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Television Media The Almighty Buck Hardware

ReplayTV Price Drop Bait-and-Switch 308

Posted by michael from the falco dept.
jkeyes writes "Last week on 12/17 DNNA (new parent company of Replay TV) decided to drop the Replay TV 5504 model down to $149, yet the boxes and website said that it came with three years free service. So immediately it appeared on deal sites like FatWallet with Replay telling people on the phone who called that yes all 5504 models include 3 years of service so immediately Circuit City & Amazon sold out. Then on the 12/22 DNNA released a press release annoucing the new price and claiming that the 5504 models NO LONGER have 3 years free with them and blamed the retailers for dropping the price too soon. Even though their own Customer Service Reps were saying when it first dropped that you got 3 years free. Also to add to the issue the actual devices have giant green stickers on them saying Three Years Free AND a paper inside telling you this. Replay went on to say that if you had a problem with this or your replay was deactivated to just return it to the retailer you purchased it from."
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ReplayTV Price Drop Bait-and-Switch More

ReplayTV Price Drop Bait-and-Switch

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  • Hmm... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gothic_Walrus ( 692125 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:33AM (#7808277) Journal
    Can you say "class action lawsuit?"

    I thought you could.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:5, Funny)

      by jokell82 ( 536447 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:43AM (#7808317) Homepage
      Good idea. That way the consumers that were "had" could get a $5 coupon and the lawyers could get millions!
    • Why is there always calls for class action suits? The leech lawyers get all the cash and the consumer gets a coupon for $20 off any product from the company they had the complaint against.

    • Can you say "class action lawsuit?"

      Yes, but I don't see it as being very effective.

      What seems more effective would be to post news about this to a popular `geek' web site, allowing disgruntled users to air their grievances and users who don't know about this to read up on what's going on. Hopefully this would shame the company into doing `what's right'.

      (Of course, if the company is in a shaky situation financially, the bad press could cause sales to drop to the point that they go under, then no

      • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Funny)

        by cmacb ( 547347 )
        "I don't suppose anybody can think of an appopriate 'geek' web site?"

        No, I avoid them like the plague.

    • Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Informative)

      by eric76 ( 679787 )

      Forget that.

      Everyone who bought one of those needs to file a criminal complaint with the Attorney General of their state for consumer fraud.

      If they get enough of those, they will deal with them.

  • They stick by their promise (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Rosco P. Coltrane ( 209368 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:36AM (#7808288)
    Replay went on to say that if you had a problem with this or your replay was deactivated to just return it to the retailer you purchased it from.

    Well, so people have a problem, they got a rotten deal, so they can return it and get their money back. Sounds like basically they have the right to exercise their 3 year warranty immediately.

    (By the way, the solution to any ReplayTV problem is called Tivo. Even without dodgy deals, it's always been a better idea to get a Tivo than a ReplayTV)

    • Re:They stick by their promise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by forkboy ( 8644 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:42AM (#7808311) Homepage
      No no no....3 years of service = 3 years of their $10 a month subscription price. That's why they were flying off the shelved, thats over $300 in service for free.

      The market share already pretty much belongs to Tivo, I'd say they basically screwed themselves and lost thousands of customers to Tivo forever. Dumbasses.

    • Re:They stick by their promise (Score:4, Informative)

      by alcmaeon ( 684971 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:49AM (#7808344)
      I assume this is sarcastic.

      Legally, if they sell you a box and 3 years of a subscription service, and then fail to deliver, you are entitled to, at a minimum, a refund of the cost of the box and the fair market value of three years of the service, regardless of what you actually paid for the setup. This is the benefit of your bargain. Basic contracts law.

      If the business is still alive, you might even be entitled to specific performance of the contract, if there was no reasonable alternative to their service. I assume TiVO is a reasonable alternative.


      • 40-hour Model RTV5504: $150
        Monthly Fee: $466 (12.95 * 12 *3)
        OR
        Lifetime Service: $299

        I don't see the need for class action status with millions in lawyers fees. As you said its a fairly cut and dry contract issue. Replay owes either $616 or $449 (Plus taxes and misc fees?) multiplied by all the people who bought one @ that price. This, I think, would put a hurtin' on their financials.

