When I still had cable tv, I loved my Tivo, even though I never upgraded my Tivo 2 box the Tivo HD.
Why not? Pricing. I had a lifetime (of the Tivo 2 box) subscription, so upgrading would have been very expensive for me – first because of Tivo’s high pricing for the Tivo HD box – which was over $700 about this time last year; although today the Tivo HD XL box is priced at $599.00.
In any case, I would have had to resubscribe to Tivo in order to actually use the new HD box, plus the monthly subscription cost for my old digital cable package; you do the math.
Since then, I’ve switched from cable to Netflix, especially Netflix‘s On Demand offerings, which I watch on my HD tv thanks to my Roku box which while not HD, produces a signal as good as my former cable provider offered those HD viewers who didn’t pony up extra money each month for their “HD Viewing” add on.
Roku just announced two new models will be available in addition to the existing Roku HD Player; all three are much less expensive than Tivo’s HD box:
Roku SD: $79.99. Standard definition player with composite video and RCA audio, ethernet and 802.11b/g WIFI. Here’s the back of the Roku SD Player:
Roku HD: $99.99. Existing player with HDMI, composite, and component video, RCA audio and optical video out, ethernet and 802.11b/g WIFI.
Roku HD-XR: $129.99. Same video and audio I/O as Roku HD, but with 802.11b/g and 802.11n networking support, as well as a mysterious USB port on the back for “future use.”
Here’s the back of the Roku HD player:
Within the next month, Roku will launch a Roku Channel Store for customers to choose channels to watch via their Roku box.
Sign me up, Roku HD!
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