TiVo now available in Canada at retail stores

ByJohn

Tivo UI(or it will be very soon)

I’ve had a TiVo (or three) running in Canada for a couple of years now so the news that they will finally be available at retail here is great news. A lot of friends have expressed interest in getting a TiVo but they usually balk at it when they find out they have to drive to the states to get a unit and usually end up with a craptacular Shaw PVR unit.

The dual tuner, 80 hour machines will be available in early December at London Drugs, Future Shop, The Brick and Best Buy. The price ($199CDN) seems a little higher than what folks are paying in the states and there is no word if there is a mail in rebate like previously. The monthly fees are the same as down south ($12.95US/month). No HD units yet either as Canada doesn’t currently support cablecards which are required for the HD TiVo units. Who knows, maybe they will partner with Shaw or Rogers and actually offer the TiVo software on the HD hardware…..yeah, right.

Check out the details at tivo.com/canada and my previous post about using TiVo in Canada.

Oh and if you do sign up for a TiVo – I’d love the TiVo Rewards points! Use retrocactus at gmail dot com when you sign up.

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5 Comments

  1. WOOT! thanks for the post! i am sooooooooo excited! and it is about bloody time. now to find away to get a free one from ellen degeneres……

  2. I was all excited there for a moment, then I remembered they have monthly fees. As cool as Tivo is, I know the monthly fee is their way of business, and it’s a way I do not like. I’d rather pay for a more expensive unit, and no monthly fees, although that obviously isn’t a good business case for Tivo.

    Oh well, too bad for them. They missed entering our market while they still had a reputation in the early days. Tivo is a day late and a dollar short. I doubt they will see much success here. Web downloading of TV shows has about to supersede their company.

  3. Paul – you can pay more and not have to pay monthly fees – they have the notion of a lifetime (of the device) service fee which is usually a few hundred dollars but it’s unknown if they will be offering that in Canada. Alternatively, you can just prepay for the service and bypass the monthly part.

    I agree the monthly fee for guide data (and firmware updates which is often overlooked but is fairly important and regular) is a bit high, but you really have to use it to see how slick it is compared to anything offered by the sat or cable companies PVR’s. Same thing has been said for the Apple experience vs Microsoft. Plus, all the tv junkies I know with TiVos wouldn’t give them up for anything.

  4. # Paul Hillsdon Says:
    I was all excited there for a moment, then I remembered they have monthly fees.

    Paul, I realized this month that a TiVo service subscription is less than 2 cents/hour.

    In that hour, TiVo will be:

    – scouring the 40,000 shows available on my TV in the next 10 days
    – juggling recording of about 100 requested shows (many currently off the air – leave them at the end of the To-Do List, they’ll be recorded when the show comes back)
    – juggling dozens of keyword- or person-based Wishlists (Christmas documentaries in July? TiVo will find it)
    – evaluate each of these 40,000 shows against my past recording/rating history, plus anonymously-correlated analysis of what other TiVo owners with similar tastes record, to present me with free, bonus shows I’ll probably like but didn’t even know existed.

    And do this, flawlessly, without ever crashing (like my Rogers box spectacularly did this week when I pressed the wrong button) or mysteriously skipping/deleting recordings.

    If you think all of this isn’t worth 2 pennies out of the sofa cushions, you’re entitled to your opinion – but to save 2 cents, you’re missing out, big time.

    As cool as Tivo is, I know the monthly fee is their way of business, and it’s a way I do not like. I’d rather pay for a more expensive unit, and no monthly fees, although that obviously isn’t a good business case for Tivo.

    Oh well, too bad for them. They missed entering our market while they still had a reputation in the early days. Tivo is a day late and a dollar short. I doubt they will see much success here. Web downloading of TV shows has about to supersede their company.

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