# Tivo pricing is just too much for me to justify.



## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

I recently switched form Direct TV to Verizon FiOS TV. the move was mostly predicated on cost. I was paying about $90.00 a month for Direct TV with one HD DVR one Dtivo and one SD DVR. Since I was already a Fios phone and internet customer there triple play offer seemed like a good deal.
I figured I would give the Fios HD DVR a try first and then decide if it was worth the cost to upgrade to an HD Tivo.
The Verizon FiOS HD-DVR costs me an additional $15.99 a month to rent. I have now lived with the Fios box for about a month and would love to have the HD Tivo but not at the current cost. I could live with the upfront cost of the HD Tivo if it were not for the ongoing subscription costs but $12.95 to Tivo plus the Cablecard rental fees of $7.98 for two s-cards is just too much. I know I can lower that cost some by purchasing annual or lifetime subscriptions but its not enough savings for me. It would take at least 4years to recover my out of pocket expenses after the upfront cost for equipment and and a lifetime subscription and by then I would likely have to replace the HD Tivo box anyways.
I know that most Tivo users don't look at it on a break even basis. Most Tivo users just want a Tivo no matter what. I think I am more like the average consumer who want to make sure that they get the most bang for there buck and Tivo is nice but its a luxury.
I have not had any unusual problems with my Fios Hd DVR, It was a little less intuitive than my previous setup and certainly not as nice as a Tivo but it has been more than serviceable.
Maybe Tivo will strike a deal with Verizon some day and offer them for rental as a replacement for there HD Boxes. I would like to see some sort of rental/lease program from Tivo direct or thru the local cable/fios companies.The most I could justify for rental/lease is about $20 month for everything including cable cards with no upfront equipment costs. I see the current pricing and scheme as being to expensive for most everyday consumers.
IMHO, Dave


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## scandia101 (Oct 20, 2007)

Ok, is that it? Well, thanks for sharing.


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## [email protected] (Dec 1, 2007)

Blame Verizon for the high costs, not TiVo.

I pay Comcast around $1.75 a month for an m-card. That makes my (first) Tivo HD pretty cost-competitive with a cable company DVR. My second TiVo HD is cheaper still, as that has a lifetime subscription.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> I"The world is not really round it is full of Peaks & Valleys"


Actually, not. The Earth has a diameter of roughly 13,000,000,000 mm. The highest mountain (Everest) is 8,800,000 mm. The deepest mid-oceanic rift (Mariana Trench) is 11,000,000 mm. If we shrunk the Earth to the size of a pool ball, or 57mm, the highest peak would only be .039 mm and the deepest valley would be .048mm, or less than 0.002". That is smoother than any ordinary pool ball that has seen any amount of use.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> see the current pricing and scheme as being to expensive for most everyday consumers.


Everyone gets to make their own call on what's to expensive and what isn't. If all that TiVo offers above what your FIOS DVR offers isn't worth the extra cost to you then don't get a TiVo. If you don't understand that comparing your FIOS DVR to a TiVo HD directly on price is like comparing a Chevy to a Cadillac directly on price, then you need to do some more research.

Good Luck,


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

I have two S3 Tivos with FIOS and they cost me less per month than two of the Verizon boxes. One thing you're forgetting is that you'll be able to resell the Tivo HD if and when you ever decide to switch from FIOS, meaning that you'll be able to recover at least part of your initial investment. Had you stuck with DirecTV you'd end up paying a premium for their HD box comparable to the cost of a Tivo HD and still not own it. 

With a 3-year prepaid plan @ $199, my monthly Tivo fees cost about $8.41 for the 1st Tivo and $6.95 for the 2nd using the MSD. Add in the cost of four S-cablecards and it runs slightly less than the Verizon Motorola HD DVRs that FIOS uses. Considering the Verizon DVR only comes with a 160GB drive and the Tivo can be upgraded to whatever capacity I choose, it's a steal by comparison. I believe Tivo is currently offering lifetime service for $299 on the 1st Tivo and only $199 if you get a 2nd one. If I wasn't already locked into a multi-year commitment I'd jump on that deal in a heartbeat.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davefred99 said:


> The Verizon FiOS HD-DVR costs me an additional $15.99 a month to rent. I have now lived with the Fios box for about a month and would love to have the HD Tivo but not at the current cost. I could live with the upfront cost of the HD Tivo if it were not for the ongoing subscription costs but $12.95 to Tivo plus the Cablecard rental fees of $7.98 for two s-cards is just too much.


yes, if you are worried about 4$ a month extra to get the TiVo, then it is not right for you. Of course you could pay a prepay and then the monthly cost with cable cards is about the same, leaving the upfront cost of the TiVo as extra

Also 7.98 a month for cable cards i too much of a charge from Verizon, they should not cost 3.99 a month each - did yu verify that is the correct price?


