TiVo Premiere Elite On Sale For $350

The four tuner, 2TB TiVo Premiere Elite is on sale today for a low $350. To sweeten the deal TiVo is offering free shipping and a free 6 months of Hulu Plus (which we’ve been using to watch three seasons of Community). Of course, TiVo DVRs also require a service subscription that runs $13-$15/month or $400-$500 for lifetime access. We assume the price cut is designed to not only goose sales after perhaps a lackluster retail quarter, but also as TiVo clears inventory of “Elite” hardware as they migrate to “XL4” branding.

Two notes: 1) The TiVo Premiere Elite is only compatible with digital cable, over-the-air and satellite customers need not apply. 2) If you’re contemplating a whole-home DVR solution utilizing the upcoming TiVo IP-STB extenders, remember they will only be compatible with an Elite/XL4 (at launch) as your hub – versus the standard Premiere. Making this is fairly compelling deal for those looking to upgrade (which I am) and when you consider the Premiere Elite ran $500 less than 90 days ago.

24 thoughts on “TiVo Premiere Elite On Sale For $350”

  1. Also if your contemplating a whole-home DVR solution, the Elite/XL4 is the only box that has integrated MoCA and can act as a MoCA bridge.

  2. Do it. I must say I have been really happy with mine. I just wish I could easily sell my 2 XLs since I would upgrade to the Elite. It would also save me on a CableCARD fee.

  3. Just found out the promotion has been extended until Tuesday… so I have time to think about it. Or see if Electronics Expo gets more inventory, as they were clearing inventory at $319.

  4. It’s tempting. But until I know what TiVo is actually going to charge for the IP-STB I don’t trust TiVo to not screw this up on the pricing. I’ll keep holding out and see what options exist when I get my Fios installation.

  5. Hey Dave why did you remove the twitter microblog link from the left…

    I don’t social network, too many complications, but I do enjoy reading your twitter… it was always an easy click away for me.

  6. Jon, we had two Twitter text links – one to me and one to the site headlines/feed. But I replaced all the text links with the graphic images above. The single Twitter one above now points to the ZNF feed. Do you think I should I redirect it to my personal one instead? I couldn’t figure out how to cleanly put two Twitter icons up there without causing confusion. Hm. You can always hit my Twitter directly via: http://www.twitter.com/davezatz And, as Chucky will tell you, you can get a RSS feed of that too.

    Ananth, I’m tempted. But still holding back, too. Last night I tried streaming Hulu Plus via Twitter and it kept just hanging on a black screen. So I gave up and flipped inputs to our $50 Roku. Makes me not want to invest more money in TiVo… yet. Maybe when the IP STB and Stream are out, I’ll pull the trigger. Or maybe when we next move (which could be similar timing) we’ll make the move. Although more Sonos units and the Nest are ahead of TiVo on the home tech list in the new place. Wherever it is.

  7. “Last night I tried streaming Hulu Plus via Twitter”

    How do you stream Hulu Plus via Twitter? Does the process involve snorting bath salts?

    “The single Twitter one above now points to the ZNF feed. Do you think I should I redirect it to my personal one instead? I couldn’t figure out how to cleanly put two Twitter icons up there without causing confusion. Hm.”

    Well, I’m obviously a non-typical user, as I use RSS. But non-typical or not, I’d never have noticed your personal li’l birdie feed to include in my RSS feeds without it being a link up there. So there is value in having your personal li’l birdie feed link up there to drive traffic, especially since you retweet ZNF posts there.

    As to the understandable confusion you face in implementing the UI, it is tricky. My (probably non-useful) suggestion would be to have one li’l birdie/your face icon, and one li’l birdie/ZNF logo icon. Or revert to icon/text combos for the li’l birdie stuff.

    If you can’t figure out a way to have both, I’d probably just point the li’l birdie to your personal feed.

    (And what is that blue “f” icon for anyway? Flitter?)

  8. Twitter, TiVo, whatev. :) I did briefly have two birds, maybe I’ll do it again. And if I put some alt text in there, when you hover over it I can specific my feed versus the site headlines. As you suggest, maybe I can make icons of our logo and my face with a bird as well – but that’s more time consuming and will wait.

