PJsig08

Well we're considering TiVo. I know the pros of it (or most) but what are the cons, if any?

If anyone wants to go into detail about whats so great and not so great about TIVO I'd appreciate it.

Where's the best deal for one too? Costco? Best Buy?

Thanks

kantonburg

http://www.pvrcompare.com/ for the differences

http://www.tivocommunity.com/ for all you want to know on tivo.

Whether or not you get a Replay or TiVo you'll love it. It's been discussed a thousand times here. It will change the way you watch tv. Period. Don't ponder getting one. Just get it, I promise you'll love it.

RandyC

The only "con" I know if is that your VCR will get dusty from not being used.

atlantamoi

The thing about Tivo for so many people is that they didn't realize how much they NEEDED it! I'm not a huge TV watching person, but I wouldn't want to be without it now.

Chew

That's sorta a con right there. If you're not a big TV watcher right now, you'll be hard pressed not to be one after you get a TiVo!

Michael Corvin

The biggest con I see is $$$, the price of the machine and a $12 a month fee. For what?!? It is a $300 machine with a $40 hard drive in it. to the marketing department. It is a hard drive, why is there a monthly fee? To d/l show info? It's free with a cable box & CDDB has never charged a penny to d/l cd info so what makes TiVo so special?

That is why I have my eye on Replay. They seem to be getting out of the raping business.

spainlinx0

Well I think $12 a month is a lot, but since I have Directivo and the highest programming package the service is "free." Otherwise it's like 5 bucks.

Doesn't ReplayTV have a fee too though?

Boot

I paid $100 for my DirecTivo and the fee is $5 a month. Best money I've spent in a long time.

By the way, I don't watch an inordinate amount of TV either, and I don't watch more now than I did before Tivo. However, I'm no longer tied down to the TV when the shows I DO want to watch air. Now, I watch what I want when I want, and that's what I love about Tivo. I have found a handful of shows that I watch now that I didn't before, but the thing is, I'm watching those shows now rather than watching some crap I don't care about simply because nothing else is on.

PJ, don't bother with requiring someone to convince you. Just get one if you can swing it and then you'll be talking others into getting one. Trust me.

johnglass

I received my stand-alone Tivo unit as a wedding gift from my brother. With the high initial price ($300) for the unit and $13.00 monthly fee, I probably would have never bought one, but since I didn't pay for the unit the monthly fee isn't quite so bad.

With the stand-alone unit, you have to watch what you are recording. You can route your cable input directly into your TV to bypass the Tivo so that you can watch a different channel, but that gets a bit complicated.

With that said, it's the best thing to happen to home electronics since, well, the TV. It does totally change the way you watch TV. I would always lose interest in shows because I would forget what night they were on, or wouldn't be home to catch them. Tivo takes that out of the equation altoghether. It really is a remarkable device, and I wouldn't even consider going "Tivo-less" anymore.

Once I am able to get satellite I will be switching over to DirectTivo. It knocks the monthly fee down to $5/month, the initial unit can be found for dirt cheap for new subscribers, and has the ability to record two simultaneous shows. I can't see why Tivo would put out an inferior service than what they license to DirectTV, but I am content right now with what I have.

Michael Corvin

well there are a few options. You can get an older machine (ebay and the like) and there is no fee.

There was a deal here last week that included 3 years of service for free then $.99 cents a month after that.

Then there was another package that had the 3 years free, then $10 a month after that.

Draven

I was at a party last night and some friends were discussing some commercials they liked.

I hadn't seen 3/4 of them, and I watch TV constantly. Why? Because I fast foward through them all with my DirecTivo. I haven't watched live television for longer than about 30 minutes in months.

I don't know what I would do without it.

datagirl7

You won't ever regret the money you spend on a Tivo, IMHO.

Wizdar

Heh. What’s a VCR?

Live TV is a thing of the past for me. But that’s not a “con.”

If you’re used to the regular DirecTV program guide, Tivo’s is very slow. For me, it’s like I need to know what channel/program I want to watch. Maybe that’s why I hardly watch any live TV.

Tivo’s fun when you first get it and it tries to figure out what you wanna watch. It took a while for it to figure out I don’t speak Spanish, I’m not gay [Seinfeld quote], and I’m really not interested in rasslin.

Season passes are the bomb.

Once you Tivo, you’ll never go back.

balancer

Same thing I experienced at work the other day. People talking about commericals and I was clueless. I realized it that night as I was skipping by the commercials. With my Direct Tivo, there is always something on, I love it!

ChrisHicks

can you pad the time with Directivo? meaning if you have it set to tape Friends and nbc starts it at 7:59 and ends it at 8:37 do you miss all that extra show? or can you add an extra 5 minutes to the start and an extra 10 or 15 after?

blakwngbrd

You can pad recordings on both ends with DirecTiVo. We do it all the time with shows like Alias to make sure that we catch the credits (i.e. to make sure we don't miss "Next time on Alias...")

NC-36

The $13 monthly subscription (or $300 one-time "lifetime" option) on SA TiVos covers the cost of the nightly download of guide data via phone connection, the license for the software that processes that data, and software updates that make your TiVo even better.

Yes, guide data is free from your cable company. BUT -

- it's guide data you have to read yourself, then program a dumbass VCR or cable box to record;
- it's guide data that cannot tell on its own if its a new episode or a rerun;
- it's guide data that cannot adjust itself if a show gets bumped, pre-empted or super-sized;
- it's guide data that can't be prioritized for automatic conflict resolution;
- it's guide data that can't search itself by actor or keyword


IMNSHO, free guide data that requires the viewer to do all the work to use it - reading, scheduling, re-scheduling, loading tapes or DVDs, labeling, erasing, blah blah blah - just ain't good enough in the 21st century. My $99 DirecTiVos do all the grunt work, leaving me the free time to play video games or whatever else I want to do.

I have over 200 hours of stored TV goodness I will want to watch when it's convenient for me (comes in handy during rerun seasons, like now) and it's a bargain at the $4.99 a month Directv gets. If I had to move, get a SA TiVo and pay the $13 for it, it would still be worth every dime.

atlantamoi

No... just as I said. I'm NOT a big TV watcher and the amount of time I watch TV has not changed since I started using Tivo. I just get to spend my time more effeciently.

Bigsierra

What file format are the shows saved in? Can they be saved to another hard drive?

ENDContra

I have a DVR box through Time Warner...I really like it, but Ive heard that TiVO features are light years ahead of the DVR. I was just wondering what these were (even though right now I doubt Id make a change). And also are you able to copy MPEG files to the hard drive in a computer (in order to burn to DVD)? The DVR recordings are a lot better than what my TV tuner does, and the box has a USB port on it, but supposedly its disabled...rather unfortunate.

outcastja

It's the same box that Comcast uses.

Chew

From the TiVo standpoint, not in any "easy" manner.

balancer

I've been wondering how you do this...

BenCJedi

'.Ty' is the format, but there are tools to extract them and convert them to standard mpg. If you want to learn more do a google search for 'Deal database forum'.

Bigsierra

Thanks. It's nice to know it can be done. The only real drawback I see, is that you can't easily keep your recorded shows, like you could with video tape, or one of the DVD recorders.