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## jlb (Dec 13, 2001)

Or do what I have done for years, stay at lifeline cable and get just the locals, but that includes the in the clear QAM HD locals. Oh, and I pay $10/mo for the service and my 1 M card is free.


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## classicsat (Feb 18, 2004)

The current Product Lifetime offer is $399 for the first box, $299 each for any further boxes on your account.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

Comcast charges $13.95 for one dual-tuner hi-def DVR on an account with no commitment required and free exchange if there are technical problems. If a Comcast account uses more than one STB, DVR or not, an 'Additional Outlet Fee' of $5.10 applies for all STB's after the first.

Comcast's Motorola DVR is perfectly adequate when a customer doesn't need TiVo's 'more than DVR' features. It works well and accesses Comcast's VOD.

OTOH, a HDTiVo can be purchased with TiVo Lifetime Service for around $600 for a new TiVo customer who has no other TiVo service. Technical service if required is the owner's responsibility but is reasonably priced after the 90 day warrantee expires. 

TiVo is the Gold Standard when it comes to reliability and provides an array of 'more than DVR' services but doesn't access Comcast's VOD. I have several TiVo's, none of which has yet required service after several years of steady use.

To receive all Comcast services above Extended Basic analog service (except VOD) HDTiVo requires 1 'M' CableCARD which costs nothing. Additional DVR's and/or standard STB's, whether Comcast's or TiVo's, are charged Comcast's $5.10 monthly Additional Outlet Fee. 

TiVo service always requires at least a one year commitment which can be paid $12.95 monthly. TiVo service is available for as low as $8.31 monthly with a three year prepaid commitment. 

For me the best DVR service options are Comcast's no commitment $13.95 monthly fee or TiVo's Lifetime $399! :up::up::up:


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## LoREvanescence (Jun 19, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Actually, not. The Earth has a diameter of roughly 13,000,000,000 mm. The highest mountain (Everest) is 8,800,000 mm. The deepest mid-oceanic rift (Mariana Trench) is 11,000,000 mm. If we shrunk the Earth to the size of a pool ball, or 57mm, the highest peak would only be .039 mm and the deepest valley would be .048mm, or less than 0.002". That is smoother than any ordinary pool ball that has seen any amount of use.


Sorry to be off topic to the thread, but this post just cracked me up and was an amusing read


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## sjashe (Mar 3, 2008)

But you left out the average of about 4-5 days a month you have to go without service with Comcast waiting for the next service visit.


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

I think the OP has a perfectly legit gripe about the high cost. I know I often go the Rolls Royce and Bentley forums and gripe about the high cost of their motorcars and how it's causing me to forego purchasing one.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

sjashe said:


> But you left out the average of about 4-5 days a month you have to go without service with Comcast waiting for the next service visit.


But you do get to look at the Comcast DVR shaped hole in the wall....


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## litkaj (Jun 5, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Actually, not. The Earth has a diameter of roughly 13,000,000,000 mm. The highest mountain (Everest) is 8,800,000 mm. The deepest mid-oceanic rift (Mariana Trench) is 11,000,000 mm. If we shrunk the Earth to the size of a pool ball, or 57mm, the highest peak would only be .039 mm and the deepest valley would be .048mm, or less than 0.002". That is smoother than any ordinary pool ball that has seen any amount of use.


Interesting, although if you were going to spit out a bunch of numbers I would have expected some mention of the fact that the diameter of the Earth across the equator is slightly larger than from pole to pole (by about 25 miles, or as you were measuring things, about 40,000,000 mm).


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

It makes sense that the available options will be roughly as valuable as each other, each with different strengths, either quality, or price, or each option excelling in some bits of pieces of both aspects. 

There isn't any blame. The prices are what they are. We all have the opportunity to accept or decline what is offered. No harm, no foul. We're not talking about an essential service; the essential service, live, local broadcast channels, is a regulated service, with regulated prices. Everything else, we're each personally responsible for our own decision to accept what is being offered to us.

I have a TiVo S3. At this point, I wouldn't buy one. I think, with TiVo, at this point, if I don't buy the new model within 15 months of its introduction, it is pretty-much "too late" to get full value before I begin to regret not waiting for the next generation, which may come as much as two or three years later, but still worth waiting for, AFAIC.

The cable company DVRs are good enough for the duration until TiVo's next generation comes out, AFAIC. Unless TiVo's prices get a lot more competitive, I just cannot support the idea of advocating folks choose TiVo any longer.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> I have a TiVo S3. At this point, I wouldn't buy one. I think, with TiVo, at this point, if I don't buy the new model within 15 months of its introduction, it is pretty-much "too late" to get full value before I begin to regret not waiting for the next generation, which may come as much as two or three years later, but still worth waiting for, AFAIC.


