I've been having various messages hit my HDTV DirecTV (DTV) TiVo (TIVO) over the course of the past month, that I'm going to need to do a required "upgrade" if I want to get my West Coast network TV channels after March 30, 2008.
Unfortunately, DirecTV's upgrade will require me to lose my TiVo service that I love.
The upgrade is a joke. Although I've been relatively happy with my 4 tuner HDTV TiVo, DirecTV wants me to upgrade to a new *non TiVo* DVR that only has 2 tuners, not 4 tuners like my TiVo. It kind of sucks that they are forcing this upgrade after I spent over $1,000 on this DirecTV TiVo box originally.
My response to this forced upgrade? I just called DirecTV and canceled my service.
Sayonara DirecTV and Sayonara to your $87 a month albatross that has been hanging around my neck for the past 10 years.
In the interest of fairness, it is worth noting that I've been thinking about dumping DirecTV for a while anyway, and their dumping my TiVo was really more the straw that broke the camel's back than anything else. At present I'm using an HDHomeRun dual tuner with my Media Center PC. Given that I can pull a bunch of HDTV off the air including all my network TV for *free*, it seems kind of silly to keep paying DirecTV $87 a month.
Sure, I'm not going to get the Soap Opera Network anymore or the Home Shopping Network, but with all of the content that I can get from Netflix (NFLX) these days for a *lot* cheaper ($17.99 for a 3 disc-at-a-time plan), it just seems like a better deal to me. I've got three great discs from Netflix that I've been watching this weekend. A Dexter disc, Jerry Seinfield's stand up comedy show "I'm Telling You for the Last Time" and a *fantastic* documentary from PBS called "American Photograhy: A Century of Images."
I've been a customer of DirecTV since 1997. The guy on the phone tried really, really, really hard to keep me. He told me he could lower my bill by $10 a month for the next 12 months. He offered to give me a bunch of free programing. But in the end after saying "no" "no" "no," about 30 times he relented and let me cancel my service effective today.
I will miss using my TiVo of course -- a lot out of simple nostalgia as it was the first tool I ever had to zap commercials, but I just won't be able to justify buying a new standalone TiVo when my Media Center PC pretty much does everything a TiVo can do and then some. And of course I will be a lot happier without paying DirecTV that monthly tariff.
I do think that as an early adopter, my own TV decision will be a sign of things to come and perhaps even a mark of a new trend as other people also begin dumping the satellite and cable cartel in favor of more economical pay as you go or a la carte sort of content models.
