As above, one reason is server load & bandwidth.

It’s a lot easier (& cheaper) to send out 10,000 updates a day for a few weeks then 250,000 in one mass update.

The second reason is support calls.

Every time an update is sent out some small percentage of machines will fail. It’s almost never the ‘fault’ of the update but some irreproducible combination of new file / bad spot on the hard drive / cosmic radiation / geese enroute somewhere. So spreading out the updates helps keep the support lines from being hammered.

And yes, the third reason is any minimizing any bad rollouts.

TiVo’s worst nightmare has to be sending out an update that bricks some (or all) of their products–badly enough they can’t be fixed automagically/remotely. Even for just 1% of their customers would be huge problem.

Heck, not even bricking 1% of their customers–somehow substantially making things worse in some way for even 1% of their customers would be a PR disaster.

So going slow, in combination with the other reasons given above, is their only sane strategy.

I swear I looked and it only said 9.1. Looking at it now it does say both. I'm thinking I need to invest in a new pair of glasses. : )

Elias - it is for both. It used to be for just 9.1, but they reworded it and if you read it now you'll see it is for 9.1 on S2/S2DT and 9.2 on S3/HD boxes.

Brad - The phased releases do a couple of things.
1. It keeps the server/bandwidth load spread out, as opposed to trying to do all the boxes in a day or two.
2. Sometimes serious issues *can* slip through testing and not show up until deployment. Ramping up over time gives them time to catch such issues before it hits the entire user base. Sure, it isn't great for those who got it early, but it is better than having everyone suffer.

The Priority page is just a nicety for dedicated TiVo users. Since only users active online - those who read the blogs and forums - find out about it, it is a little reward to them for being more 'hardcore' about TiVo to be able to get the updates sooner.

Elias, check out the text. It's been modified to also include 9.2. I don't imagine they planned to release 9.2 so close to 9.1. Figure it's gotta be the bugs...

This is the priority page for 9.1 not 9.2.