I can't decide if I should get Tivo. Any sage advice?

Any Tivo users out there? I'm in need of your advice.

My other option is to get the DVR box from Comcast, my cable company. They give you the box for free and then charge you $9.95/month.

:shrug: What should I do?

really give you any real advice, since I don't have one).


MythTV is a project aiming to create a homebrew set-top box/PVR/HTPC. The end
goal is to have a nice, easy to use interface for watching TV, recording shows,
listening to music, etc., all meant for display on a TV and controllable by a
remote control.

http://www.mythtv.org

I don't watch tv like I did. I don't even know when shows are on because it doesn't matter. In fact, I would never watch a show when it's on because I wouldn't be able to skip commercials.

My advice is to get one with as much memory as possible.

It's the 40hr version. We are able to fill it during the week for the msot part and churn through it over the weekend and some evenings.
The comcast DVR has 2 hard drives, therefore you can record 2 seperate programs while watching a 3rd. I can't remeber it's capacity though, but I believe it is larger then our 40hr TIVO.
For us the 40hr is more then enough. We have become much more particular about our tv viewing and overall I believe we have actually cut down on our tv time.
We are also Comcast people so we have their On Demand stuff so we can get a lot of movies and stuff. We did get our TIVO before the Comcast DVR was released, so our thinking was also "if it ain't broke don't fix it."
I have a couple friends with the Comcast DVR and they love it.
My point being, we are very happy with TIVO, it's functionality, ease of use and capacity.

:woohoo: :woohoo: :woohoo:

I can watch the shows I want to watch anytime... and I can FF past the commericals. Which means I spend less time over all watching television.

I have DirectTV and pay 5.95/month for the service. It's worth it to me.

I never worry about shows I want to see because I know they will be there when I am ready to watch them. We also record stuff we know our kids will like, such as all of the Christmas specials that are on past their bed time.

through our local cable company (time warner). I don't think I could ever go back. Even when watching live shows, the ability to pause when one of the kids is killing the other is fabulous. Get some form of a DVR. It is worth it.

My friend has Tivo, and he can just put in a keyword string like Al Gore, and it will search out and record any show that has Al Gore in the title or description. That's pretty damn cool!

But I still need to decide between Tivo and Comcast.

:dilemma:

This was a couple of years ago, so it's possible cable companies have improved their DVRs. We originally had a 30hr TiVo, then switched to a non-TiVo DVR with some cable package deal, and couldn't wait to get rid of it and go back to TiVo. We have one with a built in DVD burner now, and it is awesome. Get as many hours as you can afford, because it fills up a lot faster than you think it will.

I've been out of town for the past few months and I REALLY miss the DVR I have at home. I love being able to pause and rewind.

You have to pay a monthly fee with TIVO, too, so I don't think it's much cheaper. I think a TIVO will "learn" what you like and suggest things, which a DVR doesn't do. I don't know how useful that will be.

I have DirecTV and my TiVo service is only $5/mo. My regular bill's cheaper than what Comcast charges, too (they're the only cable company I can get where I live.)

If you switch to them, make sure you get the R10 model box, it has two tuners so you can record two shows at once.

Comcast is the only cable company I can get here too. I don't understand why they aren't considered to be having a fucking monopoly. I will check out the dish. Thanks!

Well, today, it's not considered a monopoly because of companies like DirecTV and Dish. Satellite television does provide direct competition with cable television service, so the argument is valid.

Not too long ago, large cities commonly had several cable companies. My old home town with a whopping population of 15,000 had two at one point. One turned a profit. The other didn't and went out of business after about 5 years.

In any case, there's not really much on the surface that would prevent an upstart cable company from coming in and providing direct cable - cable competition. The problem is that cable television service, in and of itself, does not carry a high enough margin of profit to make a small company sustainable. The cost of infrastructure alone is enormous, and necessary elements of the business like technical and customer service eat heavily into revenues. In a given area, whatever company has the best marketing strategy tends to become the dominant one, and the smaller companies give in and sell out to those larger companies. Thus Comcast, Time Warner, etc. were born. Today, any new company would require developing its own infrastructure, and the benefit is not justifiable. Instead, we have satellite and will soon have phone companies in the television business. The latter care less about providing television service than countering cable companies who are now offering broadband and phone service. Everyone has to be able to offer the Holy Trinity of communication, or the company isn't viable over the long term.

absolutely loves it! Plus, it is so easy to use. My wife is the worst when it comes to using stereo equipment and VCRs and she is a pro at Tivo.

I cannot recommend it enough.

I am watching Bill Maher on Larry King right now.

And you NEVER have to watch commercials.

It is worth every penny. We have Time Warner and we have 3 DVRs in our house. It's our entertainment budget. And we are getting off cheap. :)

life's too short to watch a lot of TV. If it's important, there will be a clip on DU!

I like it. Why buy a box and pay another subscription.

Just my thoughts.

"Stay outta churches son, and don't let a priest near ya when you're dyin'; all they got a key to is the shithouse."

Their video recording devices have more features than a typical satellite or cable DVR, and overall the company tends to be friendlier to the needs of those who want the kind of service they provide.

There are a few things to consider, however. I'm going to disagree with quite a lot of what has already been said in this thread. I'm not looking for an argument, but I don't think all the elements have been considered in some of these suggestions.

