TiVo screws early adopters with $199 upgrade fee
Australians were promised a cheap upgrade when TiVo's networking features became available. Adam Turner argues that they've been betrayed.
When TiVo was launched in Australia in 2008, we were promised a firmware update this year to allow it to play music, photos and videos across your home network. It would also let you archive recordings off the device. This update was to be priced in the "tens of dollars".
Considering the Aussie TiVo had already been canned for its small hard drive, disabled ad-skipping and limited networking, these networking features seemed like some light at the end of the tunnel.
Well that upgrade has been announced and it costs a whopping $199. That's on top of the $699 you paid for the unit ($650 if you waited til the price dropped), plus another $80 for the wifi adapter.
I can hear the Topfield and Beywoniz lovers laughing their arses off, even the Media Centre fanboys are getting some satisfaction knowing TiVo owners got royally screwed after hopping into bed with the enemy.
In light of the persecution of IceTV and Free TV Australia's campaign of Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt over ad-skipping, the industry-endorsed TiVo was last year's poster boy for all that's evil about Australia's commercial networks.
The TiVo was almost unanimously canned as "hobbled" and "pathetic" when it was first unveiled in Australia. Small hard drive. Disabled ad-skipping. Restricted networking. Expensive. Useless.
I admit I was one of the few dissenting voices which praised TiVo at launch - pointing out the fact that it was easy to use and, while it didn't do much, what it did do it did extremely well.
That's still the case.
It's a great PVR for your mother-in-law if you want to cut down on the late night tech support calls. Still, now I know the networking features are an extra $200, I'd be reluctant to recommend it to anyone else who has even the slightest dreams of an integrated lounge room.
I've always been suspicious of the fact Australia's TiVo is backed by the Seven Network - a network with such contempt for its viewers that it's driven many an honest soul to Channel BitTorrent (look at its treatment of Lost for example). This contempt shines through again in this betrayal of the TiVo faithful.
Other Blog Entries written by Adam Turner:
Thoughts on this article? Add a comment below.
Comments: 2
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j3d11
Mar 19, 2009 2:18 PM
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Adam must really dislike his mother-in-law!
How can TiVo in Australia even survive. Even if Channel BT is blocked by Rudd's Great Filter, competing video from ABC iView, and ISPs (Internode) would deliver the final blow to kill off this mutated (By Ch7)attempt at a media centre. |
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bodog
Mar 19, 2009 8:44 PM
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I just have to say it.....
I told you so!
Sorry but I could not resist - I told you at the time TIVO was no match for Media Center |