TiVo Offically Releases A Dual Tuner DVR
Back on March 28th this site and several others broke the news about TiVo releasing a dual tuner Series 2 DVR. Well, the lucky bastards over at Engadget and CNET got their hands on one before anybody else. The 80 hr. version is currently available for $254 with a prepaid one year subscription. TiVo’s own press release states the following:
“We’ve been hearing from our subscribers that they wanted a TiVo DVR that could record two shows at once,” said Jim Denney , Vice President of Product Marketing at TiVo. “With the TiVo Series2 DT DVR, we’ve delivered that capability to our customers at a very affordable price.”
“We are excited to bring the new TiVo Series2 DT DVR into our stores,” said Rick Bickford, Merchandise Manager at Circuit City . “TiVo is one of our most well-loved brands and we’re confident that the feature enhancements and low price point are going to make the TiVo Series2 DT DVR a big hit.”
The TiVo Series2 DT DVR will join the existing TiVo product line, and is available in an 80-hour model priced at just $99.99, after rebate and service activation. It will also be available at tivo.com bundled with the TiVo service.
This is great news for TiVo however, I don’t think I am going to buy one simply because I am waiting on the Series 3 TiVo. In any case, this is a great DVR for somebody who simply wants to record multiple analog channels.
April 25th, 2006 at 11:44 pm |
Luckily, this announcement came before my 30-day trial period for the TiVo Package deal expired. Funny, when I just called up tonight to cancel, citing a desire for more than one tuner as my reason for cancellation, they opted not to mention this new unit becoming available, but rather offering to extend my “trial” by one more month. And now I have a D-Link USB Ethernet adapter I have no use for. Oh well… the old electronics biz, buy it today, it’s obsolete tomorrow…
Now the debate is whether to go for this in May, or just add a dual NTSC tuner to the SageTV PC with dual HD tuners I’m already building… I love the TiVo interface and the online features especially (the online scheduling grid is a bit clunky, at least in Firefox). Does anyone know if this new TiVo, bundled in the package with service, will be the same price as the existing package?
April 26th, 2006 at 10:51 am |
Even for someone like me (a satellite customer) who can’t use two tuners at all it makes sense:
The built in Ethernet is really nice, and would be enough of a reason right away to choose this over another TiVo if I were buying today.
This device likely has more horsepower under the hood, whoch _should_ make it more responsive.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:22 am |
You said: In any case, this is a great DVR for somebody who simply wants to record multiple analog channels.
TiVo says: Record from two basic cable channels, or one basic cable and one digital cable channel, at once.
Many people think it doesn’t work with digital. It does.
April 26th, 2006 at 7:57 pm |
Mark - The current deal that went out to susbcribers was $254 for an 80-hour S2DT with 1-year of service. So $30 more than the 80-hour single tuner bundle.
Retail will be $99 for 80-hours, $199 for 180-hours, after rebate. Then the usual servive cost. Which, frankly, comes out to $254 anyway so you may as well get the bundle now.
Dave Zata posted a link to the bundle in the store in his entry on the S2DT.
April 26th, 2006 at 8:34 pm |
No multi-service discount. I’d buy a dual tuner box right now, but…. it seems to me that TiVo makes it almost impossible for existing customers to get additional boxes at the multi-service price. I can’t find any way to buy a new box from their website that would qualify for the discount.
April 26th, 2006 at 11:27 pm |
Re: multi-service discount. That bothered me too until I read the details on the multi-service discount. What it actually says is that the dual tuner box that is packaged with prepaid service is not eligible for the discount, but your original Tivo is eligible, at least as long as it wasn’t part of a package deal too.
April 27th, 2006 at 7:09 am |
I’ve got satellite too, and I hope that they think of us with the Series 3 (currently doesn’t support dual tuners or HD for satellite as I can tell)
April 28th, 2006 at 1:10 pm |
[...] TiVo has been on a roll recently, with a new web site interface for picking shows to record when you’re not at home and a stock price that’s on the rise (note: nothing we write here should in any way be construed as anything that resembles financial advice), which we think is probably because they were doing other things right (even the revamped web site). So it’s a little surprising that they would come out with a cool new device that lets you record two shows at once: but not on digital cable. The bad: The TiVo DT’s second tuner is useful only for viewing or recording shows on basic analog cable, which severely limits its convenience for many users. (from CNET) Probably not their fault, the cable industry is pretty bad about trying to hamstring DVRs. But it’s a bad move, methinks. TiVo Series2 DT (80 hours) Reviews. Digital Video Recorders (DVRs) Reviews by CNET. TiVo Series2 DT hands-on review (Engadget) TiVo Series2 DT DVR (Gizmodo) TiVo Offically Releases A Dual Tuner DVR (TivoBlog) TiVo Series 2 Hardware Refresh (Zatz Not Funny. . .) Tivo Series 2 (Amazon.com) [...]
May 4th, 2006 at 2:40 pm |
OK, I’ve given up on trying to build my own HTPC and ordered a DT TiVo with the package deal. It arrives tomorrow! What I want to do is get a second DT TiVo at a local store and get the multi-box discount. Has anyone seen the DT in stores yet? None of the Best Buys or Circuit Citys in the Green Bay/Appleton, WI area have them yet. Also, what’s the deal with the 180-Hour DT? I can’t find info on that anywhere.
May 20th, 2006 at 9:48 am |
[...] Several people on TiVoCommunity have reported that their new Series 2 dual tuner TiVo has been rebooting at random times. Nobody seems to have a solution to this problem however, if enough people call TiVo I’m sure that it will get fixed. TiVo is normally pretty good about getting out a fix ASAP. [...]