes over" off your list. 

Seriously, there are so many variables involved in this, throwing a dart at the calendar is probably as accurate a predictor as any.

The bigger question (unless it has been answered) is, "what will be the pricing / payment model"? How much, and will there be a monthly subscription?


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> The bigger question (unless it has been answered) is, "what will be the pricing / payment model"? How much, and will there be a monthly subscription?


For me personally, if its a flat out $99-129 with no monthly fee, I'll probably be in. Otherwise, I'm moving on to other options.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I doubt it'll be that cheap. I took a survey a while back about the Mini and the wording of the survey seemed to indicate they were leaning more toward something in the $200-250 range with "lifetime" included. The only way I expect it to be near $100 is if they charge a service fee for it. 

Dan


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

I'm willing to get $0.05 it will be higher than that, at least when it is introduced. Perhpaps even longer term. Remember, sales of this product will eat into sales of the Premiere, and TiVo is going to need to make up the difference.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I doubt it'll be that cheap. I took a survey a while back about the Mini and the wording of the survey seemed to indicate they were leaning more toward something in the $200-250 range with "lifetime" included. The only way I expect it to be near $100 is if they charge a service fee for it.
> 
> Dan


That would be nice, $100 with a $4 or $5 monthly service fee. I would prefer that over an outright price of $250. Since I would be saving $4 a month by not having a cable card for that location, I wouldn't mind paying $4 or $5 a month for the TiVo Mini.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I doubt it'll be that cheap. I took a survey a while back about the Mini and the wording of the survey seemed to indicate they were leaning more toward something in the $200-250 range with "lifetime" included. The only way I expect it to be near $100 is if they charge a service fee for it.
> 
> Dan


I took a survey too and there were price option choices for $149 and $199 without a subscription.

$250? No way in hell I bite. If it is $149 or so with no subscription I will buy three.

You've got to remember that pricing can't be the exorbitant stuff that TiVo users are accustomed to. TiVo has to do more than stem the bleeding of losing subscribers to other solutions, they have to have a solution that competes at some level with multi-room options from other providers.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I could see them going along the price of the Echo at $179. 

One thing I don't remember is if it support Netflix and the other apps.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

jmpage2 said:


> I took a survey too and there were price option choices for $149 and $199 without a subscription.
> 
> $250? No way in hell I bite. If it is $149 or so with no subscription I will buy three.
> 
> You've got to remember that pricing can't be the exorbitant stuff that TiVo users are accustomed to. TiVo has to do more than stem the bleeding of losing subscribers to other solutions, they have to have a solution that competes at some level with multi-room options from other providers.


The problem with pricing the Mini is making sure you don't cannibalize sales of the Premieres. I know that I've held off on additional Tivo purchases until the Mini shakes out, because it's all I need with the Elite. That seems to be a recurring theme here.


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

slowbiscuit said:


> The problem with pricing the Mini is making sure you don't cannibalize sales of the Premieres. I know that I've held off on additional Tivo purchases until the Mini shakes out, because it's all I need with the Elite. That seems to be a recurring theme here.


If Tivo doesn't price the mini correctly (low enough) it will be a huge fail. Tivo has to understand the mini will burn Premieres sales in the short term, but can increase sales in the long term if the mini is priced right.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

I'm guessing $149 purchase price with a $3.95 - $4.95 per month subscription or lifetime for $99. The break-even on a $99 lifetime purchase for a consumer would be in the 2 year region which seems consistent with their other pricing. TiVo would likely amortize the $99 over 66 months yielding an ARPU of $1.50/mo for each Mini. This would be approximately the amount they receive from a typical cable operator like RCN, Suddenlink, Grande.

If you take a look at the RCN equipment page, its easy to see where the TiVo Preview fits in compared to the Premiere 4/Q and the Preview box. I suspect RCN would charge something like $7.95/mo for the Mini. It will be interesting to see if they abandon the Preview after the Mini is readily available with functionality equivalent to the Preview (i.e., dynamic tuner hijacking).

BTW, I hope I'm wrong on the pricing. I like the earlier posters suggestion of $179 without a subscription.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

uw69 said:


> If Tivo doesn't price the mini correctly (low enough) it will be a huge fail. Tivo has to understand the mini will burn Premieres sales in the short term, but can increase sales in the long term if the mini is priced right.


Yea, I totally agree. If they make the mini around the same price as a current 2-tuner Premiere ($150), then its sort of a wash in terms of affecting sales of these Premieres. I think it would also promote sales of the 4-tuner Premires in the end too.



sbiller said:


> BTW, I hope I'm wrong on the pricing. I like the earlier posters suggestion of $179 without a subscription.


Yea, I could probably live with this price structure too. With Comcast charging me about $8/month for additional cable cards, a mini at this price would mean the break even point is at about 23 months. Essentially the same period & in line with their current Premiere lifetime option.

.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I don't understand why everyone thinks it will cost so much to make the "mini" it should actually be inferior hardware when compared to the stream as it will not be doing any format conversion just straight up streaming. 

From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

atmuscarella said:


> I don't understand why everyone thinks it will cost so much to make the "mini" it should actually be inferior hardware when compared to the stream as it will not be doing any format conversion just straight up streaming.
> 
> From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


I would say the hardware will be more complex than the Stream. The Stream only needs to be able to stream and transcode on the fly.

The Mini on the other hand needs to be a Premiere without the DVR portion. We also don't know what features the Mini will and won't have.

I think the majority of people would be happy at the $99 pricepoint, but I don't see it happening at launch since there is too much to recoup initially.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


I think the main reason is cause if its priced to low, it could really cut into TiVo's regular DVR sales. And this is still their true bread and butter for revenue (in terms of subscriptions).

Technically, why would someone buy another Premiere when they could just get a simple 'mini' to ride of their main Premiere instead. Of course, I guess it also depends on whether they also put a monthly price on it too.

I would LOVE to see them price it around the same as a Roku. I seem to sometimes like to take the approach here of 'expect the worse, but be delighted for anything better'


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


I think the main reason is cause if its priced to low, it could really cut into TiVo's regular DVR sales. And this is still their true bread and butter for revenue (in terms of subscriptions).

Technically, why would someone buy another Premiere when they could just get a simple 'mini' to ride of their main Premiere instead. Of course, I guess it also depends on whether they also put a monthly price on it too.

I would LOVE to see them price it around the same as a Roku. I seem to sometimes like to take the approach here of 'expect the worse, but be delighted for anything better' 

****WOOOPS***** somehow this got double posted. Sorry. MODERATOR: Please delete if possible....


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I think the cannibalization debate is a bit overstated. 2-tuner DVRs cannibalized 1-tuner DVRs, 4-tuner DVRs do it to 2-tuner DVRs, and so on.

That's the cost of progress. Most people don't have/want/can't afford multiple DVRs around the home, so it is a net gain for Tivo to be able to reach other televisions in the house they otherwise couldn't before, and it locks those customers in longer (more $) because they're further invested the more TVs they cover.

There will be some cannibalization, mostly only by those like us that have or were considering multiple Tivos, but we're a minority. I don't think a $150-180ish device competes with a $500-$900 DVR in the grand scheme of things. I would never spend that much money on my kitchen TV or other secondary/tertiary TVs, but if the Mini is priced smartly, it's a Day 1 purchase.

My guess is $150-$180 and I hold out hope that there's no sub. But if there is (bad move), then maybe $250 w/ lifetime.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I think the cannibalization debate is a bit overstated. 2-tuner DVRs cannibalized 1-tuner DVRs, 4-tuner DVRs do it to 2-tuner DVRs, and so on.
> 
> That's the cost of progress. Most people don't have/want/can't afford multiple DVRs around the home, so it is a net gain for Tivo to be able to reach other televisions in the house they otherwise couldn't before, and it locks those customers in longer (more $) because they're further invested the more TVs they cover.
> 
> There will be some cannibalization, mostly only by those like us that have or were considering multiple Tivos, but we're a minority. I don't think a $150-180ish device competes with a $500-$900 DVR in the grand scheme of things. I would never spend that much money on my kitchen TV or other secondary/tertiary TVs, but if the Mini is priced smartly, it's a Day 1 purchase.


+1. :up:

TiVo management expects that the Mini and the Stream will drive additional subscriber fees because both products help them gain and maintain subscribers. They aren't concerned about losing a secondary or tertiary TiVo in a subset of their existing subscribers homes.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

atmuscarella said:


> I don't understand why everyone thinks it will cost so much to make the "mini" it should actually be inferior hardware when compared to the stream as it will not be doing any format conversion just straight up streaming.
> 
> From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


I'm betting the Mini has the same basic chipset as a full blow Premiere just without the tuners and HDD. It would be a lot easier for TiVo to port the software if the Mini and the Premieres had the same basic hardware.

So the hardware shouldn't cost that much to make. (They sold the old Premiere for $100) The real question is how much do they need to make on it to cover the cost of the "service" portion of their business model.

Dan


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> I'm betting the Mini has the same basic chipset as a full blow Premiere just without the tuners and HDD. It would be a lot easier for TiVo to port the software if the Mini and the Premieres had the same basic hardware.
> 
> So the hardware shouldn't cost that much to make. (They sold the old Premiere for $100) The real question is how much do they need to make on it to cover the cost of the "service" portion of their business model.
> 
> Dan


Agree on the components. Keep in mind that TiVo subsidizes the hardware in their retail DVR boxes. I can publish precise details of the subsidy if anyone is interested.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Dan203 said:


> I'm betting the Mini has the same basic chipset as a full blow Premiere just without the tuners and HDD. It would be a lot easier for TiVo to port the software if the Mini and the Premieres had the same basic hardware.
> 
> So the hardware shouldn't cost that much to make. (They sold the old Premiere for $100) The real question is how much do they need to make on it to cover the cost of the "service" portion of their business model.
> 
> Dan


It would be nice though if they went with a better chipset for the apps like Netflix.

It seems like they could be missing a potential opportunity to introduce people to TiVo by not building the Mini so that it can compete with Roku.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

sbiller said:


> Agree on the components. Keep in mind that TiVo subsidizes the hardware in their retail DVR boxes. I can publish precise details of the subsidy if anyone is interested.


That would be interesting to know, actually. My dirty math counted $80-$100 less in components to make a Mini (vs. base Premiere). If that's remotely close, then maybe a dirty BOM estimate can be made.

(Gotta love all the guessing we have to do while we wait. lol)


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> That would be interesting to know, actually. My dirty math counted $80-$100 less in components to make a Mini (vs. base Premiere). If that's remotely close, then maybe a dirty BOM estimate can be made.
> 
> (Gotta love all the guessing we have to do while we wait. lol)


In TiVo's last quarter, their hardware subsidy per *new *retail subscriber was *$164.25*. I expect this number to start to trend down since I don't believe that they are subsidizing the Stream. I also expect that the Mini will not have a subsidy. I'm guessing if we looked at the cost of a Premiere box minus the hard drive, internal power supply, tuners, etc. we would have a build cost in the $149 range for TiVo at fairly low quantities. The more I think about this a speculation of a price around $149 to $179 with a small subscription fee sounds feasible. For me, I would save the cost of a Verizon FiOS CableCARD for each supplementary TV which is $3.99.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> I'm betting the Mini has the same basic chipset as a full blow Premiere just without the tuners and HDD. It would be a lot easier for TiVo to port the software if the Mini and the Premieres had the same basic hardware.
> 
> So the hardware shouldn't cost that much to make. (They sold the old Premiere for $100) The real question is how much do they need to make on it to cover the cost of the "service" portion of their business model.
> 
> Dan


Which makes me wonder, why didn't Tivo just come up with a cheaper sub for the Premiere if all you wanted was an extender? IOW, charge $5/mo. for a 'streaming only' sub which gives you full access to tuners and recordings on other boxes plus internet and VOD apps but no recording.

I'm guessing they didn't want to do this because it takes too long to recover the hardware subsidy, and it's kind of confusing to have a DVR not be a DVR. It's also a waste of hardware since you're never using the drive and it's still a point of failure, but it would allow Tivo to sell more boxes with no extra investment.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I was just sitting here thinking of the laundry list of component removals/additions/changes that make up a Mini, and with that chart I think it does get us close to $150ish, and it kind of struck me... did anybody actually SEE the Mini in action at the Cable Show?

Megazone had great coverage, but no video or photos exist from any source (except of the hardware), unlike the multiple videos of Stream demonstrations that were available. He also asked Tivo some questions that could have been answerable by playing with the box itself. So it doesn't sound like there was a working (or at least usable) model on the show floor... That could explain why the Stream is out and the Mini isn't yet.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

my 2 cents (probably worth much less than that) is that there's no way it's not new hardware. Why use years old hardware from the premiere that has analog encoding hardware, drive controlling hardware, the ability to handle multiple streams, etc when there's probably some newer chipsets that are a fraction of the cost that do just what they need to do. 

now i dont know what they need, but i'd guess it would be something like the hardware in roku or boxee or whatever those things are- and they don't cost hundreds of bucks.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> I don't understand why everyone thinks it will cost so much to make the "mini" it should actually be inferior hardware when compared to the stream as it will not be doing any format conversion just straight up streaming.
> 
> From what I can see the actual hardware should be on par with a Roku. So why do people think it needs to cost so much?


I agree 100% with that. I can't see how it could be much more than a Roku. Will it even work with Amazon Prime, Vudu, and Netflix.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Time to market and leveraging their existing code would be the primary reasons to use a stripped down version of their existing platform, like they did with the Preview. Just strip it down further.

They could start from scratch with a clean platform, but it also puts into question their streaming app support which they had intended to include.

