Tivo users

stacey · September 2005

We are purchasing a new television and home entertainment system. I have heard a lot of people talking about TiVo and was wondering if you can explain exactly what it is? Am I right that it works similar to a VCR - without the tapes and without commercials? Do I pay any type of monthly fee to use it in conjunction wtih cable? I would rather hear from real users than going to the electronics store and have them tell me I MUST have one.

bewitched · September 2005

I just got a TiVo. You either pay a monthly subscription fee (I think about 12 bucks, not sure though, check the website) for the TiVo service or pay a lifetime subscription fee of about $300. I received mine as a gift with lifetime subscription. Yes it's like a digital VCR. It doesn't cut out the commercials but you can fast forward through them. You can pause live TV or rewind programs you are watching live (only to the point where you tuned to that channel). I'm a fairly new user but I already love it and would've spent the money myself had it not been purchased for me.

jack · September 2005

Subject: Re: Tivo users

stacey wrote: We are purchasing a new television and home entertainment system. I have heard a lot of people talking about TiVo and was wondering if you can explain exactly what it is? Am I right that it works similar to a VCR - without the tapes and without commercials? Do I pay any type of monthly fee to use it in conjunction wtih cable? I would rather hear from real users than going to the electronics store and have them tell me I MUST have one.

I don't own a TiVo, so others might be able to fill in some stuff since I've done some research on my own.

It's basically a fancy hard-drive that stores TV shows. You can program it to record specific shows like a VCR. You can also do neat things like pause a show while you're watching it and then the device automatically will record the show so when you unpause it, it will play back the show WHILE it's record it as well.

Yes, sounds confussing. But the phrase "Pause Live TV" makes sense. It can 'buffer' TV shows as well.

It can also analyze what shows you watch and then record similar shows. Slightly creepy but useful. Equally creep is the fact that there are now copyright upgrades to TiVos that will block you from recording certain copyrighted material or youc an record it once but the recording erases itself after a few days; real TiVo user can confirm or deny.

There is a monthly fee and there's no way around that. To me, that was the big turn-off. I don't have real cable--just the free signal that comes through the cable hookup--and the idea of paying for real cable and then paying a TiVo fee was painfully unappealing.

I started to research stand-alone recorders as a result. There are a few hard-drive based recorders out there, but they are a tad pricey and cumbersome.

What I ended up doing was buying a stand-alone DVD-Recorder and love it. Depending on what you will be using a TiVo for, you might want to consider a stand-alone DVD-Recorder. I really just want the ability to record some shows and can't stand VHS tapes, so this was a good upgrade. And the cost of blank DVD media makes it very economical. No TiVo fee, good quality recording and all for about $150.

emily · September 2005

It is MUCH better than a VCR! Basically, you tell it to record shows you like, you never have to remember, and then when you feel like watching TV you have lots of episodes of things you like to choose from. If you want to watch something at the time it's on (like, say, American Idol), you can start 20 minutes late, skip all the commercials, and get to the end of the show at the same time the show actually ends (i.e. it can record and play simultaneously). You can pause sporting events to get drinks, the catch up by skipping the ads. You can pause a show that you're waching live if somebody calls you on the phone. You can watch an episode of a show and then tell Tivo to keep saving it so your spouse can watch it another time. Lots of cool stuff. It totally changes the way you watch TV.

You can either pay a big upfront fee to permanently subscribe to the service that tells Tivo what's on when, or you can pay monthly. Personally, I'd pay monthly 'cos you never know how long they're going to stay in business...

ETA: Jack, with the DVD recorder--don't you have to remember to tell it to record things?

jack · September 2005

EmilyM wrote: ETA: Jack, with the DVD recorder--don't you have to remember to tell it to record things?

Yes, but I'm just old fashioned like that.

But TiVo is great. It's more like a personal servant robot for TV viewing. DVD recorders are basically better VCRs and for me, that works fine. If someone comes up with a viable non-subscription TiVo-esque (ie: hard drive) device, I'm all over that.

medusa · September 2005

Love the Tivo.

As one of my friends said "you need Tivo to make you TV watching more efficient."

So worth it. Get it with Direct TV, which is much better than Cablevision. We pay about $50/month (no fancy movie channels). We're very happy with it. My mother switched over to Tivo after she babysat for me.

brooklynswordstyle · October 2005

I've had a Tivo since they first came out. I'm still using that first version! It's so much better than a VCR. I tell it to record a show and it just does it. Doesn't matter if the show gets moved around, doesn't matter if the show is scheduled to be 40 minutes instead of 30 minutes, Tivo figures it out. It is totally and completely worth the money, and I don't even watch all that much TV.

They are starting to get slightly more evil at the behest of Big Copyright though. That whole thing about some shows not being able to be recorded is true, though it hasn't been activated yet. If it ever gets to be really annoying I'll just ditch tivo and build my own computer based PVR. Right now, however, the ease of use of tivo makes the roll-your-own method unappealing.

emily · October 2005

BrooklynSwordStyle wrote: They are starting to get slightly more evil at the behest of Big Copyright though. That whole thing about some shows not being able to be recorded is true, though it hasn't been activated yet. If it ever gets to be really annoying I'll just ditch tivo and build my own computer based PVR. Right now, however, the ease of use of tivo makes the roll-your-own method unappealing.

That's where I'm at right now. Building a DVR would be a hell of a lot of work, and I'll wait for TiVo to get really annoying before I bother. Or maybe someone will come up with a package/easier way to do it in the meantime.

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