Anyone use TiVo?
 

I have heard one too many people rave about TiVo, and my curiosity's been raised.

The gist of what I know: it's essentially a combination of a hard-drive VCR and a program guide, that's smart enough to follow program time/channel changes and adjust record settings accordingly. You buy the box, then pay a fee per month. You can record from the TiVo to a VCR if you want to archive beyond the TiVo's storage capability. It'll work with basic cable. It uses the phone line late at night to download program data.

Anything I should know that I'm missing? Anyone own one and want to rave or rant?

We moved from ReplayTV to TiVo after Sonicblue bit the big one.

I personally don't use it; my dad is the fanatic, and he will rave about it as long as someone will listen.

The added bonuses you're missing are that you can pause "live" TV, so you can go take a dump or whatever, and that you can effectively skip commercials by watching recorded stuff a few minutes late (i.e., start watching the Simpsons at 7:10 but rewind the recorded TV to 7:00 - it keeps on recording, so each time a commercial break comes on, you just skip past it. By the end of the show, you're caught up to real time and you haven't watched annoying commercials). ReplayTV flaunted its commercial skip feature; TiVo's has to be unlocked, but basically, you hit a button and it skips 30 seconds ahead. Pretty snazzy overall.

I have it, and it's just as addictive as they say.

Unfortunately the first unit's hard drive died after 6 months and I had to send it back and get another.

As a consumer unit, the hard drive is the weak link in the chain for TiVo. There aren't too many VCR-like devices that have a 50% chance of dying in the first five years of its life, but that's what hard drives do. Hard drives are rated by MTBF, "Mean Time Between Failure", the point at which half the drives will develop some kind of problem.

Since the TiVo is effectively using its hard drive ALL THE TIME, whether you want it to or not (it's constantly caching video for its live TV buffer), you can expect that MTBF number to be accurate; if you're buying a TiVo, you should EXPECT it to fail at some point.

It is, in fact, a Linux system. It's a computer, and computers go bad.

But the good news is that since it's a computer, there is a remarkable community of geeks ready to help get the most out of that box. To me, this more than makes up for the possible problems that develop.

Via that community, people have put together a step-by-step guide to managing your TiVo hard drive; and with the help of that guide, last week I changed our 60-hour TiVo into a 137-hour TiVo by swapping out the hard drive for a new, bigger one.

Damn straight. Mine came with a 40GB drive and I added an 80GB to the second drive bay. At the same time I made an image of the original drive so if (when) I do have a crash I can restore that image to a fresh drive. The info is all on the web. The one thing I screwed up is that I didn't plug in the cooling fan. Within about 5 hours it had shut itself down and was displaying a temperature warning. All in all, a pretty clever box.

Other features: You can search the guide and save searches. For example: I can ask it to find every show in which Emma Thompson appears. If I feel like it, I can have it automatically record those shows. Ditto for keywords--I'm not watching TV much these days, but for a while I had a keyword search for "EGYPT*". It not only picked up archaeology documentaries from PBS and The History Channel, but also Liz Taylor in Cleopatra, Abbott and Costello vs. The Mummy, etc. The guide information isn't perfect, but it's pretty complete--I've had it pick up shows for particular actors when the only thing that person had was a 15-second guest spot as Third Extra From The Left.

As you can imagine, using this sort of setup for a while really tends to erode your loyalty to particular channels!

Oh, one more thing I should say: if you are at all interested in satellite TV, you should look at combined units. You can currently get a combo Tivo/DirecTV receiver. (Dish Network, the other big satellite company, makes its own personal video recorder products; some people like them, some don't.) This is what I have. It has two tuners, which means I can watch a show I've already recorded while the box records 2 different shows at once! But the thing about a combo system is, one of the most expensive components of a Tivo or other PVR is the MPEG encoding chip. With DirecTV or Dish Network, all the content is MPEG-encoded at the headend before it's piped out to the satellites. So a combination PVR/satellite box needs no MPEG encoder, and is paradoxically cheaper than a standalone Tivo.

that right there sold me about 95% on getting one. we are finally getting cable this weekend, and i think im gonna need one of these. any suggestions on where/what to buy?

~james

How well does it work if you have DSS (namely Dish Network)? Anyone have experience there?

After the fire (which destroyed the ReplayTV box he had), my dad got the DirecTiVo box from Hughes and has been extremely happy with it.