        This could all be settled in small claims court. The Judge would give you your money (or compel performance?) and stick Repla

        • First of all, the beef would be with the seller, not directly with Replay. And they can simply refund your money and take it back; that's generally considered complete restitution in a case such as this. Even under your math, Replay doesn't owe anyone $616 or $449; at most (if your interpretation were correct) was 3 years of service. The cost of that service (if bought) is $299; of course it costs them less, but that service fee subsidizes the below-cost-of-goods sale prices that both TiVo and Replay are

    • Re:They stick by their promise (Score:5, Informative)

      by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:54AM (#7808368)
      (By the way, the solution to any ReplayTV problem is called Tivo. Even without dodgy deals, it's always been a better idea to get a Tivo than a ReplayTV)

      That is a bit of historical revisionism. Maybe TODAY the current ReplayTV is suckeke but it wasn't always that way. The Replay 4000 units were shipping with functional ethernet almost a year before Tivo did the same. They also included automagic commercial detection and skip on playback - which works very well on "bright" shows and decently on "dark" shows (like buffy, for example). They also supported show-sharing across the interent to other R4000 owners, something Tivo (and Replay's current management) are way too big pussies to ever consider. Local network extraction of the mpeg files is also quite easy on the R4000 units and probably the R5000 too, I haven't checked. You could even do streaming playback on your PC direct from the replay with a player like videolan (vlc). Very handy for those of us with projectors on their PC's who want, for quality reasons, a full digital path to the screen.

      Tivo has always had a more novice-friendly interface and they've got up on a lot, but not all, of the above features. But at the time, the R4000 was WAY ahead of the Tivo. Plus, no one has ever had to worry that their ReplayTV will think they are gay.

    • Actual business reason to do this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @01:33PM (#7808749) Journal

      Sure they will accept returns, that way it doesn't become a legal issue.

      A good reason why they (and maybe other manufactorers) did this is to boost this years financial numbers.

      The units are sold in December this year and will not be returned until January next year. (its not going to be earlier since they were given as gifts and no store is going to accept returns until the new year)

      This year they moved 1000 more units -> bean counter happy, people get bonuses. So what if they get 700 units returned, they have until December next year to make up for it.

  • Replay is offering dissatisfied customers... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:40AM (#7808306)
    ...a free commemorative poster of images obtained from the Beagle 2 mars lander. Sounds like a good company to me.
  • Tivo has recently gone to the $30 per call service fee (although it is refunded if it isn't dumb user syndrome). Add the long wait times and you already start out upset. The upside is Tivo doesn't require much maintenance. And over at www.tivocommunity, which is hosted on Tivo's servers yet not affiliated(?) you can get almost anything answered. TivoPONY is a great user, plus you get messages from the likes of TivoSHANNON who sometimes shows up in your under a Tivo yellow star to hawk the HMO, grrrrowl.

  • This is why you roll your own PVR. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Gary Whittles ( 735467 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:46AM (#7808328) Journal
    I believe there was a Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago regarding building your own PVR. The majority of the comments seemed say "Why bother, just buy a TIVO/Replay TV, its already done for."

    Well, this is why you roll your own. Yes, its a little more work, the cost is pretty much the same, but there is no monthly fee, and features don't get yanked out from under you.

    MythTV is absolutely amazing, and its evolving incredibly fast. If your lookinng for a PVR, I recommend giving it a shot.
    • I believe there was a Ask Slashdot a few weeks ago regarding building your own PVR. The majority of the comments seemed say "Why bother, just buy a TIVO/Replay TV, its already done for."

      Well, this is why you roll your own. Yes, its a little more work, the cost is pretty much the same, but there is no monthly fee, and features don't get yanked out from under you.

      MythTV is absolutely amazing, and its evolving incredibly fast. If your lookinng for a PVR, I recommend giving it a shot.

      Problem is that while M
    • , its a little more work, the cost is pretty much the same, but there is no monthly fee, and features don't get yanked out from under you.

      I prefer having a whisper-silent TiVo in my living room than a noisy PC. Getting noise-free PC parts ups the price considerably.

      Also, you're always in danger of your program guide information being ripped out from under you with MythTV, since there is no legit free source of program guide listings. Last I heard, they were still ripping them off from websites.

  • I for one am sick of things like this... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:46AM (#7808329)
    Hasn't it occured to most people here that a lot of the deals and rebates are just crap? Case in point...

    A few weeks ago I attempted to purchase the Dell Axim x3i when it went on sale for $79. Dell took down the website and then put it back up. For those of you who know, this particular Axim actually runs for $379. Maybe it was a pricing mistake but when Dell left the page up, I thought they would send out the system. Didn't happen. In the days following our cancelled orders, Dell gave all sorts of rubbish answers to cover up the issue. Some people actually got their Axims, most others did not. The last story we heard was the deal was not a mistake but for corporate customers. I guess I was pretty irrate that I had ten different reasons for not getting my Axim and they all sounded like lies.

