Amazon moved their Release Date

[falcon26]

When I ordered my tivo premiere from amazon it said a release date of 4-12 now it says 3-28 that made my very happy :-) Usually when I order things they get pushed back not forward so that was a nice piece of info :-)

[innocentfreak]

Of course, I wouldn't count any release date as solid until people get shipping notices.

[Dreamin]

Great news... it confused/concerned me why their date was out so far...

[falcon26]

Although I bet they will be on sale at BB next weekend...

[innocentfreak]

If so it would be foolish on Best Buy's part, since they didn't bother to advertise them through the 27th and with the $20 million in marketing I think BB has an incentive to move and promote them. The earliest would be the 28th imho at least until we see the ad or unless they do a weekend only ad next weekend.

[innocentfreak]

Great news... it confused/concerned me why their date was out so far...

It made a little sense actually with BB being the exclusive retailer that they would want to give a week or two for BB to sell as many as possible before Amazon and others started shipping them.

[caddyroger]

I just got off Tivo chat. They told me that the units being sold at Best Buy and Amazon will not the have hd guild installed. It will not be installed until the release date in April. If you bought it from Tivo it will arrive with the Hd installed.

[innocentfreak]

Taking the CSR with a grain of salt, this isn't that surprising. Most stores can only sit on product for so long due to limited space and the fact marketing is planned weeks if not months in advance. Amazon could probably push the date since they don't do a weekly ad, but Best Buy can't if the ads are already ready to go for the 28th.

Now I must say it will be extremely disappointing if TiVo doesn't ship their units at the same time retail units can be bought in store or online.

[MichaelK]

I just got off Tivo chat. They told me that the units being sold at Best Buy and Amazon will not the have hd guild installed. It will not be installed until the release date in April. If you bought it from Tivo it will arrive with the Hd installed.

could just mean tivo is not going to ship there's until the new HD software is ready. But the others might ship sooner.

since the box supposedly will update on the first call the end user will not see that the HD software wasn't installed to begin with.

I think that's more likely unless tivo is drop shipping from a factory in china rather than shipping from a warehouse in the US. Too much effort to redo hard drives already shipped out of the factory.

[innocentfreak]

I definitely agree with you and think that is what they mean also.

I just wish they would give those of us who ordered direct an option to ship or wait for the new UI. Well either that or give us the upgrade discounts on the subscription side while allowing us to purchase the TiVo elsewhere.

[caddyroger]

I definitely agree with you and think that is what they mean also.

I just wish they would give those of us who ordered direct an option to ship or wait for the new UI. Well either that or give us the upgrade discounts on the subscription side while allowing us to purchase the TiVo elsewhere.

I told I would not mind if they shipped mine out to me. I could have it all set up by the time the the new UI is ready.

[falcon26]

So this means I could get the new tivo with the old UI and then come sometime in april Tivo will push a new firmware update that includes the HD UI?

[innocentfreak]

Correct since it will just download as part of an update most likely. TiVo of course wants this to happen during the initial setup, but with the predictions of Best Buy and Amazon selling on the 28th and with TiVo's past history of delays, I wouldn't be surprised if the new UI won't be available yet. This isn't necessarily a bad thing since they would get an even worse response from people if it didn't work. The biggest issue will be explaining to customers who aren't up to date especially if Best Buy's ad heavily promotes the new UI.

From Tivo Premiere selling at Bestbuy? (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=7831750#post7831750)
It looks like the excitement about HDUI was too hard to keep bottled up. These boxes are definitely being sold too early. Best Buy was asked to remedy the situation because we are still in the process of finishing the software to provide the best possible experience from the start. We expect to have the software ready for distribution in early April. Until then, the user experience will not be the cool HD we want you to see.

The April release will allow software to be installed during Guided Setup, and you will be able to see the HDUI as soon as this process is complete instead of having to wait like this. For those of you who have the box now, we hope you can be patient just a little longer. The cake is done but we’re still working on the frosting!

[Dreamin]

The biggest issue will be explaining to customers who aren't up to date especially if Best Buy's ad heavily promotes the new UI.
I'm guessing Bestbuy weighed the problems this will cause vs. better Q1 numbers... and a better Q1 won.

[caddyroger]

I wander how many trouble calls Tivo will get about not having the new UI.

[riekl]

I'm guessing Bestbuy weighed the problems this will cause vs. better Q1 numbers... and a better Q1 won.

While this might seem logical, it's not. Tivo means nothing to Bestbuy they aren't even a blip on the financial spreadsheet. They make more from selling the game of the week then they do selling Tivo's and similar niche (face it .. Tivo is a niche right now) products.

Average store might sell 100 copies of C&C 4 (or whatever) @ $10 profit in a week, or 10 Tivo Premier's at $30-$40 profit. They sell them because it helps BB's image to be the distriubtor of high end tech products, but when it comes to the balance sheet, Tivo isn't a line item on it.

[innocentfreak]

I think we are talking about the potential returns and not necessarily affecting Best Buy's bottom line. It is more about the possible hassles and issues that may arise. It also probably won't look great either considering the money Best Buy spent on TiVo which is around $20 million for marketing.