(Just a "me too" to SD's post.)

perth, the usual culprits are Best Buy and Circuit City. I'd start there and then check tivocommunity.com for the lowdown on the current Internet deals. (I got my DirecTivo unit for $19.95 shipping, including the dish.)

That Guy, I couldn't tell you. I was using the Dishplayer from Dish Net before I got fed up with all the unfixed bugs and toks the DirecTV plunge. If you're specifically set on a Tivo I'd check out tivocommunity.com also and see what Dish customers' experiences are. But you will spend a lot less money if you get a Dish Network PVR-integrated received, so you may want to see how those stack up feature-wise. The Tivo has been around longer and was providing a good customer experience while the Dishplayer was a bug-ridden piece of garbage.... but Dish customers with newer Dish PVR models seem happy with them. (See dbsforums.com for discussion.)

Got mine directly from tivo.com.

tivocommunity.com has been down for many days now. Quite annoying.

My brother gave me a TiVo for Christmas. I read the instructions and gave it back. I just couldn't get comfortable with this company having my name, address, bank account number, phone number, a complete profile on my viewing habits and interaction with my cable company.
My brother kept it and is now getting mail and phone sales solicitations based on the shows he watches. His cable company has also tried to sell him extras based on his viewing habits. With the system he has they have no way of knowing what he watches so they must have got it from TiVo.
I'm sure many people don't care who knows what, but I do. :p

do you *have* to subscribe? i seem to remember reading that it works without subscription, but you have to manually schedule recording.

on the other hand, i doubt that keyword feature works without a subscription. how much does a subscription cost?

~james

It's true, you don't have to subscribe. Subscription is $12.95 per month; there's also a "lifetime of the unit" plan, but that's the wrong choice for almost everyone.

The quality of the system is in its user interface, including the remote. The user interface is just outstanding. When I introduce the TiVo to new people, I merely hand them the remote and tell them to start with the big top button. From that starting point, they can intuitively learn and understand the whole thing in about five minutes.

The software would not be as great without the live program data backing it up. It would be nice if they were to open the interface so that competitors could offer program data. That won't matter when, in about three years, the price of all the hardware components of the TiVo is about $100 and open source software to operate it matures.

That's funny, I've never gotten any solicitation that seems based on Tivo watching. Or maybe they couldn't figure out anything to sell to someboy who watches Egyptian archaeology documentaries, indie films, Taildaters, standup comedy, and Daria. (Not to mention all the stuff my wife and kids watch.) I get far more junk mail as a result of having bought Philadelphia Orchestra tickets.

For that matter I've gotten damned little phone solicitation of ANY kind whatsoever since the PA "don't call" list was instituted. I'm kind of shocked that it worked.

Anyway DirecTV charges $4.95 for PVR service if you have the DirecTivo. The standard Tivo is $12 per month I believe. You might be able to pause, rewind, and fast-forward the current show without a subscription, but that's it, and you may not even be able to do that.

Bruce, I skip about 30 minutes of commercials a day. They can spam my mailbox with as much kindling as they desire and it would still be an awesome trade.

(But I haven't noticed any additional mail from anyone, and I agree that the PA no-call list has been perfect.)

I don't watch much TV because I'm so busy reading the wealth of logic and reason the Cellarites spew.
My brother lives in MA and they don't have the anti-call thing going. Shame too 'cause it sure works well here.

Now if we had a cookie file, that would be a cookie.

Speak of the devil.

http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/20..._tv/index.html

One minor drawback for me; I'd need to get a phone jack put in somewhere near where my main television is. The closest one in my apartment is all the way across the room by the kitchen, and the cord would cross a hallway.

Likewise, I don't think I can do the dish -- my apartment faces the wrong way. (My father looked into getting DirecTV at his house, but because of heavy tree cover, they couldn't find a direct line to the south-southwest. Well, my apartment faces dead east.)

We've had Dish Network with the 501 PVR for two years now, and it's excellent. No need to connect to the phone line, no fee except for the normal dish bill. I can search for actors, words in the description, or titles. It isn't as smart as TiVo in that it records timeslots, not specific television shows, but it works great for the most part. They finally added slow motion and frame-by-frame a couple months ago.
(it automatically downloads and installs software upgrades when the receiver is shut off.)

