TiVos for HD OTA in Canada

[awebber]

jft436, impressive collection. I have a WD HD Live (old small one) for Netflix and (in theory) stuff off my TiVo converted to MPG2 or whatever, though I haven't used that yet. When you said you were thinking of cancelling and resubbing at higher price, I thought maybe you hadn't thought of taking TiVo to FL, or fly.

FunkyTown, it's $499 vs. $14.95 or $399 vs. $12.95, the latter pricing being for people who have another TiVo. Sounds like you'd qualify for $399. I'd be worried about putting Lifetime on a refurb unit, though I guess it will fail or not either way.

=aw

[FunkyTown]

When I bought my second TiVo I paid $499.99 for the lifetime. Perhaps they did not have a discount in May 2011 for previous TiVo owners? Or I missed it - one or the other.

[awebber]

It's not for a previous owner, it's for concurrent machines. So if you only have one machine now, you don't get the discount. I think it's called "MSD" or Multi System Discount or something.

Sorry if that wasn't clear.

=aw

[FunkyTown]

I bought the Premiere in May 2010. Then in May 2011 I bought the Premiere XL. Both are hooked up. I paid $399.99 for the lifetime Premiere because in 2010 that's what it cost, but the price of the Premiere was higher. In 2011, the Premiere XL cost less than what I paid for the Premiere, but I paid $499.99 for the lifetime.

Maybe I got ripped off because it was my second concurrent TiVo. Or maybe they didn't offer this in 2011.

[awebber]

Could be, it could also be that you bought during the period where they lowered the hardware price and jacked up the service price. I was somewhat excited by the $99 price of the Premiere, but then it turned out the monthly price wasn't the same as for my S2DT (or maybe it's more because of HD etc.). Maybe your second lifetime was $499 as MSD and was priced at $599 for a single-machine customer? Don't know if TiVo would make an adjustment now but if they actually charged you the wrong price back then...

=aw

[FunkyTown]

I won't bother following up on it but I'm glad I'm aware of it. When our basement finally gets finished I will buy a 3rd one for the basement. At that time hopefully they will offer a discount. The nice thing about the TiVo is that I don't have a monthly fee, I can watch on another TiVo what was recorded on another, and aside from the odd crash it's got a nice interface. They don't cater to Canada. You can't get Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc working here. They don't deliver to Canada either, but I live one hour from the US Border so it isn't a big deal.

[scruffy416]

Originally Posted by FunkyTown

... I just hope that these TiVo machines last a long time. I'd like to get at least 4 to 5 years out of each one. So far, my oldest one is 2 years this month. The youngest XL is only 1 year old this month.

FYI, I picked up one of the older Tivo HD units in January 2008, and it's still running no problems since then. I also have one of the older Philips SD Tivo's from way back (2002 or so) and that's also running no problem. Outside of the hard drive, I think the reliability of the hardware is pretty damn good.


For the hard drives, I think the drives shipped with the Tivo's are pretty decent on the whole, but after the initial 90 day parts and labour warranty period was up, I opened the box up and made backups of the software. I've replaced the factory WD 300GB drive with a Fujitsu 1TB drive (for capacity) and then replaced that with a pair of 1TB WD drives, when the Fujitsu drive was starting to report a lot of SMART errors.

I bought the Lifetime with a special offer back in 2008, and back then I had the same worries about the hardware dying before the Lifetime service period was up. If a newer antenna-friendly Tivo were to come out today (with a better tuner than the Premiere) I won't let hardware worries deter me from buying a Lifetime service with it.

[FunkyTown]

That's all good to know. I probably should change the hard drives in them once they reach 3 years of age just to be on the safe side. One thing I did was hook both up to a UPS. I think the UPS units will help prolong the life of electronics. Both of my tivos are strictly OTA. I haven't had issues picking up channels once the networks straightened out their transmissions. I'm not ready yet to get one for the basement, but when I'm ready they might have a better OTA unit then and hopefully it will be compatible with the premiere series. It would be terrible if you could not stream from the Premieres to the new unit. It seems that's the route TiVo often takes though. Even the web app only works properly with the 4 series. One of the big benefits to TiVo for me is the streaming function.

