So, what can you tell me about Tivo?

[illini]

My 40th bday is next week and I am thinking about buying myself Tivo. What can you tell me about it?? Is it complicated? Expensive? Do you pay someone a monthly fee?

 

[FroggyinArk]

can tell you i dont have one and am more clue less than you are about them.

 

[illini]

can tell you i dont have one and am more clue less than you are about them.

well honestly I don't believe that!!

 

[Stacerita]

I have it, I love it, but I have no clue how to work it. Thats why I got a kid. Those youngins can figure out stuff like that.

 

[makinorlando]

My 40th bday is next week and I am thinking about buying myself Tivo. What can you tell me about it?? Is it complicated? Expensive? Do you pay someone a monthly fee?

Best thing since "sliced bread".....

I don't have a TIVO brand recorder, but I do have the Adelphia Cable version. It is a digital video recorder. I pay them a monthly fee for the equipment.

I can record 50 hours of programming - you can record two programs at once, and watch either one (or something that has been already recorded).

You can be recording a show that starts at 8pm - but get home at 8:10, (Thinking Survivor here...) and rewind to the beginning of the show, and it will continue to record, you can then fast forward through the commercials, and eventually you will catch up to the "live" show.

You can rewind if you missed something (I do this constantly during 24), or pause the show if you need to get up for a snack, so you are not missing anything nor have to rewind.

You can set up the recorder to record your favorite shows every week, and you can pre-schedule shows up to a week in advance (I don't know if this varies by cable companies - but with Adelphia you can only see 7 days in the program guide, so if I see on TV that there is something special I want to watch on Sunday, I just pick up the remote, go to the program guide, and hit select, and record, and a a couple other options.

You can keep the programs on the DVR "forever" I have Sea World Revealed and Holidays at Disney that I recorded in January. As long as you have the correct setting that does not erase your oldest saved shows if should run out of recording space. You can copy the recording to a video (or I guess a DVD if you have the equipment).....

I love my DVR so much, I have two, becasue some nights, there are more than 2 shows on at a time that I want to record (well me or DD).

TMI - I hope not - but I just LOVE my DVR!!!!!

 

[FroggyinArk]

well honestly I don't believe that!!

i still have trouble using the cable remote to find stuff to watch anyways,, lol,, much less record,, and yes the clock on the dvd/vcr combo was flashing 12 till my electrical engineer friend came over and set it.

 

[Zoiebear]

It is the best investment ever. You can record your favorite show and skip thru the commercial, the only negative is not being able to watch another show while one is being recorded. Cant wait until you can hook up your tivp to your ipod video

S

 

[WDWguru]

There are dual tuner Tivos that allow you to record one show and watch another - or record two and watch a third pre-recorded show. Honestly, once you start watching it shifted and are able to ff commercials, you'll never watch live tv again! We've had Tivo since it first came out and the only things we watch live are NFL games and the Oscars, honestly. If we find something we want to watch that's on right then, we'll pause it for 10 minutes or so and get a snack, use the bathroom, etc, then start it with buffer.

One thing Tivo will give you that the other DVRs do not is the season pass option. It's AWESOME and something you can only get on a Tivo. Here's how it works. Say you want to record all the new episodes of ER. You find the next ER on the on-screen schedule (or go into the menu and select "pick programs to record") and select it. One of the options that pops up is "get a season pass" - select that and then you get all kinds of options. You can tell it to get repeats and new shows or just new shows. You can tell it how many episodes you want it to keep at once before it starts deleting old ones (or tell it to keep them all). You can buffer the show to start late or record a few extra minutes (for those annoying shows that always overlap the next). Once that's set it goes into a list of all your other season passes, where you can put them in order of importance. If there's ever a conflict where you don't have enough tuners to record things on at the same time, it'll go by the order of your lists when it decides what not to record. While this doesn't happen often, you can also go in and manually tell it to change just for this week.

The great thing about it is, I don't have to know when or waht channel ER is on. I don't have to pay attention to whether or not it's new. If they move ER this week to Wednesday instead of Thursday, it just finds it. I never miss a show!

My only warning to you is once you get it, you'll never want to go back to conventional tv again! C'mon in... the water's great!

 

[illini]

What about price??