In any event, a theoretical HD Roku + MPEG2 decoding + MoCA support + "Tivo tax" would still likely place it at $150, so it doesn't change too much.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

I don't think $150 is unreasonable, but it should compare to a fully loaded Roku which is $99.

I feel $120 would be the sweet spot.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I don't think a $150-180ish device competes with a $500-$900 DVR in the grand scheme of things. I would never spend that much money on my kitchen TV or other secondary/tertiary TVs, but if the Mini is priced smartly, it's a Day 1 purchase.
> 
> My guess is $150-$180 and I hold out hope that there's no sub. But if there is (bad move), then maybe $250 w/ lifetime.


I agree, plus if needed, I would rather give my money to TiVo anyway than Comcrap 

I think something else people don't realize too is if TiVo can pull this off efficiently with the mini, it could make them have a HUGE advantage over satellite and possibly bring some of those customers back over to cable.

Could be a win-win for TiVo AND cable Cos. cause satellite providers STILL charge additional monthly fees for their extra boxes even though they are whole home DVR systems (Dish's Hopper & Joey system). I want to say those monthly fees for DirecTV and DISH are about $7/month per extra box.

If TiVo makes these minis much more cost effective (with either a much lower per month cost or a flat out cost), then cable companies could be thanking them cause it could then help generate extra revenue in the long term for cable providers that they otherwise may not have gotten.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

MichaelK said:


> my 2 cents (probably worth much less than that) is that there's no way it's not new hardware. Why use years old hardware from the premiere that has analog encoding hardware, drive controlling hardware, the ability to handle multiple streams, etc when there's probably some newer chipsets that are a fraction of the cost that do just what they need to do.
> 
> now i dont know what they need, but i'd guess it would be something like the hardware in roku or boxee or whatever those things are- and they don't cost hundreds of bucks.


If one exists that can run the same Adobe Air software they're using now, then that might be the case. But their entire platform is based on that Broadcom chip with that AS3 UI. I seriously doubt they would pick anything that strayed too far from that as it would require too much effort to duplicate the experience. Although I'm not familiar with Broadcom's lineup. If they have a chip that supports the same basic features as the one in the Premiere nut without the unneeded bits then they very well could be using that.

Dan


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

steve614 said:


> I don't think $150 is unreasonable, but it should compare to a fully loaded Roku which is $99.


They're two different things. The Mini needs to have MPEG-2 decoding hardware, the Roku chipset is MPEG-4 only. The Mini will also need a chipset capable of running the AS3 code TiVo uses for their HDUI and the ability to do MoCa, which the Roku doesn't do. The Roku is basically built from readily available, off the shelf components. The Mini will be a bit more custom and will likely cost a bit more to make. So expecting them to have similar price points probably is going to lead to disapointment.

Now there was mention in a recent survey that TiVo might be considering supporting the Stream on devices like the Roku, Apple TV, etc... However the Stream is $129 so combined with the Roku it would be a $230 setup. That might make a $200 Mini a little more attractive.

Dan


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

At $200+ the Mini is too expensive. I can swallow $150 all in, but that's about it.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> Now there was mention in a recent survey that TiVo might be considering supporting the Stream on devices like the Roku, Apple TV, etc... However the Stream is $129 so combined with the Roku it would be a $230 setup. That might make a $200 Mini a little more attractive.
> 
> Dan


I sure hope they end up supporting the Roku. I'd buy a Stream at that point. I have not bought one yet because the price and what it does... does not compel me to get it yet.


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

buscuitboy said:


> Technically, why would someone buy another Premiere when they could just get a simple 'mini' to ride of their main Premiere instead. Of course, I guess it also depends on whether they also put a monthly price on it too.


People with a TiVo will buy it to extend their existing setup. People without a TiVo will have another reason to tempt them to buy a TiVo.

I think the market for people buying multiple DVRs isn't that big. People on this forum probably don't agree with that but everyone posting on here is more of a fan of TiVo than the average customer.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

button1066 said:


> People with a TiVo will buy it to extend their existing setup. People without a TiVo will have another reason to tempt them to buy a TiVo.
> 
> I think the market for people buying multiple DVRs isn't that big. People on this forum probably don't agree with that but everyone posting on here is more of a fan of TiVo than the average customer.


You've hit it on the head. 99% of households aren't going to buy multiple DVRs for multiple rooms. TiVo is basically kissing that business goodbye because they have no competing solution for multi-room setups that are now available from Dish, DirecTV and Comcast.

The last thing Tivo should be worried about is cannibalizing Premier sales. They should be worried about stemming the bleeding AND being able to actually add subscribers.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

button1066 said:


> People with a TiVo will buy it to extend their existing setup. People without a TiVo will have another reason to tempt them to buy a TiVo.
> 
> I think the market for people buying multiple DVRs isn't that big. People on this forum probably don't agree with that but everyone posting on here is more of a fan of TiVo than the average customer.


It seems that people always say that most people only have one DVR. But personally, everyone I know with a DVR has at least two of them.

Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


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## button1066 (Sep 4, 2012)

aaronwt said:


> It seems that people always say that most people only have one DVR. But personally, everyone I know with a DVR has at least two of them.
> 
> Sent from my HTC ReZound using Forum Runner


So you don't need another one then do you?

I don't know anyone other than me with more than one DVR and in fact things are very much moving towards the opposite of multiple DVRs. There is no reason to have two DVRs duplicating their hardware and functionality when you can have multi room viewing based on a central device.


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## ShayL (Jul 18, 2007)

Since we are speculating about price, I think the moxi mate is the closest thing we have to compare. I know different hardware and the vendor pulled the plug on the whole product line. The mates were $300 retail and approximately$200 when purchased as part of a bundle.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

I wonder if this box will also have slingplayer app in it too. It would be nice.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

button1066 said:


> So you don't need another one then do you?
> 
> I don't know anyone other than me with more than one DVR and in fact things are very much moving towards the opposite of multiple DVRs. There is no reason to have two DVRs duplicating their hardware and functionality when you can have multi room viewing based on a central device.


When they come out with new models, I will. Also a central device is only good if there is enough storage and tuners. Then you also have a single point of failure if the drive does bad.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> When they come out with new models, I will. Also a central device is only good if there is enough storage and tuners. Then you also have a single point of failure if the drive does bad.


If they ever support TiVo Stream to PC/Mac, offloading shows to the PC for archival will be a good option to protect content you don't want to lose.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

sbiller said:


> If they ever support TiVo Stream to PC/Mac, offloading shows to the PC for archival will be a good option to protect content you don't want to lose.


Very true. Of course if you are plagued with copy once this won't help you. I would probably setup a dedicated Synology Box just for TiVo recordings.


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## vurbano (Apr 20, 2004)

Well I refuse to pay any sort of dvr or time shifting fee for something that does not do that. No deal.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

sbiller said:


> If they ever support TiVo Stream to PC/Mac, offloading shows to the PC for archival will be a good option to protect content you don't want to lose.


You can already download to PC/Mac.. What would being able to get from the TiVo stream give you, except a faster downconversion?

Since you said "protect content", I infer you mean transfer "for keeps", not just to watch streaming (which still allows copy protected content).


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

mattack said:


> You can already download to PC/Mac.. What would being able to get from the TiVo stream give you, except a faster downconversion?
> 
> Since you said "protect content", I infer you mean transfer "for keeps", not just to watch streaming (which still allows copy protected content).


The faster conversion is the big thing for me.


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

So here's my take on the mini.

I purchased a Toshiba RS-TX20 DVD player with Tivo service in Jan 2005. Our entire family loved it. It started having software issues in 2007 and Tivo was not helpful with a solution, so we canceled service in 2008 and got a Cablevision (New Jersey) DVR that we've been hating ever since. At that point, I decided I would love to purchase a new Tivo but a) I was upset with them for not supporting my non-Tivo branded unit, and b) I was not going to make a $500+ investment unless I could have a whole-house DVR. c) I was not going to purchase two Tivo units and pay two monthly fees so I could watch an occasional recording in my bedroom. Cablevision had rumors of a soon to be released cloud-DVR (which is still vaporware in NJ). Verizon had their whole house DVR but they don't extend their service to my neighborhood. I've bee waiting 4+ years for a device like the mini.

Suggestions to Tivo - Don't charge a monthly fee for what is basically an extender. Charge a one-time purchase price of $99, $120, $150 - I'd pay it. Charge me $4 or $8 a month, and I'll likely write off Tivo yet again for the near future, continue waiting for FIOS to finally build out in my area or for Cablevision to deliver on their mythical cloud DVR). Deliver on the mini and you'll win me back as a customer - $400 for the XL4, $130 for the Stream (which really should be built in to the XL4 - similar to what Cablevision has done with their free iPad / iPhone remote control / viewing live TV app, but I'll buy it as a one-time add-on, albeit not happily), and another $99-$150 or so for the mini...plus monthly service.

Deliver a reasonable product at a reasonable price, without exorbitant monthly fees and you will win back my business as well as the business of many others like me who have a primary family room TV and then others that get occasional use. If you don't deliver, you won't compete with the likes of FIOS whole house DVR and I'll probably be looking towards Satellite TV with whole home DVR in the near future.

Just my 2 cents...or really, my ~ $650 plus $15 / month for years.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

TivoQueensDad said:


> ..........Deliver a reasonable product at a reasonable price, without exorbitant monthly fees ..............


This is why I have no issue with a $4 or $5 monthly fee for the Mini. I wouldn't be paying $4 a month for a cable card anymore where the Mini would be located. So my net would be zero or a $1 increase over what I pay now which is negligible. Charge $100 or less and a low $4 or $5 monthly fee and I'm sold. I will gladly pay that each month.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> This is why I have no issue with a $4 or $5 monthly fee for the Mini. I wouldn't be paying $4 a month for a cable card anymore where the Mini would be located. So my net would be zero or a $1 increase over what I pay now which is negligible. Charge $100 or less and a low $4 or $5 monthly fee and I'm sold. I will gladly pay that each month.


I'm sorry, but you are in the (extreme) minority. Most users are sick of the monthly fees and if TiVo wants to attract new users to the solution they should put a reasonable flat fee on the extender boxes.

TiVo has plenty of ways to make revenue from users without charging them a fee on every little add-on that they sell...

Something in line with what they did with the TiVo Stream, where the extender box is priced similarly to a Roku, etc, but with the TiVo "premium" will be palatable to most users, yet more monthly TiVo fees will not.


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

jmpage2 said:


> TiVo has plenty of ways to make revenue from users without charging them a fee on every little add-on that they sell...


I agree. The way I see it - there is no monthly service provided by Tivo for the privilege of owning a mini. It won't need to communicate direct with their servers other than for occasional software update which pretty much every TV, Blu-Ray player, etc. does. They'd already be getting $15 a month from me for what amounts to providing a TV guide.

Get it right and I'm back in the Tivo fold as a win-back of an ex-customer. Get it wrong, and I'll finally write off Tivo for good and seriously look at who else (Satellite or home brew system - I already have a 9TB storage array connected to my TV) can provide me with the whole house DVR solution I've been wanting for the past 4 years.

I'm just afraid that Tivo will shoot themselves in the foot again as I saw them do when I was a customer years ago (not building in wifi / charging extra for a wifi-dongle for example, not building the functionality of _Stream _directly into the DVR today)


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

The primary way that TiVo would make revenue from the Mini is that they will get a slice of all of the Amazon/Netflix/other-PPV services that people use the box to access... not to mention that TiVo gets ad revenue, gets to sell viewing habit data, etc.

I think if TiVo goes down the road of "you need a subscription" for the Mini they are screwed (and missing a great opportunity).


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

I also agree that requiring a sub for the Mini would be a mistake, but the problem in this space is that Tivo is basically the only player now if you don't want to use the provider's DVR and don't want to roll your own HTPC. So they have little incentive to price the box competitively.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> I also agree that requiring a sub for the Mini would be a mistake, but the problem in this space is that Tivo is basically the only player now if you don't want to use the provider's DVR and don't want to roll your own HTPC. So they have little incentive to price the box competitively.


Seriously?

They have all of the incentive in the world because they continue to LOSE SUBSCRIBERS to cable/satellite company DVRs.

Not to mention an entire generation of kids that don't even watch "live" TV (timeshifted or otherwise), they simply watch everything on a computer.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

What if the Mini was $100 plus either $5/mo or $150 for lifetime? That would have the same basic payback period as an MSD lifetime sub on a real TiVo. And should be enough for TiVo to recover and subsidy on the hardware given a minimum 2 year contract. 

Dan


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Why do you need a monthly fee or a 'lifetime' fee for a box that does not record? For guide data? Give me a break.

Is there a monthly fee for a Roku? For an Apple TV? For a Boxee Box?

You guys have your heads stuck around a business model that is 10 years out of date and most certainly is dead.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

jmpage2 said:


> Why do you need a monthly fee or a 'lifetime' fee for a box that does not record? For guide data? Give me a break.
> 
> Is there a monthly fee for a Roku? For an Apple TV? For a Boxee Box?
> 
> You guys have your heads stuck around a business model that is 10 years out of date and most certainly is dead.


Depending on TiVo's licensing agreement with Tribune, yes they might have to pay a fee for guide data on the Mini.

I have a feeling this is going to be like the Ceton Echo. People are going to get in their heads that the box should be $99 and then when it is released at a higher price point there will be much *****ing.

