Lifetime TiVo Service - FAQ

[WK-Michael]

DirecTV TiVo DVRs

DirecTV charges a DVR fee of $5.99/month to customers with one or more DVRs on their DirecTV account. You also pay a receiver/lease fee of $4.99/month per DirecTV receiver, after the first receiver on the account. If you are running an HD TiVo and want the HD channels, that's another $9.99/month (currently the first three months of that are free).

If you have a DirecTV Premiere package, the DVR fee is included in the umbrella that you're paying for, so you won't also have the $5.99 monthly charge. So if you have this package, all you pay to add a DVR is the hardware cost, once.

Once upon a time, DirecTV and TiVo offered lifetime TiVo service for DirecTV units. This is long gone, but if you had it, it's now part of your DirecTV account, and, unlike lifetime on standalone units, it covers all of the DVRs on your account, and you can remove/replace old DVRs from your account without affecting the status of this lifetime coverage. If you close your DirecTV account, however, you'll never get this back.

Standalone TiVo DVRs without DVD burners

Monthly service on TiVo units is from $12.95/month to $19.95/month depending on the length of time you commit to TiVo. If you had monthly service before November 3, 2006, you can remain at $12.95/month with no long-term commitment beyond the one-year you agreed to.

Until recently, these units were eligible for lifetime service. TiVo has stopped selling lifetime service for these units. There are ways to get this (eBay, WeaKnees, gift cards) but by and large, if you want a unit with no monthly fee, you should consider a Humax combo unit, below.

Secondary units (up to five per account) qualify for a multi-service discount of $6/month. So if your primary unit is $12.95/month, your next one is $6.95/month.

TiVo DVD Combo Units

The monthly service for these units is the same as that for the standalones (see above). But these units are still eligible to get lifetime service.

At $299, lifetime service is a pretty good deal, at least for the first unit on your account. This covers the monthly fee for just over 23 months - after that, your service is essentially free, and, since service travels with the box for these, your unit is worth more for potential resale.

To purchase lifetime service for a Humax unit, you need to call TiVo - and it won't work on Humax units purchased from TiVo. Lifetime can't be purchased online at this point.

Series3 Lifetime Transfer

Until 12/31/06, owners of standalone TiVos with lifetime service can buy a new Series3 unit and convert the lifetime service over to it for $199. The older unit also gets TiVo service for one year. Not a bad deal - soon to be gone.

[ksett]

I'm using aDirecTV R10 and a Hughes Model DVR. I kept the Hughes to safeguard my lifetime service. I would really like to use another R10 or better. Do you know where they explain lifetime service on their website? I referred a customer once and had to get a little nasty to get my fifty bucks. I really like DirecTV, but I don't really trust them unless I know it's in writing (by them)!

[WK-Michael]

We're really pretty sure that the lifetime is part of your account now, but you should be able to call DirecTV and get a good explanation of the situation.

[subtvdan]

Hey WK-Michael in your post you mention you can still get a lifetime on the DRT800. when does tha go away or has it allready. I recently Jan4/07 activated a DRT800 for a freind and saw the lifetime was still on tivo's website and I thought it was an error but signed up for it any way because it was the same price as the 3yr commitment figureing if it was wrong they would fix it on there end. It charged the credit card ok and I printed the receipt saying lifetime, but I haven't called him back to see what the tivo unit says in its info screen. If they are still offering a lifetime on this unit I would be very interested. Any other details as to why and how would be appreciated. Thanks

[2ndwest]

I have a Sony SAT-T60 TiVo box with a lifetime subscription and a Toshiba/DVD Tivo with a month to month plan. I currently have decided to switch over to cable due to problems that I am having with my Toshiba/DVR Tivo box. It seems that changing channels no longer works reliably and Directv does not want to acknowledge the problem. The best I can understand from reading posts on the web, is there has been some kind of software upgrade to the Directv boxes that has caused this problem.
Do I understand that if I close my Directv account and later decide to re-open my account, I will no longer have a lifetime subscription on the Sony SAT-T60 TiVo box?

[WK-Michael]

That's right - if you close the account, the lifetime sub vanishes.

[deepblackhole]

For several years have been using a 2-tuner DirecTV Tivo as my primary, plus an old single-tuner Series-1 (with lifetime subscription) as a reduced-capability backup. Recently bought a 1000-hr Series-3 from Weaknees and signed up for Verizon FIOS with the intent of ditching the DirecTV service.

Obviously, I wanted to transfer the lifetime subscription to my new Series-3 box, but the option to do so via TiVo "expired" a few months ago - some details still available on tivo.com. When the offer was in effect, you could supposedly pay a transfer fee of either $199 or $249 to move the subscription to your new box, plus, TiVo would throw in another 12 months of free service on your old box.

Weaknees has been saying that although officially expired, TiVo has been intermittently agreeing to honor the offer for transfer applications that arrive after the expiration.

