I’ve considered purchasing a lifetime subscription on one of my TiVos however; I haven’t been able to pull the trigger. There are really two reasons why I haven’t forked over $299.
- High Price Tag: I find it hard for me to justify paying $299 for a lifetime subscription when the monthly subscription fee is only $12.95 ($6.95 with multiple DVRs). If the lifetime subscription were a little less, I would probably go ahead and purchase it. In order to recoup my money back, I would have to own my DVR for at least 23 months ($299/$12.95). Some people will say that 23 months doesn’t seem like a long time however; in terms of tech gadgets this is a lifetime. Besides, what would I do with my Series2 DVR when the Series3 (or whatever they call it) DVR comes out. I guess I could just keep my Series2 DVR however; a tech geek like me has a tough time using inferior technology
. - Lifetime Subscription Policy: I’m a little concerned with how the lifetime subscription works. The lifetime subscription stays with whatever TiVo you apply it to. In other words, if you have a lifetime subscription on a TiVo box and it breaks for whatever reason, you had better get the box fixed or else you are out $299. TiVo’s policy explicitly states that you are unable to transfer the lifetime subscription to another box. I understand why TiVo does this however; this policy has prevented me from purchasing the subscription.
Do you have a lifetime subscription on your TiVo? If yes, why did you decide to purchase the lifetime service instead of just paying a monthly fee?
I don’t have it yet for either of my TiVos. I am, however, going to be purchasing it for my “main” TiVo (Humax T800, 80 hour) because I hopefully will be replacing the internal drive with a 200GB, and I feel that doing the lifetime will pay for itself in 23 months, and I plan to have this TiVo then, and possibly faster if you sell your unit on something like eBay, where units that have lifetime go for a pretty chunk of change. The only thing holding me back at the moment is a lack of funds (next month!).
As for my second TiVo, for $6.95 a month, I think I’ll stick to monthly. If I were to replace one of them in the future for a Series 3 (or whatever’s next), I’d replace that one. Plus at $7 a month, 42 months is a long time to save me money.
I thought the same thing 5 years ago, and I went ahead and bought the lifetime subscription. I have a series 1 Sony TiVo unit, now upgraded, and 52 months later it is still working for me. Back then it was $199 for the lifetime subscription, which was easier to deal with. I guess I got the last laugh. I plan on donating it to the parentals when I move to a high def solution soon.
I bought one with my Series 1 Phillips unit in 2000. If still is working hard, with a drive upgrade to 120 GB. My other two units are Hughes DirecTivo series 2 boxes. DirecTV does not charge a fee for them. I am planning on buying a Humax 80hr DVD unit. That I will go for a monthly plan.
We have two DirecTV TIVO units both with lifetime subscriptions. We recently replaced each of them. We replaced the first one when the hard drive died after using it for three years. We assumed we’d have to buy a new lifetime subscription, but when we configured it and made the call to DirecTV, we were told we could transfer our lifetime subscription to the unit we were replacing. I asked if we could transfer our other subscription if we bought an HDTivo and were told YES!! So a few months later, we did.
I have 3 TiVos, all with lifetime subscriptions. I decided back when I got the first to grab the $199 lifetime, and it’s still purring along after many upgrades and hacks. It’s been probably 5 years now, so well worth it. Our second one, an original series 2 is also just passed its lifetime value I think (before they offered the multiple tivo discount). Since it worked out so well, I went for it on #3 a few months ago too. The TiVo hardware was free that time (all the recent discounts) so I pretty much paid $299 for the hardware and service, which didn’t seem so bad.
But honestly, these aren’t really compelling reasons, just my experience. The main reason I went lifetime is that I *despise* monthly bills. Really hate ‘em. I’m willing to pay a premium to know that I own things outright. If I could pay $10K for lifetime cable, I’d likely do it (although that’d actually be a pretty good deal with the prices of digital cable these days!)
I have a lifetime sub on my one TiVo unit and it was worth it so far, it is about 3-4 years old now.
However, the way they run their lifetime subs is the reason that I am not buying a second TiVo. Instead, I broke down and paid for the Cablevision DVR. It is nothing compared to a TiVo unit, but it does have some features that are a must for me now:
1) High Def
2) 2 tuners
If I could get a lifetime sub and move it to a new box when I upgraded, I would get another TiVo in a second. Since I cannot, it is not worth it.
-Rick
I’ve had lifetime subs on all 5 TiVos that I’ve owned. The first one cost me $200, the second $250, and the other 3 $300. I now own 2 TiVos – I’ve sold the other 3.
And the resale value has been increased by the price of the sub each time. I’ve made out well enough, better than I would’ve on monthly. I owned a couple of the S2 boxes 2 years before selling them. Actually, one I owned 3.5 years. I sold both of them a few weeks ago, and the first I purchased in February 2002 (I think that one cost me $200 on lifetime), and the other I purchased in preparation for HMO – sometime in 2003 I think? Been a while, that one cost $300 lifetime. Right after I’d purchased the original S2 I picked a used S1 and lifetime had jumped to $250, I hacked it, but sold it when I got the second S2.