The Ceton Echo is $179.99. I think expecting it any lower is pushing it. Most people hoped and thought the Stream would be under $100 and it came in at $129.99.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jmpage2 said:


> Why do you need a monthly fee or a 'lifetime' fee for a box that does not record? For guide data? Give me a break.
> 
> Is there a monthly fee for a Roku? For an Apple TV? For a Boxee Box?
> 
> You guys have your heads stuck around a business model that is 10 years out of date and most certainly is dead.


I agree that the "mini" should be sold without a monthly fee and it would be great if it were also marketed as (and actually was) a Roku, Apple TV, etc. competitor.

However TiVo's business model is not out dated - just ask Boxee Box as it is exactly what they are doing with there new OTA DVR model and is still what every cable and satellite company does with their own DVRs.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

I guess we'll see what they do and how well the box does or doesn't sell.

I would be comfortable with a price of around $150 for this extender box. Much more than that and it's a non starter. Add in a monthly fee and this thing will be deader than disco. The rabid fans here will snap some up but TiVo will have a very hard time obtaining new subs.

I can see a compromise. If TiVo charges a one time or monthly fee that is reasonable and covers ALL of the Minis in a house, I might buy off on that.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I'm betting they will either charge a service fee or at the very least include some wording in the marketing that it includes a "lifetime subscription". This is not a simple peripheral like the Stream. Many users will be using these to replace full blown TiVos in secondary rooms. So it's not inconceivable that TiVo would want to charge a fee to recover that loss. Plus, as someone else mentioned, they may need to to depending on their license agreement with Tribune.

I think like the Stream, and the iPad mini, people are going to be disappointed with the price of the TiVo Mini. We've just become so accustom to cheap electronics we're a bit over zealous when it comes to our expectations of new devices.

Dan


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Anyone with the Comcast HD outlet fee (9-10) would be much better off with a $5 fee for a mini in lieu of an additional tivo.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> Why do you need a monthly fee or a 'lifetime' fee for a box that does not record? For guide data? Give me a break.


For the same reason that it has always been popular. For the same reason you see "Rent to buy" outlets all over town. Many people who cannot afford to pay full price up front will be willing to buy at a discount and pay over time. It is also very attractive to people who thik they may only be using the platform for a realtively short period of time.



jmpage2 said:


> Is there a monthly fee for a Roku? For an Apple TV? For a Boxee Box?


How many people buy those items on a credit card?



jmpage2 said:


> You guys have your heads stuck around a business model that is 10 years out of date and most certainly is dead.


Pleasd tell that to evry CATV company in America, followed by AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Wireless, and every aforementioned rent-to-buy outlet. While you are making funeral arrangements, they will be laughing their butts off at you.

TiVo has long had two different payment plans in place, lifetime and monthly. They have not always offered lifetime service, but even when they have, many people have preferred a low cost up front plus a monthly fee. Just becasue you prefer a lifetime option, doesn't mean a monthly option is not popular.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> I can see a compromise. If TiVo charges a one time or monthly fee that is reasonable and covers ALL of the Minis in a house, I might buy off on that.


Well, surely. There are lots of things they might quite reasonably COULD do, but that doesn't mean they will. For the most part, they are going ot have to believe it given them a financial advantage. If they believe implementing a different pricing model won't cost them anything more but also will probably not gain them anything of which to speak, they are unlikely to implement it.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> We've just become so accustom to cheap electronics we're a bit over zealous when it comes to our expectations of new devices.


I think I can buy that argument.


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

jmpage2 said:


> Why do you need a monthly fee or a 'lifetime' fee for a box that does not record? For guide data? Give me a break.
> 
> Is there a monthly fee for a Roku? For an Apple TV? For a Boxee Box?
> 
> You guys have your heads stuck around a business model that is 10 years out of date and most certainly is dead.


Agreed. If they can't make it for a decent one time fee... then why make it at all?


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

aaronwt said:


> This is why I have no issue with a $4 or $5 monthly fee for the Mini. I wouldn't be paying $4 a month for a cable card anymore where the Mini would be located. So my net would be zero or a $1 increase over what I pay now which is negligible. Charge $100 or less and a low $4 or $5 monthly fee and I'm sold. I will gladly pay that each month.


I don't agree. I have a TV in the basement (cablecard) that isn't used often and my bedroom TV that gets 2-3 hours of use a week. I may consider spending a one time fee to extend my Tivo to them, but when the $15 / month fee jumps to $23 or $25 / month - to receive programming information, I'm headed towards another solution.


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

jmpage2 said:


> Seriously?
> 
> They have all of the incentive in the world because they continue to LOSE SUBSCRIBERS to cable/satellite company DVRs.
> 
> Not to mention an entire generation of kids that don't even watch "live" TV (timeshifted or otherwise), they simply watch everything on a computer.


Exactly. As I said in my original post - I am an UNHAPPY subscriber of Cablevision's DVR for the past 4 years. Give me a reason to go back to Tivo, not a reason to stay away!


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## Tenzarian (Jan 8, 2006)

That sure would be nice...


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> I'm betting they will either charge a service fee or at the very least include some wording in the marketing that it includes a "lifetime subscription". This is not a simple peripheral like the Stream. *Many users* will be using these to replace full blown TiVos in secondary rooms. So it's not inconceivable that TiVo would want to charge a fee to recover that loss. Plus, as someone else mentioned, they may need to to depending on their license agreement with Tribune.
> 
> I think like the Stream, and the iPad mini, people are going to be disappointed with the price of the TiVo Mini. We've just become so accustom to cheap electronics we're a bit over zealous when it comes to our expectations of new devices.
> 
> Dan


I'm betting that the number of subscribers with more than 1 TiVo in the home is very low, probably less than 10% (TiVo of course knows exactly how many). Will a TiVo Mini cannibalize some Premiere sales? Probably... will that cannibalization be offset by potentially "fresh blood" in the TiVo ecosystem? Very very possibly.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> Pleasd tell that to evry CATV company in America, followed by AT&T Wireless, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Wireless, and every aforementioned rent-to-buy outlet. While you are making funeral arrangements, they will be laughing their butts off at you.
> \.


You are comparing apples and oranges. Those other services provide something tangible that you "consume" every month such as cable programming, cellular data and minutes, etc.

A traditional TiVo provides "time shifting storage space" that you "use" every month.

What does a Mini provide that is a consumable (that you need more of every month)? Guide data? Please. All that the Mini provides that's "consumable" is *place shifting*.. and based on other devices that already do that (Sling, etc) it's a one time purchase, not a subscription revenue model.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> You are comparing apples and oranges. Those other services provide something tangible that you "consume" every month such as cable programming, cellular data and minutes, etc.
> 
> A traditional TiVo provides "time shifting storage space" that you "use" every month.
> 
> What does a Mini provide that is a consumable (that you need more of every month)? Guide data? Please. All that the Mini provides that's "consumable" is *place shifting*.. and based on other devices that already do that (Sling, etc) it's a one time purchase, not a subscription revenue model.


There will be a fixed monthly cost to TiVo associated with each Mini deployed. TiVo captures this cost quarterly as 'Cost of service revenues'.

Cost of service revenues consists primarily of telecommunication and network expenses, employee salaries, service center, credit card processing fees, and other expenses related to providing the TiVo service. Cost of service revenues decreased by $4.6 million for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2012, as compared to the same prior year period. This decrease in cost of service revenues was largely related to lower call center service costs as we continued our efforts to efficiently manage our customer service-related expenditures.

My guess is the monthly cost to TiVo per Mini is probably less than $0.25. Total cost of service revenues was less than $3 million per month for 2012. As the number of devices grows this number will not increase much.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

That's called overhead, and tons of businesses without monthly service fees have it. It's rolled into the cost of the product. It should also have nothing to do with providing a 'service' for the Mini, because there is no 'service'.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

jmpage2 said:


> Seriously?
> 
> They have all of the incentive in the world because they continue to LOSE SUBSCRIBERS to cable/satellite company DVRs.


I specifically said, 'if you don't want to use the provider's DVR and don't want to roll your own HTPC'.

In the third-party DVR space, Tivo has no real competition and can price the Mini at whatever level they want. I think it would be a big mistake to price it at $200+ all in, but we all know that Tivo does a lot of stuff that leaves you scratching your head. They continue to get away with making questionable decisions because they have no effective competition here.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

slowbiscuit said:


> I think it would be a big mistake to price it at $200+ all in, but we all know that Tivo does a lot of stuff that leaves you scratching your head. They continue to get away with making questionable decisions because they have no effective competition here.


Yea, I sometimes wish the Moxi and ReplayTV DVR systems were still available in order to create some better competition for TiVo. Resulting in better prices and products from them as well. Not to mention maybe rolling stuff out faster too. Oh well.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

slowbiscuit said:


> That's called overhead, and tons of businesses without monthly service fees have it. It's rolled into the cost of the product. It should also have nothing to do with providing a 'service' for the Mini, because there is no 'service'.


Exactly.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I just wish they would hurry up and announce a release date and pricing. Then all this conjecture can end.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

If it was going to be out this calendar year we almost surely would have heard something by now, I think that they made the decision to slip it out till Q1 2013 so that all Premier users could purchase it.

The entire "tuner hijack" thing sounds like it would have to work very very well in order to prevent problems.

I imagine right now it is simply too buggy to release, even to early adopters.


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> I just wish they would hurry up and announce a release date and pricing. Then all this conjecture can end.


I can agree with that! My whole purpose in wanting a Mini is to eliminate the Comcast "outlet fee" which in my area is $8 a month per device (you get one device free) plus A $1.99 per month cable card fee. The mini/XL4 combo would allow me to eliminate 3 outlet fees and associated cable card fees.

A monthly Mini service charge, of any kind, would make the mini somewhat less attractive.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

buscuitboy said:


> Yea, I sometimes wish the Moxi and ReplayTV DVR systems were still available in order to create some better competition for TiVo. Resulting in better prices and products from them as well. Not to mention maybe rolling stuff out faster too. Oh well.


If ReplayTV and Moxi couldn't make a go of it and TiVo still isn't making any money, why would competition drive prices any lower? If TiVo weren't bringing in millions in licensing fees they'd be under by now, too.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

uw69 said:


> I can agree with that! My whole purpose in wanting a Mini is to eliminate the Comcast "outlet fee" which in my area is $8 a month per device (you get one device free) plus A $1.99 per month cable card fee. The mini/XL4 combo would allow me to eliminate 3 outlet fees and associated cable card fees.
> 
> A monthly Mini service charge, of any kind, would make the mini somewhat less attractive.


Yea, this is the EXACT same reason I am waiting for the mini before I possibly go with a whole home DVR solution by Ceton or SiliconDust (that would also eliminate cable card fees too).



nrc said:


> If ReplayTV and Moxi couldn't make a go of it and TiVo still isn't making any money, why would competition drive prices any lower? If TiVo weren't bringing in millions in licensing fees they'd be under by now, too.


Maybe I should go for the Ceton or SiliconDust option then


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> That's called overhead, and tons of businesses without monthly service fees have it. It's rolled into the cost of the product. It should also have nothing to do with providing a 'service' for the Mini, because there is no 'service'.


Sticking some silly label on it does not change the fundamental reality of the situation. TiVo has two avaialble purchase plans. One allows the consumer to purchase the unit and all future upgrades plus daily guide updates until the unit dies for a two-part lump sum. The other allows the user to obtain ownership of the box by paying the first part; a price lower than the unit costs to make and ship, but splits off the second part into open ended monthly payments. Over time, the sum total of all the monthly payments will likely exceed the one time payment cost, depending on how long the unit is retained and operated by the user. One can call it "service" or "apple dumplings", and it makes absolutely no difference whatsoever.

Whether TiVo chooses to extend both of these options to the purchase of a mini remains to be seen. Getting all wrapped around an axle just because it might be called a "service", rather than an "open ended payment plan" is just foolishness.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> Exactly.


No, nonsense. Just becasue the cash outlaty is labeled differently or shuffled aound into different compartmentalization does not mean the cash is not being spent. Calling it "overhead" does not make the cost even a single penny lower. It is true the cost of a monthly payment may wind up higher than the lump sum, but many people simply cannot afford (or just do not like) a lump sum payment.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

nrc said:


> If ReplayTV and Moxi couldn't make a go of it and TiVo still isn't making any money, why would competition drive prices any lower? If TiVo weren't bringing in millions in licensing fees they'd be under by now, too.


I think that is an overstatement, but your point is valid. If they had a mind to, I am virtually certain TiVo could have kept themselves solvent by re-organizing had they needed to do so. They didn't, so they didn't. I think you are perfectly correct, however, that prices could not really go too much lower without collapsing the market. It doesn't matter how high supply goes or how low demand, no industry is sustainable if the products must be sold at a loss.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Whether TiVo chooses to extend both of these options to the purchase of a mini remains to be seen. Getting all wrapped around an axle just because it might be called a "service", rather than an "open ended payment plan" is just foolishness.


Agreed and I don't care one way or the other, I just want to know what the final price will be without a 'payment plan'.

But a lot of other folks refuse to even consider Tivo because of the service fees, and if they pull this trick with the Mini it's just more of the same. Most of us here get the business model, but J6P doesn't equate a subsidized Tivo plan with a smartphone even though they're doing the same tricks.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

lrhorer said:


> No, nonsense. Just becasue the cash outlaty is labeled differently or shuffled aound into different compartmentalization does not mean the cash is not being spent. Calling it "overhead" does not make the cost even a single penny lower. It is true the cost of a monthly payment may wind up higher than the lump sum, but many people simply cannot afford (or just do not like) a lump sum payment.


