TiVo Community Forums Archives - TiVo maybe offering $499 hardware "upgrade"???

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TiVo maybe offering $499 hardware "upgrade"???
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Posted by: Glen Graham

No, this is not complete speculation. I gave my parents a TiVo for Christmas (upgraded to 134 hours, thanks to an 80-GB Maxtor).

I talked to my father tonight, and he said he had received e-mail from TiVo (a survey? He said there were questions to fill out and he was not sure he should tell them he has a 130-hour "modified" TiVo, and he could not remember what the original size was, since he got it modified)...

This is where I am a bit fuzzy - either the e-mail mentioned TiVo will be offering, or it was trying to guage if TiVo should offer a $499 upgrade to 200 hours. I did not ask for details since we both assumed I would also get the e-mail (my computer had been in pieces for several days).

I re-assembled, and had no e-mail. I have scanned the last 5 days of the forum that I've missed and have seen no reference.

Anybody hear anything about this? I think, if it is accurate, it is an awesome deal. As near as I can figure, a 200-hour TiVo would contain 2 80-GB drives (about $210 each), and undoubtedly would preserve your warranty! It would offer maybe about 65 hours at BEST quality.

Note, if this e-mail was supposed to be confidential, please delete this post (my father is a bit of a technological luddite, so may have missed that if it was in the e-mail).

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Glen
***********************************
Whatever is not nailed down, is mine.
Whatever I can pry loose... is not nailed down!

Philips HDR-312 @ 130+ hours, 2.0)

Posted by: John494900

These are for the people who got the survey, only, so it might get deleted. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif thanks for the info though.

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John,
A Proud and Happy TiVo: Owner, User, Informer, and Supporter!
Captain - TiVo Army!
2.0.1.z15 - Philips 30 hour
2.0.1.001 - Philips 30 hour

Posted by: eaadams

huh so some people will get upgrades to 200hrs!!??

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Evan Adams
eaadams@ucdavis.edu

Posted by: ILoveMyTiVo

It's a survey to decide if there is interest. TiVo sends different surveys to subsets of the customers every so often. TiVo does not seem to object to people posting about what was in a survey. They just ask people not to post the actual link to the survey so univited people don't submit answers, ruining the sample chosen.

By the way, people received different prices or number of hours to determine what people would pay.

Another thread http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/Forum1/HTML/007183.html

[This message has been edited by ILoveMyTiVo (edited 05-29-2001).]

Posted by: nmiller855

I would love this option to be offered by TiVo. I was lucky to get single drives on my last 2 purchases (I have since learned about serial number indication). I've been kicking around the idea of doing the upgrade myself but am just not comfortable with the idea. I didn't get the survey but would gladly pay TiVo a reasonable price for the piece of mind to not have to undo the upgrade and redo it if something goes wrong.

Posted by: Graymalkin

If they can upgrade the old (circa 1999) 14-hour Philips and the new (circa 2000) 14-hour Philips, I'd pay for it.

Posted by: doom1701

You know what the ultimate irony would be? If Tivo wasn't quite sure originally how to upgrade the size of the "A" drive in their own boxes (doesn't it seem odd that the first upgrade they offered was a second drive, rather than a bigger single drive?) Now that TivoMad has figured out how to upgrade the "A" drive, all the sudden there is talk of Tivo offering an official A drive upgrade...

Yeah, conspiracy theory, but it's fun...

Posted by: Otto

Definitely a silly theory, doom. More like, now that Maxtor has bought out Quantum, Tivo's chosen drive maker, they're considering using Maxtor's other drives, and trying to work out if it's worth it to get Maxtor to stick the Quickview technology into some of their 80 gig models.

Just a guess.

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Everything I say is my opinion and not necessarily a statement of fact. Deal with it.
Otto, Zen TiVo Master - Moderator - AVS Tivo Forums - Tivo Underground, Tivo Coffee House
"The way of the portable computer user is as a stony path strewn with plugs and sockets, all the wrong size..." -- Terry Pratchett

Posted by: Dan203

quote:
Originally posted by doom1701:
You know what the ultimate irony would be? If Tivo wasn't quite sure originally how to upgrade the size of the "A" drive in their own boxes (doesn't it seem odd that the first upgrade they offered was a second drive, rather than a bigger single drive?) Now that TivoMad has figured out how to upgrade the "A" drive, all the sudden there is talk of Tivo offering an official A drive upgrade...

Come on! They wrote the software, I think it's safe to assume that they know A LOT more about how to use bigger drives then TivoMad. In fact, as I understand it, if it wasn't for TiVo's built-in MFSAdd function TivoMad's utility wouldn't even work.

The only reason they've been holding back on size up until now is because Quantex, there partner, only made drives that were 30GB or smaller. Now that Maxtor has bought out Quantex, and their QuickView technology, they have the ability to go as high as 100GB per drive so they're testing the waters to see what the public would be willing to pay for.