I would buy a TiVoHD still. The series 4 from what we know now will only add VOD/PPV and SDV will be equal once the SDV tuning adpater is out. This looked for tru2way TiVo really will not be the same kind of step up as SD to HD is/was.


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## artitumis (Apr 10, 2008)

bicker said:


> The cable company DVRs are good enough for the duration until TiVo's next generation comes out, AFAIC. Unless TiVo's prices get a lot more competitive, I just cannot support the idea of advocating folks choose TiVo any longer.


Have you ever dealt with a cable company DVR after having TiVo? I just went through that while dealing with my horrible cable company and I will never allow myself to use a cable company DVR ever again. It would be like living in an actual house and then moving into a 5x5 cardboard box. I'm sure folks that have gone from TiVo to cable company DVR will agree with me.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

artitumis said:


> Have you ever dealt with a cable company DVR after having TiVo?


Yes.



artitumis said:


> I'm sure folks that have gone from TiVo to cable company DVR will agree with me.


You'd be mistaken. Here's one 'folk' that will not agree with you.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I would buy a TiVoHD still. The series 4 from what we know now will only add VOD/PPV and SDV will be equal once the SDV tuning adpater is out. This looked for tru2way TiVo really will not be the same kind of step up as SD to HD is/was.


It amazes me how loyal some Tivo fans are. For all that Tivo can do there it is no the holy grail of DRV's. Tivo has some shortcomings as do all its competitors. the lack of PPV & VOD is not a small thing to some. Having to rent cable cards and deal with all the nuances of getting then setup is no picnic. MRV is not much better with Tivo, not that all the DRM crap is there fault but it is just as limited as any other solution.
When I have to pay for something upfront as in in paying $250 for an HD Tivo I expect to get something in return. First I should not have to pay $12.95 a month for a TV Guide subscription. I already paid for the hardware and software upfront didn't I. I am sure someone is going to say but what about software upgrades and support. I do not think that it should be free but I have a problem seeing it as a great value at the current price points.
I guess my original point is that I can live with my Cable (Verizon Fios) DVR because I have had none of the real or imagined problems that Tivo users seem to say are rampant with anything but a Tivo.
I watch Tv, I record Tv and time shift Tv. Tivo does a great job but its not the only game in town. Price of entry for me is a little more than I can justify.

I guess it would only be fair to say that I also have and use an HTPC with Sage TV too. We mostly use the Fios DVR for everyday recording and time shifting on our living room HD set. All the other SD TV's in the house are now hooked up to Sage media extenders. I also use my HTPC/Sage for ripped DVD & Music playback and storage. Monthly subscription costs for my Sage/HTPC is $0.


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## pdhenry (Feb 28, 2005)

There's a term for someone who goes onto a product BB and only posts about how no one should choose to buy that product.

The term escapes me...


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## Da Goon (Oct 22, 2006)

pdhenry said:


> There's a term for someone who goes onto a product BB and only posts about how no one should choose to buy that product.
> 
> The term escapes me...


troll?


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

pdhenry said:


> There's a term for someone who goes onto a product BB and only posts about how no one should choose to buy that product.


1) they already have a Tivo (DirecTivo)
2) they seem to think that Tivo IS superior, just not superior enough to be worth it (for them).

Doesn't seem very troll-like to me. (..they even have 9 posts.. so it's not a one time entry..)


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

davefred99 said:


> When I have to pay for something upfront as in in paying $250 for an HD Tivo I expect to get something in return. First I should not have to pay $12.95 a month for a TV Guide subscription. I already paid for the hardware and software upfront didn't I.


No, you did NOT. See if you can operate a business selling TiVo HD for $250 without additional service fees. If you don't want to pay monthly fees, that's easy -- add $299 to that $250 price.


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## lonewoolf47 (Nov 16, 2001)

I seem to remember reading about Comcast teaming with TiVo for their DVR. What happened?


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

c3 said:


> No, you did NOT. See if you can operate a business selling TiVo HD for $250 without additional service fees. If you don't want to pay monthly fees, that's easy -- add $299 to that $250 price.


Just to set the record straight the cost for a new 1st time lifetime subscription is $ 399.00 not $299. If it were only $299 then it might start to make more sense.I would prefer someting more like $250 + $6.95 monthly sub though. Considering you still have to rent cable cards that would be more competitive.
As I said in my previous post I don"t think it should be free, it just should be cheaper than renting a cable STB DVR. The cost can not be much different for the Cable company boxes vs Tivo.

To those that want to label me as a Troll. Call me what you want. I said I liked the Tivo or even think Tivo is a superior product in many ways and to some if not many its worth the cost. I Just personally don't think its that much better to justify spending more on it than what I have. Especially when it does not have all the functions like VOD/PPV of the cable fare.


