TiVo to be available to antenna viewers

[Bob Jersey]

The Roamio OTA drops the STB cost down to around that of Roku, with the monthly service going for $14.99.

Bloomberg (link)

B

[Joe Hass]

To be clear, TiVo was available to antenna viewers for a very long time, then was dropped for the latest release. I have the TiVo box just before it that still offered OTA support.

I'm curious how much storage the device will hold, especially at $50 price point.

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[Ben Combee]

The 4-tuner Tivo Roamio already supported OTA, it's just the 6-tuner
Tivo Roamio Pro that dropped OTA. The hard drive size for the Romio
OTA seems to be the same as the Roamio at 500GB. Going OTA only means
they don't have to populate a CableCard slot or include QAM support in
the tuners. If lifetime service is priced the same as other Tivo
devices, then the full cost with no ongoing subscription would be $548
($49 + $499 lifetime).

[Adam Bowie]

I'm curious. Is it the case that OTA DVRs like the TiV Roamio, and Tablo, all really make their money on the subscriptions? A $50 machine even with a 500GB drive is making a loss. TiVo makes its money on $14.99 subscriptions. And it sounds like you need one of these subscription because you have no EPG otherwise? And in any case, they won't sell you one without a subscription.

The Freeview system used in the UK, which broadcasts HD and SD channels OTA, has a built in EPG which means that manufacturers can build boxes for one-off payments and no subscriptions, utilising the EPG to give the DVR functionality. You don't get the recommendation engine of TiVo, but you get series link etc.

The key for these things is the EPG, and from what I can gather, every supplier in the US does their own - hence those issues when the football runs long and you don't pad your recordings.

It'd be interesting if someone was to create an open source IP-delivered EPG in the US market, and then see if manufacturers would build DVRs that used it. Add in Netflix/Hulu/Amazon Prime functionality, and you're much closer to being able to cord-cut. It might cost $300-400, but that'd be a true one-off fee.

Adam

[Joe Hass]

On Tue, Aug 26, 2014 at 4:09 AM, Adam Bowie <ad...@adambowie.co.uk> wrote:

I'm curious. Is it the case that OTA DVRs like the TiV Roamio, and Tablo, all really make their money on the subscriptions? A $50 machine even with a 500GB drive is making a loss. TiVo makes its money on $14.99 subscriptions. And it sounds like you need one of these subscription because you have no EPG otherwise? And in any case, they won't sell you one without a subscription.

You are exactly right. No subscription: the box is a door stop. So you either pony up the subscription fee or go box lifetime (which is non-transferrable).