TiVo in Canada…. or Not?

So if you don’t know what TiVo is, it’s basically a turbo charged digital VCR that lets you watch TV your way, and I’ve yet to hear from someone who has one that doesn’t like it, or who would go back to TV the “regular” way. Recently it’s been announced that TiVo will be available in Canada. Maybe along these lines, I saw this, which basically gets you a free 40 hour system (of $150 value) if you sign up for a slightly higher monthly fee for a year ($16.95 vs $12.95).

I spent some time looking for the downside. It amounts to about $250CND for the year (vs $285 if you buy the $150 box, get a $49 rebate, and pay the regular $12.95 monthly fee), which look like a great deal. Not sure what happens after the year contract is up, I was going to call to ask about that. Anyway, I’m not seeing the downside. TiVo is a great service, other than a bit of bowing down to the MPAA with broadcast flags and whatnot, it’s a free box, set monthly fee….

So I’m about this -> <- far away from signing up when I see point #9:

(9) Offer valid only in the USA.

The response I had to this was:

[15:52] Alan: bastard cocksmokingdumbassmotherfuckers!

So I went into their contact us page to see if I could just get it shipped to a US address or if I had to have a US credit card and all that, or if there was a way it could go to Canada if they were opening up to this new market. First thing I see on the contact page is they don’t do email support and the second is the phone number to call (yay!) but it doesn’t work from here (boo!).

I want a TiVo, and this is what appears to be a great deal, so why the hell aren’t they wanting my money?!?!?!

Update Original link from PVRblog with some comments on the .ca issue….

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4 Comments on “TiVo in Canada…. or Not?”

  1. Bittorent and Geexbox is what you need. If you are already paying for cable, there’s no need to feel “guilty” for downloading TV and then you get TV on your schedule!
    I’ve looked at, but haven’t set up yet, the combination of RSS and Bittorrent. Automagic scheduled downloads! That’s creamy…..

  3. Robert and I second and third the MythTV suggestion. We have three capture cards (spread over two machines) now, and it’s working pretty darn fine. While it’s not perfect, it’s improved substantially in the last few months, especially since we went from Debian to FedoraCore 4 as our base and upgraded Myth itself from 0.16 to 0.18.1
    Anyway, that’s my $0.02CAD – Rob can speak to the subject better than I can.