TiVo giving away Series 3 player - and launch date?

While it's not unheard of to hold a contest where the prize doesn't yet exist, it's usually not a good idea to offer a prize that won't be available relatively soon after the contest ends. So, the fact that TiVo has just launched an eleven-week contest in conjunction with American Idol, in which the grand prize is a TiVo Series 3 DVR, has already resulted in a flood of speculation as to when the long-awaited box will finally materialize. The contest rules stipulate that TiVo has up to four months after the end of the contest to fulfill, meaning that the latest the Series 3 will be available will be October. Engadget contributor Dave Zatz speculates that the box will be out the first of September, at a price of $800. Anyone else want to hazard a guess?

[Dave Kaufman @ Mar 14th 2006 3:06PM]

As a lowly Tivo Series 1 subscriber, anyone want to point out a link that talks about all the things on the screen image (besides the contest)?

Thanks

[Matt @ Mar 14th 2006 3:07PM]

$800?!?!?!?!

[TiVoPony @ Mar 14th 2006 3:10PM]

Regarding the release date:
"Selected entrants will receive the the weekly prize by mail within thirty (30) days of the Weekly Sweepstakes end date and the Grand Prize by mail within four (4) months of the end of the Sweepstakes Period (exact timing subject to change based upon availability of Grand Prize, which is scheduled to be released for public sale in the second half of 2006)."

Pony

[Joe P @ Mar 14th 2006 3:10PM]

I don't think TiVo can afford to wait until late summer to get this on the market. The $800 pricepoint also isn't low enough to sway users from cable company alternatives. It's cheaper to use your cable company DVR to handle HD recording, and use the now almost free Series 2 for the networking features.

Series 3 needs to hit the market in early summer at $400 or better to be taken seriously.

[Samuel McConnell @ Mar 14th 2006 3:10PM]

Note: it's a Series 3 DMR, not a DVR. I assume "digital media recorder".

[Alex @ Mar 14th 2006 3:27PM]

It's fine if they want to charge $800, but then they had better offer a life time subscription. Otherwise, I am simply not going to buy a series 3. And I say that as someone who has been evangelizing the greatness of TiVo for 5 years, and has previously owned series 1, 2 and direcTV tivos

[james @ Mar 14th 2006 3:29PM]

Pony? Wrong forum, get back to tivocommunity! :) One question, does it come with a lifetime sub? I keed.

#1, that's series two. Everything you see there is available on series 2.

/series 1

[Smylere @ Mar 14th 2006 3:32PM]

$800??? Ouch! Its hard for me to pay that for a PC, let alone a DVR...and on top of that a subscription fee too... Gimme a break!

[wondermnd @ Mar 14th 2006 3:35PM]

$800? Are they nuts? Who is gonna buy a thing like that?

[Ryan @ Mar 14th 2006 3:36PM]

HD Tivos for Directv were $1000 when they first came out; $800 doesn't seem out-of-bounds for the capabilities.

[Dave Kaufman @ Mar 14th 2006 3:36PM]

#6 it does come with a lifetime! Also I figured that it was a Series 2 screenshot, just curious what I was looking at.

What's the Podcaster, SameGame, Wordsmith, Skull&Bones, apps.tv menu items do?


#4 follow the story link, there's another screen capture that shows you guessed correctly about DMR. (Do they think a new acronym will "excite" plain old DVR customers who didn't adopt TiVo to go get it?)

[Scott @ Mar 14th 2006 3:41PM]

That $800 is that Zatz guy's GUESS. No basis in fact on pricing for this sucker yet.

Seems like the original Series 1s, the larger-capacity ones, were about that much when they came out some years ago, weren't they?

And with TiVo dropping the lifetime subscription plan now, I doubt they'll be offering it with the new box. :P

[hotani @ Mar 14th 2006 3:42PM]

So an $800 HD TiVo is better than the one I can get from comcast for $10/month RIGHT NOW how exactly? Oh, it pays for itself in 80 months, that must be it.

[Baz @ Mar 14th 2006 3:46PM]

Anyone else notice they are calling it a DMR. I must assume - Digital Media Recorder. Implying that it doe smore then a DVR

[Tom Carstensen @ Mar 14th 2006 3:59PM]

Directv HD Tivo's are now $400-$500 brand new. i just got a new on off ebay for $350.

