Long-time TiVo expansion and service vendor DVRupgrade is today launching new TiVo life-extension services. While DVRupgrade has long offered pre-upgraded TiVo units, as well as drop-in replacement drives and the tools needed it to do-it-yourself, they’re now offering full TiVo repair services as well.

While DVRupgrade is best known for their TiVo related offerings, they’ve also branched out into other areas. They sell VideoReDo, a popular video editing and DVR burning package often used with TiVoToGo recordings, and a number of accessories. They also offer VUDU, HDHomeRun, Neuros MPEG-4 Recorder II, and a number of other products such as Slingboxes, Logitech remotes, and more.

I’ve used DVRupgrade’s products myself. A few years ago I used InstantCake to image a drive to recover and expand an old Series2 before I sold it to a friend. A just a few months ago I picked up a 750GB replacement drive to replace the factory 80GB drive in my Pioneer DVR-810H when it finally gave up the ghost after four and half years of constant use. I’ve always been very happy with both their products and their service, and I recommend them highly.

Press release:

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CNET’s Brian Cooley just posted an Insider Secrets video all about upgrading your TiVo with a larger hard drive, using the Instant Cake CD from DVRupgrade. I’ve often recommended Instant Cake myself, and I’ve used it in the past for imaging hard drives for a TiVo. It really is a nice all-in-one solution for TiVo disc imaging and well worth the $20.

If you’re not up for doing it yourself, you can spend a bit more and buy a ready-to-run drive that you can just drop in. And if you’re using a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD you can use an external eSATA drive, like the My DVR Expander, of course. Or you can always buy a pre-upgraded unit to start with.

Unfortunately CNET doesn’t let you embed the Insider Secrets videos, but fortunately TiVo Blog spotted the same video re-posted to YouTube.

DVRupgrade posted their “Top Ten Reasons To Buy a TiVo Series3 or TiVo HD DVR“, and that got me thinking about what I’d put on my list. I agree with most of their list, but not all of it. For example, I’m not a big user of TiVoToGo, in fact I hardly ever use it. While I do regularly transfer video to my TiVo, I prefer Slingbox over TiVoToGo for accessing my content remotely. Likewise I use my Slingbox for remote scheduling and really never use the web for that. And, being a single guy who lives alone, KidZone is of no use to me. Conversely, I use the various Internet features so much and value them so highly that I probably would’ve listed things like TiVoCast, TiVo Web Video, HME applications, etc, separately instead of as one entry. And since they’re talking about the Series3 and TiVo HD in particular, I’d've mentioned the HD content.

How about you? How would your top ten list compare to theirs?

DVRupgrade is giving away a VUDU box at TiVoCommunity. Anyone can enter, see the details in DVRupgrade’s latest newsletter and at TiVoCommunity. Any one can enter, but you must do so by April 13, 2008.

A couple of updates to sales items I posted previously.

In an earlier post I listed some sales DVRupgrade is having on the TiVo HD, along with two special offers - an HDMI cable for one penny and the TiVo Glo remote for $30. At the time you could only select one of these special deals. However, after talking to them about it, they said that was an error and they’ve fixed it - now you can get BOTH deals on one order. So the specials are even better.

And just this Saturday I posted about Amazon’s special offer on the Sony BDP-S300, wherein you get the Blu-ray movies Spider-man 3 and Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, plus five more free via mail-in. When I posted the price on the player was $384.57, but within a day that was dropped to $294.08! Which is where it currently stands.

DVRupgrade is running more special deals, just in time for the holidays.

First up, get $50 off select TiVo HD units with coupon code DVRTCF2007-050. Which units?
43 hour / 320GB - normally $449, just $399 with coupon
70 hour / 500GB - normally $579, just $529 with coupon
107 hour / 750GB - normally $779, just $729 with coupon and eligible for $30 Hitachi rebate, making it $699
144 hour / 1TB - normally $949, just $899 with coupon and eligible for $30 Hitachi rebate, making it $869

Simply put the TiVo HD you want in your cart, and enter coupon code DVRTCF2007-050 during check out and the $50 will be deducted from your total.

