Tivo, is it worth it?

[micknpluto]

I apologize if this question was asked before...


I was thinking about getting a Tivo and was wondering if its worth it and how it works? Is it true you have to pay a monthly fee for something??? A tivo costs about $300, correct??

Thanks
Chris

 

[MoniqueU]

Well I have 4 DVRs, the same thing as a tivo but through direct tv. Mine are dual line so I can tape on two channels at once. I can't imagine not having a tivo. I would be like owning a car without air conditioning or heat or a radio. Tivo is great. I have had mine for years now. Well worth the cost in my opinion.

 

[mookie]

Honestly, I don't know what I ever did without it.

I was pretty against getting Tivo, DH talked me into it. With having kids, it's really a saving grace. It allows us to spend more time as a family because we are not limited to watching our shows when our programs are actually on. It's great for recording some of our dd shows, too. When she wants to watch one, it's always available. I could go on and on about it, but just know it's worth all the money you pay for it. (The other nice thing is it's a total time saver - an hour long program can be watched in less time because you are skipping the commericals!)

You can also do searches for shows you want to see, and Tivo will actually offer suggestions on what shows to record based on your past viewing history. (For example, we have a keyword set to record anything that has DisneyWorld in the title, so it catches all of those great shows on the Travel Channel, even if we forget to set the record button!!)

There is a monthly 12.99 fee, or you can pay 300.00 extra upfront for a lifetime subscription. Either way it's worth it.

 

[jbdreamer]

If I could afford it - I would get it.

My parents have TiVo. I don't think my mom could get by without it. She signs up for a "season pass" to her favorite shows, and it will always tape it for her. You can tape 2 shows at a time while watching another. My parents always start watching shows about 15 minutes after they start - then they can skip every comercial.

It's great if your a busy person, you can watch your shows on your time. You can save a hundred hours of TV.

But yes, there is a monthly fee as well as the upfront cost.

 

[antmaril]

My DH bought me Tivo for Christmas - I LOVE it!! It is so easy to use and it really comes in handy. I get up pretty early in the a.m., so I'm usually in bed by 10:00 p.m. I used to miss some good shows that start at 10:00, but not anymore.

My husband paid $299 for the lifetime service. We do not pay a monthly fee. I'm not sure about the cost of the Tivo itself, but I know he got a good rebate when he bought it at Christmas.

 

[minniecarousel]

I don't know what it costs, but I LOVE having it! Very easy to learn to program too.

 

[ChrisnSteph]

I was really against getting Tivo at first, but now I can't imagine not having it! We actually have ours through DirectTV. We bought our unit at Circuit City (my dh installed our DirectTV himself) and it was free after the mail-in rebate.

 

[micknpluto]

Now you have me thinking

I have Comcast and I think they may offer some kind of DVR service??? I will call them today and ask before buying a Tivo. I guess that would be cheaper??

 

[Disney-Kim]

We have a DVR provided by our local cable company, Cox. It costs us $10 a month. So we didn't have to make the big investment of Tivo brand.

We love it. Easy to use and makes watching your shows so easy. I love all the options...tell it to only record "new" shows or all shows, etc.

It is DEFINATELY worth it. If our cable company didn't offer it, we would buy it. its worth the $$

 

[lewdyan1]

YES!!

 

[puffkin]

It has revolutionized my life! I could not live without it!!!!!

Check with your Cable or satellite provider first, because most of them offer DVR's, which are basically the same thing and they are slightly cheaper. The only real difference is that you won't have some of the sophisticated search features.

I had a Comcast DVR and paid $9.95 a month for it ($100 deposit for the actual box) and now I have DirecTV and got the DVR for free and pay $6 a month for the service. I had the dual lines for both. They both basically worked the same.

I have season passes set up for all my shows. It is so nice to not have to worry about being home at a certain time or setting up VCR tapes. If you get home a few minutes late, you can start watching the show then, or later, it is so flexible. I like going through the movie channels and just highlighting the program on the guide screen and hitting record. No programming times and things like that. It saves me so much time too (well not really since now I can watch more shows in the same amount of time......). I hardly ever watch commercials anymore. I also love watching American Idol on the DVR. There is so much "fluff" in that show, that I can finish the 2 hour additions in a little more than an hour.

