I’ll admit it, I went to tivo.com today and looked at their new highly-anticipated device named the “Premiere”. I think the design is beautiful and having seen TiVo’s in the past, I can imagine that the interface and the actual device is going to blow away any DVR currently offered by cable or satellite companies. I know I’m very disappointed with my DVR from DirecTV. It’s sluggish, the search feature is almost laughable, is slow (did I say that already? oops…), the fast forward feature is awkward, I get artifacts in my recordings, and sometimes a whole recording is rendered useless because of some malfunction or another. Most of the time it works ok, but it is not a fun device to operate.
Maybe this post is coming from a little jealousy. If the TiVo worked with DirecTV I would probably want one. But there’s no way that I would ever pay $500 for the device and then pay $399 for their lifetime (of the device!) subscription or opt for the $12.99 monthly fee. That’s basically $900 for something that should “only” cost $500. I mean, the device will do all the work. The most that would have to be provided by TiVo are the TV listings. Like I tweeted today, it’s like me selling you a cake and then charging you for every bite. Maybe more appropriate would be like selling you a car and then charging you every time you got behind the wheel. Doesn’t that sound ludicrous? Why should you have to pay for something you’ve already paid?! It’s not like the cable or satellite companies charge you a use fee on top of the rental fee…right?
I get it, TiVo was an innovation when it first came out in 1999/2000 and now DVR is a necessity in most homes. Still, I think that this double-billing should be examined. If I were a TiVo user, I’d be furious and outraged.
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