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## dianebrat (Jul 6, 2002)

lonewoolf47 said:


> I seem to remember reading about Comcast teaming with TiVo for their DVR. What happened?


They rolled it out in various markets, it's up now, and we have a forum for it...
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=62

Diane


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lonewoolf47 said:


> I seem to remember reading about Comcast teaming with TiVo for their DVR. What happened?


The hardware the software was written to run on isn't powerful enough to either install nor run such sophisticated software, reliably, so there have been problems, and so deployment has been limited, so far, to New England. There has been steady improvements, but it is still no (stand-alone) TiVo, and my impression is that folks are better off sticking with the standard DVR software on those boxes rather than switching to the TiVo software on those boxes. For folks not willing to spend the price of the TiVo HD box plus $399 for service to jump on the TiVo bandwagon, the standard DVR software on the cable company issued cable boxes is a better choice than the TiVo software on those boxes.

I wouldn't say the same thing about Cablevision, incidentally. Their DVR software is _so_ bad that, again, my impression that the TiVo-powered Motorola boxes that Comcast makes available here in New England would be a superior choice.


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## Chris Gerhard (Apr 27, 2002)

This a reasonable opinion and reasonable post. TiVo is often more expensive than the competition and it is also better, but not everybody can afford TiVo or believes it is worth the premium. I have TiVo for standard analog cable and Comcast Motorolla DCT6412III for digital cable and I can make the Comcast DVR work really well.

Chris


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

sjashe said:


> But you left out the average of about 4-5 days a month you have to go without service with Comcast waiting for the next service visit.


Surely you jest! Our Comcast Service has been remarkably good with the following exceptions:

One Moto hi-def STB was DOA when I recently brought it home from the Comcast Store. I replaced it the following day and actually persuaded the Comcast CSR to give me 2 weeks of STB service because of the inconvenience.

We've had a couple of CableCARD hiccups over the months, both of which were resolved by phone with Comcast's tech support.

OTOH, Comcast came out to the house to troubleshoot when I believed a HDTiVo/Westinghouse TV issue was a Comcast issue. They charged me $20 for the service call and resolved the non-Comcast problem. (HDTiVo doesn't 'handshake' reliably with a particular Westinghouse LCD monitor with only DVI inputs. Switching to the YPrPb input solved the problem. My other newer Westinghouse TV with HDMI works fine.)

I'm not unhappy with Comcast. YMMV!


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

I guess I am missing the point of this thread beyond the fact that some people think a TiVo HD costs to much and are not willing to buy it and other people think the price is acceptable and have/will buy it (which can be said for almost any product) what are we talking about? 

I can give you the reasons I thought spending almost $700 on a TiVo HD, lifetime service, and the official external hard drive just to record OTA was worth it for me, but those reasons may not mean anything to the next guy. 

I agree with Bicker, a TiVo HD (or any DVR) is not essential - its completely optional either buy one or not. Everyone should do what they think is best for themselves. 

Thanks,


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

artitumis said:


> Have you ever dealt with a cable company DVR after having TiVo? I just went through that while dealing with my horrible cable company and I will never allow myself to use a cable company DVR ever again. It would be like living in an actual house and then moving into a 5x5 cardboard box. I'm sure folks that have gone from TiVo to cable company DVR will agree with me.


No. The newest Moto boxes are credible DVR's. TiVo however is 'more' than a DVR.

I really don't want 'more than a DVR', but along with that TiVo is the only DVR which can access analog and digital OTA as well as cable channels. Alternatively, S3/HDTiVo is the only hi-def DVR which can record from outboard sources by utilizing its OTA Ch. 3 analog input as a line input for manual recordings.

Comcast charges $6.50 for its hi-def STB (vs. $13.95 for a DVR.)

So instead of renting Comcast's DVR I send its STB's standard-def output to a ReplayTV which provides an HDD sized buffer when it doesn't change channels. Another standard-def output goes to a DVD recorder which can be switched between HDTiVo, Comcast's STB, a VCR, and a legendary Apex DVD player with 'Loopholes' which both eliminates commercial DVD's Macrovision and permits playing NTSC DVD's from any region of the world.

Of course, in a pinch, I can also watch hi-def from the STB the (chuckle) 'old fashioned' way, 'live'!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davefred99 said:


> It amazes me how loyal some Tivo fans are. For all that Tivo can do there it is no the holy grail of DRV's. Tivo has some shortcomings as do all its competitors. the lack of PPV & VOD is not a small thing to some.


 which is why I made note of that as the difference. Some may want that on just one main TV, others may want it on all TVs. Note you could have a TiVo DVR and a cable box since we are talking about on demand stuff here. Of course one box with it all makes things easier. SO YMMV does indeed apply here. Since I am big on Netflix and no so much on cable VOD/PPV then my statement is not about loyalty but about what I would do.