You seem to be assuming that TiVo will even opt to sell the Mini with a subsidy. As to your operating cost comments, I think it is you who is confused. Every equipment manufacturer has those costs and most don't use a monthly fee model to recoup them.

If you buy an Apple TV, Roku, etc, the hardware is not subsidized. You buy the hardware and the manufacturer makes a small profit. They then potentially make more profit over time if you make purchases through their device interface. They do not require a monthly fee to access their device interface. If they did so, they would only sell a fraction of the units that they do sell.

There is probably NO REASON that TiVo could not go this route with a device like the Mini, which probably costs drastically less to manufacturer than a TiVo Premiere.

If the TiVo Mini cannibalizes a few Premieres it's probably not a long term loss for TiVo. They are still retaining a customer in the TiVo ecosystem who otherwise might flee to a lower cost or "easier" multi-room option.

Not to mention that TiVo is in a great position to monetize their customer base. They just need to have more and more premium service offerings through TiVo that they get a piece of. Kind of like when you rent something from Amazon VOD TiVo probably gets a cut. TiVo gets to sell subscriber viewing habits, TiVo gets ad revenue, etc, etc, etc.

So, even if they sold the Mini at a LOSS it would not necessarily be a NET LOSS for them, even without a monthly subscription fee.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> You seem to be assuming that TiVo will even opt to sell the Mini with a subsidy.


I said absolutely nothing to that effect. That is one of their two *current* purchase options. Nothing whatsoever was assumed.



jmpage2 said:


> As to your operating cost comments, I think it is you who is confused. Every equipment manufacturer has those costs and most don't use a monthly fee model to recoup them.


I am not in the least confused, and I never said that most sell at a loss up front and employ a monthly fee schedule to cover the deficit. All I said is that many successful businesses - in fact some among the very most successful ones - do so.



jmpage2 said:


> If you buy an Apple TV, Roku, etc, the hardware is not subsidized.


I never said this was the case. Some choose a model close to TiVo's. Others do not.



jmpage2 said:


> You buy the hardware and the manufacturer makes a small profit.


Sometimes. In other cases, the up front sale is at a loss. This is common with celluar phones (including Smart Phones), game consoles, etc. Heck, Lucent even used to give us FT-2000 OC-48 chassis worth several thousand dollars free. We just had to purchase the cards extra.



jmpage2 said:


> They then potentially make more profit over time if you make purchases through their device interface. They do not require a monthly fee to access their device interface. If they did so, they would only sell a fraction of the units that they do sell.


What evidence do you have to support that notion? In fact, I suspect it would not be true for any device whose base cost is more than $500 - $750. I'm sure it would be true for any device whose base cost is under $300.

Note that Moxi was obviously of the same opinion as you, and they went down the tubes in a frightful hurry trying to sell their boxes at $800 each, rather than offering a more reasonable up-front outlay backed up by a monthly fee. That is not the only reason they went the way of the dinosaur, but the introduction of the Mini is a parallel situation for TiVo. The lower likely cost of the Mini makes it an easier pill to swallow for the consumer, though.



jmpage2 said:


> There is probably NO REASON that TiVo could not go this route with a device like the Mini, which probably costs drastically less to manufacturer than a TiVo Premiere.


I never said they couldn't. Obviously , since they offer an up-front purchase plan for the TiVo, there is nothing preventing them from doing the same with the Mini. Whether they will or not remains to be seen.



jmpage2 said:


> If the TiVo Mini cannibalizes a few Premieres it's probably not a long term loss for TiVo. They are still retaining a customer in the TiVo ecosystem who otherwise might flee to a lower cost or "easier" multi-room option.


It most certainly is if the margin on the Mini is lower than the margin on the Premier. The one bright note is a person's buying one or several Minis more or less locks the customer into buying another Premier when their exisitng one dies. That's one reason - about the 4th one down the list - I tentatively don't expect to buy a Mini. The final answer won't come out until the Mini does.



jmpage2 said:


> So, even if they sold the Mini at a LOSS it would not necessarily be a NET LOSS for them, even without a monthly subscription fee.


Not necessarily, no, but very likely so. They have to cover the loss somehow.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> Exactly.


What if one of those fees is associated with monthly guide data that TiVo would have to pay for each Mini deployed while its still in service?


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

sbiller said:


> What if one of those fees is associated with monthly guide data that TiVo would have to pay for each Mini deployed while its still in service?


Then I would say that TiVo should work to get better licensing terms. There is no tuner in the Mini, it is simply a "piggyback" to the TiVo that DOES have a tuner and IS being paid for guide data.

Let me put it another way. Does Sling have to pay for guide data that you access with your iPad that comes from your TiVo?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> J6P doesn't equate a subsidized Tivo plan with a smartphone even though they're doing the same tricks.


J6P?


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Joe 6 pack


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> Does Sling have to pay for guide data that you access with your iPad that comes from your TiVo?


If Apple or Tribune Media could figure out some way to force Sling to do just that, then you bet. Sling isn't dependent upon Tribune Media for its operations and does not have any contracts with them they must maintain, though. TiVo does.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> Joe 6 pack


Oh. Thanks.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

http://services.corporate-ir.net/SEC/Document.Service?id=P3VybD1odHRwOi8vaXIuaW50Lndlc3RsYXdidXNpbmVzcy5jb20vZG9jdW1lbnQvdjEvMDAwMTA4ODgyNS0xMS0wMDAwMzIvZG9jL1RJVk9JTkNfMTBLXzIwMTEwMzE0LnBkZiZ0eXBlPTImZm49VElWT0lOQ18xMEtfMjAxMTAzMTQucGRm

I read through the confidential TMS Agreement again. It's impossible to tell whether TiVo is paying for guide data on the Mini. My guess is they are.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

sbiller said:


> http://services.corporate-ir.net/SEC/Document.Service?id=P3VybD1odHRwOi8vaXIuaW50Lndlc3RsYXdidXNpbmVzcy5jb20vZG9jdW1lbnQvdjEvMDAwMTA4ODgyNS0xMS0wMDAwMzIvZG9jL1RJVk9JTkNfMTBLXzIwMTEwMzE0LnBkZiZ0eXBlPTImZm49VElWT0lOQ18xMEtfMjAxMTAzMTQucGRm
> 
> I read through the confidential TMS Agreement again. It's impossible to tell whether TiVo is paying for guide data on the Mini. My guess is they are.


If they are then they need better attorneys... using the guide is an implicit function of the full blown TiVo but it might not even get usage on the Mini, depending on the deployment.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

jmpage2 said:


> If they are then they need better attorneys... using the guide is an implicit function of the full blown TiVo but it might not even get usage on the Mini, depending on the deployment.


I think TiVo has some of the best attorney's in the industry. I'm confident they've negotiated some decent terms with TMS.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Agree 100% with jmpage2 here - there's no way Tivo should be paying for guide on the Mini. Does MS pay for every possible Xbox (or other extender) hooked up to a 7MC HTPC? Hell no, they pay a flat rate, perhaps licensed per Win7 copy w/MC enabled that is sold, or better yet per 7MC copy that is actually used as a Media Center PC, i.e. downloading guide data, by a consumer (a small percentage).

If Tivo is paying for guide on an extender box with no tuners, there's something wrong with their deal-makers.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmpage2 said:


> If they are then they need better attorneys... using the guide is an implicit function of the full blown TiVo but it might not even get usage on the Mini, depending on the deployment.


That may be true, but all the attorneys on Earth are not going to prevent a company from charging whatever it wants when it is a monopoly and the customer (TiVo, in this case) cannot survive without the product. Exactly what pressure do you think a lawyer can bring to bear against someone who owns a product outright? Unless the pricing of that product is regulated by law, there is absolutely nothing a lawyer can do.

In general, lawyers do not negotiate contract terms, although they most certianly do scruitinize them for legality and loopholes. Contract negotiations are handled by accountants and marketers, not lawyers.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

slowbiscuit said:


> Agree 100% with jmpage2 here - there's no way Tivo should be paying for guide on the Mini. Does MS pay for every possible Xbox (or other extender) hooked up to a 7MC HTPC? Hell no, they pay a flat rate, perhaps licensed per Win7 copy w/MC enabled that is sold, or better yet per 7MC copy that is actually used as a Media Center PC, i.e. downloading guide data, by a consumer (a small percentage).
> 
> If Tivo is paying for guide on an extender box with no tuners, there's something wrong with their deal-makers.


I agree the guide data is already on/in the Premiere DVR, viewing on a TV via a connection through a mini shouldn't cost anymore than viewing it on a TV connected directly to the Premiere DVR. Same with the ios and android apps, it would be nuts for TiVo to pay extra so someone can view the guide data on a tablet/phone.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

These may be legacy agreements with terms for products that were not in the pipe when they were made. Plus, how many sources of data are there? Could Tivo legitimately get the same data from another source? It is hard to negotiate if another viable option is not available.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

slowbiscuit said:


> Agree 100% with jmpage2 here - there's no way Tivo should be paying for guide on the Mini.


"Should" has nothing to do with it.



slowbiscuit said:


> Does MS pay for every possible Xbox (or other extender) hooked up to a 7MC HTPC?


Huh? 7MC and Xbox are both owned by Microsoft. Will Microsoft pay itself for using its own software? No. Did you perhaps mean XMBC?
MS won't go into immediate bankruptcy if XMBC refuses to allow any Xbox to be hooked up to a XMBC device. If XMBC had a key that absolutely prevented any Xbox from working, you better be damn well sure MS would be paying XMBC for every Xbox they sell.



slowbiscuit said:


> Hell no, they pay a flat rate, perhaps licensed per Win7 copy w/MC enabled that is sold, or better yet per 7MC copy that is actually used as a Media Center PC, i.e. downloading guide data, by a consumer (a small percentage).


Are you nuts? Anyone who distributes a box with any Windows product in it pays Microsoft, not the other way around. Indeed, now that you mention it, every company that sells PCs with Windows on them has to pay MS for each and every box they sell, even if it does not come with Windows. If you buy a Dell PC loaded with Linux, embedded in that cost is a fee for distributing Windows software. The only other choice the PC maker has is to not sell any PCs with Windows on them.



slowbiscuit said:


> If Tivo is paying for guide on an extender box with no tuners, there's something wrong with their deal-makers.


Exactly what leverage do their deal makers have to apply against Tribune? Will they threaten to cancel their contract on main line TiVos? Call them bad names? Fart in their general direction?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jrtroo said:


> These may be legacy agreements with terms for products that were not in the pipe when they were made. Plus, how many sources of data are there? Could Tivo legitimately get the same data from another source? It is hard to negotiate if another viable option is not available.


My point is there is no reason to download guide data to a mini all it has to do is connect to the premiere to view the data and interact with the Premieres guide.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jrtroo said:


> Could Tivo legitimately get the same data from another source? It is hard to negotiate if another viable option is not available.


They can't even illegitamately get the same data from any other source. Tribune is the only one to whom every CATV company, all the Networks, and every local TV station reports their information.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

atmuscarella said:


> My point is there is no reason to download guide data to a mini all it has to do is connect to the premiere to view the data and interact with the Premieres guide.


That may be true, but it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Tribune has the ability to force TiVo to pay a levy on each and every device they sell, regardless of whether Tribune''s services are used on all the boxes or not. The only question is whether Tribune will choose to take advantage of that power, or not. The folks at Tribune are not stupid, I'm sure, and they know if their predatory pricing costs TiVo too much, it could bankrupt them, so they are not likely to grind TiVo under their heels, but that doesn't mean they won't force TiVo to cough up some moola for every box they sell. If Tivo had some other source for the guide data on their core product, then it would be a completely different matter, but they do not.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> My point is there is no reason to download guide data to a mini all it has to do is connect to the premiere to view the data and interact with the Premieres guide.


This is how I figure it will work. The data is already present on the Premiere so it would be pointless to also put it on the Mini.

From what I understand on how the Mini will work, it only needs to see what's on 'right now'. It won't need a full blown guide.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

steve614 said:


> This is how I figure it will work. The data is already present on the Premiere so it would be pointless to also put it on the Mini.
> 
> From what I understand on how the Mini will work, it only needs to see what's on 'right now'. It won't need a full blown guide.


Then how do you schedule a recording from it? I hope I'll be able to look at a guide and schedule something that is on next week. if not that would be a huge negative for me.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

steve614 said:


> This is how I figure it will work. The data is already present on the Premiere so it would be pointless to also put it on the Mini.


Not quite pointless. It would offload some processing from the cental unit. 'Not a big deal from a technical standpoint either way, though.



steve614 said:


> From what I understand on how the Mini will work, it only needs to see what's on 'right now'. It won't need a full blown guide.


Now that would be almost totally useless.


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

innocentfreak said:


> The faster conversion is the big thing for me.


So you'd rather keep a *modified* video rather than the full resolution? I'd rather have the full one, except when conversion is necessary, e.g. to iPad.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

mattack said:


> So you'd rather keep a *modified* video rather than the full resolution? I'd rather have the full one, except when conversion is necessary, e.g. to iPad.


For space and faster transfers back to the TiVo, definitely assuming it compares well to the MKVs you can get elsewhere once you transfer it back.

Most of the stuff I would be keeping would be watch once and delete shows I haven't gotten to. If I was keeping it I would probably opt for the full size recording.

I realize most of the stuff is available for streaming, but I prefer local playback over streaming since trickplay works better.


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

aaronwt said:


> Then how do you schedule a recording from it? I hope I'll be able to look at a guide and schedule something that is on next week. if not that would be a huge negative for me.


You mean schedule a recording on the host Premiere from the Mini?

