Is a list of (perhaps) 80,000 customers and a URL worth a cool million? TiVo’s about to find out… as they’ve begun emailing Aereo castaways, having closed on various Aereo assetts through bankruptcy proceedings. As you can see above, the targeted pitch is actually pretty compelling. For those who have OTA reception, anyway. At $20/month, with a two year commitment, TiVo is offering the four-tuner Roamio OTA DVR with 500GB hard drive and a TiVo Stream to handle mobile viewing on iOS or Android. Beyond television recording and streaming, TiVo also includes a variety of online apps like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Instant. While I might find this to be a good deal, our pal Todd’s knee-jerk reaction when forwarding me the email blast was: ‘dafuq?’ So I’m wondering how others feel – chime in below! (By the by, the Aereo URL has not been updated… yet.)
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They probably could have done a bit better with the email subject line?
From: Aereo News news@messaging.aereo.com
Subject: Aereo Bankruptcy Resolution
Also, this is kind of a stretch considering it requires two boxes. Guess we'll let it slide given the bundle pricing.
the world’s only HD antenna DVR and streaming player in one.
I'm still thinking there is or should be a next gen Roamio OTA in the pipeline not based on the original Roamio and with streaming built-in... that'd be my strategy anyway.
Still bummed Aereo got shut down. No hardware, other than client endpoints, no commitments, everything in the cloud (for better and for worse), a "DVR" at every TV via Roku, and a reasonable price.
Lets make a realistic comparison. First, the 2-tuner TabloTV.
$200 2 tuner TabloTV
$120 $5/month subscription for 2 years
$085 2TB USB drive
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$405
If you go with lifetime it's only another $30 and a much better deal, but to be totally fair lets go with the monthly subscription.
Compare to the TiVo deal.
$000 TiVo Roamio OTA 500GB + stream
$480 $20/month subscription for 2 years
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$480
So the TiVo is an additional $75, and it only has 500GB of storage so you'll probably want an external drive. And for another $30, the TabloTV gets lifetime service. Then again, if you don't have a roku or firetv, you'll need to tack another $35 on the TabloTV too-- but both the roku and firetv are much better streamers than the TiVo.
They're pretty close, but IMO the TabloTV is a better choice.
Tablo is more versatile in what it can stream to and you have the benefit of placing it wherever reception is best. On the flip side, you need at least one Roku if you want to "watch on TV" - whereas the TiVo directly connects. Also, for iOS households, you can offload TiVo recordings for travel. I would also prefer Tablo in this comparison as you're not really locked in. Two years is a long time in this space - things are moving fast and TiVo's resale value may not hold up without Lifetime service. At least with Tablo, you're left with an external drive you can repurpose should you move on. Some folks might also prefer a publicly traded company over a startup, I don't know. If I were to cut the cord, I'd go Tablo - but I'm also more geeky than most. I imagine there's a bit of a conceptual hurdle, for some, to run it headless with your own personal cloud.