> Having to rent cable cards and deal with all the nuances of getting then setup is no picnic.


 how come we never hear about boxes from the cable company having cable card issues? I think we can all agree the bulk of the issues on cable cards is the cable company getting up to speed and that is dying off in some places that seem more advanced in their tech training/deployment infrastructure.
NOTE - tru2way is still listing cable cards for security as part of the package. The next gen of DVRs is not doing away with cable cards and separable security is still an FCC requirement.



> MRV is not much better with Tivo, not that all the DRM crap is there fault but it is just as limited as any other solution.


 would that be including cable company DVRs? Last time I checked - their MRV "solution" was WAY more limited than TiVo. My MRV has not been having any issues so I can not address that.



> When I have to pay for something upfront as in in paying $250 for an HD Tivo I expect to get something in return. First I should not have to pay $12.95 a month
> 
> I guess it would only be fair to say that I also have and use an HTPC with Sage TV too.


ah ok- so you pay upfront for the PC and extenders for SAGE and do not use the cable company DVR for MRV. well that is fine and certainly the approach for those into HTPC. I can pretty much send anything to my TiVo DVR now and my family uses the same remote and simple TiVo interface to get anything off my PC, including DVD rips and now HuLu with the same kind of manual in between step you would do with SAGE.

so the functionality is not much different, just the approach


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

davefred99,

You posted,
"Tivo pricing is just too much for me to justify."

Man... I agree with you.

If it's simply too expensive for you, then by all means, dump it for a cheaper alternative. You've got to do what's right for you. It's as simple as that.

My question is about the tone of your posts.

Are you trying to convince others that since you've decided to forgo a tivo that they should too?

Somehow, since it's not right for you, it's not right for anybody?

You posted that you're amazed about how loyal some Tivo fans are. Instead of seeing it as loyality, how about looking at it as simply a financial decision? Some folks pay little to nothing for cablecards. Some folks have been subscribers for so long that they've been grandfathered into lower cost subscriptions. It's actually cheaper for some to use a tivo other than renting one from the cable company. ... especially those who have lifetime subscriptions already.

You posted that you have not had any unusual problems with your Fios Hd DVR. Please keep in mind that for some, even "usual" problems are just too much to take. Even if it costs 50% more to use a tivo, it's worth it for them.

You've got to find a solution that's right for you just as I've got to find one that's right for me and my family.

You've posted that the costs for a tivo should be cheaper than renting a cable STB DVR. I see it just the opposite. I can see the benefit of paying more for better service.

But that's just me.

To you, it may be completely different.

I'll never poopoo a choice you've made that you have determined that's right for you.

Just please don't poopoo my choices if they differ from your's.

I drive a Honda CIVIC, but I'm not going to post in a Hummer fan board and proclaim that they're just "to expensive for most everyday consumers."

Different strokes for different folks, I say.

How 'bout you?


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> I'm not unhappy with Comcast. YMMV!


My mileage varies greatly. In 10 months I've had to have both of my STB's replaced because they died. I also had to put in several calls in one night because my box kept showing "Not Authorized for Use", even after being 'fixed'.

Conversely I have two Tivos, 4 years and 10 months old respectively, that I have not had any problems with.

Also, I know prices vary but a Comcast DVR would cost me $13.95/month which is more than any Tivo pricing available to me.

To each, his own.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I have had comparable problems with both TiVo and the cable company DVR. Neither is remarkably more reliable than the other, in my experience.


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## jmoak (Jun 20, 2000)

bicker said:


> I have had comparable problems with both TiVo and the cable company DVR. Neither is remarkably more reliable than the other, in my experience.


Man! This is the perfect example of the differences between cable company service and reliability from system to system across the country.

My local cable company uses the SA 8300hd for their hd dvr. Sometimes it will record what I tell it to, sometimes it doesnt. As long as the guide data is correct, my tivos never miss a beat.

My tivo beats the hell out of my 8300 in reliability, at least in my experience.

My cable dvr experience is radically different than bicker's and is a great example of the differences from cable system to cable system across the country.


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## Playloud (Jan 6, 2008)

I had a SA DVR for about 1.5 years, a Motorolla "Moxi" DVR for about 1.5 years, and a Tivo HD for about a year now, and have never had any reliability issues with any of them. I've never had a show fail to record, nor have I had a hardware problem of any kind.