    Update… After futzing with it for 20 mins, I’ve gone back to a single bird icon which links my personal Twitter feed. What I really need to be spending my time on is more writing. Soon?

  9. Hey Dave,

    I bought a Nest a while back, and am pretty happy with it, but it depends what you’re expecting. If you already have a (crap UI) honeywell thermostat and program it, and you don’t travel a lot, I think its unlikely the Nest will save you money. It does work well and look nice, and it was an easy install, but its not as big a deal as you might imagine at first. Once you realize you still have to click rotate heat/cool click heat click … and its not all just up and down rotations its a little less cool. It was easy to install though, once I figured out the backplates were actually in the box underneath the packaging.

    I do like being able to see and easily control the Nest from my iPhone, but it might not be worth the money to a lot of people.

  10. We had a pretty traditional Honeywell programmable. But… we sold our home and are in corporate housing for the moment. We’re looking at new homes and most will probably come with similar. I know I could get a WiFi thermostat for maybe 100ish, but the Nest is super sharp and is as much digital wall art as it is useful technology. I wouldn’t be buying with specific intentions of saving money. But I would enjoy adjusting the temperature via iPhone from other parts of the house or while on the road.

  11. Sam, Good for me as I just got off the fence… but slightly sucks for those who bought at $350? If I’d known about this promotion, I wouldn’t have blogged the above. Can’t imagine the Elite/XL4 will go any lower as they clear “Elite” hardware. Then again, they could do a refurb Elite for $275. Whatev, I gots mine. Now I need some IP STB extenders without monthly fees.

    Ben, Yeah we’re most likely staying in NoVA. We have some incentives to move back to Maryland, but we both like it here. I think I want to move closer in and more urban, whereas my wife is now attracted to the new planned communities in Loudon. We shall see.

  12. Only downside of Woot is the return policy. Anyone who purchased for $350 could probably call TiVo and get a price adjustment or possibly some other form of compensation since they are still within the 30 day return policy. It looks like Electronics Expo also dropped the price today as well.

  13. Electronics Expo had a lower price (and coupon) ($319) prior to the $350 sale, but I discovered it during the TiVo sale and they EE was out of stock. I figured they’d never have any more stock given the discontinuation of the “Elite” branding, but looks like they’re back in stock today. OR I wonder if TiVo made them not sell their inventory for less than they were selling it so they put sales on hold? Retail can be funny like that.

  14. I wonder if TiVo made them not sell their inventory for less than they were selling it so they put sales on hold?

    I suspect you are right. Welcome to the Elite family!

    I assume you received the latest TiVo Survey? It looks like they are going to sell the IP-STB without a subscription. It appears they are still mulling over the retail price.

  15. I did get the survey… but don’t recall that topic. Maybe it branches or maybe I forgot. I do recall the queries Roku, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox 360 queries as end-points. But doubt that’d ever come to pass (as I tweeted you).

  16. “But FiOS On Demand is hard to give up…”

    Meh. With 2TB onboard and the ability to further locally cache, just record everything you might have interest in watching in the future.

    Who needs On Demand with its windowing schemes when you can just record stuff and have your own more expansive personal on demand without restriction?

    It’s really no contest.

  17. I’m speculating that we will see a 3rd party product receiving transcoded streams from the TiVo Stream or Pace XG1 sometime next year. I think this is being demanded from the MSOs (e.g., Tom Rutledge @charter) to reduce their capital expenditures. The IP-STB will still offer many advantages (full TiVo experience, MoCA) but the 3rd party box should be able to stream recorded television and a pseudo-live feed from the TiVo Stream. The issue that may be more difficult to overcome would be the flakiness of wireless connections. That may be one obstacle that keeps TiVo away from this end-point but sufficient buffering on the receiving end should be able to overcome any WiFi issues.

    http://www.gizmolovers.com/2012/01/23/jason-wong-tivo-director-product-marketing-talks-about-the-future/

  18. What am I thinking… the whole point of the TiVo Stream is to stream h.264 to iPads, etc. Ignore the buffering comment! :) I suspect that the wireless issue applies to the MPEG-2 recordings.

  19. Looks like woot had it for $304 today shipped according to the TCF forums. Some people got TiVo to match it also when they called.

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