TiVo: O Canada!, it's finally here... kinda!

[Taylor]

Tivo stops selling units directly, but O Canada is finally supported
On Saturday, a former employee of a company that handled all the
TiVo.com sales let slip that TiVo is no longer selling units directly
from their site, instead linking to Best Buy as the primary place to
buy one. This seems like a good move to me, as it lets TiVo
concentrate on its core business of software and support and lets
retailers concentrate on sales of units.
In other TiVo news, it looks like they are officially supporting
Canada, though it seems they aren't allowed to ship anything into the
country so you kind of have to get one mailed to you from an American
friend. It's been a long time coming for our Canadian friends and most
of mine simply moved to a cable company-provided DVR as they waited
for the past five years. I wonder what held TiVo back from Canada all
this time? Are there stiff trade restrictions or tariffs that couldn't
be settled or are the cable systems difficult to integrate into the
software? [thanks Dave and Megazone for the links]

...

Hell, I wouldn't touch one of those Rogers (Cable) Scientific-Atlanta
buggy boxes w/ a ten foot pole, but will settle for/accept a Bell
ExpressVu box as an alternative to TiVo, but now it looks like I may not
have to! Maybe they're keeping it quiet because they think TiVo Canada
(not a real official title) will blow away the small PVR/DVR (we tend to
call them PVRs here) currently available here???
BTW, the lucky bastard that registered TiVo.ca might be rich, rich, rich
if this pans out to a full blown TiVo Canada launch!

...

by Matt Haughey September 18, 2005 in TiVo
http://www.pvrblog.com/pvr/2005/09/tivo_stops_seli.html
http://www.tivo.com/1.6.1.asp#9
Is the TiVo service available in Canada?
The TiVo Service is now available in Canada. Canadian residents will
be given special instruction to follow when activating service. Please
look for the link "Instructions for Canadian residents," under step 1
during the activation process.
TiVo does not sell boxes in Canada, so Canadian residents must
purchase boxes in the US and import them. If the DVR becomes
defective, TiVo will not ship a warranty replacement box into Canada,
and will only ship to a US address.

[Gary Tait]

Tivo stops selling units directly, but O Canada is finally supported
On Saturday, a former employee of a company that handled all the
TiVo.com sales let slip that TiVo is no longer selling units
directly from their site, instead linking to Best Buy as the primary
place to buy one. This seems like a good move to me, as it lets TiVo
concentrate on its core business of software and support and lets
retailers concentrate on sales of units.

This move is temporary. Metron, the company in charge of their web/mail
order buisness, closed doors. TiVo and other former Metron customers are
seeking alternative companies to continue as before.

In other TiVo news, it looks like they are officially supporting
Canada, though it seems they aren't allowed to ship anything into
the country so you kind of have to get one mailed to you from an
American friend. It's been a long time coming for our Canadian
friends and most of mine simply moved to a cable company-provided
DVR as they waited for the past five years. I wonder what held TiVo
back from Canada all this time? Are there stiff trade restrictions
or tariffs that couldn't be settled or are the cable systems
difficult to integrate into the software? [thanks Dave and Megazone
for the links]

All they has do to was figure a way to add Canadian postal code support.
Canadian cable and satellite boxes are mostly the same in the U, and
they have Canadian dial-ins. I think that 7.2 as the opportunity they
took to add Canadian Postal code support.

...

Hell, I wouldn't touch one of those Rogers (Cable) Scientific-Atlanta
buggy boxes w/ a ten foot pole, but will settle for/accept a Bell
ExpressVu box as an alternative to TiVo, but now it looks like I may
not have to! Maybe they're keeping it quiet because they think TiVo
Canada (not a real official title) will blow away the small PVR/DVR
(we tend to call them PVRs here) currently available here???
BTW, the lucky bastard that registered TiVo.ca might be rich, rich,
rich if this pans out to a full blown TiVo Canada launch!

Right now, they want the easy wy. Later on, they could possibly sell
boxes in Canada.