Dan

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Moderator: TiVo Coffee House, Help Center & Happy Hour

Posted by: Badpenny

I received the email survey the other day. 200hr upgrade for $600. No thanks, too expensive. Now if they would provide a removable drive that could be swapped at will I would consider that. It would be useable for saving home movies, etc. I read somewhere that Western Digital's spinoff was going to do something like that.

Posted by: smak

It looks like to me that they're trying to guage the amount of profit that people think they should make from doing the upgrade. I think the $500 mark is about right. If the 80 gb's are $225 for us, it should be a lot cheaper for them. So they'd probably be making $150 or so from each one. To me that's not a bad deal for me. I'd probably take them up on that one, if it were to keep my warranty.

In the future tivo could do something on a new software version, that without their knowledge would harm self-hacked machines, and i think it would be worth it to be safe, and not take the time to do myself.

-smak-

Posted by: tbowie

quote:
Originally posted by smak:
I think the $500 mark is about right. If the 80 gb's are $225 for us, it should be a lot cheaper for them. So they'd probably be making $150 or so from each one. To me that's not a bad deal for me. I'd probably take them up on that one, if it were to keep my warranty.
-smak-

Smak - I am curious as to why you would be willing to pay $150 extra to Tivo just to keep your warranty, when for $180 you could buy a brand new Tivo - _IF_ you needed it. Just curious as to what everyone's mindset is on this. The $30 difference/gamble does not seem worth it to me. I am going to do it myself, and if there is a problem, just buy another Tivo.

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Phillips HDR212 v2.0.1 (...in need of a hack)

Posted by: sbourgeo

quote:
Originally posted by tbowie:
Smak - I am curious as to why you would be willing to pay $150 extra to Tivo just to keep your warranty, when for $180 you could buy a brand new Tivo - _IF_ you needed it. Just curious as to what everyone's mindset is on this. The $30 difference/gamble does not seem worth it to me. I am going to do it myself, and if there is a problem, just buy another Tivo.

An upgrade that is under warranty would be attractive to people with a lifetime sub.

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Steve

Philips 312-03 30 hour
2.0.1-002-000

Posted by: eaadams

too bad they can't throw in a 2nd tuner/encoder. That is about the only thing that would get me to spend more than $300 on my TIVO.

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Evan Adams
eaadams@ucdavis.edu

Posted by: rem2

quote:
Originally posted by nmiller855:
I was lucky to get single drives on my last 2 purchases (I have since learned about serial number indication

Is there a way to tell if you have a single drive unit by the Serial Number?

Posted by: smak

quote:
Originally posted by tbowie:
Smak - I am curious as to why you would be willing to pay $150 extra to Tivo just to keep your warranty, when for $180 you could buy a brand new Tivo - _IF_ you needed it. Just curious as to what everyone's mindset is on this. The $30 difference/gamble does not seem worth it to me. I am going to do it myself, and if there is a problem, just buy another Tivo.

I'm saying they would make $150 off my purchase, but if I were to buy the drives myself, i'd be paying more than they would for them.

So they may profit $150 off of my upgrade, but i'd only be spending maybe $75 extra to do it through Tivo instead of myself.

ps. I am in M.I.S., but i am not the best at opening up computers and taking out and adding stuff...

-smak-

Posted by: loubob57

I think I would probably jump at this for $500. It would save me from doing the upgrade myself (which I'm sure I could easily handle). But my time is worth a lot. And since I do have a lifetime sub, I'd be risking that if the upgrade went haywire for whatever reason. The only big downside is having to be without your TiVo while they do the upgrade. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Philips 30 Hour TiVo Running 2.0.1

Posted by: Deven

For people with DirecTivo's, who might not be able to even watch live TV without it, could they offer el-cheapo "loaner" DirecTV receivers that people could move their access card to (would this work?) and use while the DirecTivo is out for the upgrade?

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"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay

Posted by: HornHonker

quote:
Originally posted by Deven:
For people with DirecTivo's, who might not be able to even watch live TV without it, could they offer el-cheapo "loaner" DirecTV receivers that people could move their access card to (would this work?) and use while the DirecTivo is out for the upgrade?

The card marries to the receiver so TIVO would have to provide a working card with the loaner. Too much hassle I would guess....

Posted by: Deven

quote:
Originally posted by HornHonker:
The card marries to the receiver so TIVO would have to provide a working card with the loaner. Too much hassle I would guess....

You know, marrying the card to the receiver OR marrying the card to the owner is one thing, but doing BOTH is really unconscionable. Actually, I wonder if it's entirely legal; by the first-sale principle, you should be able to sell your DirecTV receiver -- if neither you nor the buyer can continue to use the card, does that constitute some sort of restraint of trade? They're effectively taxing a secondary market sale by forcing replacement of the access card...

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"Simple things should be simple, and complex things should be possible." - Alan Kay

Posted by: smak

Well I don't know the legalities, but i do know that if you call directv and say you want to give your receiver and card to your parents, they want to ram $125 out of you.

-smak-