There was a brief period where some stores were selling TiVo Premier on the new, contract-driven pricing, but with the old terms and conditions (e.g. being able to use your old TiVo service plan, and not be locked into a new contract).

I have no idea what those “November 13th TiVo Premier Buyers” will be stuck with, it’s possible TiVo will honor their contract… but it’s also possible those customers will be told to pound sand, and eat the return shipping costs. I don’t know, but I do know that I will cancel TiVo if they chose to do the latter.

I asked TiVo about that subject, and they have chosen to not respond so far.

You’ve probably seen these deals from time to time, if you’re a serious bargain sniper online. Brief periods where the latest-and-greatest TiVo is sold, typically from an obscure-but-reptuable retailer, for an insanely-low price like $99.

I finally was able to lock in the purchase on one, a TiVo HD Premier for just $99. To compare, the standard retail price is $299. So, what’s going on here? I’m going to argue TiVo not only knows, but is totally happy and encouraging this practice.

TiVo said long ago that they were transitioning to having two roles in the industry. First, a cell phone-like contract model, as well as an embedded model to sell TiVo integration with HDTV manufacturers. TiVo has succeeded on the first front, and struggled on the second. Licensing TiVo firmware to third-parties failed in the DVD Recorder era, with those boxes winding up being coveted for their subscription-free rates, as well as the ability to do more than TiVo’s own boxes (primarily, their ability to burn unencrypted DVD Video discs of recordings, even recordings transferred from other TiVo units in a house).

Odds are, if you have a TiVo HD already, it is already out of, or close to the end of its contract. TiVo doesn’t have many HD subscribers. With only a few hundred thousand CableCARD users in the United States, most of those account for probably the vast majority of TiVo HD users. Let’s face it, very few people are using TiVo HD with ATSC (over-the-air) HD, those people have (or should have) defected to Windows 7 Media Center, and its free ATSC recording.

So, what is TiVo to do? The same thing the federal government is doing… triggering inflation.

Think about it. Customer A is a TiVo subscriber. His contract is up, but there’s no incentive for him to renew his contract (TiVo runs budgets to close to the bone to do that). Because of the economy, he’s not likely to upgrade TiVo boxes. However, Customer A sees a $99 offer for a TiVo HD Premier. He then goes onto eBay, and finds that first-gen TiVo HD boxes are selling for $99. Customer A sees it as a nearly-free upgrade, and sells his TiVo HD on eBay, and buys the $99 TiVo HD Premier box.

In case you’re wondering… I’m Customer A. But, ideally (for TiVo) so are thousands of other TiVo users.

Enter Customer B. Customer B can’t afford a TiVo HD at retail. He/she (I’m just going to use she to make this simple) would like a TiVo, and is willing to pay the $14.99/month service fee, but can’t afford the box. She then goes on eBay, and finds a ton of TiVo HD units selling for $80 to $100. She sees this as a great deal, and buys a TiVo HD. Ideally, she’s smart enough to also add on a SquareTrade plan, in case the TiVo’s hard drive fails three months after purchase.

Now, TiVo wins big time here, as does Customer A and B. The producer surplus is a big win for TiVo, because they just picked up a new subscriber at the $14.99/month near-pure profit. TiVo also didn’t have to subsidize a box for Customer B. All TiVo had to do was give Customer A a brand new TiVo HD Premier at-cost.

Best of all, these releases are so brief that TiVo doesn’t have to worry about customers being gunshy of buying a TiVo HD Premier at $299. These sales are so short, that the average joe will not even hear about them, let alone anxiously hit reload on sites that provide news on deals (ahem).

So, TiVo gets to play a fun game of price discrimination, meanwhile I get a shiny new TiVo with better features. And, someone else gets to enjoy paying $14.99/month to TiVo forever. Full disclosure: I threatened to cancel TiVo and bargained my way down to paying only about $9.99/month… no, I didn’t tell them who I was or what I do to get it.

Update: Hours after this post, TiVo dramatically changed their terms of service, making much of this article obsolete. See the following blog post to recap.

The problem? Nearly half the commercial involved people talking… in a silent ad.

For those of you not familiar, I coined the term Silent Ads for variants of ads that cut out all speech, in favor of running just the music of the commercial. Making multiple variants of ads is a timeless tradition, but Silent Ads are a new (and very lame) variant of advertising, aimed at the lowest of intellects.

It is true, Silent Ads do work with dumb people. This is why ad agencies con companies into devoting part of their budgets to them. I’m being very scientific when I say dumb; advertisers classify audiences by intelligence. But, Silent Ads also have a downside, they dovetail and tick off people with high intellects. Those are the informed consumers that wind up saying/tweeting/blogging/sharing “hey, don’t buy that annoying crud.”

The bottom line, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Uncharted 2 underperform. You don’t win people over by running ads with 45 seconds of lips moving… and nothing but music on the audio track.

But, let’s take a look at history for a second first, just in case the crowds at Moscone West decide revolt if Apple doesn’t announce iPhone HD at WWDC.

When the original iPhone came out, Apple categorically denied that it was even capable of TV Out. Time and time again, Apple Media Relations clearly stated that the iPhone lacked the hardware to output video.