When I first bought the Tivo, the cost wasn't bad, as I paid 3 years in advance, and Time Warner had M-cards for $2.49/month. When I switched to FIOS however, the cable cards were like $3.99 (IIRC) for each S-card, and they didn't have M-cards. This actually made it a decent bit more expensive than the Tivo over a 3 year time period, but I like the Tivo better than the FIOS DVR. Also, I like how easy it is to transfer recordings to my laptop, cut out the commercials and burn it to disc so I can watch it again at work. As far as I know, there is no way to do that with a FIOS DVR.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

jmoak said:


> Man! This is the perfect example of the differences between cable company service and reliability from system to system across the country.
> 
> My local cable company uses the SA 8300hd for their hd dvr. Sometimes it will record what I tell it to, sometimes it doesnt. As long as the guide data is correct, my tivos never miss a beat.


And let me just chime in that in short period I did use an SA 8300HD I got the clear message that it is shockingly inferior to the Motorola DCT- and DCH-series DVRs, which are in use in this area. I really feel for folks using the SA DVRs.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

bicker said:


> I have had comparable problems with both TiVo and the cable company DVR. Neither is remarkably more reliable than the other, in my experience.


A question: Older Moto hi-def DVR's had a noticiable 'hitch-in-the-get-along' when FF or RW was initiated. After being used once, the glitch was much less pronounced until time had gone by between uses. It could be lived with but was a significant rough spot in DVR performance. How smoothly do the new DVRs' FF and RW perform?

One feature offered by Moto's s/w is that its hi-def STB can be programmed to change channels from a program's EPG listing to enable external recording from the STB's standard-def line out.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> A question: Older Moto hi-def DVR's had a noticiable 'hitch-in-the-get-along' when FF or RW was initiated. After being used once, the glitch was much less pronounced until time had gone by between uses. It could be lived with but was a significant rough spot in DVR performance. How smoothly do the new DVRs' FF and RW perform?


Are you talking about the remote command stacking problem? In that case, the FF and RW worked fine -- the problem was that the FF and RW commands you entered were stacked up (sometimes for up to a minute or so), and then executed all at once. A lot of us figured the box was busy indexing, and it wasn't adequately backgrounding that activity.

That problem subsided over time, and by the time I gave up my DCT-, this past Winter, it was pretty-much gone.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

I'll agree non-tivo branded DVRs are better then they were a few years ago. For many customers they work fine.

Some observations regarding the verizon supplied motorola DVRs:
1) Verizon doesn't use Tribune guide data. Tribune is more reliable then whatever vendor Verizon is currently using.
2) You can't add additional capacity to the Verizon box. AFAIK it can't be "hacked" to allow use of a larger internal drive to increase capacity and the external port isn't enabled.
3) Tivo has features such as TTG which don't exist with the Verizon box.

The tivo costing is more reasonable if your system supports M cards and if you're willing to at least utilize the one year pre-paid option with tivo.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

lew said:


> ...whatever vendor Verizon is currently using.


The other supplier is Gemstar.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

Am I mis-reading the OP or is he saying that the ~$5 more per month that the TiVoHD costs is not worth it? Somebody who is willing to pay close to $100/month for his TV content and viewing experience is saying that the last $5 is too much?

I like the TiVo interface *much* better than whatever DVR Comcast is offering (Motorola? My sister-in-law has it, and it's awful). I didn't even bother to compare the pricing because I knew I wanted a TiVo.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

Mars Rocket said:


> Am I mis-reading the OP or is he saying that the ~$5 more per month that the TiVoHD costs is not worth it? Somebody who is willing to pay close to $100/month for his TV content and viewing experience is saying that the last $5 is too much?
> 
> I like the TiVo interface *much* better than whatever DVR Comcast is offering (Motorola? My sister-in-law has it, and it's awful). I didn't even bother to compare the pricing because I knew I wanted a TiVo.


Your half right, I am not willing to spend $5 per month extra on top of the $250 upfront costs of the Tivo. I was spending about $90+/month for Tv content. That was too much for me also that's why I switched to Fios TV. I now pay about $60/month for the same basic content.
The Whole point of all this was that I was spending more than I was comfortable with on everything. Tivo is just one part of the overall issue. In general I am trying to reduce the cost of everything.
I like many others need to make my hard earned money go as far as it can. If I was rich it would not matter, if I wanted ti I would have it. All along I have stated that I can not justify spending more for Tivo just because it has a more polished interface. If the cost was the same I would have a Tivo. I never said that anyone else should not get a Tivo. I like Tivo, I would prefer a Tivo but the cost at this time is more than I can justify.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

litkaj said:


> Interesting, although if you were going to spit out a bunch of numbers I would have expected some mention of the fact that the diameter of the Earth across the equator is slightly larger than from pole to pole (by about 25 miles, or as you were measuring things, about 40,000,000 mm).


