Did I mention how FINE Tivo is?

It ROCKS!

The only drawback I can find is if two shows are recording at one time, you gotta watch one of them.

The only annoying thing is how many things it thinks we want it to record, but it is easy to get rid of them.

I'm about to go to bed. But I will have the F1 Grand Prix of Melbourne, Australia for the AM!!!

It revolutionises TV watching for SURE!

It has always sounded like a great idea to me. I even bought one but found out that it was very particular about its phone line connection and was not compatible with our telephone so I had to take it back. If I ever get satellite TV I'll look into their version of DVR.

Yes, it is Fine,

The easy way around your problem is to buy a second one. That way you can record 3 and watch one that's not being recorded.

We have 3 Tivos. All three are the older series. Two are full service boxes, with data downloads from Tivo and connected to digital cable boxes. The third was bought as a refurb and does not use Tivo at all. I call it the Toy becasue I ply with it. I scrounge the TV listings off other web sites and have a program to load the TV schedule into the "toy" tivo's database. It works pretty well.

All three have bigger than normal disks. I seem to recall that there's 200+ hours on two of them. Only 120 hours on the toy.

Once you get used to being able to pause and go back, normal TV feeds just are not satisfying anymore.

Daniel

As an alternative to a phone line you can use an ethernet connection too.

Mine are all on ethernet, so I can access them remotely.

Daniel

My brother is modding his X-Box so it acts like a Tivo. Then again, I don't know how good he is in the elctronics department /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/icon15.gif

Anyway, Best-Buy (I think, maybe Circiut City) is having a sale on Tivo's. The $300 80 gig version is only $150 now.

Don't you need a digital service for Tivo to work(?)

I just have analog cable, and it costs over $50 a month.

And isn't there a subscription fee for Tivo as well? I may be mistaken, but it puts it outside my budget if I'm right, because digital cable is between $70 and $75/month.

But I have 3 VCR's. I just bought a very nice Sony VCR on clearance at Target for $42. Lots of nice features. VCR tapes cost $1/ea. on sale. I still have movies that I taped 15 to 20 years ago; I watched one earlier this evening. Tivo can't do that.... /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

you can turn off the function that allows Tivo to record based on your recommendations in the menu. I turned mine off because it recorded way too much stuff.

Tivo question: From what I've read in order to convert the Tivo digital data into a DVD requires mods and is difficult. I have a set top DVD recorder. I am wondering if I record a show on Tivo using the highest quality settings and then record to the DVD recorder thru the Tivo analog outputs (I assume there must component or S-Video output connections), would I lose much in quality as opposed to recording the original show straight to the DVD recorder? Or is there some sort of macro or other copywrite protection that doesn't allow you to record the Tivo analog output to a DVD recorder or VCR?

My Samsung 80 hour (what DirecTV brought when we got DSS hooked up here) has component output and S-Video both.

I haven't really tried hooking up to a VCR but it should be easy.

There are very few things I want to keep forever anyway. My favorite movies come on pretty often.

I still very much like Tivo though!!! (I HATE! watching commercials!)

I use a USB2 video capture device to convert the movies I tivo to DVD.

#1 You do not need a digital feed to enjoy a Tivo. Analog works fine. If you have a digital feed you can use the cable box output as input to the Tivo.

#2 You can transfer the Tivo Digital Data over a network to a PC where you write a DVD, but it's a lot of work.

#3 The copy from a Tivo to a DVD burner via the analog ports look great. The down side is that it takes real time to do it. A 2 hour movie takes 2 hours to record.

#4 Yes, Tivo wants you to subscribe to their service. Two of my three are subscribed. The third is an older model from when a subscription was not required to satisfy their license. It's never connected to the Tivo servers.

#5 You can dump to VCR if you wish via the analog output.

#6 VHS tape has a limited life span (7 years before the degradation is noticable). It degrades even quicker if not stored properly.


The biggest differene between Tivo and a VCR? You can rewind an watch a scene multiple times while it's still recording the rest of the show. In a Tivo house you frequently hear "What did he say? Back that up!"

Daniel

If you are Linux inclined, MythTV provides Tivo like features for free. I have to admit it took a bit to get it all set up and working, but it is really slick. Also, my PVR-250 tuner outputs DVD compliant MPG, so burns to DVD are quick and easy (although I do this on my Windows machine with Nero over a Samba share).

-john

Got a hauppauge pvr-150 for my PC because I record only what I want. I acts just like a vcr with online menu recording options. I got mine from circuit city for 70 bucks and love it. If I want to save it, I can burn it to a VCD or DVD or watch it right from my HDD. Tivo is still a great product though.