Then iPhone OS 2.0 came out, along with 480i (SDTV) video output on each and every iPhone and iPod Touch. iPod touch 2G then went 480p at the next revision.

Will Apple announce iPhone HD at WWDC? I have no idea. I do know that you shouldn’t shoot the messenger if they don’t.

Sound familiar? If you’ve played Metal Gear Solid 4, you’ve officially been there and done that. I’ve long talked off-the-blog about 24′s continual ripping off of Metal Gear Solid. People have finally started listening to me after I noted continuously that Tony Almeda (aka Raiden) would rise from the dead.

Spoiler alert. (Cease reading if you don’t want to know what happens next on 24… or if you haven’t played all the Metal Gear games.)

President David Palmer (shot in the head) will be back too. The clock didn’t stop counting (which happens whenever a key protagonist dies), but people didn’t listen to me about that happening when Almeda was “killed.” He’ll make an appearance later this season. It’s not clear just yet if Palmer (who had an almost brotherly bond formed with Bauer prior to the series beginning) will take on the Solidus role of mixed-up-bad-guy-that-used-to-be-president.

Oh, and you can start playing the Father & Son theme from the end of MGS4. Intel confirms Jack’s father will be back for some healing aww-he’s-not-so-bad moment (don’t count on that for this season, but it’s in the cards). For those of you not familiar with the 20-year-running Metal Gear saga, Solid Snake battled, and killed his genetic father, Big Boss, twice… only to find him rise from the dead for the series finale.

My point to all of this is not to ruin 24 for you. It’s a great show. And don’t worry, Jack Bauer wasn’t made in a test tube. Though John Voight is probably going to wind up being a dead ringer for Ocelot (don’t say I didn’t warn you). I just think it’s worthy of pointing out where they get their material from. And, that crosses into the tech sector… which is my domain.

On one final note, kudos to Apple for putting down the money for a formal endorsement. After years of Macs being featured, Apple paid the token gesture amount to have Mac OS X featured. The 24 team is a huge fan of all-things-Apple, and Apple got a free ride for years with countless product placements.

In case you missed the latest chapter in the saga, after Hulu disconnected Boxee’s custom plug-in, Boxee went the innovative, open route and wrote an RSS parser, a la Podcaster. This gave Boxee a similar interface as before to access Hulu content, but did so without any custom API or other form of access to Hulu. So, Hulu yesterday blocked Boxee’s browser identifier, effectively shutting legitimate users out, simply because their computers identified to Hulu that their browser was running inside of Boxee.

Boxee responded to Hulu’s action noting this, stating that Boxee is just now a glorified RSS reader, pointed at Hulu’s site by default. Boxee already has a fix, and that simply was to change the identifier to Firefox. Now Hulu can’t tell the difference between the Firefox browser, and Boxee loading Hulu’s feeds.

My take on this is simple: Hulu and its content-providing backers should back off of blocking Boxee. No, not because they’re afraid of their business model being undermined. No, not because they want a phased transition.

Why they should is simple: They’re making Boxee more popular by opening this can of worms. Boxee is an underdeveloped product that landed a Series A round of venture capital funding. Its success is far from guaranteed. However, every time Hulu tweaks Boxee, Boxee wins another round of media attention. It gets free press that money can’t buy, and gains probably tens of thousands of new users each time Hulu turns the page on this debacle.

And, that makes Boxee stronger. That makes them more likely to get more funding. That makes them more likely to be in a position where they won’t need Hulu. Hulu should be afraid of that, and the content providers would not like having to negotiate with multiple streaming TV stores.

I’m not going to advise Hulu on what to do exactly, they aren’t paying my lofty-but-well-earned consulting fee.

So, I decided to save $60+ and cancel the TV service.

This is a good experiment. I want to see if I can live on online TV service, and over the air HDTV alone.

So far, I’m about one day in. I’ve already dusted off my TiVo HD and set it to OTA-only mode. After manually pulling the analog channels (which should have already been shut off, had the Obama administration held to the Feburary 17 shutdown time)… I’m all set.

It’s been a bumpy ride still. I have to admit, I’m in a bit of withdrawal. I’ve already pretty much drained my TiVo, which had an abundant storage of shows that I hadn’t watched (that time around). The OTA selection in the Sacramento valley is pretty small for my standards. There aren’t any looping runs of ’90s sitcoms to burn the midnight oil with. I’ve caught myself scrolling through looking for a Cosby Show or Family Matters as background chatter… nothing.

TiVo Suggestions is still paying off though, it’s already coping itself with the short supply of content. For the first time, it’s pulling down PBS shows in desparation. But, it’s all the more valuable when there really is nothing worth watching on. And, when you only have five or six channels, that’s much more often.

Next step? Finding a good way to have internet TV at the ready.

This is affecting my bottom line. It’s not okay.

I called into dispatch this afternoon, and I have been hung up on three times in a row. The phone rings through to someone, and then just cuts off. I don’t know if it’s their phone system, or if they’re just acustomed to my caller ID number. I suspect the former, since I’ve tried on two different phones.

