What would you sacrifice to produce a lower-cost HD TiVo?

[zonereyrie]

On TiVo's last quarterly conference call, their CEO stated that TiVo would "be highly focused this year on launching a lower-priced, mass appeal High Definition product." Now Gizmodo has reported on a rumor of a 'sub-$300' unit. Personally, I think that's pretty low. The 180-hour S2DT is $200. *Maybe* they could get an HD box out at $300, but I

Comments

[avacon]

I think it's critical to be no worse than the "free" HD DVR boxes
that the cable companies ship. As such, dropping dual tuner would
probably be a poor choice. Trimming back on the front panel
and the remote and the THX certification (as who cares about the
certification as long as the device is the same quality/specs)
are obvious. They could probably cut back on disk space, but
if so this makes the eSATA port even more important --- people
should be able to upgrade to a larger drive and being able
to sell an expansion drive would seem to make up for the cost of this.

One option that might also be on the table (but would probably
be a bad idea) would be to cut down on the number of analog outputs.
DACs are expensive so it might be cheaper if they could keep it
down to just an HDMI connector and analog+digital audio out
(skipping component/composite/svideo output).

[mhaithaca]

Yup, the front-panel LED info display is neat, but utterly unnecessary. Likewise any glowy "nightlight" features. The box needs to look decent, but decent-looking plastic consumer electronics cases are pretty easy.

Smaller hard drive? Nah. But sure, don't put all the fancy cables in the box, since the average user will just use one, and the store can help them determine (and sell them) what they need. Heck, it's an opportunity to sell affordable TiVo-branded HDMI and component cables on the next shelf over.

I doubt the THX certification costs them enough to worry about, but I also don't think it's critical. Dual tuner? That's critical.

Would it be cheaper to build with a spare internal drive port instead of an eSATA port? Probably, but maybe not by much. That shouldn't be that expensive a component.

[gladstone]

I would sacrifice the HD because I don't have one of them fancy television boxes.

[slothman]

I’m quite happy with my Series 2 TiVo with DVD burner. If a Series 3 one were to come out with a DVD burner, I’d jump at the chance to get a couple of cable cards and not have to worry about the flaky IR control of the digital cable box, but losing the ability to transfer non-HDTV content from the TiVo to DVD would be annoying. (I’m still using an S-Video CRT set from 1994; I’ll probably upgrade to HDTV sometime, but I’m not in a hurry.)

[davmoo]

I may be in the minority, but there is one last thing they will have to do to get me to buy a HD unit, besides lowering the price. And that is they are going to have to make it work as well with satellite as they do with cable. Using them as an example, the S2 dual tuner units are 50 percent useless to me. I can understand why they make a box that is designed to work best with cable...but they need to remember that cable users are not their only customers.

I'm getting ready to buy one of the refurb single tuner boxes so I can have a second unit in another room. I didn't realize they were going to discontinue the single tuner models until they were originally already gone.

I would like to see a box that has a Dish Network satellite tuner built in...but I also realize that they will be serving ice water in Hell before that happens (and that is almost entirely the fault of Dish Network, I'm sure).

[aizjanika]

And that is they are going to have to make it work as well with satellite as they do with cable.

Same here. We have DirecTV and will not be changing back to cable as long as we live here and probably not ever. (I have three regular single-tuner Series 2 units, one with a DVD burner in it, that we use with the cheesy IFR controls, which actually work pretty well for us.)

I'm actually delaying upgrading to an HD TV downstairs (we have one upstairs), because I think everything will look crappy on it if it's all through the Tivo and that's the only way I watch TV any more. I don't want the HD DVR that DirecTV offers.

I don't care whose fault it is. :-(

[zonereyrie]

TiVo cannot make an HD DVR that works with satellite, unless the satellite vendor allows them to. So don't wait for it. If Dish loses their appeal to TiVo, *maybe* they'd license TiVo's software to settle the issue - but they could just license the patents and keep using their own software.

DirecTV used TiVo and switched to NDS because Murdoch bought them, and he owns NDS. Now that he's selling DirecTV to Liberty Media, a major TiVo investor, there is a chance they'll switch back. But I wouldn't count on it.

Unless something big changes at one of the providers, TiVo is locked out of the satellite HD market.

[aizjanika]

I know, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't suck. :-( I love my Tivo, but I want to get an HD TV, too. My husband and son don't care that much about the Tivo thing with their TV upstairs, but I care a lot. *g*