[michael @ Mar 14th 2006 4:00PM]

Will it still work with my lifetime? everyone is buying more tivo boxs now that lifetime is going away so if i buy 2 more tivo boxs with both lifetime will it work with S3? cause i dont care how much S3 costs i want one.

[Caleb @ Mar 14th 2006 4:14PM]

To #14 (michael): Lifetime subscriptions are linked to the physical TiVo box, not the person who owns it. They cannot be transferred from one unit to another.

[Caleb @ Mar 14th 2006 4:18PM]

To #12 (hotani):

The Comcast HD DVR boxes just suck when compared to a TiVo.

I have both hooked to my TV at home and dislike the Comcast box immensely. It records HD and has two tuners, that about as much as I can say for it.

The user interface is super-clunky (finding shows is a real chore), and has its share of bugs. For example, my "Series Priority" list contains two item #12s and I can't reorder anything above/below that slot; deleting Series recordings doesn't help.

The Comcast box also loses video sync occasionally, and the audio disappears completely a few times a week, requiring changing channels or starting a recording from MyDVR to correct.

The price discrepancy between $10/mo and $800 is pretty large, but I'll be waiting in line for the Series 3 when it comes out. Can't wait!

[Anthony @ Mar 14th 2006 4:30PM]

I just got off the phone with TiVo support. The rep said they will have HD TiVos "in the second half of the year."

[mattharvest @ Mar 14th 2006 4:41PM]

(a) Lifetime subscriptions are for the lifetime of the box and are non-transferable.
(b) The Series3 is, from the demoes they've shown, radically superior to any device out today. It will feature, among other things, two cablecard slots, etc.

[JSM @ Mar 14th 2006 4:42PM]

I'm not sure what you are all so excited about - you must love commercial TV - it's Not like you are going to be able to record the Sopranos or any cable movies in HD unless they are busting the HDMI spec or recording from the analog outputs (yuck). Look, TV had a good run but HD copy protection makes it a non-player so long as the cable guys control the receiver. This is why the DirectTivo worked, because it was integrated with the receiver and didn't have any DRM problems.

[sinisterdesign @ Mar 14th 2006 4:43PM]

yowza, i hope that guesstimate is off. i'm dyin' for a new Tivo. right now it's the weak, analog link in my A/V setup, but $800 is pretty steep.

[ventivent @ Mar 14th 2006 4:54PM]

I literally just ordered a Sony DHG-HDD500 500GB HD PVR from smartbargains. They're on sale for $599, minus 15%...came out to $509. Tweeter's across the country were clearing them out for $249. Granted the interface has a lot to be desired, but the ability to record OTA and Cablecard HD broadcasts without a subscription fee is pretty nice, especially at thsi price.

[TY @ Mar 14th 2006 5:00PM]

i'll you one of many reason to get a tivo over generic whether be sony or cable co. TRANFERS, the ability to transfer show to other tvs in the house is worth it right there, especially with the tivo wireless adapter they transfer 3 times faster than real time. i am not going to buy A series 3, i'm gonna win that one in the contest and buy 2 others :)

[invaderluj @ Mar 14th 2006 5:10PM]

800$

i could buy a series 2 or build a dvr for way cheaper

[John @ Mar 14th 2006 5:44PM]

You may be able to buy a Series 2 but it won't do HD and you will not, as I understand it, be able to DIY a cableCARD-capable DVR. The DMCA folks will not allow it.

John

[Napos @ Mar 14th 2006 5:52PM]

There will not be a $800 price tag. TiVo just announced the hardware + service bundle pricing structure last week at a cost of $19.95/month. Are they going to scrap that AGAIN after releasing Series 3? Come on...

[Matt @ Mar 14th 2006 6:32PM]

Didn't Comcast liscense Tivo software? What are they going to do with it? I know I'd like Tivo to Go on my DVR.

[patrik @ Mar 14th 2006 7:06PM]

I bought a $1000 DirecTV TiVo that will be useless in a few months when DirecTV rolls out MPEG4 feeds. Blow another grand on this crap only to have Comcast (or your local cable provider) render this box obsolete? I'm not getting burned again until TiVo is more entrenched in the cable delivery platform chain.