Indeed it is, and as one can easily see, the equatorial bulge, ubiquitous in any moderately large planet which rotates on its axis, is much greater than the peak and valley excursions caused by tectonic activity. In our case, an Earth-shaped pool ball would be very slightly out-of-round. 'Probably not enough to notice on modest shots or by any amateur, but possibly enough to throw off the aim of a pro attempting a multiple rail shot.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> It amazes me how loyal some Tivo fans are. For all that Tivo can do there it is no the holy grail of DRV's.


I wouldn't say I am very loyal in any significant sense of the word. The simple fact, however, is there are a rather large number of deal-breaking features whose absence makes TiVos competitors completely unacceptable. First and foremost among these (but far from the only deal-breaker) is the fact the leased DVRs are owned by the CATV company and thus cannot be hacked by the user. A DVR which cannot be hacked is almost completely useless to me.

Additionally, every other DVR with which I have played is heavily tied to one form or other of channel guide. Channel guides are all but useless and a huge waste of time, literally. As I have mentioned in other threads, I calculated the amount of time out of a person's time using a guide to select programming, and it can easily amount to the equivalent of over two years worth of leisure time in the lifespan of an average adult TV viewer. I'd really rather have the two years to watch the shows rather than wasting it just picking them to be recorded. Putting a dollar amount on it, it would be worth something over a quarter million dollars of my time. 'And people complain about spending an extra $200 or so!



davefred99 said:


> Tivo has some shortcomings as do all its competitors.


Of course it does! What's your point?



davefred99 said:


> the lack of PPV


PPV can easily be handled by an STB right alongside the DVR, if one really wants. Personally, I never used PPV at all, even when I worked for the local CATV company and was offered unlimited PPV for $1 each. That said, I can understand why some people like it, but depending upon the CATV provider in question, having a TiVo, even a Series III, doesn't mean necessarily losing PPV capabilities. Many CATV providers will allow the user to authorize PPV events by calling over the phone, and the Series III is quite capable of handling this.



davefred99 said:


> VOD is not a small thing to some.


It should be. At this time with the exception of a very small number of programs which are available only via VOD, VOD offers nothing more than the ability to time-shift one's viewing. *HELLO!!!* That's what a DVR does. Owning a DVR - especially a TiVo - for the most part makes VOD completely pointless. It's a little like complaining that an M-1 Abrams Tank doesn't have airbags, just in case it might run into a Honda Civic. VOD is great for people who don't have DVRs, and almost entirely moot for those who do, even if they are not TiVos.



davefred99 said:


> Having to rent cable cards and deal with all the nuances of getting then setup is no picnic.


Neither is getting a CATV company DVR. Neither is taking out the garbage, or shaving in the morning. The difference is, I have to take out the garbage every week and shave every morning. I only had to have the CableCards authorized once (for each TiVo, of course). More to the point, however, is the fact this is true of any DVR I own, not just a TiVo. Since I will not under any circumstances put up with a DVR I do not own (and thus cannot hack), and since CATV is my only practical choice for programming, what CableCard based High-Def DVR do you suggest I purchase instead? (The silence is deafening.)



davefred99 said:


> MRV is not much better with Tivo


Not much better than what?



davefred99 said:


> not that all the DRM crap is there fault but it is just as limited as any other solution.


You've really lost me, here, but if the TiVo's solution is "just as limited" as the other solutions, then it is also no less limited, and there is nothing to recommend another solution over the TiVo. MRV works well on any un-protected video. TTCB works nearly as well and works on every video on my server.



davefred99 said:


> When I have to pay for something upfront as in in paying $250 for an HD Tivo I expect to get something in return.


The consumer does. They get a DVR which cost the manufacturer more than what the customer paid for it. That's a pretty sweet deal.



davefred99 said:


> First I should not have to pay $12.95 a month for a TV Guide subscription. I already paid for the hardware and software upfront didn't I.


Well, first of all, no you didn't, but more of that in a minute. In the mean time, so what? Providing that guide costs TiVo a very significant amount of money. You think just because you bought a piece of hardware the manufacturer should be bound to outlay a significant amount of money every month on your behalf? Do you expect the car dealer who sold you your automobile to provide free gasoline, oil, and antifreeze the rest of the life of the vehicle? TiVo loses money on selling the hardware. Even a brief glance at their financial statements will show you that in black and white. For that matter, so do cellular companies. Just like the Cellular companies, however, TiVo expects to make up for the lost profits on the hardware by selling their service over time. Do you expect your cellular phone company not to charge you for service after you've bought their phone? Without the service fee, Tivo would have to either sell their DVRs at a price many are unwilling to pay (e.g. adding the lifetime subscription cost to every unit), or go out of business. I would say it's rather ingratiating that TiVo offers the user the option: pay an additional $400 up front to get one's service as long as the TiVo lasts or pay on a monthly basis until one no longer wishes to take advantage of the service.

