Woot’s offering the TiVo Premiere for $65 today, including shipping and while supplies last. These refurbished units also happen to be grandfathered in under the previous $12.95/month service plan. Which seems to suggest current subscribers could alternately add this unit to their account with a multi-unit service discount (MSD, $9.95/mo). Over the years, I’ve purchased 2 or 3 refurb TiVos and never had a prob – they looked new and worked fine.
(Thanks for the tip, Jon!)
Any comments from readers on what, if any features, can be used without TiVo’s monthly service? Netflix? Youtube videos? Etc…?
Nada, man. You can yank the hard drive out and that’s about it.
I ordered one to replace my secondary TiVo HD refurb, that was a woot deal ~ 3 years ago. Haven’t had a single problem with it. These refurb deals on woot are a great way to get a tivo, and I’m hoping my HD will go for about the same price on eBay.
I wonder if one of those being sold is my old one…sent it to Tivo for repair and never saw it again! :)
Yeah, only very early TiVo models allowed manual recording or any features at all without a subscription.
This is really, really tempting. I wish they were offering the XL at a similarly reduced price. Yet another TiVo I need an external hard drive for just seems like the wrong choice, though.
Looks like they are now sold out.
MHA, Some S2s (with DVD drives) came with TiVo Basic service (in addition to the early S1s you mention) like the Toshiba SD-H400 I loved so much.
tivoboy, Still looks like they have stock here, unless I’m pulling up a cached page?
Oops, looks like they ARE NOT sold out, bought two, what the heck, been meaning to switch the PIL to cable HD for a while now, should be cheaper than the current 20$ a month model. Will setup in a couple months, or one can always probably sell for same
Thanks for the tip! I just got back into the “stand alone” TiVo game with a Premiere I obtained using the $0+$20/mo deal.
This will allow me to add the second one so I can get another TV away from DirecTV. One more to go and they are out! (still having a hard time getting the wife to go all ‘Net and OTA…she likes to channel surf)
I just bought one… still available in my browser.
For a second I was tempted to replace the S2DT in my exercise room, but it would result in a step backwards since I would no longer be able to MRV programs recorded there up to my TivoHD in my family room.
I know I’m beating a dead horse…
Tivo (via customer service chat) is saying no to MSD. I specifically asked about my grandfathered $6.95 plan and was told no transfers. :(
Bad news, but thanks for checking. Hopefully (or not) that CSR knows what they’re talking about. Woot’s description didn’t indicate it was possible, although it did mention Lifetime. Wonder if MSD is gone for good?
MZ points out on Twitter you should be able to add Lifetime at the existing subscriber rate of $299 (if you’re an existing subscriber). So $364 for a lifetime of TiVo seems pretty reasonable and is probably the best Premiere deal I’ve seen.
Argh. I was hoping to get 2 of these to swap out with my old, old S2s, and maintain my old $6.95 MSD. Too bad.
Over Tivo Support Chat, initially I got a No you can’t activate this for $299 lifetime as an existing subscriber—$399 only. (No way).
But she later came back after I challenged this and she said Yes, I could activate it for $299 lifetime.
So I bought it.
Of course, I had upgraded my current Tivo HD to a 1 TB drive last year, and I love the bigger drive; I couldn’t go back. So after I feel all is well with the premiere, will try adding a 2TB drive now that I heard it can be done on the Premiere. And then sell the old Tivo HD “XL” on Ebay with Lifetime after I feel comfortable all is well.
Good find!
“So after I feel all is well with the premiere, will try adding a 2TB drive now that I heard it can be done on the Premiere.”
Yup. That’s the way to go.
I still don’t want the new UI on the Premiere, but doubling the disk capacity and getting the faster I/O performance are worth it at this price point.
And for whatever TiVo’s faults, they are unusual these days in making consumer boxes that are actual a pleasure to work around inside of. It’s one of the reasons I love ’em.
Tempted if the $299 lifetime was available without being the squeaky wheel.
My TIvoHD and series 3 are woot refurbs. Still going strong.
Furious I paid close to 150 bucks for them and this is coming in at 65 bucks.
