Tivo Info.

[Punked Out Comp]

Can someone plz explain to me about TiVo. I know that it's like watching a DVD with live tv but thats all I know. Hw does it work? How much is it? Where can you get it? How do you get it on your computer?

[Hi Ho]

Tivo set top box with a hard drive in it. You can set it to record several things at the same time and also watch, rewind, and pause live TV. It does this by recording to the hard drive. You can buy Tivo at any big store like Circuit City, Best Buy, etc. The boxes aren't cheap. The cheapest one I have seen was $200. There is a monthly fee for the programing information it downloads ($12.95 I think). You can't get Tivo on your PC but you can make your PC function like a Tivo if you have a tuner card. With software like Myth TV (http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures) your PC will become a Tivo and much more. If you want to record more than one show at once on your PC, however, you would need more than one tuner card. The advantage to using a PC is that there is no monthly fee. However, the cost to build a deticated "Tivo" PC is about the same as a lifetime subscription to the Tivo service ($499 I belive).

[TennBikeBerk]

TiVo is very awesome. First you need to buy a box, and they come in different sizes. They have capacities of 40, 80, and 140 hours. Prices range from about $130 for the 40 hour model, to roughly $350 for the 140 hour model. After that, you need to pay $12.95 a month OR you can pay a one time fee of $300 (which will get your service for the life of your box). The monthly or one-time service fee, is so your TiVo controller can receive information from the TiVo server about what is going to be on tv. It does this by using a dial-up modem, which is set to call very early in the morning, while you are asleep.

Now, for the fun part! TiVo organizes all the shows on tv for you. You can do searches for things on your wishlist. One my be "Computers" for example. TiVo will automatically record some shows for you, based on your ratings of the shows you watch. You can tell it you like these new shows it is recording for you, or tell it you don't like them. Probably my favorite feature of TiVo is the season pass. You can select a show, and it will record all the episodes (you can pick new ones only, or all which includes re-runs) of your show. You will never miss your favorite shows again! You can pause live tv, and do your own instant replays. You can also fast forward through commercials, if you are watching the show off your DVR.

Well this is a brief summary of TiVo, but you can find out more at www.tivo.com I currently do not have TiVo, but have been researching it and I think I might be getting it soon. Basically, it all boils down to this....TiVo is the ultimate TV controller, and it will totally change your tv watching experience.

[Hi Ho]

Wow, the prices have changed a lot since the last time I looked into it. I guess I should have looked them up before posting. :)

[mbossman2]

i have TiVo type device from the cable company and I am not overly enamoured with it. The hard drives fry on a regular basis. it impacts the tv signal (if I am recording 1 program and watching another, the show I am watching is jittery). and it is loud....I have it in the bedroom and with the tv off and trying to fall asleep i can hear the drives running (they don't seem to ever spool down).

good thing my wife works for the cable company...if I paid for it, it'd be out the door after the 2nd failure in 2 months.

[colecifer]

I have one from timewarner and the thing i don't like about it is it lags when you change channels, or do anything for that matter. However its worst on changing channels. I think it has to do with it trying to get some of the show on the hard drive before it diplays. Whatever it is, it is annoying.

[willboy]

My family has a tivo, it is the cheapest one they had I think it is like 40 hours, (I wanted to put a new hd in it but my dad said no) It is great it doesn't lag channels or anything, if you have sattelite like directv you can get one cheap, and no monthly fees except the usuall sattelite fees I think, all the major cable companies like Charter have one you can get, it does the same thing, but they are not as good quality, you could say, as a tivo. What I mean the tivo won't have loud hard drive or problems like that. (At least my families doesn't)

[bigpuma]

My family has a tivo, it is the cheapest one they had I think it is like 40 hours, (I wanted to put a new hd in it but my dad said no) It is great it doesn't lag channels or anything, if you have sattelite like directv you can get one cheap, and no monthly fees except the usuall sattelite fees I think, all the major cable companies like Charter have one you can get, it does the same thing, but they are not as good quality, you could say, as a tivo. What I mean the tivo won't have loud hard drive or problems like that. (At least my families doesn't)

I agree with everything you said, except there is a fee for the DirecTV Tivos of $5 per month, but it includes all Tivos on your account. I have 2 of them but only have to pay the one $5 fee per month. It is well worth it to get a tivo if you have DirecTV because it can record the data stream directly from the satelite, so the quality is identical to a regular satelite receiver.

The "stand alone" tivos can be connected to any digital cable box or analog cable coax. These have to encode the analog signal into Mpeg2 then record it on the hard drive because of this the quality is not as good as the original. Tivo is just one brand of "DVR" (digital video recorders) there are others on the market as well and as was pointed out a lot of cable companies are offering there own after seeing the success of DirecTV with the Tivo. The cable companies did not want to pay Tivo for the software so they created their own versions which in my opinion is not as good.

[Hi Ho]

I have heard that the Tivo imitations like those from the cable companies are nowhere near as good. Genuine Tivo's are much, much better.