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journal: toy
TiVo price hikes: Goodbye Tivo, Hello EyeTV
Oh now, this is just NOT going to fly!
I was drenched with ice-cold water when I learned that TiVo had raised its pricing. Monthly rates are now $19.95/month for 1 year commitments ($12.95 previously), $14.95/month for 2 years, and $12.95/month for 3 years.
But wait - there’s more! Additional TiVo boxes are now $13.95/month for 1 year commitment ($6.95 previously), $8.95/month for 2 years, and $6.95/month for 3 years. I’m in the 1 year commitment bracket with 2 TiVos (though luckily I never added the 2nd one to my account), so instead of paying $19.90 a month for both, I’d now be paying $33.90! Oh now, this is just NOT going to fly!
I don’t know about the rest of you, but I am not about to burn that much money away a month!
Although I’m not sure if they are going to raise my rate since I’ve been on a 1 year commitment for a few months now, but if they do - then I’ll see if I can get out of it without incurring an early termination fee, and get myself an:
ElGato EyeTV 250, or an EyeTV Hybrid, at $149 and $199 $199 and $149, respectively. [Thanks siva for correcting me]
The EyeTV 250 does encoding on the fly (hardware) and has a “game mode,” where you can shut off encoding and watch video in real-time from the source (like from your game console), while the EyeTV Hybrid does software encoding (relies on your computer’s resources to encode) with zero latency for games and watching real-time video when not recording. The EyeTV software has a built-in “TV Guide” where you can pick and choose what you want to record, automatically export a show for iPod or PSP, and “pause live TV” (with encoding on / game mode off).
Oh, and did I mention, no monthly fees?
Now, I already have an older EyeTV Tuner that does not do any encoding at all, but sine I use my iMac as a television as well as for gaming and watching other shows while the TiVo is recording, I didn’t do much recording with it. Then I thought, what if I add a 2nd EyeTV tuner, and keep the same functionality of being able to watch live TV or play a game while the other tuner recorded. At first I didn’t think that would be possible, but according to this page on EyeTV’s support site, it is possible (although in beta and not officially supported).
Now, $149 or $199 does not sound bad at all! Especially when in 12 months, I would have been paying $239.40 for one Tivo, or $406.80 for both! What about in 2 years? In 3??? There are no extra charges with EyeTV.
Now, the question is - anyone want to buy my 40 hour TiVo? Or an 80 hour TiVo as soon as I can get out of the contract?
Updates: Corrected prices, added more details on between the two products.
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| SogniX | comments | views |
thinkback
Oops, my bad - I got the prices mixed up. $149 for the EyeTV Hybrid and $199.95 for the EyeTV 250. Thanks for pointing it out. 
Odd, I wonder why the EyeTV 250 is more money, since as far as I can tell it’s just about the same if not less features since it does not do Digital TV.
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| Nov. 07, 2006 | |
| SogniX | 8:40 pm |
Makes me thankful for getting a lifetime membership, but when it comes time to move to HD, Tivo is getting kicked to the curb. The new pricing scheme is utter BS.
I have always (I mean always from day one) thought Tivo was a rip. Charging for the tv guide is complete BS. I have never owned a tivo just for that. I don’t want to pay TWICE for my TV once to the cable company and another to tivo no way. With most people who have a tivo have a pc also. Tivo maybe in trouble. There are many cheap tv recording solutions for both mac and pc. We don’t need Tivo anymore, nor do we need the monthly fees that are better spent on a pc based solution for recording tv!
EyeTV can’t record channels above 120
this is good if you dont have premuim channels
eyetv should have IR controllers like TiVo
I’ve been running an EyeTV Hybrid alongside my older Firewire EyeTV 400 on my 1.8GHz 17” G5 iMac for a while now and have no problems scheduling and recording 2 shows at once. In fact for a short while I had a second EyeTV Hybrid connected and was able to schedule and record 3 SD shows simultaneously.
However, viewing 2 or 3 live SD channels at the same time on this iMac can cause it to drop frames as it decodes the MPEG-2 streams as this places a lot more stress on the CPU than recording.
With Digital TV (as opposed to analog) you don’t need hardware or software encoding for recording - the tuner just downloads the MPEG-2 stream from the broadcaster and saves it on your disk. It is only when using the analog tuner on the EyeTV Hybrid that you see the load that software encoding places on the iMac’s CPU. I have to quit everything else and stop any video exports in order to record a single analog channel at the highest quality setting with the 1.8GHz G5 in the iMac.
-Mart
I have TiVo with DirecTV and it’s $6 a month, I think. I purchased a DirecTV Plus box recently for a second TV and it uses DirecTV’s own software. It sucks. TiVo rocks. I love the user interface and features of TiVo.
Does EyeTV have two tuners and let you switch between them live without resetting the recording of those two tuners? That’s a feature not in DirecTV Plus but is in TiVo.
DirecTV Plus also doesn’t have slow motion, jump to live, jump in 15 minute increments. Also, DirecTV Plus just stops at where the playback head is when you stop fast forwarding (or rewinding). TiVo stops it just a bit in front so that it’s at the point you saw on the screen when you pressed the button.
I had no idea how good TiVo is until I used another solution. I haven’t used them all, though.
| Nov. 08, 2006 | ||
| 2:40 pm |
Well, at least it sounds like they can write good software, completely unlike ATi, whose TV software is pure shit. Unfortunately, the only software for watching TV is Windows Media Center, and ATi won’t be supporting the TV Wonder on Vista.
When this thing dies, I’m going for a Hauppage.
| Nov. 08, 2006 | |
| Liam | 9:58 pm |
Maybe TiVo has patents that keep the cool features from being implemented by competitors?
| Nov. 09, 2006 | ||
| 7:27 am |
This is really criminal at this time of year.
Tivo just sold thousands and thousands of units to mother’s father’s and everyone else who had someone in their family ask for a tivo unit for christmas.
Now those people who have allready bought that tivo unit as a christmas gift are gonna be stuck paying 75% more each month than they thought they were when they bought it.
I have allways liked tivo but after this I will be getting a dvr through my cable provider or a replay tv.
Tivo has just crossed over to the dark side along with M$ and the devil.
1.
Actually, eyeTV Hybrid is only $149, not $199. I bought it from buy.com for only $128 after the $10 google checkout rebate. Works great.