Slashdot linked up this news report on Tivo Corp's latest conference call to stock analysts. Tivo will apparently be discontinuing their lifetime service, instead switching to one, two, and three year contracts with discounts for longer terms. They also mentioned the (to me anyway) much-anticipated Series 3 recorders should be coming out later this year.

While the rate re-structuring is getting the most attention, I think it's actually a pretty good idea. What's not mentioned often enough about the lifetime contract is that it was for the Tivo, not the household. If you got a new Tivo you had to buy a new lifetime contract. It also took right around three years to "break even" on the lifetime service vs. the monthly agreement. Since new generations of Tivo players tended to come out every 3 years or so, it made upgrading much harder than it had to be. The new service it seems to me is much better, even if it is still for the machine and not the person.

I wonder if they'll provide multi-machine discounts?