TiVo’s out with their annual Thanksgiving / Black Friday deals… and they’re way more compelling than what we’ve seen in recent years, despite TiVo’s usual poor presentation. For example, their refurbished $200 TiVo Roamio OTA represents a stellar value. Although you might not realize it because they don’t clearly communicate it includes Lifetime All-In service. We’re Tablo homers here for antenna television, but if you don’t require streaming to smart phones, tablets, or 3rd party boxes like Roku or Apple TV, two hundred bucks for a 4-tuner, 500GB OTA DVR is pretty much an unbeatable value. Heck, it’ll even beam your programming to TiVo Mini set-tops and you can swap out that hard drive for something more spacious any time you like.
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Saw their email blast and you're right, they didn't tout Lifetime. How'd you see that? Click to buy fine print? Time to upgrade the OTA Premier!
Why is it that they discount the OTA version so heavily as compared to cable/FIOS version, do you think? Doesn't seem that the hardware or the guide data should be that much less expensive. Is it for fear of cannibalizing their existing customer base whereas they see the OTA customer as a segment with less penetration for their products?
Dave, a ZNF reader pointed it out to me and once you add it to the cart you'll see both the service details and drive capacity. Still no mention of tuners. Also, while this is a great deal for ourselves, you wouldn't gift a refurbished device. TiVo marketing always baffles.
Bill, they modestly refreshed the OTA model in going from a 500GB drive to 1TB drive. So this is older inventory they want to unload. Also the other models are Bolts, which include streaming, upgraded processors, more costly hard drives, etc. The Bolt deals aren't bad but, at this stage of the game, I would go monthly.