My guess is after DirecTV told TIVO to piss off and bought the replay patents they were in a much better position with their own units and software to have TIVO come back and renegotiate the software fees and such. Probably saved them some serious $$ per sub on Tivo boxes...
Actually I heard it was the opposite, according to Tivo the monthly fee they will charge D* will be much higher than they do on the current DirecTivo units, which will mean higher monthly fees for the new Tivo users.
But I don't get it, Tivo just lost about 800k subs in the last year, most of them DirecTivo accounts, and obviously DirecTV is replacing what are left of those Tivo boxes with their own DVRs in a faster pace than last year.
So what good does it do for Tivo to wait till the end of 2009? By then they will likely have lost another 800k subs.
The only way I see myself replacing my 4 HR21s will be that D* totally stops to improve those HR21 DVRs, and making the proposed new DirecTivo box a more attractive alternative even at a higher monthly cost. Though such strategy makes no sense.
From most of the comments I sense the frustration with the lackluster D* HRXX DVRs, more so than anything else, that does not make me feel good about the prospect of my 4 HR21s. Maybe D* is conceding they can't do DVRs right on their own? Am I to expect my HR21s still be so clunky one year from now?