 

[micknpluto]

We have a DVR provided by our local cable company, Cox. It costs us $10 a month. So we didn't have to make the big investment of Tivo brand.

We love it. Easy to use and makes watching your shows so easy. I love all the options...tell it to only record "new" shows or all shows, etc.

It is DEFINATELY worth it. If our cable company didn't offer it, we would buy it. its worth the $$

WOW! SO EXCITED NOW

I've been so use to watching certain shows everyday but my schedule is changing soon and I dont know what I would do if I miss my shows! This sounds like its definently worth the investment

Thanks

 

[foolishmortal]

love it love it love it!!!!!!


We have the DTV one also...awesome!!! There is a monthly fee of roughly 5 or 6 bucks but the actual dvr was less than $100.00

 

[Sandy V.]

Oh my, YES - TIVO is worth it!!

One of the best purchases we have ever made, for all of the reasons posted above. Season Pass is just the greatest!!

 

[micknpluto]

Oh my, YES - TIVO is worth it!!

One of the best purchases we have ever made, for all of the reasons posted above. Season Pass is just the greatest!!

What is "Season Pass" again???? Sorry

 

[Tina]

A Season Pass is when you tell the Tivo to tape every episode of a specific show. You can specify whether or not you want to include reruns.

 

[Sandy V.]

What is "Season Pass" again???? Sorry

Season Pass is a way of recording an entire season's worth of a show in a single step.

You can set it up to record all new episodes only, or to record all episodes (a dangerous option if your show is in syndication and seen on MANY stations). You can set your TIVO to keep a certain number of episodes, or to keep all until you delete.

You can set it up to start recording at the time the show starts/ends. Or you can set it to record a few minutes early/late. I have used this a lot because there were certain shows that the previews for next week's episode were shown quite a few minutes after the show ended. So I set mine to record 3 minutes past the show to catch it.

You can set a Season Pass for more than one show, and then you can "rank" them in the order that you want to record and keep them. That way, if there's a conflict (two or more showing at once), your TIVO knows which show is the most important to you.

I'm sure that I've just hit the highlights, so if anyone else has something to add, please chime in!!

 

[GoofyDad869]

When we got our Moxi (Charter's version of TiVo) I thought I'd never use it. My wife uses it to record her regular shows (What Not To Wear), 'our' shows (E Ring, Law & Order), and I use it to record NASCAR races & UT (Go Vols!) football games. The cool thing is you can set it to stop recording, say 60 minutes, after what you want to record is SUPPOSED to be off. Very nice when rain delays a race or a game runs long.

Once I discovered the beauty of it, I thought memory (amount of stuff you could record) would be a big problem. It hasn't been for us (yet) - We've each had 1-hour shows, I've had a couple of 4-5 hour races, the kids had a bunch of 1/2-hour cartoons stored on it all at once.

Also, if you are watching 'live' tv - you can pause the action. For example, you've gotten 3 minutes in to a show and your son comes up and says he's stopped up the toilet (again) and it takes you 10 minutes to unclog it. Good thing you paused - you can ff through the commercials to catch back up on your own time...

 

[JELBoggio]

We just recently got Tivo and I'm so happy we did. We considered getting the DVR through Comcast (like you we live in NJ) but Tivo has certain features that appealed to us that the DVR doesn't have (someone can correct me if I am mistaken) like we have our computer linked to the Tivo and can watch a slide show of our pictures from the digital camera and put it to music and burn it to a CD. The kids love this and so does DH! There's another feature the DH really likes, but I'm not sure what it is since I don't think he's figured it out yet either. I love pausing live tv and then fast-forwarding the commercials! Handy when the kids creep downstairs after bedtime and I need to get them back to bed.

 

[ZachnElli]

My Tivo broke last week (total human error, not machine ) and I'm dying without my Tivo!!! I don't know what channel my shows are on or what time! I guess I'm Tivo dependent and having withdrawals! We are moving this week so I thought we'd wait to have it looked at. Sigh. So my answer is yes, totally worth it! I just got the 40hr one and I think they are around $100 now.