The DVR you're going to get from a cable company is also a receiver, so it replaces your digital box if you have one or gives you digital service if you don't have it yet. You won't necessarily have to get any of the digital channels, but you'll still be paying both a licensing fee for the software that runs the box and a rental charge on the box itself. The importance of knowing that rests in the matter of total price as compared to what they advertise. The rental on these boxes for major cable systems tends to be around $10/month. The software licensing fee ranges anywhere from $2 to $6 per month for one box, which is sometimes discounted for a second box. Using the local cable company as an example, the full rental price on a DVR is $15.45/mo. With the local company, there is also a service charge for the service itself, which is $4.95. So, the total cost for DVR service is $20.40/mo, and that's with zero extra channels. However, if you already have a digital box and exchange it for the DVR, your price goes up by $11.40/mo. If you have a digital box that is also a high definition (HD) receiver, your price goes up by only $4.95/mo because the box rental fee on the HD box is the same as the DVR box.

So, if you're going to the DVR from basic cable, you're going to be spending quite a lot more than you are now, not just the rental or service fee, which are what normally shows up in advertisements. However, if you have a certain level of service (HD digital) already, you're not paying much more at all considering what you get. (Aside from any of this, the technology itself is simply cool and will change the way you watch television.)

Now, with satellite, you don't have the rental charge, which means you either buy the box up front, or you sign a contract locking you into service with that company and get the box for free. Sounds like a good deal, but it's not, and here's why. You *own* the box you get from the satellite company, which means the same thing it means when you own your own house. If your A/C unit goes out in the middle of summer, you get to pay to replace it. With a DVR, you're not going to find any free replacement offers, and these things -- the good ones -- can cost up to $400 each. With some satellite companies, depending in part on where you are located, you can buy an optional "service plan" that gets you service and sometimes even a free replacement of the box if it goes bad. This is not a rental fee, but the charge itself often turns out to be just the same as a rental fee when all costs are considered. That is, the service call that is require to replace the box is not free with this plan; it is simply discounted from the absurd $100 or more it is without it. The parts aren't free, just discounted, and in the end you don't get a totally new box. You get a refurbished one.

Why is this important? When Tivo came on the scene, the arrogant powers-that-be in the satellite and cable industries thought it was a stupid idea and either ignored it or actively advertised against it. Since then, those same powers have realized how much money can be made from this, mostly because it is one of the few things since the beginning of cable itself that people really, really want and don't have to be sold. When you use one, it truly sells itself. Unfortunately, there were none of these little devices available from the companies that were making their digital receivers, with whom they had contracts for providing equipment. So, those companies -- mostly Motorola and Scientific Atlanta, sometimes using subsidiary names -- at the demand of the cable and satellite companies ramped up production. And, what they produced was crap. They boxes have bad circuitry. The hard drives are cheap and fail often. The software that controls it is buggy. With satellite, the first generation -- and the one you can easily find for "free now -- only has one receiver, so you have to watch what you are recording. Other boxes and satellite systems are so constructed that if you are recording anything, you have to be watching that show on all televisions in your house regardless of how many receivers you have. (This is a typical DISH problem with their low-end DVR. DirecTV got around this early if I'm not mistaken.) The ones the cable companies sent out would fail within weeks or never work at all. As I said, crap.

The current generation of satellite and cable DVRs is much better but still buggy, and the software is one of the biggest drawbacks. It does not have half the features of Tivo, and it doesn't work with some of the ports on some models of boxes, which means you may want to use that DVI port, but it won't work, or the digital sound output will be poorer quality than the left-right analog.

The bottom line is that with both cable and satellite DVR service, you're going to pay for it one way or another. If you own the box, you must understand that the hard drive in it *will* fail, and then you will have an expensive door stop. With the cable company, you can just return it and get a new one. Either way, you're paying.

You also pay with Tivo, but not quite as much in the long run usually because their boxes are much better made. Unfortunately, they have hard drives, and as mentioned, hard drives will fail. The advantage is that the Tivo box is not a receiver and so is easier to fix. Still, this means more expense.

Now, amid all this rambling, I've not really so much offered advice as tried to help you understand what you're dealing with. I think it appears I am suggesting to go with the Tivo, but I'm not really. My actual advice is this. If you have cable now, get the DVR and play with it and decide what it is worth to you. The only additional cost involved will be the rental and service fees you pay, and unless Comcast has changed recently, you're not locked into a contract. If you don't like it, you can return it and go back to what you had with no more cost. If you do like it, you can either keep it or look into long-term options taking into account all the cost/benefit of ownership vs. rental.

<soapbox>

If you've made it this far, I'm sorry. I'm almost done.

One other thing to consider: If people do not wake up and start paying attention to the war of digital rights management, copyright, and patent issues and start realizing all these "protections" are not, as currently being constructed, in our best interests, none of this will even be a choice in the very near future. With DRM, broadcast flags, and the emergence of mandatory digital broadcasts along with new generations of recorders, you won't be able to get one of these devices without very strict controls placed on it. You won't have a choice where you get it, and you'll be paying more and more for recording, if you are allowed to record at all. You'll get what they offer and like it! :-)

<[/soapbox>