I didn't know that was one of the features. Doesn't really matter anyway. 
It should be trivial for TiVo to have the Mini use the guide info that is already present on the host Premiere.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> That may be true, but it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Tribune has the ability to force TiVo to pay a levy on each and every device they sell, regardless of whether Tribune''s services are used on all the boxes or not. The only question is whether Tribune will choose to take advantage of that power, or not. The folks at Tribune are not stupid, I'm sure, and they know if their predatory pricing costs TiVo too much, it could bankrupt them, so they are not likely to grind TiVo under their heels, but that doesn't mean they won't force TiVo to cough up some moola for every box they sell. If Tivo had some other source for the guide data on their core product, then it would be a completely different matter, but they do not.


 Well the iOS & Android apps let you view same guide data as on a TiVo and those apps are free with no "service" fee. The Mini can (and most likely does) use exact same mechanism to get guide data, so why would there be a "service" charge for the Mini but not the iOS/Android apps?
I don't doubt TiVo will be charging a "service" fee of some sort (monthly or lifetime), but I highly suspect the motivation is for profit reasons, not to cover additional costs for guide payments even though it may be disguised as such.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I didn't see this interview posted anywhere else yet.

Interview with Margret about Design: http://www.graphicdesign.com/article/tivos-margret-schmidt-uiux-design/

Mini quote: "Next up is TiVo Mini - connect it to a TV in another room in your house, and it can stream live TV and recordings from your 4-tuner TiVo Premiere DVR."

This is a fresh interview posted 10/25, so it would seem the plan for the Mini is still to begin as a 4-tuner accessory.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

lrhorer said:


> That may be true, but it has nothing to do with the subject at hand. Tribune has the ability to force TiVo to pay a levy on each and every device they sell, regardless of whether Tribune''s services are used on all the boxes or not. The only question is whether Tribune will choose to take advantage of that power, or not. The folks at Tribune are not stupid, I'm sure, and they know if their predatory pricing costs TiVo too much, it could bankrupt them, so they are not likely to grind TiVo under their heels, but that doesn't mean they won't force TiVo to cough up some moola for every box they sell. If Tivo had some other source for the guide data on their core product, then it would be a completely different matter, but they do not.


Ah yes the old Microsoft game of making PC manufactures pay for a windows license for every PC they made regardless if they put windows on it or not. You are correct their is little TiVo will/can do if Tribune forces the issue.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Knowing TiVo, I have a bad feeling this mini is gonna under-deliver; high price, monthly cost, hijacks a tuner & comes out holidays 2013. Let's hope not.


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## jcthorne (Jan 28, 2002)

They either need to support the 2 tuner Premiere or come out with and OTA capable 4 tuner unit. As it stands, this is a CATV only accessory and they might as well just sell it to the MSOs and not bother with retail at all.

If the mini cannot support OTA programming in the home, they will sell very few.


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## NSPhillips (May 31, 2007)

jcthorne said:


> They either need to support the 2 tuner Premiere or come out with and OTA capable 4 tuner unit. As it stands, this is a CATV only accessory and they might as well just sell it to the MSOs and not bother with retail at all.
> 
> If the mini cannot support OTA programming in the home, they will sell very few.


I think you are overestimating the number of people who care about (or know about) OTA.

But the vast majority of cable companies don't issue Tivo hardware, so most four-tuner owners could benefit from the Mini at retail.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

jcthorne said:


> They either need to support the 2 tuner Premiere or come out with and OTA capable 4 tuner unit. As it stands, this is a CATV only accessory and they might as well just sell it to the MSOs and not bother with retail at all.
> 
> If the mini cannot support OTA programming in the home, they will sell very few.


They have said they will eventually support the 2 tuner Premiere.

That said I don't consider a single 2 tuner DVR a whole home solution and the mini is certainly not designed to be used with just a single 2 tuner DVR.

Not saying it wouldn't work fine for someone with multiple TVs who only uses them one at a time, but for a household that actually uses multiple TVs at the same time the mini and a single 2 tuner DVR will not be a very acceptable solution.

My recommendation for someone who is OTA and regularly uses multiple TVs is to get multiple DVRs.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

moyekj said:


> Well the iOS & Android apps let you view same guide data as on a TiVo and those apps are free with no "service" fee. The Mini can (and most likely does) use exact same mechanism to get guide data, so why would there be a "service" charge for the Mini but not the iOS/Android apps?
> I don't doubt TiVo will be charging a "service" fee of some sort (monthly or lifetime), but I highly suspect the motivation is for profit reasons, not to cover additional costs for guide payments even though it may be disguised as such.


The licensing could be specific to TV screens so it wouldn't apply on the iPad app.


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I didn't see this interview posted anywhere else yet.
> 
> Interview with Margret about Design: http://www.graphicdesign.com/article/tivos-margret-schmidt-uiux-design/
> 
> ...


Great interview find!

The full quote is "*Next up is TiVo Mini*  connect it to a TV in another room in your house, and it can stream live TV and recordings from your 4-tuner TiVo Premiere DVR. *Our TiVo Premiere DVRs will also receive a software update this year *that adds HD versions of the Season Pass Manager, To Do List, and My Shows on remote DVRs."

Looking at the full statement, one would think that the Mini is their next release, followed by the software update to Premiere, and that both will occur this year.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

TivoQueensDad said:


> Great interview find!
> 
> The full quote is "*Next up is TiVo Mini*  connect it to a TV in another room in your house, and it can stream live TV and recordings from your 4-tuner TiVo Premiere DVR. *Our TiVo Premiere DVRs will also receive a software update this year *that adds HD versions of the Season Pass Manager, To Do List, and My Shows on remote DVRs."
> 
> Looking at the full statement, one would think that the Mini is their next release, followed by the software update to Premiere, and that both will occur this year.


Yes is a very good interview. What wasn't said is also important:

*The Stream was associated with ios devices only, with no mention of porting it to Android or Win 8 devices.*​
The sequence of releasing the "mini" before the general Premiere software update may also explain why at release the mini will not work with 2 tuner Premieres.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

I wouldn't read TOO much into the order (except possibly the lack of an android mention). The fall software will definitely happen first. That ball is already rolling, and the Mini needs it to hijack the tuner, do remote scheduling, and whatever else.

The real take-away there is that I think it buzzkills the hope of some that they wait until the dynamic tuner allocation is functioning first.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> I wouldn't read TOO much into the order (except possibly the lack of an android mention). The fall software will definitely happen first. That ball is already rolling, and the Mini needs it to hijack the tuner, do remote scheduling, and whatever else.
> 
> The real take-away there is that I think it buzzkills the hope of some that they wait until the dynamic tuner allocation is functioning first.


It somewhat makes sense if they want to get it out there before the holidays. It would also let a smaller pool of people do an initial non-beta usage test to see if any major issues pop up that also need to be addressed prior to mass usage.


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## SugarBowl (Jan 5, 2007)

I was never able to get a privately owned Tivo to stream with a cable company issued Tivo. Any chance the Mini will be able to stream from a cable company provided Tivo (Suddenlink). Or does the mini have to come from the cable company as well ?


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think it depends on the cable company. The most important thing for all TiVos is that they be on the same account. That's the only way for them to have the proper encryption keys needed do streaming. If you can see your cable company TiVo on your account at tivo.com then it will likely work with a Mini. However if your cable company keeps their TiVos on some private account you don't have access to then it will not work. The fact that you could never get a retail TiVo to work with the cable TiVo likely means your cable company uses the later so a Mini probably wont work either.

Dan


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## SDLshannon (Oct 3, 2012)

SugarBowl said:


> I was never able to get a privately owned Tivo to stream with a cable company issued Tivo. Any chance the Mini will be able to stream from a cable company provided Tivo (Suddenlink). Or does the mini have to come from the cable company as well ?


Hi SugarBowl- My name is Shannon and I am with Suddenlink. I'd be happy to get this answered for you. Please email me your account information at shannon-AT-suddenlink-DOT-com. Thanks!


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## Traal (Jul 8, 2002)

Zatz: TiVo Mini IP-STB Delayed Until 2013*


> At this point, Ive heard from multiple solid sources that a retail launch is no longer on the table for 2012, although the Mini has been in testing for some time and *MSO availability is still a possibility.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

TiVo, fumbles? Again? Say it isn't so!


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I think it would be a bigger fumble to release it to the retail market as-is. (or at least how we've been told it is) with it requiring a 4 tuner "host" to even get through setup and the w
permanent hijack of a tuner to watch live TV it would be a support nightmare. Should they have targeted real dynamic tuner allocation right from the start? Absolutely. Should they release it before they have that working just to appease a few people who understand the limitations and are willing to live with them? Nope. If they don't have the dynamic tuner allocation working yet then I think it's the right call to hold it back. MSOs can deal with the limitation by only offering them as part of a package, but retail is a free for all and very few customers will actually understand the limitations before buying. Overall it sucks, but it was probably the best move. 

Dan


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

has tivo EVER hit a deadline that they have announced? 

I guess there must be a few but the scorecard must really be pathetic.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

MichaelK said:


> has tivo EVER hit a deadline that they have announced?
> 
> I guess there must be a few but the scorecard must really be pathetic.


Premiere, Elite, Preview, Stream... They've actually done fine in that regard over the last few years. The Mini is the first delay disappointment in a while.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Officially announced and delivered Premiere, yes, but rumor has it like the Mini it was ready to go before the holidays. Don't forget the quick install sheet showed up in someone's TiVo HD box in November or December.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

From _announcement_ to release, yes. A rumor of an earlier release doesn't hold up as well as this case with the Mini.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Premiere, Elite, Preview, Stream... They've actually done fine in that regard over the last few years. The Mini is the first delay disappointment in a while.


I guess I'm nit picking but I don't consider half done products to be done on time. I don't think it's a stretch to say that only the most recent premiere software update could be considered to have been a "complete" release of "new" hd UI. (at least they hit season passes and most major screens- who even knows if it will all be HD before a hypothetical Series 5 comes along.....)

The stream only counts if you are an apple fanboi but anyone else it's not done. There's no way that counts as done.

What was the announcement for comcast vod- don't recall- perhaps they did basically hit that one?

Apparently there was some virgin media app for apple announced to be ready a year ago that is now just finishing beta.

Is Comcast actually deploying premeires yet? Or installing customer owned ones? What was that announcement(s)?

Perhaps the preview was complete at launch?

It's not a great track record- even of late.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

MichaelK said:


> I guess I'm nit picking but I don't consider half done products to be done on time. I don't think it's a stretch to say that only the most recent premiere software update could be considered to have been a "complete" release of "new" hd UI. (at least they hit season passes and most major screens- who even knows if it will all be HD before a hypothetical Series 5 comes along.....)
> 
> The stream only counts if you are an apple fanboi but anyone else it's not done. There's no way that counts as done.
> 
> ...


With your definition I would say that 99.9% of Consumer Electronics aren't done at launch. I think the general consensus is that TiVo has been doing a pretty good job over the past 18 months hitting their development and release milestones. In fact, I'm trying to remember a TiVo Margret tweet where she announced something months in advance that hasn't come true. She announced the HD screens for ToDo, Season Passes, and History right after the last release and they hit that deadline right on schedule.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

sbiller said:


> With your definition I would say that 99.9% of Consumer Electronics aren't done at launch. I think the general consensus is that TiVo has been doing a pretty good job over the past 18 months hitting their development and release milestones. In fact, I'm trying to remember a TiVo Margret tweet where she announced something months in advance that hasn't come true. She announced the HD screens for ToDo, Season Passes, and History right after the last release and they hit that deadline right on schedule.


Dont want to have a huge argument and it could be i wasn't clear but your characterization is way off. I have never bought another piece of electronics that I considered so half done like the premiere or the stream. If you read my posts you will see that I'm far from a tivo premiere software basher. But the software they originally delivered was pathetic- it had no usuable HDUI for people wanting parental controls, almost all the screens were in SD. (I'm not one to complain at all that the HD screens were "too slow"- the box is what it is). Just read the threads here- I'm not out in left field here with my views.

I've never bough a windows phone, a palm phone, an android phone, an apple device, a pc, a blueray player, etc that was "missing" so much. Many of them got/get upgraded over their lifetimes and I consider it a gift but the premier and the stream were just plan half done- and almost no one rational on these boards will describe them otherwise- nor describe most consumer electronics devices in the same manner.

sometimes you get hardware from some tiny vendor where you are constantly a beta tester and the thing is always "just about done but not quite"- see the micasaverde vera home automation box as an example. And I'm down with that and have plenty of those sort of devices that i've bought and tinkered with. But a fairly large company selling so many boxes like tivo just shouldn't be selling product so half baked. (all in my humble opinion of course). They are the only game in town and I AM a fan- so i keep buying them. But they really seam at times like there's only 3 software developers in some basement in india who dont understand what TiVo is telling them to do.

(actually thought about it- one other device I bought over the years from a company i thought was big enough that should have done better was the Sirius Satellite radio S50. That thing was an infuriating half baked mess. Later models were better- they actually learned from their mistakes. But that first one was crap at launch)

I guess we can agree to disagree if you think the premiere was a finished product when it was launched and that the stream counts as done although it only works with apple devices and nothing else. But personally, i just don't see it that way.