[scruffy416]

Right! UPS! I have one between mine and the wall too, so I can even keep recording during a power outage! (This is a lot less true now that I have a pre-amp hooked up)

For the drive replacement, I wouldn't necessarily replace on a schedule. You'll notice the drives are on the way out when the unit freezes up doing deletes, or artifacts show up in recordings on channels you know should have none. Once this starts to happens, boot into Kickstart-54 mode and run a drive check. The tests take a LONG time, but you'll know whether you need to replace or not for sure.


Do you run a pre-amp in your setup? I've heard of people having issues with the Premiere and pre-amps (ie. inserting a pre-amp causes the Premiere's tuner issues)

I'd love to upgrade to a Premiere for the improved UI and streaming speed. The Tivo HD streaming is horribly slow.

[FunkyTown]

Thanks for the tip regarding detection of hard drive on-the-way out. Who knows I might get 5 or 6 years out of the drives. That would be nice. I'll have to find out how to start the test procedure. I've read the procedure a long time ago for upping the size of the hard drive and it looks a bit complicated and finicky from what I've read.

I do have a pre-amp mainly to pull in channel 6. It's a pretty cheap pre-amp, but it really does help. It's also plugged into the UPS so that a "short" power failure won't interrupt any recordings. Ths pre-amp amplifies the signal to both TiVo's since they are on the same antenna in my attic.

[El Gran Chico]

You can't get Netflix, Hulu, YouTube, etc working here.

You sure can if you have a VPN service which several of us here do.

The one thing about Netflix is that you need a US Netflix account. TiVo relies on Instant Queue which Canadian Netflix doesn't have.

I had a bit of trouble with setting up a US Netflix account since it requires a credit card with a US address. I was able to temporarily set my credit card's billing address to a family member's US address, got the 1st payment through, then changed the credit card's billing address back to my address. Working fine for several months now.

[FunkyTown]

I watch Netflix usually on my Apple TV so there's likely no sense paying for a VPN service that could probably interfere with my VoIP phone system and cause issues. Netflix on the ATV has instant queue for Canadian subscribers. I just think with so many TiVo customers in Canada they should enable Netflix and YouTube at the very least. It certainly doesn't encourage sales in this country not having it working. Maybe TiVo doesn't care about us here in Canada. That leaves a door open to another company who creates an OTA PVR with lots of bells and whistles where they do cater to us. It's hard to say if TiVo will change. I doubt they will. I like their PVR but this aspect of it is disappointing.

[andrela]

El Gran Chico,

I use a VPN acessing the US netflix with a Canadian account and I do have instant queue using the ps3, Iphone and Wii. However, the Ipad and Atv do not. The tivo can find Netflix shows and access the instant queue. However, cannot add to instant queue.

Maybe the new Tivo Netflix will allow Canadian to use it ( coming soon to a Tivo near you)

[j0dest3r]

I just wish the guide wasn't so expensive, my mom who uses TV OTA would love to be able to record her shows, but can't afford the monthly guide fee or the lifetime cost up front.

[El Gran Chico]

.. so there's likely no sense paying for a VPN service ..

There's a lot more content available on US Netflix. In fact, almost everyone I personally know who are Netflix subscribers use VPN users although I'm the only one that uses a TiVo to access it.

.. with so many TiVo customers in Canada ..

I don't think you can say "many". I think it's very few. Over 90% of the country get their TV from Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Cogeco, etc. and all of them use PVRs that aren't TiVo. I'd be surprised if even 1% of TiVo's customers are Canadian.

That leaves a door open to another company who creates an OTA PVR with lots of bells and whistles where they do cater to us.

That door's been open for years. Don't expect they'll rush for the door anytime soon. I think once someone looks at the business case for making such a thing, it's pretty obvious the numbers don't add up.