    More recently, Circuit City was offering three rebates on a particular hard drive. However, the third rebate would not print so a 160gb drive which would have cost between $30-$40 actually cost double that. Bait and switch? You better believe it. The rebate house said that even if the third rebate printed, they would not honor it because they needed the original UPCs for all of them.

    Now after the black friday sales and the dozens of rebates I have out, I am getting emails from rebate houses declining to give my money back to me for silly reasons like "date not on reciept". Although the date *IS* on the reciept. I guess what I am trying to say is that I am just tired of dealing with these deals and rebates since businesses are acting like crooks by not keeping their end of the bargain. I mean, if they really wanted to give us a rebate, why not just take it off at the register? I really hope a class action lawsuit or two is launched by consumers in the next few months over one of the rebate/bait-and-switch issues so business get back in line.
    • I HATE rebates for that reason. I think they count on so many people forgetting to turn them in, etc.

      As for the pricing, sometimes allowances are made by law for pricing mistakes. I don't think a $79 computer is a realistic price and easily be an error, too bad they didn't just use that rather than be stupid abot it.
    • Do what I do...if the rebate is denied for some bogus reason, I contact my credit card company and ask them to charge back the vendor for the amount of the rebate. Works best when the vendor (as opposed to the manufacturer) is the one offering the rebate.
    • I haven't tried to use rebates for over 5 years now. While are not 100% rip offs, I got burned by enough that were that I decided not to gamble any more and base my purchasing decisions on up-front cost only.

      I mean, I still remember the CDR rebate from forever ago where they kept saying they never receive the rebate info so I kept resubmitting copies of the receipt and rebate tag ( since I had sent the originals off the first time, all I had were copies ) until it was past the rebate expiration date. At w
    • I don't buy anything with a rebate because of stuff like this. I have *NEVER* gotten a rebate fullfilled anyway. It's a big freakin' scam.

      The best advice I can give you is to keep a copy of your receipts and the form you filled out. That way, if they try to pull any BS on you, you do have a record of it.

      Bryan
    • I do wish some of the states attorney generals would start looking into rebates. They are a huge rip-off and I really do suspect some of them are made hard or impossible to fulfill.

      Let's face it - a place like Best Buy (one of the worst rebate scammers IMHO) has a full record of your purchase in their databases. Why should their fulfillment house need anything more than the receipt number as proof of purchase? Yet I've been denied rebates from them for not including stuff that was never even mentioned on a
    • I (and about 5 other people I go to college with) ordered Dell Axim's when we saw the price at $79.

      I was hoping and hoping it would ship before they realized their mistake (and later I was wishing I'd checked overnight delivery instead of standard shipping). Of course... no deal... and the two e-mails I got just referenced that it says on their website that Dell is not responsible for typos.

      I was thinking how nice it would be to check e-mail around campus using the built-in wireless.
    • They dont take it off at the register because they love to piss you off.

      They dont take if off at the register because it is just as risky for them to offer the rebate as your risk on getting it back. They are counting on a majority of people never even sending in the rebate. They also probably reject a certain percentage of rebates knowing darn well people dont keep copies. I have never ever had a company not send me a rebate i qualified for. You may have to play the game, and that's something you need to

  • The egregious part of this.. (Score:5, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:46AM (#7808330)
    What the summary doesn't mention is that DNNA has been deactivating boxes that a) had stickers and papers that said they included service, b) were sold by retailers who assured customers they included service, c) DNNAs customer service said included service, even to people who asked about the $150 boxes, and d) often did show as having service when they were hooked up.

    Then it took them a week before they put out clarifying press releases, and some stores continue to sell boxes with service-included stickers that DNNA won't likely honor. DNNA can blame the retailers all they want, but they're the ones deactivating boxes that contain their promises of included service. This as about as classic a bait-and-switch as there is.

    • Re:The egregious part of this.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by treat ( 84622 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @01:44PM (#7808799)
      This as about as classic a bait-and-switch as there is.

      This is not bait-and-switch, this is fraud. Bait-and-switch is when the salesman talks consumers into buying a more expensive product than what was advertised. (The advertised product may or may not be actually available to someone with a strong enough will to not fall victim to these simple mind tricks). This is outright fraud.