And to be clear- margret has been GREAT and the NEW way of doing things is awesome where she is honest and up front. But the hardware is plan released WAY WAY WAY before the software is ready. You're picking one tiny bit of positive (communication about the premeire software updates) the past 18 months and ignoring things like the "new" directivo debacle and things like the year over due virgin apple app, and the stream being released half done. And the fact that the premier was released so half backed that margret has to communicate with us at all about the catching up they are doing. If the box they released had todays software then she could ignore us because each software release would be giving us something NEW and unexpected and not something that we were all waiting for for 18 months.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

I agree with Michael when it comes to the Premiere. It was not finished. It was rushed to market half done and then all but abandoned for almost 2 years. Only recently have they started picking up development on the Premiere and actually fulfilling the initial promise of the Premiere.

However I disagree about the Stream. The Stream is a fully functional accessory. Just because the app doesn't yet run on platforms other then iOS doesn't mean it's half done. They're perfectly clear on all the marketing materials that this is an iOS only pariphrial. It's not like the Premiere where they advertise and promoted the HDUI ad nauseam and then released something that was less then half finished and so excruciatingly slow that it was barely usable. The only part of the Stream that I'd consider incomplete is the live TV support. The way they do it now is a bit of a hack. However I suspect that once the Mini is released with dynamic tuner allocation they'll be able to add that feature to the Stream as well. It's more of a limitation of the TiVo software, and the Mind RPC protocol they use for communication, then the Stream itself.

Dan


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

I completely agree with you MichaelK that the TiVo Premiere was launched half baked in March 2010 - almost 3 years ago. I think there's been a radical shift in the engineering culture at TiVo in the past 18 months. They've managed to unify the software platform that's delivered to a myriad of hardware platforms in the US and Europe. The iOS App is one of the best second screen apps on the market. The addition of the Stream functionality differentiates it even more. The major improvements in the UI came early this year which made the HDUI usable for the vast majority of community members. The two subsequent updates have been rolled out basically on schedule providing incremental and evolutionary improvements to performance and experience. I dismiss the Directv TiVo as a product that was doomed to failure because of an n acceptable business arrangement. I don't want to argue about this either but I think it's pretty obvious to the community that there has been a significant improvement to the optempo of development and release of high quality hardware and software at TiVo.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

They have come a long way since the disaster that was the Premiere launch, but it's obvious to me that they picked the wrong software platform to do the HDUI on the Premieres. The hardware was released before the software was ready, and now the current hardware will apparently never be able to run the HDUI (and net apps) as fast as it should even though the software has been fully updated.

There was a serious disconnect between the hardware and the software side of the house, and I'm not sure that's changed. I guess we will have to wait for the S5 to see.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

slowbiscuit said:


> They have come a long way since the disaster that was the Premiere launch, but it's obvious to me that they picked the wrong software platform to do the HDUI on the Premieres. The hardware was released before the software was ready, and now the current hardware will apparently never be able to run the HDUI as fast as it should even though the software has been fully updated.
> 
> There was a serious disconnect between the hardware and the software side of the house, and I'm not sure that's changed. I guess we will have to wait for the S5 to see.


The Adobe Flash (now Air for TV) decision was a difficult one back in 2010. I'm pretty sure they may have selected a different direction but moving away from Adobe at this point would be very expensive and painful. Fortunately, Adobe hasn't completely abandoned the Air for TV platform. I'm hoping the Series 5 coupled with AIR 3 for TV will significantly improve the platform. It may even help the Series 4 boxes.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

Weren't those decisions made in 2009 or earlier?


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

aaronwt said:


> Weren't those decisions made in 2009 or earlier?


Good point. They were made much earlier than the launch date of the Premiere in Mar 2010.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

Not taking into account the (in)capabilities of the hardware that would ship, unfortunately. Or perhaps the software side of the house does not have the right folks to optimize the code for the platform.

But this is par for the course for Tivo nowadays, and as mentioned before I believe it's because they have no real competition pushing them to do a better job with both hardware and software.


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## jrtroo (Feb 4, 2008)

Their competition is to become profitable from operations. Primarily self- and market-imposed, but a goal they cannot ignore.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Yeah unfortunately the decision to use Air came before the iPad and the subsequent shift away from Flash. Adobe does offer tools to convert Flash to standard HTML5/Javascript. Perhaps someday we'll have a TiVo running a UI, and apps, based on browser technologies. 

Dan


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> ...
> 
> However I disagree about the Stream. The Stream is a fully functional accessory. Just because the app doesn't yet run on platforms other then iOS doesn't mean it's half done. They're perfectly clear on all the marketing materials that this is an iOS only pariphrial. It's not like the Premiere where they advertise and promoted the HDUI ad nauseam and then released something that was less then half finished and so excruciatingly slow that it was barely usable. The only part of the Stream that I'd consider incomplete is the live TV support. The way they do it now is a bit of a hack. However I suspect that once the Mini is released with dynamic tuner allocation they'll be able to add that feature to the Stream as well. It's more of a limitation of the TiVo software, and the Mind RPC protocol they use for communication, then the Stream itself.
> 
> Dan


very interesting point about the way they MARKET the stream- makes sense. Right now they present it as only being ios. Later I'm certain it will get android (might be months and months or another year). But since they never sold it as anything that's more akin to a phone getting a new firmware update that adds cool new features. So marketing is doing much better.

But the problem with that logic is it doesn't apply to what they implied it would be when they announced it. 
the press release
http://pr.tivo.com/press-releases/t...nd-multi-screen-offerings-nasdaq-tivo-0889555 (and I think probably the way they talked about it but T don't have tape or video or antyhing to prove it)
never said ios only. And I have to say I doubt anyone in their right mind thinks it's going to be ipad only forever. The press release talks about mulitple devices, mobile devices, tablets, etc and only mentions ipad and iphone in the context of "such as ipads and iphones". they even go far as to say " no matter how they choose to watch their programs" - it doesn't say "as long as they only own ios devices"

Tivo spokespeople have admitted that android is in the works.

It's half done. Well maybe 2/3rds done?

it's marketed much more honestly and openly which is AWESOME but it's not fully baked (or even not quite finished baking?).

It's similar to the premiere for the past year or 18 months- Margret's openness and honestly has been great but until a few weeks ago it really didn't mean the box was complete. So you can handle expectations and communicate great but still not be timely.

If folks want to spot them the mini then how about the YEAR late IOS app for virgin tivo's? If they use the same software base on the viirgin's as the US models then what was so complex about getting the ios app to run?

So I will give them an A+ for marketing and honestly after the fact but i still think their ability to hit a schedule on time is challenged. Maybe it's not as bad as terrible but it's still not exactly stellar.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

For me, an iPad owner, the Stream does exactly what I expected it to and it does it well. Honestly one of the best purchases I've made in a very long time.

The Premiere, not so much. Until very recently it provided almost no value to me compared to S3 unit. And while the recent update, the Stream and the prospect of the Mini finally have me excited about TiVo again I'm still disappointed that it took them so long to get to this point. Had they released the Premiere in it's current state 3 years ago it would have almost been everything I was expecting. 

As for the point... The Premiere had flaws an limitations that effected the core functionality of the device. The Stream may not work with every mobile device you, or TiVo, wanted it to but it does exactly what it was advertised to do. To me there is no way anyone can call it "half baked". I mean my iPad can run MS Word, but that doesn't mean it's "half baked". It's a limitation of the device. And something that could possibly be remedied someday just like the Stream will likely support more mobile devices in the future. 

Dan


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

sbiller said:


> Good point. They were made much earlier than the launch date of the Premiere in Mar 2010.


Probably 2008. TiVo Premiere was supposed to launch holidays 2009, and mine has a manufacture date of 2009.


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## swarto112 (Sep 10, 2012)

Just read an article that Canadian Cableco Suddenlink will be rolling out Mini's next year instead of STBs. Maybe production is the reason we arent seeing it sooner than later. Seems the sales teams have been target mid-sized cableco's and giving them a better option. http://www.cedmagazine.com/news/201...ts-robust-q3-plans-to-add-tivo-mini-next-year


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

From yesterday's (11/28/2012) earnings call -

Thomas S. Rogers - Chief Executive Officer, President and Director - Quotes about mini -



> In the U.S., our efforts with small and midsize cable operators continue to yield strong results as we delivered our strongest aggregate net subscription additions to date. With the announced launch of our non-DVR IP set-top box, TiVo Mini, with several operators and our streaming to the tablet solution which launched this quarter, TiVo Stream, as well as other planned products for next year, we believe that we are well positioned to drive similar results across all our partnerships with one of the most comprehensive whole-home solutions available anywhere.





> So we're always evaluating our product mix and a way to provide the best television experience and without specifically commenting on that product, I will say that we provided for the cable operator, the TiVo Mini, which is a non-DVR related offering and so there's nothing SAC remote [ph] by any means in terms of our product offering is it relates to tieing it to DVR. I will say that the people who have pursued the broadband only box approach have generally not demonstrated business models yet, which are very attractive relative to the -- how those are offered. And I'd also say clearly from all of our research that the multiple box, multiple remotes, not knowing what's coming from what source and therefore, not knowing how to easily access or search for the content you want, certainly not well-served by having something that only provides broadband sources when the overwhelming amount of television is still coming in from non-broadband sources. But the direct answer to your question we're always in the learning opportunities for TiVo can best serve customers and so we don't reject any concept out of hand.


So will the mini be for cable operators only or not?

sigh - still waiting to buy a Tivo Premiere XL4 - it hinges on the reasonable (ie, price and no monthly fee) availability of the mini.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

They said the Mini was coming to retail, but they never said it wouldn't go to MSOs first. With the current limitation of requiring a 4 tuner model and hijacking a tuner from the source it's not really well suited for the retail market anyway. But in the MSO world those limitations are much easier to deal with because the MSO has control over how the boxes are deployed and setup. We probably wont see the mini available at retail until after they get dynamic tuner allocation working and can allow it to work with any Premiere, not just 4 tuner units.

Dan


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Dan203 said:


> They said the Mini was coming to retail, ...
> 
> Dan


I poked around and googled but its too hard to ferret out tivo's specific quotes with a search- but do you a specific quote you happen to know of?

at the moment zatz says:


> Sadly, the only mentions of TiVo Mini DVR extenders is in relation to MSO cable partners and I have it on good authority that theyve yet to determine their retail IP-STB strategy  and, frankly, as compelling as the tech may be to consumers such as myself, it may not make economic sense for them to launch such a product through a Best Buy or without a subscription.


http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2012-11/tivo-gains-customers-signs-tebow/#more-32668


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

MichaelK said:


> I poked around and googled but its too hard to ferret out tivo's specific quotes with a search- but do you a specific quote you happen to know of?
> 
> at the moment zatz says:
> 
> http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2012-11/tivo-gains-customers-signs-tebow/#more-32668


It was announced as both a retail and cable operator product. The excerpt above is specific to what was said or not said at the quarterly call this week. I was originally told to expect a late summer release for the IP-STB, which was then pushed to fall and later branded the "Mini". Obviously there's only about 30 days left in 2012 and my sources have been telling me for months to no longer expect a retail launch this year and MSO availability is questionable... so it's another TiVo miss. BUT I'm hopeful they still choose to bring it retail. Eventually.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

I'm 99.9 percent certain that TiVo is bringing the Mini to retail. The question is when and how much. TiVo also indicated during the call that their not concerned about hardware margins on boxes so they can price the Mini very close to their actual cost. I don't expect they will choose to subsidize the Mini with a subscription model but that's possible. My bet is placed on a $149/box with a $4.95/mo subscription or $99 for lifetime.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I gave up and bought another Premiere. It's $6.95 a month on an old transferred plan, but at least it exists.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

davezatz said:


> It was announced as both a retail and cable operator product. The excerpt above is specific to what was said or not said at the quarterly call this week. I was originally told to expect a late summer release for the IP-STB, which was then pushed to fall and later branded the "Mini". Obviously there's only about 30 days left in 2012 and my sources have been telling me for months to no longer expect a retail launch this year and MSO availability is questionable... so it's another TiVo miss. BUT I'm hopeful they still choose to bring it retail. Eventually.


I have a 2-tuner Premiere that is obligated till May 2013. I'm hoping something is announced by then so I know whether to get a 4-tuner Premiere or not, but at this rate & the way Tivo has operated in the past, I may have to just move forward with my whole home solution/plan with Ceton/SliconDust & Xbox360 products instead. Shameful TiVo & I think you are REALLY missing the boat here with all the delays.


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## davezatz (Apr 18, 2002)

buscuitboy said:


> I have a 2-tuner Premiere that is obligated till May 2013. I'm hoping something is announced by then so I know whether to get a 4-tuner Premiere or not, but at this rate & the way Tivo has operated in the past, I may have to just move forward with my whole home solution/plan with Ceton/SliconDust & Xbox360 products instead. Shameful TiVo & I think you are REALLY missing the boat here with all the delays.


Well, it'd have to be with a HTPC as Ceton has scrapped plans to produce their Q DVR given Microsoft's lack of commitment. But if you're waiting as long as May, you may want to wait a bit longer. It's getting about time for a major TiVo hardware refresh and I wouldn't be surprised to see something new next fall. And given this Tebow marketing blitz, TiVo's obviously still committed to retail. :up:


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-wholehome/index.html

The images on this page aren't rendering properly on any of my devices.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I hope we see a new box sooner rather than later. I could almost see them launching a Mini and a new box at the same time. Hopefully some stuff is shown behind closed doors at CES. 

Now that the HDUI is near finished, there is a feeling of what's next for TiVo? I just hope they don't slowdown or go stagnant again.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> I hope we see a new box sooner rather than later. I could almost see them launching a Mini and a new box at the same time. Hopefully some stuff is shown behind closed doors at CES.
> 
> Now that the HDUI is near finished, there is a feeling of what's next for TiVo? I just hope they don't slowdown or go stagnant again.


