Well, it’s finally out.
PVRBlog has a writeup with links to the other main writeups. For many of my friends that are reading this, Megazone’s FAQ is a pretty useful page of specs and info. For the most part, it looks like a great machine and I can’t wait to have one. About the only downside if you are on Comcast (in terms of features), is the lack of on demand programming, but I tend to have more than enough on my tivo such that I only use on demand at Leslie’s place.
I figured I’d go ahead and comment on the price. Some people would say that $800 is too much for a tivo when you can get a comcast unit for $10 or so a month. For me, the main differentiator is the interface, features, and the storage size. The fact that it has an esata port on the back is a big differentiator to me. The big question is about service plans. For me, there are 3 options.
- Transfer the lifetime service from my current series 1 (from Nov 2000) for $199. This gets me lifetime on the series 3 and 1 year service on the series 1. This is tempting because I’m amazed that the tivo is still chugging along with it’s 120GB drive in it.
- Use the multi service discount to just pay $6.99/month instead of $12.99/month. The big question here is what if my series 1 breaks or I give it to my parents to use. There is some very explicit wording in the terms and conditions that makes me nervous.
- Buy 3 years of service at $299. This comes out to about $8.31/month, so it is worse than #2, but it is straightforward and not connected to my series 1 box. However, it is certainly worse the #1 unless you can get the tivo substantially cheaper at someplace like circuitcity or bestbuy.
- If you have a tivo that was activated with lifetime before Nov. 1999, I believe that you still have a one time transfer that you can use at any time. You’d want to call tivo and make sure, but I’ve read about it on tivocommunity.com, so I’m pretty sure it would work. This is what I’d do if I had one.
That’s all I’ve got for the moment. I’ll post more when I’ve bought one. The major hidden cost of the tivo is trying to explain to Leslie that I can only afford to go to Wendy’s or Panda Express after buying the tivo.
After what was probably not enough deliberation, I bought myself a series 3 tivo on Sunday. From the tivocommunity forums, I knew there was some chance of finding one at the Fry’s store off of Brokaw in San Jose. I’d tried the Sunnyvale and Campbell Fry’s stores on Friday, but couldn’t find any at either location. I’d never been to the one off of Brokaw before, but I can’t say that it’s a lot different than any of the others. I’d probably order them (from good to crappy) Sunnyvale, San Jose, Campbell, Palo Alto. Anyway, I went straight to the back of the store and found what looked like the last one that was in stock. I had been tempted to order online from tivo.com and give them the extra profit on the sale, but I read that tivo seems to be having a lot of trouble filling demand for orders placed on their own website. Unfortunately, I can’t experience any HD with the tivo until I schedule a comcast appointment to install the cable cards in the tivo. For anyone interested, I’ll probably post again once I’ve had a chance to play with it.