Fantastic deal – TiVo Series2DT with $100 gift card – for $99!

Posted on Friday, October 19, 2007 by MegaZone

Amazon has a fantastic deal on the 80 hour TiVo Series2 DT right now.

They are selling the 80 hour Series2 DT for $99.00 – without any rebate hassle. You save $150.99.

But wait! Before you click on the ‘Add to Shopping Cart – look further down the page. There is a ‘Buy both and save’ special offer. Buy the TiVo S2DT and a $100 TiVo Service Gift Card – and save an additional $100. That’s right – the $100 worth of service is free. You pay the same $99.00 you would pay for just the box, saving $250.99.

TiVo Service and Amazon Unbox Special Offer:
Buy a TiVo Series2 80-hour dual-tuner digital video recorder and a $100 TiVo Service Gift Card offered by Amazon.com using the Buy both and save button on this page, and get the $100 TiVo Service Gift Card at no extra cost–plus receive a $5 Amazon Unbox credit good to rent or purchase movies and download them right to your TiVo! Some restrictions apply. See offer details

This discounted offer may not be combined with any other TiVo offer or rebate.

See the offer details page for specifics, but it is straight forward – just click on the ‘Buy both and save’ button on the S2DT page – and not the ‘Add to Shopping Cart’ button.

You basically get a free 80-hour S2DT and a dollar off $100 worth of service. Since you need to buy service anyway, and the gift card can be used toward any new service activation, you can pick which service plan you want. If you are thinking about getting an S2DT, this is the best deal I’ve seen yet.

On a related note – I’m really beginning to think that TiVo will be phasing out the S2DT. Lately it seems like they’ve been doing everything in their power to move the units. They took an $11.2 million inventory write-down last quarter, relating to S2DT production. The S2DT has been popping up all over as a cheap box in marketing promotions, such as with STA and Toyota. And now they’re basically giving them away.

I suspect TiVo has stopped manufacturing the S2DT and S3 and is just selling out existing inventories so that they can standardize on the TiVo HD platform as a single base. (If they haven’t stopped, they soon will.) And that, when that happens, we’ll see some diversification in the TiVo HD product line. Perhaps a unit with a larger default drive, though the forthcoming eSATA support may reduce the demand for that – though, conversely, the continuing increase in HD content will put upward pressure on storage capacity. Perhaps those unused analog input traces on the TiVo HD’s board will be put to use in a new variant – could be the mysterious TCD653080 model number.

The future is clearly digital and HD, and the TiVo HD’s platform was clearly designed to be a reference platform for use in other products – such as the variant being developed for Australia, and other DVB-T markets to follow. With the decline in analog TV product sales, and moves such as Best Buy’s removal of analog TV’s from their shelves, I suspect S2DT sales are declining. Concentrating on one platform would give TiVo better economies of scale to continue to drive down the price of the TiVo HD.

About MegaZone

MegaZone is the Editor of Gizmo Lovers and the chief contributor. He's been online since 1989 and active in several generations of 'social media' - mailing lists, USENet groups, web forums, and since 2003, blogging.    MegaZone has a presence on several social platforms: Google+ / Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn / LiveJournal / Web.    You can also follow Gizmo Lovers on other sites: Blog / Google+ / Facebook / Twitter.
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  • http://hdtivo.wordpress.com/ HDTiVo

    Mega:

    It looks like I could get the DT+$100 Service Card = Free DT deal and use the new DT and card to replace an existing TiVo (240) which is month to month @$6.95 .

    Am I right about that? If so, its like a free upgrade to a new box with more capabilities and no additional obligation to keep that box running longer than the old 240…which is zip.

    The 240′s are great – better than the slower 540′s – any reason not to give up the 240 for the DT based on UI performance? MRV/TTG should improve with built in ethernet use, right?

  • http://www.gizmolovers.com/ megazone

    I’m not sure if that will work. I think the $100 card says something about only being good on new activations, so I’m not sure if you can use it on transferred service from another box. But even if you can’t, you could sell the card to someone else I’d think.

    I agree the 240s are great, the 2xx family were the best of the S2s. But the S2DT is actually a bit faster – twice the RAM and a faster CPU. So you shouldn’t have any trouble moving to an S2DT.