Lifetime Subscription - Worthwhile?

[tartan_haggis]

Morning all - long time no post!

I've been paying the monthly subscription since I got my TiVo 15 months ago or so. I'm now thinking of taking out a lifetime subscription for my box - but is it worth doing this now?

The last thing I want to do is pay £199 and then find out that TiVo start cancelling lifetimes as in the U.S., or just pull out of the UK altogether thanks to Sky HD. Obviously I'll only get value for money if they continue to provide the EPG data for at least the next 2 years ...

I thought about buying a lifetime TiVo box from eBay, but since the prices are equivalent to what I paid for my TiVo originally plus the £200, there doesn't seem much point. I've already upgraded my TiVo to 200Mb disk and networked it - just need the subscription.

Any thoughts?

[thechachman]

Should be able to pickup a LT subbed otherwise unupgraded box for £240ish I'd think ...

[Nebulous]

Sadly, no one here can say whether it is worth taking out a new lifetime subscription or not.

We have no reason to suspect that the tivo service will end any time soon.

Indeed tivo have promised that they will continue the service for the foreseeable future.

However, many of us also have that niggling doubt in the back of our minds that without any new business to bring in revenue, one of Tivo's accountants is going to look at the balance sheet one day and reach for his axe. :eek:

Basically its a gamble. Sorry its not the definitive answer you where hoping for. :(

Fortunately I was in a position to take out a lifetime sub from the day I bought my Tivo 5-odd years ago. :D

[ndunlavey]

Rather than looking at just breakeven, perhaps the decision is easier if you look at minimising your downside risk. If you buy a Lifetime Subscription, the maximum you can "lose" is £199. If you don't, you can "lose" £120 per year for every year you keep using TiVo after breakeven point.

[Pete77]

Firstly a Tivo sub of £199 only equals 20 months of subscription to break even not 2 years.

However if you were interested in a very upgraded Tivo you might want to take note of the fact that very upgraded boxes on Ebay wih a Lifetime Sub, Cachecard, 512MB of RAM for the Cachecard and upraded 200/250Gb disk are now going for between £280 and £320 on Ebay and if your own Tivo box is a completely non upgraded 40Gb unit you could sell it for about £70 on Ebay.

On that basis buying one of these upgraded boxes and selling your own box is the better bet because for £230 or so net (after selling your old Tivo) you get an upgraded box and a Lifetime sub whereas to buy a Lifetime Sub and get the pre configured kit to do all those upgrades from TivoHeaven or TivoLand (if you didn't want to do it yourself) would cost around £450 or so.

On the other hand if you pay Tivo £200 for a new Lifetime sub on your current old box you are helping to keep UK Tivo service going for longer than if you buy one of these upgraded secondhand boxes and subs from which Tivo will gain no new money.

As to how long Tivo will remain in the UK note that they are still selling Lifetime Subs. If they had any firm scheduled plans to quietly get out of maintaining the UK Tivos then i would expect them to stop selling new Lifetime subs at least 20 months before doing so. Of course if Tivo was taken over by Sky or someone equally nasty or went bust then our UK Tivo EPG service could just stop overnight.

Anyhow if you have just a basic Tivo then buying one of these upgraded Tivos with a Lifetime sub is probably a better bet than a Lifetime sub for your own box in terms of the best way to spend £200.

I hope this helps.

[Dazbear]

I am looking at a subbed TiVo on ebay, but it says

"Original 40GB HDD & additional 60GB HDD"

Does this sound right? I thought in a 2 HDD machine they would have to be the same?

[thechachman]

Nope ... can be just about any two IDE hard drives, matched or mismatched ...

[Pete77]

I am looking at a subbed TiVo on ebay, but it says

"Original 40GB HDD & additional 60GB HDD"

Does this sound right? I thought in a 2 HDD machine they would have to be the same?

Yes any pair of drives can be combined in a Tivo as long as they are 3.5" ATA, IDE and Drive A is at least 30Gb in size.

But if they are 40Gb and 60Gb drives that means one is the original 4 to 6 year old drive and the other is likely to be a pretty ancient upgrade from 4 or 5 years ago so such a machine wouldn't exactly be my first choice to buy secondhand. These drives are likely to fail on you at any minute really.

[Dazbear]

Yes any pair of drives can be combined in a Tivo as long as they are 3.5" ATA, IDE and Drive A is at least 30Gb in size.

But if they are 40Gb and 60Gb drives that means one is the original 4 to 6 year old drive and the other is likely to be a pretty ancient upgrade from 4 or 5 years ago so such a machine wouldn't exactly be my first choice to buy secondhand. These drives are likely to fail on you at any minute really.

oh right - my current TiVo is about 5 years old, sound like my HDD may give up anytime then. How long is the usual life - approx?

D

[blindlemon]

Anything up to 6 years and counting... :)

The original Quantim drives were pretty high tolerance and hence often quite reliable drives. The main problem after 2 or 3 years is more likely to be a high-pitched whine from the bearings than a sector error, but after 5 or 6 years I'm seeing more and more of them failing.

Luckily, a failed drive is just about the easiest TiVo problem to fix :)

[Pete77]

The original Quantim drives were pretty high tolerance and hence often quite reliable drives. The main problem after 2 or 3 years is more likely to be a high-pitched whine from the bearings than a sector error, but after 5 or 6 years I'm seeing more and more of them failing.

Luckily, a failed drive is just about the easiest TiVo problem to fix :)

And luckily there are some experts out there who have become specialists in doing this for Tivo owners ;) :p

I'm quite sure some Tivo hard drives will end up lasting 10 years even though they will be very few and far between. Its a bit like reliable and unreliable cars of precisely the same make and model. How well ventilated a position they have been running in may have quite a bit to do with it too.

[blindlemon]

Its a bit like reliable and unreliable cars of precisely the same make and model. How well ventilated a position they have been running in may have quite a bit to do with it too.Yes. I've heard that running a car in a garage for instance can shorten your life considerably :eek: :D:D

[pmk]

The last thing I want to do is pay £199 and then find out that TiVo start cancelling lifetimes as in the U.S., or just pull out of the UK altogether thanks to Sky HD. Obviously I'll only get value for money if they continue to provide the EPG data for at least the next 2 years ...

No expert so I may be completely wrong but if you pay buy credit card it should give you some protection if TiVo pull out or fail to provide a service.

e.g. when ITVDigital went under I got a refund from my credit card company for the months of pre paid for the TV service which I could no longer receive.

There may be a time limit on this however - e.g. you can only claim for 12 months from purchase date etc. If there isn't TiVo will have to be careful if they do ever pull out I guess there may be quite a few people claiming from their credit card companies 3/4/5 years after purchase :)

[Trinitron]

Claims against credit card companies under the Consumer Credit Act for failure to supply would normally be judged against the length of the original contract. I've been in that position twice (sigh) - when ITV Digital went under 6 months after I bought a prepay box and recently when an ISP ceased service two weeks into an 18 month contract. In both cases, the (different) CC companies refunded me pro-rata on the remaining term.

Of course, the contract with Tivo is "lifetime", which complicates matters! IMHO I suspect the CC company would look at the equivalent monthly charge, i.e. 20 months @ £10. Beyond that would be up to your negotiating skills and how generous they are feeling.