I have 2 Tivos, a TivoHD and an old Series 2. The Series 2 died recently, so I called Tivo about canceling the service on it, figured I’d save the ~$10 per month. Of course I had to go through their polite but persistent efforts to let them fix my Series 2 or upgrade to a Tivo Premiere.
Fix wasn’t really a good option, I didn’t want to spend money on an old standard-definition Tivo with analog tuner (hooked to a converter box).
Upgrade would be ok, but they wanted $200 for a Tivo Premiere. I told them I didn’t have $200 to spend right now, which I don’t. I went for broke and told them I’d pay $100 to upgrade and continue my service. The guy said he didn’t think he could do that, but he would check. ~10 minutes later he came back on the phone and said he had a deal for me; 3 months of free service if I buy the $200 Premiere. :\ I told him thanks but no thanks, that’s still $200 out of my pocket right now.
It really surprises me Tivo wouldn’t give up $100 to keep me paying $10 per month for my second Tivo. They would make the $100 back in 10 months. I’ve been a subscriber for 5 years or more, they were aware of that and mentioned it several times.
Oh well, on that TV there’s still live TV (blah) and Netflix streaming.
So, they offered you a $100 discount on a Tivo Premier, and you tried to get a $200 discount on the thing. They countered with a $130 discount ($100+3mo@$10), which you weren’t interested in.
I don’t blame you for trying, but I also don’t blame them for saying they weren’t interested in sweetening their offer by $70.
I’m interested in this converter of which you speak.
I have a Series 2 Tivo that is less than functional now that signals have gone all digital.
It also has lifetime subscription on it, so I’d like to make it functional again.
If I can do this without spending lots of dough I would be very very happy.
Should be about $40 for a converter box. Tivo was nice enough to upgrade the Series 2 Tivo operating system to support digital converter boxes. This link should get you started: http://support.tivo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/310
A series 2 is able to control some external cable boxes either through a cable or an IR emitter. The IR emitter should have come with your tivo. You setup your system like this:
Cable—> Digital Box from Cable Company –> Tivo
When tivo wants to change channels, it tells the digital box to change the channel. It’s the same basic setup when you have a cable box going straight to the TV. Your remote controls the cable box and signal is sent on channel 3 to the TV.