  • Yeah right (Score:3)

    by utlemming ( 654269 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:49AM (#7808341) Homepage
    Yeah, try to go to Best Buy and get your full money out of it. I think that they will try to get $15 or some restocking fee out of you since it is "open." My experience with returning products, even when the manufactor said to has been less than pleasurable. Good luck....TiVo it is!

  • the solution is (Score:2, Insightful)

    by fermion ( 181285 )
    The solution to this is called lawyers. A class action can recover shipping fees and other damages. It can also make them pay a fine so they think twice next time before wasting the customers time.

    Of course, on /. we are morally opposed to lawyers making any sort of reasonable profit, so we would never participate in such a suit. We just complain and cry over the unfairness of it all, and hope some diety magically fixes the problem.

    • Re:the solution is (Score:3, Insightful)

      by pla ( 258480 )
      Of course, on /. we are morally opposed to lawyers making any sort of reasonable profit, so we would never participate in such a suit.

      Do the math - One million people, screwed for roughly $150. That adds up.

      If the lawyers kept even a whopping 10% of that, hey, I have no problem. They make an obscene amount of money (even with a five-way split among a team of lawyers, that one settlement would come out to more than most Americans will make in their entire lives), and the settlemnt group gets most of t
    • "The solution to this is called lawyers."

      In the same sense that the solution to a stubbed toe is amputating the foot. . . at the neck.

      KFG

  • maybe the FTC or various states attorneys general (Score:4, Interesting)

    by bferrell ( 253291 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:51AM (#7808353) Homepage Journal
    would be interested in what is obviously an illegal bait and switch

  • This is yet another reason why... (Score:4, Informative)

    by .@. ( 21735 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:54AM (#7808372) Homepage
    ...you should buy a Tivo instead. Tivo produces a reliable product running on Linux, is hacker-friendly, and respects your privacy. And with over 1 million users (as of this month), they've passed the critical "consumer acceptance" threshhold generally used as a metric in the industry to assess the success of consumer electronics.

  • Fatwallet Thread (Score:5, Informative)

    by Davak ( 526912 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:54AM (#7808373) Homepage
    For further discussion, legal talk, and the whole history... here's the fatwallet thread.

    http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/messageview.php?ca tid=24&threadid=254797 [fatwallet.com]

    Davak

  • CC stores got it right... (Score:4, Informative)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @11:56AM (#7808377)
    I was at my local CC store on 12/17 and they had a sign placed on top of the ReplayTV that explained exactly what was going on, and that there may be some contradictory advertisments still in circulation because of the rapidness of the change.

    Those who bought from 11/17 to 12/16 appear to be the big winners... it look like their 110% price protection claims are going to be valid.

  • You get what you pay for still true post 1999 (Score:3, Insightful)

    by computerme ( 655703 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @12:02PM (#7808395)
    That's a bummer that this has happened. What really blows me away is how people seems to forget that old adage.

    Even more importantly, people seem to ignore TIME as a factor of cost. As in the time it takes to return a cheaper product that breaks. The extra amount of time it takes to setup products compared to others on the market, and another important time waster, waiting for products or ipod drivers to ship for linux when much better solutions may be out there now on other platforms.(Can you say Gimp vis - a vis, photoshop?)

    I guess i look at these things as tools. I always try and find tools that are going to not only entertain me or empower me but also save me time and hassle. Because that is the most costly of all factors in ALL our lives.

    In the last year i bought:

    a) An ipod: not waiting for a org vobis play becuase frankly i don't have the ears of a dog to "tell" the difference.

    b) itunes music store: best of breed dgital music store that is one click easy, and i know the artists are getting SOMETHING unlike kazaa.

    c) a dual g5- damn fast.

    d) OSX - best of breed combonation between the power of unix and open source and commerical apps.

    ( I already own a tivo and knew how much better it was then other solutions out there so i won't even bring that one up. Nor will i bring up the point of how much TIME and money of yours it would take to build an myth tv type solutions.Nor do i want a pc in my living room. I know i know put it somewhere else and drag a line in. No thanks.)

    Did these cost me more? In some cases yes. But whatever the delta in price was i can GUARANTEE you that i have more than made up for it in increased productivity and not having to pull my hair out trying to get these things set up.

    Moral of this story?

    Sometimes paying MORE ends up costing you LESS...

    Happy holidays...
    Best of New Years...

    • >people seem to ignore TIME as a factor of cost.