Now I have a DVR-810H and a RS-TX20.
I find lifetime is very much worth it. I don’t think there is any problem with it being tied to the unit, in increases the resale value and you can always give it as a gift. If you have it for 2 years, then it is effectlive paid for anyway, no loss. And any system failures you can either have repaired, or, since it is almost always a drive, just fix yourself.
I recommend lifetime to everyone.
TiVo loves monthly subscribers, they get a lot more revenue out of you folks.
If you pay monthly you’re simply throwing your money away.
If you pay lifetime and decide to sell the unit you can recoup every cent. The value of lifetime service does not decrease so whether you sell the unit a week, a month, 6 months, or 2 years after you bought it you can still ‘add on’ $299 to the purchase price.
The only danger is if the TiVo breaks.
I bought a S1 back in 2000 when lifetime was $199. During a 1-time-special, TiVo allowed some users to transfer their lifetime to a new S2 unit, which I did when that model was released. So I have really made out well when it comes to lifetime service.
I have a lifetime subscription on my first TiVo and pay the monthly $6.95 on my second TiVo. When I bought the lifetime it was $249 and so far so good. I think it’s been about 3 years since I purchased it and I’m glad I did since it made it easier to get the second TiVo with a $6.95 per month fee. I may have NOT have purchased the lifetime sub if it was $299. I think that price is just a little to much.
I’ve got lifetime subscriptions on both of my Tivo’s. The first I got was just over a year ago, and then the second I got about a month ago so I paid the $299 for both subscriptions. I decided to do it because at $12.95 a month I might not spend as much if I don’t keep it for 2 years, but I also don’t gain anything either if I go to sell it ever and I’m still out the money. That $299 is always recoupable at sale time. Also, from the sounds of it most people here seem to think that you cannot fix a broken Tivo, so if it dies before the 2 years then your really are out of a chunk of that Lifetime subscription. Well, the lifetime subscription is tied to the box, not the hard drive, and since that is what dies usually all you have to do is replace the hard drive and you are back in business. Granted there is a little more to it than that, but not much. Especially since you can find places online that will sell you the hard drive with the Tivo software already loaded so you don’t even have to do a backup of your own. Anyway, I definitely think the subscription is worth it since they are practically giving the hardware away now, it’s the subscription that holds the value.
I bought a series 1 Sony unit five years ago. I didn’t have to think to hard to see that buying the lifetime subscription was a good bet. My unit is still going strong. I upgraded it to 230 hours last year–wish I had done it sooner. My only complaints are that it fails to change the channel on my cable box about 3% of the time and that the processor is too slow to deal with the huge disk capacity.
I would love to have all the features of a new unit, but I wince when I think about paying for new hardware AND another subscription fee. Someday, though, I will give in to the temptation to buy a box with a built-in DVD burner so I can archive my favorite shows.
I purchased my lifetime cause I had money for TiVo then. I’m glad I did cause it’s only 6 months later and I’m not even going to be able able to pay car insurance, let alone TiVo!
As for getting my $299 worth even with I can get Series 3… I’ll just hand this one to my wife (who’s using a beat up old series 1), and when able, lifetime the Series 3. Beyond that… Well, I don’t really NEED more than component HD video, LOL. If it breaks… well, I know how to repair TiVo’s. In fact, I repaired my fiance’s (said wife before, cause we’ll be married by the time I give her the S2) Series 1, it came from my friend’s garbage pile.
They’re easier to fix than a home computer!
Only 3 thigns tend to die in TiVo… The power supply (replacable), the drive (EASILY replaced), and the fan (for the love of Goddess, a retarded monkey can replace the fan!).
In short, I’ll have no problems getting my $300 worth! However, if I ever had a second S2, I probably would NOT get lifetime.
Guess you all feel a bit stupid now, in light of todays announcement. NO MORE LIFETIME subs! $19.95/mo for monthly service.
When I got my Series 1 March/2000, I didn’t blink about the $199 lifetime fee. Peanuts, especially now.
I’ve upgraded it to 400GB of storage, cache-card with 100Mbit nic, tivoweb, etc. Best damn Tivo made, IMHO.
I’ve also built my own PVR, too, using Knoppix and MythTV.
I got lifetime on mine because I hate having monthly bills. If I could get lifetime on my gym, telephone, cable, DSL, electricity, water, and garbage, I would.
From day one, I figured I got what I wanted for saving myself the aggravation of another monthly bill.
I had my Tivo seires 1 and bought the life time at $199 back in 1999. Tivo offer the new series 2 and allow me to transfer my life time onto a new machine. So why not. It has been so wonferful that I did not have to pay monthly for 7 years. I dont know what I would do if this Tivo die. We will see.