But that’s not all. Since the TiVo HD does not ship with an HDMI cable, DVRupgrade is letting you buy one for one penny! Yep, $0.01. Just enter coupon code HDMI07TCS.

Wait, there’s more! You want a TiVo Glo Remote - the nice remote that comes with the Series3 but not the TiVo HD - instead of the HDMI cable? You can get one for $30 by entering coupon code DVRTCF2007-030.

The coupon code entry is on step four, ‘confirm order’, during checkout. Simply enter the $50 off code (DVRTCF2007-050) and hit ‘Recalculate’ and you’ll see the deduction. Then enter the HDMI for a penny code (HDMI07TCS) or, and the $30 Glo Remote code (DVRTCF2007-030) if you want it, and hit ‘Recalculate’ again and you’ll see them added to the order. Note that you can only select one of the special offers - if you enter one and then enter the other, the first one entered is deleted. The last one you enter is the one that will be honored on the order. EDIT: After I mentioned it to them, DVRupgrade changed the offers so that BOTH are available!

Happy shopping!

DVRupgrade is selling the TiVo HD upgraded with a 320GB drive for $449. But, even better, as a special offer for TiVo Lovers readers, enter coupon code DVRTLB2007-050 during checkout and save $50 - for a total of $399. So you get double the capacity (320GB vs. 160GB) of a standard TiVo HD, which means you can record up to 43 hours of HD content or up to 409 hours of SD content, for $399.

The coupon is only good on that specific model, as a special offer, but they also have other expanded TiVo Series3 and TiVo HD models, with up to 1TB in capacity. And if you want even more, they do special orders up to 2TB.

While both WeaKnees and DVRupgrade have been offering special order upgraded units with up to 2TB of capacity for a while, WeaKnees announced in their blog that they’re making the 2TB Series3 an official offering on their site. The 2TB unit has one internal 1TB drive and on eSATA 1TB drive. What does 2TB of capacity get you? How about up to 292 hours of HD content, or a staggering 2777 hours of SD content? Yeah, you need to be a serious couch potato, or someone who likes to archive a lot of content, to use that much capacity.

I rarely had issues with the default 250GB drive in my S3, and since I added the official 500GB eSATA drive I have more space than I know what to do with. As more of the content I like moves to HD, I’ll probably need the space though. Right now, most of what I record is still SD.

How much will this TiVo-of-plenty set you back? $1599 after the current $200 rebate. It is an expanded Series3, not a TiVo HD, so you do get the nice remote, fancy case, and THX certification for that money. That’s worth it… right?

I asked DVRupgrade about their plans to offer a similar unit. They said that, while they do currently sell ‘off the menu’ upgrades, such as 2TB units, as special orders, they do not currently have any plans to make a 2TB unit a standard offering on their site. They cited a low demand for the larger capacity units, likely due to the higher costs, even with an increase in demand due to the current $30 Hitachi rebate. They prefer to stress the higher reliability of single drive units over the dual-drive configurations.

TC Club is basically a special club for users of TiVoCommunity.com who donate to support the site. Members of TC Club get some added features and privileges:

• Elimination of all advertisements running on the site
• Full access to the TC Club Members Only Chat Forum, as well as other forums which may be added in the future (make a suggestion!). These forums are lightly moderated, which means that discussing religion, politics, and other off-topic conversation is permitted. Inflammatory or derogatory remarks or disparaging other members is NOT. (”Light moderation” is not the same as “no moderation”.)
• Increased private message space for up to 500 total stored messages … more than TRIPLE the space!
• More space in your signature file … DOUBLED! (unfortunately, images are still not permitted)
• Special discounts from time to time from our site sponsors
• Identification that you are a TC Club member on your public profile and wherever you post on the site
• Subscription auto-renewal
• The joy of knowing that you are helping to support the site

Users who join TC Club, or renew their membership, before the end of the year also get a TC Club T-shirt.

As an added incentive, DVRupgrade and Capable Networks (TiVoCommunity’s parent) have teamed up to offer special rewards.