TiVo Updates Service With Online Scheduling

TiVo has updated its pricing schedule for households with multiple TiVo devices and added free enhancements to its subscriptions.

From TiVO’s press release:

TiVo today announced it has added new enhancements and capabilities to its service, including online scheduling and home media features. These features allow subscribers to enjoy their favorite TV programs and easily connect to all of their favorite content – including music and photos – simply by connecting their TiVo Series2 DVR to their home network. By continuously adding value through the TiVo service, the company is offering an unmatched set of features and capabilities that maintain both its prominent position in the marketplace and high level of customer satisfaction.

In response to requests from subscribers, TiVo also announced today a new multi-service pricing plan that will allow subscribers to fully benefit from these new service features at a lower cost than ever. Under this new multi-service plan, service for the first TiVo service subscription in the home is the standard $12.95 per month, while each additional TiVo service subscription is just $6.95 per month.* This cuts almost in half the subscription fee for additional TiVo boxes. And, for a limited time, TiVo and participating retailers are offering a 10 percent discount on TiVo DVRs by lowering the purchase price to as little as $129, with mail-in rebate.

As of today, TiVo Series2 subscribers can do more things the TiVo way—easily and effortlessly. They can automatically use these new service features to schedule recordings from the Internet, move content between two or more TiVo boxes in the home, and enjoy digital music and photos in their full glory on the big screen or home stereo in the living room. Previously, these features were only available with purchase of the TiVo Home Media Option^TM. Beginning today, these features are included in the standard $12.95 subscription rate.

“Now TiVo gives you great TV and a whole lot more,” said Brodie Keast, executive vice president and general manager, TiVo service. “With the home media features built in to the service, subscribers can now enjoy other digital content, like music and photos, the same way they enjoy television with the TiVo service. We will continue to apply the TiVo experience to all of our future service offerings.”

The new service features and multi-service pricing position TiVo to be the entertainment centerpiece in the networked home. And with the prevalence of digital entertainment content in the home on the rise, these additions to the TiVo service come at the perfect time. The Photo Marketing Association estimates that by the end of the year, 42 percent of all U.S. households will have digital cameras, and according to Nielsen NetRatings more that 43 million songs have been downloaded legally to date.

“Consumer interest and investment in home networking products and services are soaring and these new home media features from TiVo help consumers easily access all of their digital content,” said Mike Vitelli, senior vice president of consumer electronics for Best Buy, the nation’s leading specialty retailer of digital technology and entertainment products and services. “These new service enhancements give TiVo unique capabilities for helping consumers bring all the content they love right into the living room entertainment center via the home network.”

New Set of Features Position TiVo DVR as Entertainment Centerpiece in Networked Home
The combined list of new service enhancements give the TiVo DVR a set of easy to use capabilities that simply can’t be found on any other product in its price range. Some of the new features enabled by this service enhancement include:

• TiVo Online Scheduling
  Now TiVo Series2 subscribers can schedule recordings from the office or on the road from anywhere they can access the Internet. They can simply schedule recordings at www.tivo.com and their TiVo DVR will make the changes to their recording schedule in minutes.
• Multi-room Viewing of Recorded Programming
  With the Multi-Room Viewing feature, subscribers can transfer their favorite shows from one TiVo Series2 box to another in their household and share each other’s Now Playing list. Multi-Room Viewing makes it convenient to begin watching a program in the living room but catch the final credits in the bedroom.
• TiVo Digital Music Player
  Now subscribers can access music stored on any PC on the home network and play it directly on their home entertainment center through the TiVo Digital Music Player. TiVo Series2 also allows subscribers to access MP3s stored on their PC from their TiVo.
• TiVo Digital Photo Viewer
  There’s no need to gather the family around the PC to view digital photos. With the TiVo Digital Photo Viewer, subscribers can use their television to view the digital photos they have stored on any PC connected to their home network.

And, of course, all TiVo subscribers still get the features that have long set TiVo apart from the crowd, including:

• Season Pass Viewers will never miss an episode with Season Pass recordings because they can choose their favorite shows and the TiVo service will automatically record every episode, whenever it airs. It can even skip repeat episodes.
• WishList WishList assists the user with searching for programs related to a topic, such as cooking. Just enter a word or two about cooking (e.g. Italian, low-fat), and the TiVo service works to find and record all the programs related to that topic – like a search engine for your television.