And yes, I never watch live TV anymore. I can't stand having to watch commercials!

Glad to hear you've had a good experience, Jakeline. The Dishplayer was great in the beginning, but there were so many problems with it, I got fed up and jumped ship to DirecTV because I had had one too many program that I really wanted to watch erased. It was too early at the time to tell if the 501 & other newer Dish PVR models would be equally bug-ridden, and I didn't feel like waiting to find out. But it's good that they seem to have gotten their act together.

2-3 years ago we got a Direct tv Tivo , my wife never could sync up the sat box and the vcr to grab her soaps , she would put in a tape start it recording then go out , then she would have to FF thru all the junk till she found the show she wanted ,you should have heard all the cussing comeing from the liveing room !!!! We have had direct tv for 8-10 years and have loved it !!!! digital sound and video , the only bummer is when it rains REAL hard the sat signal dropes out ,, butt we keep a few good flicks on the HD
a few points
1) xobruce you don't have to give them your bank account number , and in the set up for the Tivo you can tell the unit NOT to report back to HQ about you likes and dislikes
2) you don't realy need to have them installed , i have done it for us twice ( we moved ) and many outher folks, all you need is a south west shot of the sky ( TAll trees will interfear , but the lbn actualy shoots 30 deg higher than it seems so this can fool you),
3) if you don't have a phone line hooked up it can't up date AND if you have gotten any PPV flicks it will hit you with a BIG charge the next time you do hook up a phone line :eek:

Damn those limited posts !!!!!
Since we live in the sticks we can't pick up network tv so we get east coast And west coast net works ,, if some thing big happens ( 911 , etc....) i can catch the news from a Newyork and LA prospective ( aliways different , and if i want a slightly different slant on things i can watch BBC , plus BBC has old monty python on all the time ,, oh and Charlie Dimmoc RULES !!!!), and if you miss something on an east coast network you can watch it on a west coast feed

I didn't know you could watch west coast feeds from DirecTV. I thought that was something you could only do with the big dishes.

I haven't been thinking about getting a dish, because in Philly, Comcast pulls one on us and only makes Flyers and Sixers games available on their own cable-only channel.

UT , the only way you can get east and west coast feeds is if you can't pick them up with an antenna , we can get ABC so that one is locked out by Direct tv , ( we got a better antenna and can sort of pick up a few different channels but that depends on the weather )
oh and one more note about installing a sat box your self , when you call direct tv to turn it on DO NOT , I repeat DONOT hang up untill you scan channels , regular and any special packages you are ordering (HBO , Skinamax ,Etc..., ) it is instantaniously done from direct tv hq and if you have to call back you have to wade thru all the voice mail dirrectorys and wait for a tech to pick up, etc...
i don't know how direct tv handels local games , i beleve the nfl or nhl may try and block them ?????though i do know that the local cable provider didn't reup witha network when a big Hogs game was comeing on, and didn't bother telling any body about it untill the day of the game ,, you should have seen all the empty satt boxes on the curb all that next week :D

Somebody said a few years ago that you could sign up with a friend's address out of town, if you wanted to get blackout games. That address has to get the bills and stuff so it has to be a pretty good friend.

But I think Comcast even blacks out Flyers games if you have the big NHL package with DirecTV and aren't in town. Those greedy bastards.

You may know that the reason Comcast gets away with this is that their distribution infrastructure for Comcast SportsNet is completely fiber and terrestrial microwave. The law requiring owners of channels such as MTV, Nickelodeon, etc. to sell to all distributors who want to buy (which is why such channels are not exclusive to cable TV) only deals with channels that are distributed via satellite! The FCC has repeatedly refused to close this loophole, so we're stuck with it till congress decides to change the law--which may happen! As long as it doesn't affect anybody but Philadelphia (and we have the lowest satellite penetration rate of any large metro area) it won't get a lot of attention, but there is a company which is trying to offer completely terrestrial feeds to companies so they can take advantage of this loophole and not sell to the satellite companies. That might attract more attention to it. (For those non-Philadelphians who are not familiar with the situation, Comcast owns the hockey team, the basketball team, the cable tv company, and the channel that has the rights to broadcast the basketball, hockey, and football games.)

I personally decided that my loathing of the cable company was greater than my desire to watch the Sixers (I don't care much for hockey and none at all for baseball) and I've been a happy satellite customer for almost 5 years.