      It really depends if your time can be replaced by money/effort.

      I can't work overtime at my job, so maybe taking the 2 hours setting things up is the more resource efficent way of doing things.

    • KnoppMyth (Score:2, Informative)

      by waferhead ( 557795 )
      Installable pre configured Knoppix based Myth TV solution, ready to roll.

      Has to be installed, but get a WinTV-Go, add a HD to a decent box, add TV-out vid card or VGA converter (seems to be the preferred method, TV out usually looks like hell) and it looks like you are ready to roll.

      Disclaimer--- DLed ISO last night, made sure it booted etc, building "fresh" box now.

      Just posting FYI, as I can actually be "on topic" for a change.
    • Your actually went against your own advice when you did business with Itunes Music Store. Face it: the vastly superior product is a little invention called the "audio CD". It will still work 50 years from now, and you can do anything you can think of with it. Good luck diddling with the DRM on your ims files, and let's hope the server is still there to give you a key, (and that a player exists for whatever OS you're running) when you want to move the files to another machine in 2023. One thing's for sur

  • Stealth Inflation Hits Again (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Paul Krugman in the NYT did a piece some weeks back on "stealth inflation" in which he described a whole host of companies adding on fees, surcharges and other cryptic babble, mostly in the hopes that most consumers would just knuckle under and not complain. This sounds suspisciously like that - except that if the retailers get saddled with a bunch of returns, the retailer will be the one who gets just a wee bit peeved. My bet is that they will be the retailers who won't take back the product because it has

  • Poor manufacturing, but still far superior to Tivo (Score:4, Informative)

    by clmensch ( 92222 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @12:48PM (#7808577) Homepage Journal
    I am on my THIRD ReplayTV 5080...the first one died within a month, then the replacement died! What's worse is that it took a couple of months for ReplayTV to activate the first replacement unit...I had purchased a lifetime activation and they too forever to switch the activation over from the old unit to the new unit. Things went much smoother for the second replacement...although the fact that I've had THREE of these damn machines is pretty sad.

    Once you get past that, the ReplayTV itself is FAR superior to Tivo. Automatic Commercial Skip actually works 95% of the time, and using DV Archive, I am able to download any recorded show over my home network to my mac to burn to DVD. It's just awesome. Their interface is far superior as well...I like how you can organize the shows by category...and they are not displayed by date recorded. That's one thing I HATE about the Tivo...you have to scroll around looking for shows that you recorded a while ago. With ReplayTV, you can find it instantly. Plus you have a buttont to skip 30-seconds without a hack, unlike Tivo series I...and as far as I know Series 2 machines can't do this. Actually, you can fast forward as far as you'd like by hitting a number first and the the skip button. It's little things like that that make the difference to me.

    Tivo is the AOL of PVR's, imho. ReplayTV decided not to bend-over for the networks, which cost them money in legal fees...which definitely hurt them. The only thing Tivo is better at is marketing.
    • What software do you use to burn shows to DVD after you have grabbed them with DVArchive? I have a Mac, but have not been able to figure out how to do this. Every time I have seen instructions, they want you to use about 20 different programs to demux, convert video and audio, and remux, and even then I can't get a burnable video file.
    • You haven't used a TiVo in a while, or if you have, it's been a Series 1. In the latest TiVo OS, you can have all episodes of a show show up in a folder, so all Simpsons episodes are categorized under one "Simpsons" folder. You can also change sorting options, so you can sort by date recorded or by name.

      Automatic Commercial Skip... meh. DVArchive... I admit it would be nice to have something that simple, but I can hack my Series 1 TiVo and add show recording and so much more, so I'm not concerned about it.
      • For older ReplayTVs running version 4.x software or lower, the conflict resolution is almost nil. Guaranteed shows have priority over non-guaranteed shows (the unit will ask if you try and schedule two guaranteed shows in the same timeslot.) Non-guaranteed shows are ranked in order of age - the first show you schedule for a timeslot will alway override any other non-guaranteed show you schedule afterwards, and the unit WILL NOT TELL YOU IF THERE IS A CONFLICT BETWEEN NON-GUARANTEED SHOWS.