[dr_mal @ Mar 14th 2006 7:22PM]

#21 - huh? Record from the analog outputs of what? HDMI is between the TiVo and the TV, not between the CableCard (or antenna) and the TiVo. Sure, HBO could set a flag to prevent recording in HD, but it would affect HR10-250s and current cable bag-of-suck DVRs as well. Quit spreading FUD.

[kip @ Mar 15th 2006 12:15AM]

Tivo needs to realize that they should be a software company and not a set top box firm. The idea of set top boxes is noting new and is being commoditized like bandwidth. All they are doing is trying to sell for a service we all want to see for free and are baiscally seeing undercut by cable firms. They need to adapt to the market, like palm did, and license, license, LICENSE! Turn into a data aggregator and give me more info on my tivo. tie in with Itunes and give me the ability to download shows/movies/music into my home. If they are going to follow the hardware model, they are sunk. Either that or selling their boxes for under $100 and working closer with advertisers/progamming managers.

[TiVo @ Mar 15th 2006 10:58AM]

#28: My HR10-250 does HD just fine and that is a Series 2 :)

[Kichigai Mentat @ Mar 15th 2006 12:28PM]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned MythTV. TiVo is just now catching up to where Myth has gone. Myth has had High Def support for a little while, is international (IE you can get a Myth box running outside of the US, as well as with non-NTSC standards), networking capabilities, expandable storage, multiple tuners, news downloads, RSS feeds, a web browser, and DVD burning software, all in one box (or two, or three, or five, or more, if you wish). TiVo is just NOW getting high def support (without the old DirecTiVo). At a price tag of $800, you're better off building a MythTV system.

MythTV isn't that hard to use. Using KnoppMyth, I had the system up and running very quickly, with very little trouble.

Of course, we all know that the TiVo isn't going to sell for $800. Just like the gaming consoles, the TiVo will be sold at a loss, but they'll hope to make the money back on the subscription fees. We might see a TiVo S3 at $300-$400, which wouldn't be too outrageous for someone who threw down the cash for a HDTV.

That's probably why they removed the lifetime subscription option. If they sell a TiVo for $400, then give you a lifetime subscription for $300, they're short $100. They're a company, and they're out to make as much money as possible (that's their job, you can't blame them for that). With competing DVRs (MythTV, Windows XP MCE, SageTV, Cable/Satellite companys' DVRs, TiVo, third party DVRs) we should see some price stabalization... hopefully.

[sqweak @ Mar 16th 2006 12:11AM]

35: mythtv, MCE, and any other PC based DIY dvr don't do cable card, which means the only signals you're getting in HD is OTA.

why else will I buy a s3? I'm an IT geek, I get paid to hack at *nix all day. The *last* thing I want to do after a 12 hour day in the trenches is have to hack at my dvr because it's on the fritz. This is the same reason I stopped playing PC games in favor of consoles. Time Vs Money, my time is worth more than the marginal markup of Tivo vs DIY not to mention the "It Just Works" factor.

Quite frankly, I've got no problem giving my money to a (consumer/hacker friendly) open source success story like tivo.

[The Jeremy @ Mar 16th 2006 2:02PM]

To Cullen,

You can't build an HD DVR from home components that will work with the CableCard 1.0 or 2.0 specs (as does the Series3 TiVo) no matter how much you extoll the virtues of MythTV and other TiVo software alternatives. And thus, no soup for you!

You'd have a better rant if you said "I won't buy a Series3 unless they bring back the *lifetime service subscription* option."

[WWebb @ Mar 17th 2006 3:29PM]

People ask why you'd shell out $800 for a TiVo Series 3 instead of renting a cable box DVR.

The answer is that people want vendor independence. They want to buy technology that they can take from service provider to service provider.

Remember when you had to use the phone company's telephones? They were clunky and boring, like cable company DVRs.

[Todd Eckstein @ Apr 26th 2006 11:26AM]

I think the new Tivo DMR (Series 3) is to complete with the Windows Media Center, in that it can "DVR" your television programs (2 channels with two TV input cards), and do all the other stuff like show pictures, play all your .mp3s, get online feeds, all from a cool looking GUI right on your TV in your living room.

[Threefingeredlord @ Nov 23rd 2007 7:41PM]

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