The doors were wide open at the last CES and at the Cable Show in May. It will be interesting to see if they have anything to show next month at CES in addition to the Mini.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

sbiller said:


> I'm 99.9 percent certain that TiVo is bringing the Mini to retail. The question is when and how much. TiVo also indicated during the call that their not concerned about hardware margins on boxes so they can price the Mini very close to their actual cost. I don't expect they will choose to subsidize the Mini with a subscription model but that's possible. My bet is placed on a $149/box with a $4.95/mo subscription or $99 for lifetime.


You have no fracking idea what they're going to do, but anyone can speculate.


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


> I hope we see a new box sooner rather than later. I could almost see them launching a Mini and a new box at the same time. Hopefully some stuff is shown behind closed doors at CES.
> 
> Now that the HDUI is near finished, there is a feeling of what's next for TiVo? I just hope they don't slowdown or go stagnant again.


They're already in stagnation mode without effective competition.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

sbiller said:


> I'm 99.9 percent certain that TiVo is bringing the Mini to retail. The question is when and how much. TiVo also indicated during the call that their not concerned about hardware margins on boxes so they can price the Mini very close to their actual cost. I don't expect they will choose to subsidize the Mini with a subscription model but that's possible. My bet is placed on a $149/box with a $4.95/mo subscription or $99 for lifetime.


Assuming MSD, you could get two premieres with lifetime for $1100 versus a premiere 4 and a mini with lifetime for $900. The preimiere 4/mini combination is only going to have three tuners available for recording and 75 hours less space than the two premiere combination, but will have cooperative scheduling for those three tuners. I think I would just pay the extra $200 to get an extra tuner for recording and 75 hours more space, if I was spending that kind of money.

Even if you already have a premiere 4, paying an extra $300 for another premiere versus the mini get you 6 tuners for recording instead of 3 and an extra 75 hours of recording space.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

If they get dynamic tuning working with the Mini you would still have 4 tuners. There is also the benefit of only one TiVo to manage.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


> If they get dynamic tuning working with the Mini you would still have 4 tuners. There is also the benefit of only one TiVo to manage.


 You can choose to allocate 0 tuners to the Mini if you wish thereby retaining all 4 tuners. If really needed once a in a while you can enable 1 tuner for live TV viewing on Mini. TiVo could even add control over that from the Mini itself if they wanted to (though they probably won't).


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

Speculating is so much fun . 

I am sure the mini will make sense in some situations and will not in others. It is likely that for customers of the cable companies that are providing TiVos directly that it will make more sense as those companies will be using it to promote their own service. 

Frankly I am betting that many users of stand alone TiVo DVRs (as apposed to cable company provided TiVo DVRs) will end up looking at the mini and deciding that they are better off with multiple DVRs.

But honestly no one will know if the mini makes sense for their individual situation or not until it is available, we know how it works for sure, and the pricing is known.

Until then speculate away .


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

moyekj said:


> You can choose to allocate 0 tuners to the Mini if you wish thereby retaining all 4 tuners. If really needed once a in a while you can enable 1 tuner for live TV viewing on Mini. TiVo could even add control over that from the Mini itself if they wanted to (though they probably won't).


OK, that's good, but the Tivo isn't going to know how long you want to keep the tuner allocated. Would the Tivo prompt you to resolve every conflict created by the tuner allocation request before letting you watch live TV?


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

atmuscarella said:


> Speculating is so much fun .
> 
> Frankly I am betting that many users of stand alone TiVo DVRs (as apposed to cable company provided TiVo DVRs) will end up looking at the mini and deciding that they are better off with multiple DVRs.


I think the only thing that would drive many users to dual DVRs is pricing.

I expect I am a typical user - Large screen TV in the family room where 90% of our viewing is done. Smaller screen TV in my bedroom used mostly for late night viewing. Something along the lines of the mini makes perfect sense for me - It can use a tuner (most of my late night viewing is "live"), but I also have the opportunity to finish off a movie I started in my family room. I don't want a large DVR in my bedroom. A box closer in size to my Roku, and without a hard drive would definitely be preferable.

If Tivo chooses to price the mini so high that it's comparable with a second DVR, I expect they will lose sales to people like me.

My old Tivo died a few years ago (well, not physically - it was a non-Tivo branded unit and had software issues that Tivo refused to address / would no longer work). We all loved having it, but the lack of a cost effective whole home solution kept me from purchasing another. I'm hoping that changes, but if not, I won't be purchasing anything from Tivo any time soon.

...and BTW, as a Cablevision customer, I can stream to my iPhone and iPad for free. That also should be a "built-in" feature and not an added box / expense.


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## ah30k (Jan 9, 2006)

sbiller said:


> http://www.tivo.com/products/tivo-wholehome/index.html
> 
> The images on this page aren't rendering properly on any of my devices.


There is absolutely nothing new in that page. I was hoping to see thin clients mentioned but no. Just streaming to another premier.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

shwru980r said:


> OK, that's good, but the Tivo isn't going to know how long you want to keep the tuner allocated. Would the Tivo prompt you to resolve every conflict created by the tuner allocation request before letting you watch live TV?


not being sarcastic- i dont understand the need for live tv to take a tuner. it there's something you want to watch- why not just set the recording from the mini and then stream the program?

I guess you need the tuner allocated if you want to surf and bounce around between channels?

We have no idea but i'm sure tivo knows what percentage of their subs surfs and how often they do. Would love to see those numbers but think such things are probably more closely guarded then DOD secrets.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The Mini is designed mainly to meet the needs of TiVo's MSO partners. And since they have a vested interest in people watching commercials they're not going to do anything to specifically foster a mindset of recording everything. Plus they're competing with other whole home offerings in the industry, all of which offer live TV streaming. It may not seem like an important option to us, but it's important to MSOs and to a lot of new customers who don't quite grasp the concept of a DVR yet. 

Dan


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It's really not much different than using a VCR back in the 80's. At least the concept has the same goal. You use it to time shift all your TV watching. At least that is what I did. Although it took a bunch of VCRs to do it. But it's so much easier with a couple of DVRs.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

TivoQueensDad said:


> I think the only thing that would drive many users to dual DVRs is pricing.
> 
> ...
> 
> ...


Yes I believe the price of the mini will be one of the determining factors in deciding if the mini is preferable over multiple DVRs, but I don't think it will be the only one.

For someone like you that doesn't own an HD TiVo now I would think a whole home solution with mini will make sense but it still isn't going to be cheap. I am guessing something near $1000 for the DVR, Mini, & lifetime service, maybe that will also get you a TiVo Stream so you can stream content from the DVR to your i-device maybe not.


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

Looks like we have a winner; apparently the mini is FINALLY getting released around the first quarter of 2013 (although, I wouldn't be surprised at all if its closer to the summer time)

http://www.zatznotfunny.com/2013-01/tivo-mini-set-for-spring-service-fee-in-tow/

Looks like a monthly service fee will be attached to it too. I'm thinking (& hoping) around $5/month. Now, I wonder how long it will take them to make it also work with a 2-tuner Premiere. And of course, the real question for me; does it lock down/steal a tuner from a 4-tuner Premiere.


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## jmpage2 (Jan 21, 2004)

Yeah, that's all been discussed to death in the "TiVo Mini Lives" thread.


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## Davisadm (Jan 19, 2008)

Coming out end of 1st qtr
Monthly fee: $8.00
Lifetime: TBD
Cost: TBD
Does not work with 2 tuner Premiere
Dedicates 1 tuner from 4 tuner Premiere or upcoming (summer or fall) new 6 tuner Premiere.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Davisadm said:


> Coming out end of 1st qtr
> Monthly fee: $8.00
> Lifetime: TBD
> Cost: TBD
> ...


Where did you hear the monthly fee was $8? And where did you hear a 6 tuner unit was coming in summer or fall?

Dan


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## steve614 (May 1, 2006)

Dan203 said:


> And where did you hear a 6 tuner unit was coming in summer or fall?
> 
> Dan


He's probably referring to the Pace built 6 tuner DVR gateway that will be provided through a MVPD.


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## Davisadm (Jan 19, 2008)

Dan203 said:


> Where did you hear the monthly fee was $8? And where did you hear a 6 tuner unit was coming in summer or fall?
> 
> Dan


Last week, reliable source


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

Davisadm said:


> Coming out end of 1st qtr
> Monthly fee: $8.00
> Lifetime: TBD
> Cost: TBD
> ...


Hopefully it has more than 2TBs.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Davisadm said:


> Last week, reliable source


I guess we'll see how reliable they are in a couple months. $8/mo seems high to me for a Mini. Unless the initial hardware is really cheap.

Dan


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## slowbiscuit (Sep 19, 2006)

$8/mo. is a total non-starter, guess we'll have to see how much the box is w/lifetime.


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## TivoQueensDad (Jan 24, 2005)

slowbiscuit said:


> $8/mo. is a total non-starter, guess we'll have to see how much the box is w/lifetime.


Glad I'm not the only one to think this. Monthly cost to Tivo is probably pennies per box at most. Very inconsistent policy concerning non-primary-set viewing based on device - iPad vs second TV.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

Yeah - I am not thinking this is going to make sense for me either.


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## cherry ghost (Sep 13, 2005)

For a Premiere, how many months does it take to equal lifetime? About 30? If they use the same model, lifetime for a Mini would be around $240.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I'm paying $6.95/month on my Premiere-that-would-be-a-mini. And it has dual tuners and a hard drive in it. Add on the $2 a month I pay for the CableCard, and it's still only 95 cents more than this mini thing will cost.

TiVo blows it again.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Davisadm said:


> Dedicates 1 tuner from 4 tuner Premiere or upcoming (summer or fall) new 6 tuner Premiere.


Interesting. This is a 6-tuner "Premiere" for sure, not a "next-gen" box? Without at least a cpu upgrade that thing would be sluggish as hell. (I guess it could be both, but that kinda confuses things.)


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## magnus (Nov 12, 2004)

At $8 a month, I calling it a big waste of time. I'll not even be considering this. Lifetime sounds like an expensive proposition as well. 

If this is really true then I think Tivo might as well not even bother with it.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Interesting. This is a 6-tuner "Premiere" for sure, not a "next-gen" box? Without at least a cpu upgrade that thing would be sluggish as hell. (I guess it could be both, but that kinda confuses things.)


Not possible. The current platform only supports 4 tuners. They have to do a new design to add 6 tuners no matter what.

Dan


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> Not possible. The current platform only supports 4 tuners. They have to do a new design to add 6 tuners no matter what.
> 
> Dan


How do you figure? The original premier had two tuners.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The original Premiere had 4 tuners, two cable and two ATSC. For the 4 tuner model they simply replaced the two ATSC tuners with two more cable tuners. In fact the reason they had to disable analog recording is because the chipset they use only supports encoding two analog streams at a time. With the original Premiere this was OK because it was never allowed to record more then two things at once. But with the 4 tuner model they would have had to make the scheduler asymmetrical to support analog. For simplicity they just turned off analog completely instead. 

The 6 tuner unit will need to be a whole new platform. It'll likely use a similar chipset which supports Adobe AIR, so they don't have to rewrite all the software, but it'll likely be newer and more capable of handling the burden of supporting 6 tuners. 

Dan


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

I wouldn't be surprised if they called it a Premiere still. 

I really think they will keep the Premiere name for a while or at least until they are ready to release the next 2 tuner model.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Is this a limitation within the CPU itself or some other secondary chip on the pcb? (I'm curious as an amateur nerd.)


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

Dan203 said:


> The original Premiere had 4 tuners, two cable and two ATSC. For the 4 tuner model they simply replaced the two ATSC tuners with two more cable tuners.


I thought the original Premiere had two tuners, each with a combined QAM/ATSC/NTSC tuner, and a pair of MPEG encoders to turn analog signals into digital. Or else it was a dual-tuner QAM chip and a dual-tuner ATSC/NTSC chip. Either way I'm pretty sure I remember it only having two tuner modules. There are no provisions for recording four sources at once, even if they programmed it to do so, because it only has two physical tuners.

The reasoning behind the waiver for the Elite was so that they could use a single 4-tuner QAM chip instead of four QAM/ATSC/NTSC chips and four sets of MPEG encoders. They removed about $100 worth of hardware to make the Elite, compared to what it would cost with all those extra tuners and support chips. If a 4-tuner QAM/ATSC tuner chip existed, we'd have a 4-tuner OTA TiVo.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The MPEG encoder is built into the Broadcom chipset*, which is the same in both units, and only supports encoding 2 streams at a time. It's not part of the tuner module itself. The physical tuner modules in the Premiere do have multiple tuner chips in them but they still each feed into a separate "port" on the chipset. And there are only 4 tuner "ports" on the chipset used for the current platform, which is why they can never have more then 4 tuners.

The 6 tuner unit will likely still be called a Premiere, and will run the same basic software, but it will have to use a better chipset which will likely improve performance over the current units. In addition to being faster and supporting more tuners some of the newer Broadcom chipsets also support H.264 transcoding which means the unit could have built in TiVo Stream capabilities. 

Also, I can't be 100% certain, but I believe it is highly likely that given the proper software the 2 tuner Premiere units could actually record 4 things at once. Two from cable and two from ATSC. However they would never do that because it would be way to confusing for the user and the scheduling logic. 

Dan

* Every TiVo since the original S2 has used an MPEG encoder built into the chipset.


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## Arcady (Oct 14, 2004)

I can't find a 6-tuner QAM chip in the Broadcom catalog. I only see 4 and 8 tuner. The 8-tuner chip is interesting, because it has MoCA built-in, along with a DOCSIS 2.0 cable modem. This could save some money for TiVo and also eliminate the tuning adapter for SDV users.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

They don't necessarily use broadcom tuners. They use their CPUs, though.

