How Much Would You Pay For A Series3 TiVo?
In your opinion, what’s a good price point for the new Series3 TiVo that was on display at CES? How much are you willing to pay for a TiVo that has dual-tuners and HD support? I know that I would be willing to pay a lot however, I’m not your average TiVo consumer. A couple of people on TiVoCommunity have suggested that the new DVR will go for something like $500-$800! Is that too much for a DVR when you can get a crappy DVR from your cable company for ~$5.00? Will the average consumer be willing to pay that much? I know I just listed a bunch of open-ended questions however; I’m anxious to find out what other people think about buying a Series3 TiVo and how much they would be willing to pay. Let me know….
January 9th, 2006 at 8:08 pm |
$400 is my sweet spot - I’ll buy two for that amount. I’d buy one unit for up to $600. Over that, and I’ll come up with another plan.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:14 pm |
I’d like to spend less then $500 however, I don’t know how realistic that is. Anything over $500 is going to be tough for me not because I wouldn’t spend the money but because I would need to convince the boss (my wife) :).
January 9th, 2006 at 8:40 pm |
I’d go $500-550, plus lifetime. I bought a Sony DHG-HDD250 for $499, and, while the guide is free, it’s crap (TVGOS). The Sony’s one tuner, and has a lousy UI, but it records cable and OTA HD. I’ll eBay it when I get the Series 3, and that’ll recoup some of the $$ I spend on the TiVo.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:42 pm |
For me anything over $350 for a DVR is not worth it. In reality I don’t need to continue using Tivo when my cable companies DVR does the same and has 2 tuners. I keep paying Tivo because its user interface and functionality is unmatched and my series 2 is more than enough. For $500 the series 3 would have to offer a lot more features (web access, streaming audio and video, much faster Tivo to Go functionality) and I would still worry about paying so much to a company that I don’t know if it will be around in a year or two.
January 9th, 2006 at 8:56 pm |
My question is what are the chances of the Tivo3 being available through my cable company, Comcast, since they entered a new partnership agreement?
http://www.tivo.com/cms_static/press_34.html
I’m definitely excited about hopefully being able to qualify for a multi-unit discount since I own a TiVo Series2 and a Comcast DVR.
January 9th, 2006 at 9:01 pm |
[...] The TiVoBlog asks the question of how much would you pay for a new Series 3 box when they’re available. The range of costs go from $350 - $800. [...]
January 9th, 2006 at 9:55 pm |
They can not charge to much. There is to much competition in this area now. You have the Likes of Microsoft MediaCenter, Yahoo’s TV to go coming out, cable companies. I think we are going to see top end models at 299.00. They go much higher then that and they will just shoot their self in the foot. Even at 299 you are not going to get the average joe’s that they need to stay a float.
January 9th, 2006 at 10:33 pm |
[...] tivoblog posted up a link to a tivocommunity forum post where someone said they had talked to the people at the tivo booth at ces and the estimated price looks to be between $500 and $800. wow. that’s a lot of cheese. sure it has dual tuner recording (off of 6 available tuners) and cablecard support, but for $500-$800 i sure hope it has a 300-400gb harddrive. [...]
January 10th, 2006 at 12:35 am |
I could do a max of $300, but that’s in a year or two when I get an HD capable TV.
January 10th, 2006 at 1:41 am |
I’d buy one for up to $600US, considering the specs that were mentioned at CES.
My concern would be that my local Canadian cable provider, Rogers, wouldn’t support cable card. It’s not law here like it is in the USA. Still, I’d love more than one tuner and built in ethernet and that backlit remote was sweet.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:55 am |
I paid a bit over $700 for my Pioneer DVR-810H, plus lifetime, so a bit over a grand all told. As an early adopter I paid something like $1700 for my Pioneer DVL-909 - in part because I paid for a unit modded to be region-fee, Macrovision free, etc.
I would be comfortable paying $500 for the Series3, at least when it is new. I would probably still buy one for up to $700 as a new box, but it wouldn’t be an easy choice. More than that, and I’d probably wait - you have to take the cost of lifetime into account too.
January 10th, 2006 at 8:47 am |
I wouldn’t pay much for it. They are 2 years too late and my cable company already has a 2 tuner, HD DVR that works just fine. I still agree that Tivo has a better interface, but that alone doesn’t warrant paying a premium. Sorry Tivo…I think that you missed the boat here.