The way to do this is to provisionally buy a new box from Weaknees and Weaknees will supply the new TiVo Service Number (TSN) without shipping the box. Then, you call TiVo and beg/borrow/steal your way into getting them to let you transfer the subscription to your new TSN, even though the offer has expired. Weaknees continues to say that they will happily cancel such a provisional sale if TiVo refuses to allow the transfer (you don’t ask Weaknees to ship your new box until you confirm that TiVo will allow the transfer).

I provisionally ordered my new Series-3 from Weaknees and they gave me the new TSN. I then called one of TiVo's toll-free numbers (877-367-8486), patiently explained what I wanted to do and met with, frankly, significant and condescending non-support. The TiVo agent treated me like a child and was less than helpful. Bottom line: they required me to have my new box physically in hand (I didn't yet have it since it was a provisional Weaknees purchase but I already had my new TSN which is all TiVo needs), PLUS - the deal killer - TiVo was demanding that I activate service on the new box and ONLY THEN would they even "consider" my subscription transfer request. This would have put all the risk on me - once I activated service on my new box it renders it un-returnable -- and I wouldn't have been able to get a decision on subscription transfer until after I had committed to keeping the new box, which I didn’t want to do unless I was guaranteed to get the subscription transfer.

Thus ended that call. I called Weaknees back, explained. Weaknees tells me to call TiVo’s “VIP” line (866-424-8486) and try again. Did so, very helpful CSR does the deal quickly, courteously and completely to my satisfaction. And the icing on the cake? They moved the subscription from my old Series-1 TSN to my new Series-3 TSN … WITHOUT any fee! Now, they didn’t give me an extra free twelve months on my old Series-1 box, but who cares?

Don’t know if they gave me this deal since I’ve owned/operated multiple TiVos for years, your guess is as good as mine. The secret to success “appears” to be bypassing the generic huddled masses customer service number and use the VIP line.

It remains to be seen whether or not a transfer of a pre-existing lifetime subscription will still make the new box purchase eligible for the $200 rebate - reading the fine print on that offer doesn't make that outcome clear, although my gut feel says I will more than likely still get my rebate a couple of months from now.

Give it a try – I make no promises or estimates as to the likelihood of your success – am just letting the Forum know what worked for me.

[WK-Michael]

That's excellent! We've heard that some reps seem to do the transfer for free, with no one-year service on the old box, and some seem to charge the $199 and give the one year on the old box.

We can't figure out which they choose - did your old box maybe have lifetime from before Feb of 2000?

[deepblackhole]

Interesting question, and too far back in memory. Dug out some old records to answer. I bought my Series-1 box in Nov 2001. Records don't indicate exactly when I bought the lifetime, but it was either simultaneous with the box or at most within a handful of months later ... but none of it near Feb 2000. What is significant about Feb of 2000?

[WK-Michael]

People who purchased lifetime before that date get one free lifetime transfer to a different piece of hardware.

[parrottrooper]

This might sound stupid, but are you saying that if I purchase a used Humax from an ebay seller, I can still buy/activate the lifetime service from Tivo?

[WK-Michael]

Really not sure - but our new, unactivated Humax units (our refurbs qualify also) will work to get lifetime still. It's hard to say for Humax units from other places. If the unit is used, all bets are off.

[parrottrooper]

Got another good one for you: is the lifetime service transferable if the seller used to work for Tivo?

[WK-Michael]

Really, really hard to know, parrottrooper. But you can certainly try . . .

[deepblackhole]

Follow-up to my lengthy post from June 5th about transferring lifetime subsciptions...

Tivo will NOT honor my $200 rebate. Error message specifically says that I have to activate "new" service to get the rebate. Transferring my pre-existing lifetime sub from my old Series 1 box to my new Series 3 HD box did not qualify. I knew that this might happen - was hoping I'd slip by. Oh, well, it sucks to be me.

[fireheadward]

Is it still true that if I have a Tivo lifetime subscription on my DirecTV account that I can add other DirecTV Tivo boxes and benefit from the original subscription? I have two DirecTV Tivo boxes one with HD and one without and would like to replace the one without HD with a Box with the HD. I have noticed a lot of these on ebay. Any advice?

[WK-Michael]

Yes, that definitely still works. DirecTV assesses one fee for DVR service on the entire account, so one unit with lifetime service waives it across the entire account. Of course, you'll still have the mirroring or lease fee.

[Wyldman]

I recently purchased a DRT400 and the option for Lifetime service (priced the same as the 3 year option) was offered and did work. Now, If I can sort out why this thing locks up intemittantly when using the Tivo wireless network adapter, I'll be a happy camper.

[WK-Michael]

Is the unit from us?

There are some strange WiFi issues with older software. Are you on 8.3 or later?

[Wyldman]

No, not from you, and it's currently on the latest version 8.3 (or was until I reinstalled the upgrade drive I just got back from WK, now it's on 8.1 until it upgrades and reboots).