        The newer Replay

  • They are still being sold with 3yrs Service (Score:5, Informative)

    by bangzilla ( 534214 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @01:03PM (#7808643) Journal

    Number of sites around the web are still selling Replay's with 3 years service. My advice - buy one + if Replay don't live up to their deal take them to small claims court. You'll easily win + there are no lawyer fees. (Actually Replay won't even show up for the case so it'll take all of 30 seconds for you to get the judgement). How to collect: Invoice them with the court documents or (if you want to be really nasty) stick a collection agency on them -- it'll cost you anything up to 50% of the court award, but the satisfaction will be pure bliss. Enjoy!

  • Time for a class action suit (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nurb432 ( 527695 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @01:14PM (#7808682) Homepage Journal
    As much as i hate being part of a 'sue-happy' society, sometimes the legal system is needed to keep companies that pull that sort of crap in check.

  • Nobody would be going through this trouble if they weren't trying to get a "steal" of a deal. Offering 3 years of service for free on a cheap machine is a business model that won't work. It sounds like a tactic to just empty the inventory and make some quick cash, ala SCO and its "pump-and-dump" strategy with the markets. Either that or the new owners of Replay thought it would be an easy way to drive up their installed user base to ensure retailers would still carry the product. As it stands, TiVo has

  • Replay's steadily decreasing functionality (Score:4, Informative)

    by Animats ( 122034 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @02:51PM (#7809060) Homepage
    If you read the ReplayTV revision history [pvrcompare.com], it looks like each new release removes functionality. "Commercial advance" was dropped when the 5500 series came out.

    As for what Replay is doing with their "free" offer, it appears to violate the Federal Trade Commission Guidelines for use of the word "Free" [ftc.gov]. These are quite specific.

    • Because the purchasing public continually searches for the best buy, and regards the offer of ``Free'' merchandise or service to be a special bargain, all such offers must be made with extreme care so as to avoid any possibility that consumers will be misled or deceived. ...

      when the purchaser is told that an article is ``Free'' to him if another article is purchased, the word ``Free'' indicates that he is paying nothing for that article and no more than the regular price for the other. Thus, a purchaser has a right to believe that the merchant will not directly and immediately recover, in whole or in part, the cost of the free merchandise or service by marking up the price of the article which must be purchased, by the substitution of inferior merchandise or service, or otherwise.

      ... When making ``Free'' or similar offers all the terms, conditions and obligations upon which receipt and retention of the ``Free'' item are contingent should be set forth clearly and conspicuously at the outset of the offer so as to leave no reasonable probability that the terms of the offer might be misunderstood. Stated differently, all of the terms, conditions and obligations should appear in close conjunction with the offer of ``Free'' merchandise or service.

    That's clear enough. It's binding on the supplier as well as the retailer; the supplier can't pass the buck here.

    California also requires this: (Business and Professions Code 17509). [ca.gov]

    • Any advertisement, including any advertisement over the Internet, soliciting the purchase or lease of a product or service, or any combination thereof, that requires, as a condition of sale, the purchase or lease of a different product or service, or any combination thereof, shall conspicuously disclose in the advertisement the price of all those products or services.
    That's clear enough.

  • DVArchive? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by joeytsai ( 49613 ) on Thursday December 25, 2003 @09:15PM (#7810466) Homepage
    If you own a ReplayTV, you know the killer feature for it is DVArchive. (sourceforge site [sf.net])

    However, I'm rather concerned about it. The website, although hosted on sourceforge offers no source code and repeated attempts to contact the author have been ignored. He's allegedly planning a rewrite of some kind, which is fine, I just want the source for the older version.

    Is anyone a developer for DVArchive or have access to the source? This is not at all an insult to DVArchive or its developers, it's a great program, but in the spirit of its license, I'd really like to see the source code.

  • PVRs need a better revenue model (Score:3, Interesting)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Friday December 26, 2003 @07:51AM (#7811973)
    Both Tivo and Replay need to find a better way to make money. Charging as much as they do for guide data reminds me of a newspaper or magazine trying to make all their money off the subscription. They don't, because nobody would buy even the NY Times for $10 per day.

    I'm not sure what that is, but perhaps selling more and more compelling software options, more widely licensed software to consumer electronics resellers, broader marketing of usage info (yes, I know the tin hats will go batty here...).

    I love my Tivo, but it's a an extremely expensive device when you factor in the box and the lifetime, especially against CATV-provided PVRs, which can be had for as little as $5 per month in some areas. Yes, I'm aware they suck compared to Tivo, but it's a non-investment that doesn't *have* to be perfect for many people.

    The Direct TV Tivos appear much cheaper, but that's if you want to invest in Satellite and can get a signal (I can't, so its a moot point).

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