January 10th, 2006 at 9:54 am |
$1000 is the price point I heard bandied about 6 months ago and that’s the price I’m bracing myself for. When it comes down to time to make the purchase I’m not 100% sure that I won’t chicken out and hold my cash though. That’s a lot of dough. But It’s not out of the question in my mind. Tivo is worth it.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:16 am |
I would not think twice up to $499, after that I would have to do some heavy duty bargain hunting before I get one. But I will get one, 100% sure of that.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:20 am |
I’d probably pay up to around $800 for a Series 3, however, I really hate my cable company here (Charter) so paying that much is going to hurt because it means I’m tying myself to my $100 cable bill for quite a while. I won’t switch to another standalone DVR other than TiVo but with MCE supporting CableCard in the near future, that is temping. I’m hoping they go for around $500.
January 10th, 2006 at 10:50 am |
My first born child.
January 10th, 2006 at 12:10 pm |
Diehards will pay up to $500, and I might pay $250 for one, but in order to sell this thing in any sort of volume, it has to be $100 or less, if not free w/2 yr contract. If it’s $500 (and if it breaks, tough luck!) it would have to last a LONG time for you to break even against one that’s $5/mon from the cable company. Not to mention having to rent the CableCard from the cable company on top of that price.
The Series3 may well make me buy an HDTV, but at $500 — if that’s what the TiVo ends up at — I won’t be buying two, and I’ll get a lot of ridicule from people who got the “same thing for free” from their cable company (i.e. people who don’t “get” the advantages TiVo — and there are many, like my entire extended family).
January 10th, 2006 at 12:56 pm |
I’m expecting a price between $499 & $799 with a release in time for the 2006 Christmas buying season. I don’t normally ask for much for Christmas (since it’s money that could buy more for the kids) but an S3 is definitely on my list for Christmas 2006. There’s so much more you can do with a TiVo than you can do with a cable company DVR, it’s worth it to me.
January 10th, 2006 at 2:50 pm |
$299. Anything more and it’s not worth it.
January 10th, 2006 at 4:04 pm |
The only way I will get one is if Tivo goes to cell phone model. (They have hinted at this for the last 6 months). I have come to the comclusion that you can’t explain Tivo to someone who had a cable company DVR. The only way they “get it” is if Tivo make is finacially feasable. Once they use it they will be hooked.
January 11th, 2006 at 11:00 am |
I’ve never worried about others needing to ‘get it’. If they don’t, I don’t worry about it. When people ask me about DVRs & such I mention that I’ve got a TiVo that cost me $X and that it does X, Y & Z damn well. If I know that they only want to do X, I just recommend that they get a cable company DVR. That way I won’t have to help hook it up or support them later. A few people I know have gone and gotten a TiVo even if their cable companies offer a cheap DVR because they know that they need more than the cable DVR offers. They also know that features will cost them.
January 11th, 2006 at 12:37 pm |
$300 max. I guess I’ll have to settle with the Comcast one then. Or just act like HD doesn’t exist and keep using my 2 Series2 Tivos.
January 13th, 2006 at 10:23 am |
I would hope that the Comcast/TiVo deal would create an arena for a new Comcast DVR based on the TiVo software made available to their customers as it is today.
But, on a stand-alone basis. I have 4 TiVos. I would be willing to replace 2 of them with th enew series 3’s if the price were 350$. That’s just not going to happen. So, I would imagine that I will replace ONE unit with a HD unit for UP TO 600$. But that’s pushing it!
January 16th, 2006 at 3:54 pm |
$500 with lifetime subscription. However, as a DirecTV subscriber, I might opt for a month-to-month lease of their DVR because I’m concerned about Tivo surviving long enough to make a lifetime subscription worthwhile.
Right now, I’m sticking with my Series1 for a while to see what happens over the next 6-12 months.
January 18th, 2006 at 2:03 am |
Honestly… I wouldn’t be willing to go over $500.00 and I can tell you that most won’t… the majority of my friends simply can’t afford it and some of them are faced with going High Def as early as the end of this year. Paying for a high def TV is very expensive so having the extra money around to spend 800.00 to 1000.00 isn’t just unlikely, it’s impossible… and then you’re going to spend all that money and your existing Tivo(s) won’t work? They will go straight to Time Warner Cable’s crappy High Def DVR. It’s sad, but simple economics. I do much better and am willing to eat the price to support the company but…
November 23rd, 2007 at 1:42 am |
[...] tivoblog posted up a link to a tivocommunity forum post where someone said they had talked to the people at the tivo booth at ces and the estimated price looks to be between $500 and $800. wow. that’s a lot of cheese. sure it has dual tuner recording (out of 6 available tuners) and cablecard support, but for $500-$800 i sure hope it has a 300-400gb harddrive. [...]