As Comcast, the nation’s largest cable provider, continues to transition from MPEG-2 to more efficient MPEG-4 video delivery, TiVo is walking back plans to abandon legacy hardware.
Whereas TiVo Series 3 and HD owners were originally told (in dramatic fashion) to upgrade their DVRs (at a cost, of course), I assume the fear of significant stand-alone customer defections motivated the company to rethink their approach … and they’re now engineering a solution to retrofit TiVo HD hardware.
TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL: TiVo is working on a software update which will bring MPEG4 capability to TiVo HD DVRs. Customers can expect this update sometime in the first half of 2016.
The original Series 3 is still out of luck as far as MPEG4 goes and both platforms are smarting from the loss of Amazon and YouTube video. Yet, I’d wager that most these TiVo owners have had a great 7-10 year run — a span pretty much unheard of in this space.
(Thanks Mike!)
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TiVo has like 5 or 6 times more cable customers, thru the likes of Virgin and RCN, than stand-alone subscribers. But on a per-subscriber basis, stand-alone is far more lucrative. Granted, many of these older ones are Lifetimed and no longer on the books as generating revenue.
I'm surprised they're doing this. I can't imagine that people who bought TiVo HDs are bringing in that much revenue. When I got my Roamio, I lifetime'd my HD and gave it to my sister to use. She isn't paying a monthly fee. So why bother?
TiVo HD XL owner here. April 2009. And Commiecast Sufferer.
I'd MUCH prefer the newer platform, of course, but it's not quite in the $$$$.
So, I'm happy, happy. Merry Christmas HD owners!!!
I paid $880 back then with lifetime. So I've averaged $8.80 per month (and dropping) cost for the TiVo.
My first cable card is free and Comcrap DVR's are currently $22/month(and that's the LAST I've checked it could be even MORE.)
I always LAUGH when people say TiVo's are "expensive" or cable DVR's are free. I've saved a TON of money with my TiVo.
Same thing with my cable modem. Bought my DOCSIS 3.0 modem for $88 about the same time. Cable modems are (last time I checked) $9/month.