Best Buy and TiVo have worked out a nice deal. Best Buy is going to heavily push the DVR in all its stores nationwide and TiVo will produce a special Best Buy DVR and embed its DVR platform in a few HDTVs. This isn’t official just yet, but it seems like the agreement should help both companies.
TiVo is really a product that needs a salesmen. Consumers need to be shown what it can do and how it is better than the cable company’s DVR. As much as we all rag on Best Buy, the company does employ salesmen that generally know what they are doing. If Best Buy tells their staff to push TiVo, they’ll probably move a few more units.
The otherside of this agreement involves a Best Buy co-branded TiVo set-top box and places TiVo’s software onto Best Buy-branded HDTVs. This new TiVo will likely be built off of the existing TiVo platform but allows subs to purchase items from Best Buy using only the TiVo remote.
The HDTV brands of Insignia and Dynex probably need something to help them stand out against the big boys of Sony, Samsung and Panasonic. I don’t know about you, but an embedded TiVo awould sway my buying decision.
There are of course a lot of details left out of the pre-announcement. I kind of have a feeling that the Best Buy co-branded TiVo will be available without a monthly subscription. There needs to be a reason for consumers to buy the this model over a normal TiVo. Plus, I don’t know if even I would purchase an HDTV that came with a monthly cost.
I’m also excited to see where this multi-year agreement takes TiVo. Perhaps we’ll eventually see more HDTVs embedded with the TiVo software. Lets hope that this agreement provides TiVo with enough capital to finally update the almost decade-old GUI.
Tivo’s biggest failure over the last couple of years was a few things (this from a guy who loved his Tivo but eventually got rid of it):
(1) DVR’s are free – only cost typically around $10/month. Tivo’s on the other hand cost around $200, plus a $13/month fee.
(2) Tivo is ANOTHER box in what is often a cramped TV stand (cable box, Tivo, game system, DVD player, etc).
(3) TERRIBLE customer service – Tivo never made customer service even the remotest of priorities. If you called them, you’d be lucky to reach someone who could help. They seemed to only focus on the techy-crowd and kept pointing people to online support forums. Case in point: my parents (smart, but not techy) bought a Tivo – the hard drive failed. They called, got zero help. But they loved it, so they bought another one, and that one failed – they called, got zero support of any use. Then, they gave up, got a Comcast DVR. It was free, guy came to their house, installed it, taught them how to use it. They had a problem once, guy showed up (again, for free) and fixed it. They’ve never looked back at Tivo since.
(4) Tivo’s entrance to support HD was major overkill. The first Tivo HD DVR was $800 – this was because they included a package of very high end cables which added several hundred dollars to the price point. This blew even BIG fans of Tivo’s who were buying HDTV’s out of Tivo’s customer base. Again, cable company HD DVRs are free.
Tivo is a far superior product to any DVR I’ve ever used, however, when people just want to record their favorite TV shows, they need to do a far better job differentiating. Ideally, I’d love to see Tivo do what they did with Comcast with other cable companies, become a software company.
In the gaming space, Sega knew they couldn’t compete against Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo in hardware gaming, so they became a pure software player, and have done great.
Future for Tivo?
It wouldn’t surprise me if the Insignia TV’s shipped with Tivo Basic. In the early days you could buy a Tivo based DVD burner without a monthly fee. The catch was that you only got 3 days worth of guide data and you had to manually schedule recordings. I could see them bringing something like that back. It would be nice if they supported multi-room viewing. That would allow them to push the TivoHD as the media hub and your TV would basically act as a thin client(extender). It’s too bad they didn’t work something out with Samsung instead. I still don’t see my self buying an Insignia TV even though I bleed Tivo.
Tivo = good, Best Buy = bad. IMHO.
You can buy a TiVo box now and pay for a lifetime subscription (tied exclusively to that unit’s serial number) for $400. I suspect the embedded HDTV service would work similarly and the cost would be added into the unit’s price point probably a slightly reduced amount or subsidized by BB or the manufacturer.
As to the previous response about problems with TiVo:
1.) DVRs are not free. Comcast charges $15/month in my area. So does Brighthouse. AT&T includes it in its UVerse package but it still makes up part of the package’s cost of service. If you buy an entry-level TiVo, you can get the unit virtually for free through rebate offers. I’ve bought two at no cost through Amazon (after rebate). You can also pay for annual service or 3-year service rather than monthly bringing the service cost to $11/month and $9/month respectively. There is absolutely no cable DVR unit that I have seen or used that can compare to the ease of use, responsiveness, or feature-rich capabilities of TiVo. Uverse has a little edge in remote sharing with other TVs.
2.) I got rid of the cable box. The TiVo does the work for me. Home Theater has its own stand b/c it alone would make things cramped and cables everywhere.
3.) Never have had to use their customer service and have been a customer for five years. The box and service have always worked for me and the rebates were processed quickly and accurately. And seriously, Comcast should never be the example of good customer service. Every problem that I have had with my TV or internet has stemmed from their (lack of) service. And Comcast is the worst rated company for customer service in the country right after Sprint.
4.) I can’t comment on the TiVo HD DVR, but the cable DVR again is not free. Further, you have to pay for HD service through the cable provider on top of the regular service. At least with a TiVo HD-DVR, you can download HD content from Netflix and Amazon
4.) and use the over the air ATSC tuner to pull in HD stations.
I agree, and your points are well taken.
However on point (1) I agree, as I noted in my post, that Tivos are far superior to any DVR on the market, hands down. However, it still does require a person to drop 200-300 bucks before they can even start. Most people I know loathe mail-in rebates due to the 6-8 week delay, and the chasing you sometimes have to do to get that cash back.
My point was more for the non-techie crowd, who just want to get a DVR and record their shows – folks like my parents for example. DVRs killed Tivo there – because DVR’s from cable companies felt easy, whereas Tivo felt more difficult. And we shouldn’t underestimate the sheer size of that market. More and more older individuals are getting DVRs, and they’re generally not buying Tivos.
I agree that Comcast is generally hated for their cust service, but when you are not comfortable plugging and unplugging wires and setting up something like a Tivo, and its not working, Comcast and other cable companies will send someone to your house to sort it out. And I’m sure that Tivo has taken a major hit from that.
In general, anything having to do with managing digital content like this I’d love to see Tivo be a leader. But honestly, for the techier crowd, between Netflix streaming, DVRs, and HD content on sites like Hulu, they’ve got a lot of competition.
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