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Ok, i was digging through some old stuff and found my dad's old Direct TV TiVo Tuner, model 4080r. It has a direct TV card in it, but are those like hotel room keys - only good when you're paying?
As you can tell, i have no idea how these things work and have never had Direct TV or cable. I remember hearing something a long time ago when he had this (maybe 5yrs?) that he had a 'lifetime' TiVo subscription attached to it. Of course, I have no use for it and wouldn't know how to access it anyway.
Anybody know what I should do with this thing? I probably can't give it to anybody, as the TiVo part is attached to my dad's name?
thanks
kiva
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If he had a lifetime subscription attached then he should be able to use it to upgrade to lifetime subscription on a current tivo at a discount. Other that not, not much value.
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You can give it away if you want. If there's no service, the new person can start service and if it has lifetime, TiVo can transfer it to the new person's name.
The bigger problem, is that DirecTV TiVo's don't really work anymore, AFAIK. I believe DirecTV switched their compression scheme, making the DirecTV TiVo's useless now.
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^^^
The DTV Tivo's do still work. My son has our old one in his room to record programs. Those old units also are the only ones that will let you directly copy off the hard drive to a DVD or VHS.
If you have a newer DTV DVR running, then you can add additional ones at no extra charge. So if you don't want it, many DTV subscribers could use it.
As for what it is worth - check ebay.
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They still work, they just can't receive the new MPEG4-based channels. I still have one up and running myself.
I don't believe DirecTivos had lifetime subscriptions, though. They were dependent on your DTV account.
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I have a DirecTV Tivo, the Sony T-60, with a lifetime subscription.
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I have 2 DirecTV TiVos, and they are covered by a lifetime subscription, like Mike Johnson said. DirecTV stopped offering lifetime subscriptions for their TiVo DVRs sometime in 2003-2004, if memory serves. Many have reported that they are hard pressed to even get DirecTV support reps who will acknowledge that such subscriptions once existed. For those of us who bought them, we are "grandfathered" and do not pay the monthly DVR fee. The fees were associated to the DirecTV account, not necessarily the equipment, so simply possessing a DirecTV DVR that was once owned by a DirecTV accountholder who had lifetime DVR service will probably not allow that lifetime DVR service to transfer to another DirecTV account.
To the OP's original question, the unit probably has the most value (if there is much value at this point) with a DirecTV customer who already has "grandfathered" lifetime service and wants to add another DVR to their account or use it for replacement parts.
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Not only will it not work with any of the Mpeg 4 channnels but it is not compatible with any of the SWM dishes that have been installed for the last couple of years.
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John B. wrote:
I have 2 DirecTV TiVos, and they are covered by a lifetime subscription, like Mike Johnson said. DirecTV stopped offering lifetime subscriptions for their TiVo DVRs sometime in 2003-2004, if memory serves. Many have reported that they are hard pressed to even get DirecTV support reps who will acknowledge that such subscriptions once existed. For those of us who bought them, we are "grandfathered" and do not pay the monthly DVR fee.
Oooooo. I didn't know that (bought mine in 2005). Nice.