[WK-Michael]

8.3 should do the trick.

[Choirmaster]

A follow up on deepblackhole's June experience. I just purchased an HD unit from Weakness, and with their helpful serial number information transferred my old Series 1 unit lifetime service. The old box was not old enough to qualify for the free transfer, but I got the transfer without the $199 payment (and, as dbh also experienced, without the additional year on the old box--who cares). (I was also VERY nice to the rep on the other end of the phone. :) )

[WK-Jeff]

A follow up on deepblackhole's June experience. I just purchased an HD unit from Weakness, and with their helpful serial number information transferred my old Series 1 unit lifetime service. The old box was not old enough to qualify for the free transfer, but I got the transfer without the $199 payment (and, as dbh also experienced, without the additional year on the old box--who cares). (I was also VERY nice to the rep on the other end of the phone. :) )

Congrats!!

[WillfromSF]

I have an old Series 2 Tivo Box for cable, upgraded with a Weaknees hard disk about three years ago. I still have the original lifetime service on it. I am planning on going high-def in January and will of course want to transfer my lifetime service to a new Tivo HD box and will probably keep the old box for my non-HD TV.

I thought I recently (say 2 months ago?) received e-mail notices from both Tivo and Weaknees that I could do that transfer for free (or was it $199?) to a new HD-Tivo and also keep the free service going on my old box for one year. Now it seems the only thing available per the latest e-mail from Weaknees is a whopping $399 cost, but that's available to all existing Tivo subscribers. What is still available for me at both Tivo and Weaknees to minimize this transfer cost and when does it expire? Thanks.

[WK-Jeff]

If you have a unit that qualifies for the transfer, then you can get a TiVoHD from us and transfer your service for $199. This offer is good thru the end of January, but does not apply to all Series2 units. You can qualify your unit here:

www.tivo.com/hdservicetransfer

[philhu]

I tried to qualify my service number. I click 'Verify TSN' - nothing.

I know it is not a weaknees site, it is a tivo site, but it doesnt work

[tcmlover]

Is there another Lifetime FAQ? In case there isn't, I wanted to say that TiVo does offer Lifetime service again, and has for a while. It's priced at $399 though for some reason I'm eligible to pay only $299 (I'm coming up on the end of my first year).

Also I bought a used TiVo on eBay (with Lifetime Service transferred), might have been single-tuner with 40GB, and when the unit arrived it wouldn't go beyond the initial yellow screen. Probably a bad HD, and I considered replacing the HD, but it was about 4 years old. Instead I called TiVo and they sold me a new (refurbished) 649080 and transferred the Lifetime service onto it. Price was about $150 plus tax and I had to return the bad one (I actually did a cross-ship, they charged me about double that and then credited the extra back down to $150 when they received the bad one). Overall it got expensive but it was probably still cheaper than buying a new unit and adding Lifetime service. This unit has nothing to do with the one that's ending its first year in the previous paragraph.

=aw

[jaz08]

Its amazing to have a TiVo box that have a lifetime service warranty.It can help us on how to spend money wisely. Hopefully if there are many problems regarding this lifetime service a customer representative should be always ready to help.

[WK-Michael]

This post doesn't make a lot of sense to me and makes me think I should prepare for an avalanche of forum spam, but just in case it's legit, I'd like to point out that "lifetime service" and a "lifetime service warranty" are two entirely different things.

Jaz08 - please don't spam our forums.

[ljnelson]

This may qualify as a VSQ (very stupid question), but if I buy a WeaKnees Tivo HD box with some extra capacity, how do I order lifetime service for it?

Best,
Laird

[WK-Michael]

You just go to the TiVo website, enter the number of the unit, and pay for service. It's just as if you had purchased the unit at any other non-TiVo vendor like BestBuy.

[coyotewaits]

Dear WK-Mike,

I recently purchased a very old Philips HDR312 from the local Goodwill store, and...yes there is a 7 day return policy...lol. Anyways, and to make a very long S1 tivo story short...the modem is not functioning, and I am wondering how do I verify that it in fact has a valid lifetime service plan before I begin spending on it. The first purchase would be an external modem with the serial cable which can run at least $50 from what I can gather. I called tivo and and after 40 minutes of searching their records they said it was a direct tv tino box, and they transferred me to direct tv. direct tv has no idea either. I do not think it is direct tv, again from what I can gather. Namely, it has not slot for any cards that DTV keeps asking about, and it has the MPEG-2 encoder which would not be necessary w/ DTV. Additionally, and obviously, it is made by Philips - not direct tv! Tivo seems to have conveniently lost all info on this unit. The TSN they keep asking for is listed as a serial number that begins with 000...which is a characteristic of all early Philips boxes, no?
Help - I have until Wednsday to return it. FYI- paid $20 and came with remote.