 

[CACruisin']

Love it!! We have both TiVo and the Adelphia DVR (don't ask. Something about DH HAS TO be able to record stuff in HD?!) If I only had the Adelphia box, I would think it was fine (complicated, but functional) TiVo is SO much better/ easier to use than the Adelphia DVR. Plug it in, and it pretty much does its own thing from there! Also, with TiVo we get a schedule for two weeks out. We have a lifetime subscription (one time fee) for our TiVo, but I recently heard they don't offer that anymore. Now it is just a monthly fee.

 

[LisaNJ25]

I love mine. You will not regret getting one.

 

[emilymad]

I just got Tivo and I love it. I am still learning all of the things it can do. It is $13 a month I think. I have a Tivo that can tape something while you are watching something else but I don't have it set up that way. I tried to do it that way but I have digital cable and the On Demand features wouldn't work. That hasn't been that big of an issue but I can see how being able to watch something while it was taping would be great. I have a 40 hour box and I haven't filled it up but I can see how you could. The 40 hour is at basic quality. I thought that basic quality was pretty bad so I do most things on medium. If you have a network in your house you can set up the Tivo through that. I can transfer shows from Tivo to my computer and then burn them on to a dvd. I haven't done this yet but it seems like it will be pretty easy.

 

[bekkiz]

RE: Price

We bought ours when they were running a special. If you bought at least a year of service (maybe 140 bucks?) you got a free box. We figured we would have it a lot longer than that, so we went ahead and bought "lifetime" service for around 300.

I have heard they have ended selling "lifetime" service, but I'm not sure. A monthly payment option is around 12 or 13/month.

The box is around 50 or so (I think!)

I am sooooo happy we have TIVO. I work wierd hours sometimes, and it is awesome. We also love it for hockey games. We're not worried about being a few minutes late getting home--TIVO is taking care of things

 

[kimwim8]

One thing Tivo will give you that the other DVRs do not is the season pass option. It's AWESOME and something you can only get on a Tivo. Here's how it works. Say you want to record all the new episodes of ER. You find the next ER on the on-screen schedule (or go into the menu and select "pick programs to record") and select it. One of the options that pops up is "get a season pass" - select that and then you get all kinds of options. You can tell it to get repeats and new shows or just new shows. You can tell it how many episodes you want it to keep at once before it starts deleting old ones (or tell it to keep them all). You can buffer the show to start late or record a few extra minutes (for those annoying shows that always overlap the next). Once that's set it goes into a list of all your other season passes, where you can put them in order of importance. If there's ever a conflict where you don't have enough tuners to record things on at the same time, it'll go by the order of your lists when it decides what not to record.

Acutally, my Comcast DVR does this. It's called a Series recording.

One thing Tivo does have that my DVR doesn't is the "keyword" feature. You can enter, say, "Disney" and it'll record all Disney related shows.

We were very interested in Tivo, but we got a flyer from Comcast...the dual tuner was free (it's also our digital cable box) and we pay $10/month. We figured we'd try it for a while to see how we liked it & then invest in a Tivo box. But at this point, we're good with what we have.

 

[illini]

I don't know......the more I read, the more I think I am not smart enough to handle it! If only my soon to be 5 year old was older -then he could do it for me!

 

[POB14]

It is $13 a month I think.

[rant]
I already pay for basic cable and expanded cable. If I want high-def, I'll have to pay for digital cable or a sattelite dish. I am NOT going to pay thirteen bucks a month so I can pause the god-danged* Cubs game if I need to pee. I have two VCRs, one's broken and one doesn't have a remote, and I haven't replaced them because I haven't taped anything off the air since 1995.
[/rant]

*I'm channeling Hank Hill today.

 

[bekkiz]

I don't know......the more I read, the more I think I am not smart enough to handle it! If only my soon to be 5 year old was older -then he could do it for me!

Really, I have found TIVO to be very user friendly. I think you would not have any problems--everything you'd want to do is really obvious (i.e. which buttons to push, etc)

 

[bicker]

They just changing the pricing. The TiVo box is now provided at no charge. You pay for it over a three-year service commitment, at $16.95 per month. Again, that includes your cost for the box, spread over three years.

 

[Dan Murphy]

If you use DirecTV satellite, monthly fee is $5.99. It is great. I watch very little TV, but do have it programmed to record several subjects whenever they are on. I check the log every so often to see if anything new. If there is, I can watch an hour long show in about 40 minutes, sans commercials and fluff.

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/imagine/DVR_whydirectvdvr.jsp

 

[mrsstats]

Tivo is the greatest if you are a big TV person. We never miss a show now. You can pay a monthly fee or you can buy either a 5 or 3 year subsrciption, which works out cheaper.