HD TiVo coming (back) to DirecTV

Dave Zatz has a post reporting what many DirecTV users have been wanting for years now: a (New) HD TiVo is coming to DirecTV!

This is great, great news. I was a former DirecTV customer that left for Comcast back in 2005 when their HD offerings were slim and the HD DirecTiVo was already being phased out. I've heard nothing but horror stories about DirecTV's replacement HD DVR (the one made by NDS) and several friends and family members have jumped ship to cable (either Comcast or FiOS) to get a deeper HD channel lineup that works with a real TiVo.

For the friends and family that don't have a cable option (those in rural locations), they'll definitely be happy to hear a new HD DirecTiVo may be out by early next year. This looks like good news for both DirecTV and TiVo, and though it may poach a few sales of TiVoHD units (and people leaving satellite for cable), I bet the licensing fees TiVo will charge DirecTV will make up for it.

I still get asked via email several times a week if it's possible to get a new Series 3 or TiVoHD to work on their satellite system, and now I can finally tell them to just wait for the new units to roll out.

Comments

[John Munsch]

Fantastic news! Seriously!

[John Wise]

That's not soon enough for me. Our DirecTiVo is on it's last legs & I'm dumping DirecTV for Dish next week. DirecTV wasn't willing to match Dish's package pricing, although I was able to coerce them into giving me one of their crappy HD DVR systems. In the end though, my wife decided that she was fed up with DirecTV and their shenanigans and lack of TiVo updates over the years.

[Russell G.]

Actually the press release from DirectTV and Tivo says it's due out "in the second half of 2009":

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080903/aqw143.html

[Mickymse]

Trouble is the deeper HD lineup from Comcast comes at the expense of the HD quality.

[Doug M]

I switched to a Series 3 Tivo and only OTA about 1.5 years ago and I couldn't be happier.

[Paul]

Same here. I switched to Cable with Series 3 2 years ago after I'd been over 10 years with DTV. They called many times wanting me back. I said I'd come back the day they supported Tivo again.. They must have listened... ;-)

[Griffon]

Uh huh. I would be interested if there where some hard core pledges about supporting new tivo function as it rolled out.
Otherwise foll me once...