While I can’t vouch for the source, one TiVo Community forum member indicates he attended “dealer training” — where he came away with the final pieces of the TiVo Mini puzzle. And we’re purportedly looking at a March 6th retail launch, with hardware running $100.
As expected, assuming this pans out, the TiVo Mini will also set us back an additional$6/month or a flat $150 up front for “lifetime” service. The service fee remains somewhat befuddling, given such a large percent of the Mini is powered via a 4-tuner TiVo Premiere DVR, which comes with its own set of fees, and couple with the fee-free TiVo Stream that provides similar extender functionality to iPads. However, we suspect the idea of “subscribers” is a strategic move on the investor side of the house.
Beyond availability, Digital Dawn seems to reinforce our tuner allocation launch details… but also provides details on what comes next. Assuming TiVo can stick to the schedule, they’d release true dynamic tuner management in the second quarter this year, with each 4-tuner Premiere supposedly supporting up to 9 TiVo Minis and up to 4 simultaneous streams.
We’re pretty anxious to get our hands on one (or more) of these extenders and while $250 probably represents a hefty profit margin for TiVo, it doesn’t seem unreasonable – especially in conjunction with reports of significant app speed improvements due to a more modern Broadcom BCM7418 chip.
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