Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So if you’re a consumer electronics manufacturer in the midst of a highly-publicized product release, you’d think that the last group of customers you’d want to alienate would be the die-hard fanatics who participate in your forums everyday and were among the very first to place orders for said product, right? Well judging by the tone of the comments on the TiVo Community boards, that’s exactly what the company has down to its so-called VIP subscribers — you know, the ones who possess those coveted lifetime subscriptions and woke up extra-early this past Tuesday to ensure that their new Series3 boxes would arrive the next day. Except TiVo apparently wasn’t ready to handle the deluge of orders that it received, and after two days of wondering what the heck was going on (calls to customer service were met by confusion and misinformation on the part of the phone reps), everyone finally received an email confirming the delays and promising shipment by Friday. Luckily TiVo had the good sense to refund the shipping charges — in some cases $50 worth — to these early adopters, but much to the VIPs’ displeasure, they learned that they’d be unable to cancel their pending orders if they wanted to go the retail route; and what’s more, there was some confusion as to whether store-bought TiVos would even be eligible for the $200 lifetime subscription transfer. As of this writing it seems that only a handful of folks actually got their boxes on Friday, with everyone else scrambling to reschedule the CableCARD installation appointments they’d made with their cable providers. So while there’s little argument that TiVo makes a fine product with a world-class interface, perhaps when it eventually comes out with the Series4, it’ll do some better planning or leave distribution to the professionals — apparently, TiVo and e-commerce don’t seem to go too well together lately.

[Via HDBeat]

 

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

So the worst-kept secret in the consumer electronics industry right now is that TiVo is on the verge of releasing the CableCARD-sportin’, HD-recordin’ Series 3 box — but no one seems to know exactly when you’ll be able to buy one. We heard from Todd the Best Buy employee that the new machines will be in stock on the 17th of this month, and now our friend Dave over at ZatzNotFunny has spotted the highly-anticipated DMR (remember, they’re not DVRs anymore, and TiVo won’t sell you one if you use that terminology) on Circuit City’s website showing an October availability. Now does that mean October 1st? The 15th? The 31st? Well if we knew, we’d tell ya, but at least now we seem to have an actual release window: the Series 3 will (probably) be available sometime between September 17th and October 31st. As usual, we’ll keep you posted as more information comes to light, but if that’s not good enough, you’re always welcome to switch over to satellite and pick up on of DirecTV’s new HR20-700 HD DVRs — thanks to HDBeat, we know that Best Buy will ship you one of those post haste.

Read- Series 3 [Via ZatzNotFunny]
Read- HR20-700 [Via HDBeat]

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Filed under: HDTV, Home Entertainment

Remember how TiVo recently sent that letter to the FCC and cable operators telling them to be prepared for the Series 3 rollout, partly because of reports that some providers were refusing to hook up beta testers with the necessary CableCARDS? Well now it looks like the company's concerns may be completely legitimate, as a complaint on the website ConsumerFury contends that Time Warner Cable's Raleigh division responded to a recent customer inquiry on the matter by stating that "Time Warner Cable of Raleigh does not provide support for or allow TiVo devices on our cable network...CableCARDS will only be installed on cable-ready, CableCARD-slot-available television sets." Pretty harsh, especially considering the fact that Time Warner's policy may not even be legal: federal regulations concerning CableCARDS seem to indicate that providers must support them for any unidirectional TV, set-top-box, or recording device connected to a digital cable system. We certainly understand that cable companies see TiVo as a direct competitor to their own DVR offerings, but we're not sure that alienating customers with such a hard-line stance is the best move; after all, isn't a customer who brings his/her own DVR to the table better than no customer at all?

[Via TiVoBlog]

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