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TiVo Will Die
Espectr0 writes "Yahoo! News has a PC Magazine-reprinted story about why they think the TiVo will die because of rising competition. From the article: 'It's always hard to write an obituary, especially when the subject is still alive. It's especially hard for me, because I love the little guy like a brother. But, alas, TiVo will die. I was one of the first reviewers to get my hands on an early TiVo box. I compared TiVo with ReplayTV, and although I really wanted to like ReplayTV, TiVo won my heart over.'"
The present "street price" of a "DirecTV DVR with TiVo Serivce" is only $99, with only a $4.95 per household DVR service fee that is waived for subscribers to DirecTV's highest programming plan and is not charged multiple times if there is more than one DirecTiVo in the same household. There is of course a one year committment required to avoid a $300 early cancelation fee, but that's standard for all new DirecTV units.
So, let's not compare apples to oranges. The standalone TiVo risks getting priced out of the market, and the HD TiVo is not yet ready for mass distribution, but the DirecTV model is flying off the shelves. The Moxi product isn't available to consumers outside of limited testing markets yet, and News Corp's yet to release a US-aimed PVR or even say they're going to do so so all that product has is speculation by pundits. When your biggest competitors are pure vaporware, I'd say your company is doing pretty good.
If you take it to a TiVO repair center, they will transfer your lifetime subscription to a new TiVo.
TiVO has a new product called TiVoToGo. It should be a Media Center killer, since it will give you the added flexibility you need without having to have yet another crashing Windows box in your house. Here's the press release: "from TiVO. I think this new product will give users what they really want, which is more flexibility for managing their content, and having a 'library' capability that doesn't fall short at the size of the TiVO box. Rich