Tivo Now Officially Available in Canada

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.tivo.com/1.6.1.asp#9' target='_blank'>http://www.tivo.com/1.6.1.asp#9</a><br /><br /></div><i>"The TiVo Service is now available in Canada. Canadian residents will be given special instruction to follow when activating service. Please look for the link "Instructions for Canadian residents," under step 1 during the activation process. TiVo does not sell boxes in Canada, so Canadian residents must purchase boxes in the US and import them. If the DVR becomes defective, TiVo will not ship a warranty replacement box into Canada, and will only ship to a US address."</i><br /><br />Could this be any more underwhelming? This isn't a launch, it's more like a corporate shrug from Tivo: "Eh, ok, I guess we'll kind of support you Canucks". I was expecting partnerships with local Canadian cable providers - or, well, <i>something</i> other than this. This offers no temptation for my household with our MCE 2005 (analog recording) and cable-company PVR (digital/HD recording). Neither one costs me any monthly fees. Do any of my fellow Canadians reading this site feel even a twinge of interest in this?

[James Fee]

Import into Canada? Now that I know how much of a pain that is I wouldn't want to get involved with a TiVo living in Canada. Yikes! :x

[Phronetix]

Do any of my fellow Canadians reading this site feel even a twinge of interest in this?

No, not really a twinge. More of an annoying itch. Why did they even bother? They may want to change their name anyway, for those who speak French. Whenever i hear "Tivo", it sounds like someone cooing over a cute "little baby calf" at the zoo or a farm. (p)'tit veaux. What worse is that if you really bent the rules, you could come up with something that means "small worth/value"). (P)'tit vaut. Take that, "(J)ASJAR"! :P

[Mike Temporale]

That's laughable. How much effort would it be to extend a little more service to us? It's not like we're on the other side of the world. Geez.


Why did they even bother?

Well, that's an easy question. Now that they offer service to Canadians, it would be easier to go after those that are stealing their service. When they didn't offer service to Canadians, it would be harder to fight Canadians that are stealing their service. How can you steal something that isn't offered? So, instead of locking down their system, they open it up to Canada. Now, it's a lot easier to go after people, and it doesn't require you to fix any security issues with your hardware. :?

[Jeremy Charette]

I'm not even in Canada, and I don't feel so much as a twinge. I went with Time Warner's HD-DVR because it was better than most of the offerings from Tivo, not to mention vastly chaper in the long run. On top of that, it doesn't cost any more for the HD version, which has over 2x the recording capacity. It's a no brainer.

Joe Blow will probably pay $8-10 a month to rent a Tivo. But ask him to pay $500 (including the "lifetime" subscription, which isn't really, it's only good for the life of the unit you buy it for), and he'll balk.

[bryhawks]

Not even a smidgen of a twinge. I use my SnapStream occasionally to record analog, and when I'm more serious about TV in general, I'll likely get a satellite w/ PVR - Bell's price on the 5900 has come way down in the last year or two, and I don't have an HDTV to need the 6000.

Bryan