When they write TiVo’s obituary, the last paragraph will be devoted to the Premiere Elite, a DVR that may cost more than your average 32-inch TV. But it recorded four channels at once, they’ll cry. And we’ll all solemnly nod our heads, and shrug, and immediately forget.
That price is just speculation at this point from ZatzNotFunny, but the device itself is entirely real, wending its way down the FCC paper trail now. It’s can handle 300 hours of HD video, which is nearly two consecutive weeks of eyeball-searing content. It supports MoCa, so it’ll share nicely with other devices in your house, and the four tuners allow you the aforementioned quad-recording. It is the perfect picture of overkill.
And that’s why it may be the TiVo death knell. Instead of going cheap, cheaper, cheapest, its next hallmark product will cost hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds) of dollars. I’m not saying that (admittedly speculative) price point is a rip-off; I’m sure TiVo will charge what it’s worth. I do think, though, that there’s not a market on Earth for it. And that the losses the company takes from it may just drive them underground.