Oh well. Im not upgrading b/c I dont think a few updated menus and still no built in wifi is much of an upgrade.
Just curious: Anyone ever sell a Tivo with Lifetime on Ebay to someone? Is it tricky?
For example, my Tivo HD with LT is over a year old. That means there is no warranty on it. If the buyer complains about the box (it is working just fine for me), how do I handle this? (What if the buyer breaks it and says it came that way?) How does one handle this?
A little off topic, but the shiny new Premiere is going to lead me to Ebay for the old box in the near future, and selling the old box was pitched on this blog quite a bit last year as the best way to make this upgrade happen. So I assume me readers have had experience with this.so
Jon, it’s hit or miss. If you get an honest person who knows what they’re buying, it’s smooth. But it’s also possible to have not-so-smooth transactions – and this isn’t specific to TiVo. I started unloading all my stuff via a local ebay consignment and then Gazelle to avoid that hassle. Unfortunately, last time I checked Gazelle didn’t handle TiVos… and I’ve got a TiVo HD I need to unload.
Dave, did you buy one from Woot or did your embargo’d demo at CES hold you back? :)
Bought one. It was so cheap it was almost an afterthought. Not sure I’ll activate it, or when. Planning a projector set up in the basement later this year, might use it there. The kids would not want to lose access to the comcast on demand stuff, and not sure how they’d roll with using multiple boxes (small kids) even with the blessed Harmony One remote.
At a minimum I’ll hook it up to rabbit ears to test the ATSC tuner to see if I could ever cut the cord. If I turn it on, it will be lifetimed or not at all. Hope there isn’t an experation date on making that call.
Jeremy, I already have a Premiere with Lifetime, plus a S3 on grandfathered monthly MSD ($6.95) and a decommissioned TiVo HD. So I’m pretty well covered on hardware irrespective of anything I may or may not have learned in Vegas.
Depending when IMG 1.9 on FiOS TV is released and how it turns out, I may decommission the S3 in favor of another Motorola box for a more authentic whole-home DVR experience. Info on IMG 1.9 is public and I was under the impression a national deployment would begin pretty soon. (Although I read something on the Broadband Reports forum that said March.) The benefit of the cable-co box, even if it’s not really cable, is that I can add and remove hardware at will with no commitment beyond the monthly fee ($15-$20).
Dave, I figured as much, but remembered your CES TiVo post and figured it was worth poking some fun. I have a S2 hooked up to an OTA digital tuner… Flasher never quite worked right, so this was a no brainer for me. Have a S3 and HD, so everything will get bumped down one and the S2 will get bumped to eBay or electronics recycling. Also opens up Netflix streaming for that TV, which gets used more and more all the time in my house. As I wait for Woot to deliver, is the interface the same for Netlix on the premiere? This is starting to become a pain on the S3/HD. Perhaps more speed would help, but categorization would help more. Are you satisfied with your premiere over the S3 now that time has passed / updates occurred since launch?
Jeremy, currently the interface for Netflix is the same on the Premiere though of course everyone is hoping we see an updated version to match the quality of Pandora. Of course if you use the HDUI you really won’t need the Netflix UI unless you just want to browse your queue. I never go into the Netflix UI since I just search for the shows or movies I want and play them from search results if they are there.
So Netflix results show up as a part of a search, that makes sense… I guess an improved interface would still be good as I have kids and tend to go back to the same things from the queue on a regular basis. Thanks brennok.
Got mine. All set up, no problems… Or not any Significant… Signing up for service there was no lifetime option. Set up service yesterday and switched to lifetime service today. Don’t know why the option wasn’t there to begin with. Also, gotta say I think the remote is a step down from the S3 or HD packaged remotes in a couple ways: first, it seems the IR is weaker. Second, not a big fan of the harder plastic and higher profile on the directional circle at the top of the remote. May be an adjustment as there was moving to the s3 remote with select in the middle of the circle instead of just under it, but maybe not. So far, I have yet to see anything much different on the premiere. Haven’t gone looking yet, been focused on getting all the season passes in order, but surprised a bit how everything’s the same.