It's possible they could continue to use the Premiere name, but that BCM7425 chip is substantially more powerful and featureful. It rightfully earns a Series 5 stamp in terms of its capabilities. If they keep the Premiere name, how might the naming convention explain the difference between "old" Premieres and "new" Premieres for the rest of the next-gen 2/4 tuner lineup... without making the Premiere family even more complicated than it already is? Heh.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Maybe they'll call it Premiere (2nd gen) like Apple does with all it's products now. 

Dan


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Getting back to the Mini, that price would be a non-starter here too, and it would not bode well for a sub-$200 box + lifetime.

Sadly this whole scenario is potentially falling apart. The delay of an exciting product was disappointing enough; squandering that excitement further by overvaluing their _accessory to a box many of us paid $800-$1000 for_ just busts the deal.


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## uw69 (Jan 25, 2001)

I could see how a Mini would be attractive to someone with one Premiere and needing to expand to another room. If someone already has multiple Premieres on PLS then the value proposition just doesn't seem to be there.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

uw69 said:


> I could see how a Mini would be attractive to someone with one Premiere and needing to expand to another room. If someone already has multiple Premieres on PLS then the value proposition just doesn't seem to be there.


If you want to get rid of additional cable cards it is. That is what I want a mini for. I will get rid of one of my cable cards and then that Premiere will become OTA only and the Mini will be put in that location. Then I will move the Premiere to another location and that is the box I transfer content to so I can take the Premiere over to my GFs house.


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

The Mini is intended to help TiVo compete against other whole house solutions. It's not intended to get people with active Premiere units to replace them. If they add a 6 tuner TiVo and user profiles to the mix then they will have the most comprehensive whole house DVR solution on the market.

Dan


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> ... If they keep the Premiere name, how might the naming convention explain the difference between "old" Premieres and "new" Premieres for the rest of the next-gen 2/4 tuner lineup... without making the Premiere family even more complicated than it already is? Heh.


why do you need to change conventions for "old" vs "new" if you dont plan on changing the software that runs on them to add differentiating features to the only "new" ones?

If i recall there were several generations of 'series 2' hardware but tivo never did anything besides call them series 2 tivos.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

MichaelK said:


> why do you need to change conventions for "old" vs "new" if you dont plan on changing the software that runs on them to add differentiating features to the only "new" ones?
> 
> If i recall there were several generations of 'series 2' hardware but tivo never did anything besides call them series 2 tivos.


Pretty much this. IIRC we only found out a series 2 was out when someone opened their new series 1 to upgrade the drive. The naming didn't change and I don't think the packaging did either. Also since we know the 4 is slower than the Premiere upgrading the internals to handle 6 tuners would be necessary.

I also don't see features coming out on the 6 that don't work on the Premiere unless it is hardware related like transcoding on the chip. Even then they can pass the upgrades off as a more expensive model with extra features. They could even release it as a "XL" model only initially.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

MichaelK said:


> why do you need to change conventions for "old" vs "new" if you dont plan on changing the software that runs on them to add differentiating features to the only "new" ones?
> 
> If i recall there were several generations of 'series 2' hardware but tivo never did anything besides call them series 2 tivos.


Those were relatively minor hardware refreshes for cost savings, etc. Ditto for the Tivo HD vs the Series 3. This however would literally be a tripling of performance, simultaneously creating a viable "app" platform that the Premiere cannot do without everything working like a slog, and plus the integration of streaming capability. It differentiates itself automatically.

So there's a fair case to question the use of the same name for the next generation, if it's not at least a missed opportunity to re-brand since the long-term negative perception has been that the Premiere is Tivo's Vista.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Those were relatively minor hardware refreshes for cost savings, etc. Ditto for the Tivo HD vs the Series 3. This however would literally be a tripling of performance, also producing a viable "app" platform that the Premiere cannot do without everything working like a slog, and plus the integration of streaming capability. It differentiates itself automatically.
> 
> So there's a fair case for confusion if they all have the same name, if not at least a missed opportunity to re-brand since the long-term negative perception has been that the Premiere is Tivo's Vista.


I still think the rebrand happens after the 6. By having the 6 as their premium model, they can use a new chip at a higher cost while letting the prices drop before putting it in a new base model. They can easily pass off the added features as a high end model that work themselves into the next base model.

I think they wait until a new base model with 2 tuners and OTA is available before renaming the line.

Of course they could end up announcing a new 2,4,and 6 tuner at the same time.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

innocentfreak said:


> I still think the rebrand happens after the 6. By having the 6 as their premium model, they can use a new chip at a higher cost while letting the prices drop before putting it in a new base model. They can easily pass off the added features as a high end model that work themselves into the next base model.
> 
> I think they wait until a new base model with 2 tuners and OTA is available before renaming the line.
> 
> Of course they could end up announcing a new 2,4,and 6 tuner at the same time.


Yes, I figured they might kick off the next gen with just an XL6 at first, and let the technology trickle down the following year. But then they'll still have a 6-tuner "Premiere" which is really a Series 5. lol. Just seems easier and cleaner all-around to start fresh with a new Series 5 name. Heh. But whatever, I won't lose sleep over it.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Yes, I figured they might kick off the next gen with just an XL6 at first, and let the technology trickle down the following year. But then they'll still have a 6-tuner "Premiere" which is really a Series 5. lol. Just seems easier and cleaner all-around to start fresh with a new Series 5 name. Heh. But whatever, I won't lose sleep over it.


If you release a series 5 only 6 tuner initially you end up with people holding out for the Series 5 two tuner. By calling it the Premiere, sure you don't get the chance to dump the bad thoughts about the Premiere, but you don't get sales holding out for the new model.

With the Premiere coming up on 3 years, we really should be getting all new hardware soon so I can imagine getting a full refresh at once.


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## Philmatic (Sep 17, 2003)

Dan203 said:


> The original Premiere had 4 tuners, two cable and two ATSC.


It had 6, 2 ATSC, 2 NTSC and 2 QAM. The XL 4 dropped the 2 NTSC and 2 ATSC and replaced them with 2 more QAM tuners.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> Those were relatively minor hardware refreshes for cost savings, etc. Ditto for the Tivo HD vs the Series 3. This however would literally be a tripling of performance, simultaneously creating a viable "app" platform that the Premiere cannot do without everything working like a slog, and plus the integration of streaming capability. It differentiates itself automatically.
> 
> So there's a fair case to question the use of the same name for the next generation, if it's not at least a missed opportunity to re-brand since the long-term negative perception has been that the Premiere is Tivo's Vista.


My point was just becasue it can does that mean it will make use of more horses- so if it wont ever have more features they dont need to fret about a new name. I guess they could name it something like premier plus - 6 and then if they ever got around to adding anything to it they could say it's just for plus users. They never bothered calling the ATT tivo a "series 2" at launch becasue they didn't have any new features to add. If they plan to just skip over that generation they could keep the premier name.

interesting thought about premiere is vista- i guess that holds true for us and maybe other geek site readers- but doesn't joe sixpack even know what a premiere is? Also trying to get away from 'vista tivo' only works if tivo (the company) feels the premier is their vista and they decide they are going to make a major change in effort and software. Even with the new found effort of the past ~year to really upgrade the premieres there are still plenty of spots where it has SD screens- so it's tough to believe that the series 5 is magically going to make them care again about delivering a great product rather than just one that is "good enough"


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## Dan203 (Apr 17, 2000)

Philmatic said:


> It had 6, 2 ATSC, 2 NTSC and 2 QAM. The XL 4 dropped the 2 NTSC and 2 ATSC and replaced them with 2 more QAM tuners.


The NTSC tuners were built in to the QAM tuners. Pretty much all "cable ready" tuners can tun both QAM and standard NTSC. (they use the same frequencies just different modulation) From the perspective of the chipset and the software the unit had 4 tuners, 2 ATSC and 2 cable. For the 4 tuner units they replaced the ATSC tuners with 2 additional cable tuners. The only reason they can't record analog is because the chipset is only capable of encoding 2 analog signals at a time which means it would be impossible to record 4 analog channels at once even if all 4 tuners support it. Instead of creating some weird asynchronous logic where you can record 4 things, but only 2 can be analog, they decided to simply disable analog completely to avoid complexity and confusion.

The current platform can not support 6 tuners, of any kind, so at the very least they're going to have to use a newer chipset for a 6 tuner box. And in all likelihood that chipset will be faster then the current one so we _hopefully_ wont have the same performance issues with the UI that we have with the current boxes.

Dan


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

BigJimOutlaw said:


> They don't necessarily use broadcom tuners. They use their CPUs, though.
> 
> It's possible they could continue to use the Premiere name, but that BCM7425 chip is substantially more powerful and featureful. It rightfully earns a Series 5 stamp in terms of its capabilities. If they keep the Premiere name, how might the naming convention explain the difference between "old" Premieres and "new" Premieres for the rest of the next-gen 2/4 tuner lineup... without making the Premiere family even more complicated than it already is? Heh.


From comments over on Zatznotfunny it looks like the Mini is using the BCM7418.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> From comments over on Zatznotfunny it looks like the Mini is using the BCM7425.


Actually, the Mini is using the BCM7418... the companion SoC to the BCM7425.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

sbiller said:


> Actually, the Mini is using the BCM7418... the companion SoC to the BCM7425.


Thanks when I quoted him, I flipped the numbers in my head.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

sbiller said:


> Actually, the Mini is using the BCM7418... the companion SoC to the BCM7425.


 Which is why I was surprised the Suddenlink user posting about the Mini doesn't see much general speed improvement using the Mini over the Q. I would have expected the Mini to be much faster for HDUI and Flash apps seeing as it has newer chipset and also doesn't have any tuners.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

moyekj said:


> Which is why I was surprised the Suddenlink user posting about the Mini doesn't see much general speed improvement using the Mini over the Q. I would have expected the Mini to be much faster for HDUI and Flash apps seeing as it has newer chipset and also doesn't have any tuners.


He's confirmed it's faster now.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

But is it as fast as the SDUI on the current platform? I think a lot of people will be disappointed if we don't see that leap in speed 3 years later.


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## sbiller (May 10, 2002)

innocentfreak said:


> But is it as fast as the SDUI on the current platform? I think a lot of people will be disappointed if we don't see that leap in speed 3 years later.


It will be as fast as any other DVR on the market including DTV Genie & Dish Hopper. There are optimizations that TiVo will continue to work via performance engineering but I think this will address a lot of the current complaints. It will be a pretty solid offering for new customers.


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

sbiller said:


> It will be as fast as any other DVR on the market including DTV Genie & Dish Hopper. There are optimizations that TiVo will continue to work via performance engineering but I think this will address a lot of the current complaints. It will be a pretty solid offering for new customers.


The problem with that though is those DVRs are already out and will most likely be upgraded sooner. TiVo releasing a DVR later that is just as fast as what has already been out there is somewhat of a problem especially when you consider they have a longer life cycle. It is similar to the Wii U vs 360. Sure it is about as powerful as the current generation but that generation is already about to be replaced.

Now if the Mini is faster than the new TiVo maybe it will be time to make a TiVo server where every TV gets a mini and your TiVo sits in a closet or wherever your drop enters your house.


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## moyekj (Jan 24, 2006)

innocentfreak said:


> Now if the Mini is faster than the new TiVo maybe it will be time to make a TiVo server where every TV gets a mini and your TiVo sits in a closet or wherever your drop enters your house.


 That is tentatively my plan already. My Elite is really just too slow for manual interaction and I try to minimize interaction with the GUI as much as possible already, watching most shows on my 2 tuner Premiere which is faster. So if the Mini has a much snappier interface I probably would just put one in front of the TV where the Elite currently sits and just use the Mini as the main interface. Of course most likely the initial price point for the Mini with "lifetime" will probably kill that plan.


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## BigJimOutlaw (Mar 21, 2004)

Would be nice if we had some concrete specs on the 7418. Lot of speculation but no hard data. If it were a screamer you'd think Broadcom would publish some data.

Could be getting ahead of ourselves on the presumed performance. Megazone's Mini reporting from last year:

"I didn't get the specific model number of the chip inside, but Jim [Denney] said it is roughly equal in performance to the SoC in the Premiere XL4, and that performance on the IP STB can be even higher because it doesn't have all of the other work to do with recording, etc."


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## buscuitboy (Aug 8, 2005)

_First Quarter 2013_

And we have a WINNER!!!! :up: 

https://www3.tivo.com/store/mini.do


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

I'm still waiting for it to show up at BestBuy. Which I guess is supposed to be on Sunday.


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## HenryFarpolo (Dec 1, 2008)

aaronwt said:


> I'm still waiting for it to show up at BestBuy. Which I guess is supposed to be on Sunday.


It is now listed on the BestBuy website as "coming soon". It is shown as a Magnolia item. I picked mine up on Sunday in a store that did not have Magnolia.

Correction....The store did have Magnolia!!!


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

HenryFarpolo said:


> It is now listed on the BestBuy website as "coming soon". It is shown as a Magnolia item. I picked mine up on Sunday in a store that did not have Magnolia.
> 
> Correction....The store did have Magnolia!!!


I just saw it. I went to a BB with a Magnolia this past Sunday and they could not pull any info up about the Mini. So I'm just going to wait until Sunday to order or pick it up from BestBuy and use gift cards and a few reward zone dollars. Plus I want to get their 4 year warranty on the Mini.


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