After that, I called the last premise tech (thankfully, he left his card), and he’s calling around to try and get to the bottom of why this is getting so screwed up.

Developing… very, very slowly.

Update (9:40 PM): A lot actually started happening around 5 PM. Two maintenance technicians came out, and got to work. I got a call from Robert (one of the premise techs, and the first person I called after I couldn’t get dispatch to answer). Major praise to him for rescuing the job. He wouldn’t take no for an answer, and got the trucks rolling again.

They found the signal between my house and the VRAD was fine, albeit with some crosstalk. But, rather than just leave, they got on their phones and kept calling… until they found another premise tech to come out. I now have three big AT&T trucks on my street at this point.

Ultimately, they decided to replace the Remote Gateway (that’s the modem and router combo box). That did fix the bad fit issue which Tier 2 Tech Support… but the connection was still bouncing arround. Every speed test either had the download rate screwed up, or the upload rate. That’s consistent with the issues that I’m having, as the connection runs fine climbing up to 18 mbps, then gets knocked down, only to start climbing back up again.

After I thought the maintenance techs had left (giving up really, none of us could come up with something else to try), they knocked on my door. They decided that since there was some crosstalk on the line, that replacing some of the line would indeed make sense… even though the diagnostics were coming back clear.

So, they’ll be back tomorrow to do that. If that doesn’t work, we’ll move on to replacing the line that AT&T hijacked from U-Verse (the feed indoors). If that fails… I’ll be packing stuff up to move to Silicon Valley at that point, so I really don’t care. Hopefully U-Verse will work better at my new home.

Unfortunately, when you hit the Read More link, the article was nothing more than an editorial… and even concluded that its initial premise (of getting to the bottom of this) wasn’t really found. Great way to lure in readers, Entrapet?

Even that said, I don’t buy the premise which they were making. That premise was that TV Pack 2008 was meant to train OEMs in the United States on what Windows 7 Media Center would entail, and give European customers DVB-T tuning support. And, also that OEMs were informed that they would want to avoid shipping TV Pack 2008 to customers, because of its unreliable state.

This is the point where I put my hand on my face and sigh a lot. First, OEMs must never have gotten that memo, if Entrapet HD is to be interpreted correctly… because everyone from HP to top-tier premium HTPC manufacturers have been shipping TV Pack 2008 since when it started shipping. Two, bad behavior doesn’t justify good intentions. TV Pack 2008 is buggy, everyone knows that… that’s why Microsoft starts to stutter when you ask about it. It doesn’t mean that it was a beta or developer preview.

Why? Because Microsoft releases developer previews and betas all the time. If they wanted OEMs to not ship a product, they’d do that like they always do. And, unlike Entrapet’s assertion that only enthusiasts are ticked about TV Pack 2008… that’s quite false. Many average people bought into the Vista Media Center and CableCARD waves, looking to replace their TiVo. Now they get nothing but FUD about the solution, well until recently. Now they’re told to just wait (and pay) for the bug fixes in Windows 7.

Here’s my take. And, this is only my take, not something I’m going to write off as “getting to the bottom of it.” I think that at some point, Microsoft realized Vista had failed. So, the team began working on Windows 7.

But, at the same time, they realized that they promised Europe DVB-T, and Hauppauge wanted to offer the HD PVR with Media Center. Oh, and the CableCARD people were fuming about their $3,000 systems not working right. An update had to be made.

And, so it was made. Unfortunately, like the rest of Vista, it too was a failure, due to countless bugs and problems (those are the bugs and problems that we TV Pack 2008 users suffer/suffered with… and Microsoft still has yet to fully admit to… and probably won’t until legal obligations/memories are long in the past). So, faced with splitting the difference, the HD PVR support was gutted (removing the H.264 components) and TV Pack 2008 went to the OEMs in Europe. Everyone else got the code bits to look at, but only because Microsoft wanted something to show for three years of work.

My advice to Microsoft: Give any CableCARD owner a free upgrade to Windows 7. That will start to heal the awful track record of TV Pack 2008, even for those still waiting for its features.

But, I don’t want to do that today… it’s beating a dead horse. I would however like to point out when others do the same thing. Mike Wren has done that quite eloquently on his own blog. And, he echos what many are saying, and what I may be resigned to accept… that Microsoft is going to force people (many of whom have paid thousands of dollars for their CableCARD rigs) to pony up for Windows 7 to fix those bugs.

That is going to fail Microsoft, I’m warning you now so that I can say that I did later. These people are the ones you don’t want to tick off, because they will wind up telling everyone to go to what TiVo is brewing, just as soon as it comes out of the gates. And, they will too… leaving Windows 7 Media Center devoid of both advocates… and savvy users.

They remember when they were supposed to get bug fixes, and they know who exactly to cast blame on.

They know what to reccomend to the hundreds of friends, family, and co-workers.

And, their opinion spreads like a virus to the rest of the non-tech community.

Microsoft, you still have time to fix this. There is still time to roll TV Pack 2008 into Vista Service Pack 2, and fix it. Please, take advantage of the Vista Service Pack 2 delay, and save Media Center’s face… Microsoft will be shooting themselves in the foot otherwise.