Bad news for DirecTV subs. If you have been waiting, and waiting to upgade your old TiVo Series 2-ish DirecTV DVR, you are going to have to wait a bit longer. It was reveled in the quarterly earnings call that the DVR isn’t going to be available this year, rather sometime in 2010.
No word was given what caused the delay, but it probably has something to do with the company lossing $4.1 million over the last three months. That same call also featured talk about TiVo’s tru2way partnership with Comcast. But that service is still a bit out so don’t expect that anytime soon either.
I think TiVo will suffer the same fate as plama TVs; as most consumers have decided LCDs where ‘good enough’, they are deciding the cable co DVR is also ‘good enough’.
I disagree, I have both 2 Directv DVR’s and 3 Directv Tivo’s and clearly I miss the Tivo hands down, nothing even comes close to Tivo at all, I have used Tivo for 9 1/2 Years and absolutely love it , I can not wait till all my tv’s are using Directv Tivo’s I have seen Comcast, at&t u-verse and it is not even close, with Tivo i can record up to 21 days in advance, with Dirctv it is 7-10 days, I can look up new shows for the season with Tivo not with Directv DVR, and Tivo is more user friendly (I will never switch from Tivo, unless they are no longer made.)
Thank you
It doesn’t really matter what we clearly miss – it matters what you can get now versus some unknown time in the future. Unless tivotogo is included, it is not worth the wait and they won’t tell us which makes me suspect not.
If TIVO does not come to Directv I will be going back to cable or the dish network. The Directv DVRs are so bad the other positive features of Directv are not enough to overcome.
That may well be, BUT
for sizes over 46″, plasma TVs are not only better, they’re cheaper than LCDs. Why aren’t there 120Hz Plasmas? Because that technology exists to overcome a weakness of the LCD picture.
Likewise, I continue to pay TiVo because the cable co DVR is NOT good enough. I know from experience that neither the Motorola, the homegrown DTV, and the Dish DVRs are not even close to as good as TiVo.
It may go down like Beta did – if so, the consumers deserve what they get. Or it may stick around like the Mac. Or it may become the de facto standard. Still to early to call.
Ah, this is a shame to read. There’s no comparison between a TiVo DVR and a DirectTV dvr — Tivo’s is far superior. At first glance, yes they do the same thing, but I like to comapre one to a hulking dell laptop and the other to a sleek mac book pro. The interface, speed of navigation, functionality, and display are make the TiVo a much greater pleasure to use and you spend a lot less time with it.
Unfortunately DTV didn’t listen to its consumer; otherwise they would have been successful with their DVR. They still don’t offer basic TIVO features that were a big plus with TIVO units; besides slow and non-responsive systems. Notice Dish recognizes this and is taking advantage by advertising like never before. I’ve been with DTV from the beginning but it may be time to go back to cable.
The irony is the 4.1 million dollar loss would be 4.1 million in profit if they just released it to the DirecTV demographic. This key demographic are willing to pay for “apple” like Tivo vs. DirecTV’s DVR.
p.s. Add Tivo2go for satellite customers, end-user swapable drives (Apple) and make a REAL universal remote to compete with the Harmony/Logitech (KEEP the ergonomic “peanut” shape) and you will lock in loyal customers.
Truth be told the only thing holding to DTv still my 2 old series 2 Tivo boxes and if they go I will be leaving DTV the same day for dish and the lower price point. Someone hit it on the head that while Tivo is superior to other DVR’s, I am not going to wait around on my knees praying for DTv and Tivo to get their act together as a working DVR from dish (especially with the lower bill) beats going without any DVR and hoping they hurry up.
Sad thing is that I probably wouldn’t ever come back to DTv (even with Tivo) because I already suffer with reception issues at my location and Tivo is the only part of DTv that makes the service bareable in the slightest…