Oh, and BTW, I have 3 active Series III class TiVos, and I pay a total of $6.95 plus tax a month for service.



davefred99 said:


> I guess my original point is that I can live with my Cable (Verizon Fios) DVR because I have had none of the real or imagined problems that Tivo users seem to say are rampant with anything but a Tivo.


Problems?

If you mean service and repair issues, I have seen very few TiVo owners suggest their TiVos are any less prone to hardware or software failures than any other DVR, and indeed a failed TiVo can be more of a pain than a failed CATV (or FIOS) owned DVR. It isn't necessarily, but it certainly can be.

If by "problems", you mean a lack of features, it's another matter. Below is just a partial list of things missing from most or in some cases all other DVRs. No other DVR has all of them (or reasonable equivalents). In no particular order:


Wishlists with hyperfine target filters and boolean expressions
Multiple search utilities (by name, by time, by channel, etc) with target filters
Amazon Unbox videos
YouTube
Internet podcasts like Cranky Geeks, CNet.com, DL.TV, The New York Times, and dozens of others
Continually updated weather and traffic reports with maps and forecasts
Rhapsody Music subscriptions
Suggestions, so that it records features it thinks you may like based upon historical viewing habits and user voting
The ability to allow the user to play his own videos (HD or SD), music, and photos on the DVR (Galleon, pyTiVo, Harmonium, Tivo Desktop)
Multi-Room Viewing
TiVo to Go (Galleon and TiVo Desktop) and Come Back (Galleon, pyTiVo, and TiVo Desktop)
Internet based record scheduling
Burning recorded shows to DVD
Thumbs-Up scheduling
Online special announcements
Expandability
Swivel Search
Play games
TiVo KidZone
Fandango ticket listings and purchasing
Online lyrics lookup for music (Galleon)
Online album cover lookup for music (Galleon)
Displaying album covers embeded in .MP3 files (Harmonium)
Live views of the PC server desktop (Galleon)
View incoming e-mail (Galleon)
View Internet webcams and other live images (Galleon)
View RSS feeds (Galleon and TiVo Desktop)
Jabber Messenger Service (Galleon)
Local theater listings (Galleon)
Shoutcast (Galleon)
Share home videos (One True Media)
Watch music videos (Music Choice)

Finally, while every DVR has something similar to TiVo's Season Pass, the TiVo has much more facile handling of the season pass and a much finer granularity of the associated features than any other DVR I have used. I am given to understand MythTV and the DirectTV HR20 may have some even more sophisticated features for Season Passes, but I cannot personally testify one way or the other for either.



davefred99 said:


> I watch Tv, I record Tv and time shift Tv.


I watch TV, as well as listen to music and check out weather and traffic conditions on a regular basis. The rest of it I mostly leave to the TiVo, because for me to do it is an unnecessary waste of time. Of the many tens of thousands of programs my Tivos have recorded, I only selected about 500 or so. The rest were recorded by the TiVos based upon the selection criteria I gave them. The ones I did select took me very little of my own time, and yet represented an accurate, compact, and comprehensive list of those programs not already selected by the Tivo that I wished to record. Instead of browsing through hundreds of thousands of hours of programming on hundreds of channels, 99.99% or more in which I had no interest whatsoever or represented multiple duplicates of those in which I was interested, I browsed through a few thousand programs, some 10% - 20% of which I was actually interested in recording, with duplicates eliminated. That is an extremely valuable functionality, and in my less than narrow experience the Tivo is betetr at this than any other offering.



davefred99 said:


> Tivo does a great job but its not the only game in town. Price of entry for me is a little more than I can justify.


I can't afford a brand new Lambourghini. That doesn't mean I pretend my 2002 Camaro convertible is somehow comparable to a Lambourghini, or anywhere nearly as desirable.



davefred99 said:


> I guess it would only be fair to say that I also have and use an HTPC with Sage TV too.


How much luck have you had recording HBO HD, Showtime HD, Starz HD, and The Movie Channel HD on your HTPC?



davefred99 said:


> We mostly use the Fios DVR for everyday recording and time shifting on our living room HD set.


Since you have FIOS, you probably won't be having problems with SDV any time in the near future, but how many of your favorite movies and other events (other than weekly or daily series) will that FIOS DVR record if you weren't to turn on the livingroom TV for six months? How many would it save to your HTPC, or to some other server? For that matter, how many can it access when you sit down to watch it (my TiVos all have access to over 1000 programs on my Video server, almost half of them 1080i HD, plus three or four hundred - about 1200 total - stored locally on the TiVos).



davefred99 said:


> All the other SD TV's in the house are now hooked up to Sage media extenders. I also use my HTPC/Sage for ripped DVD & Music playback and storage.


I rarely watch anything from DVDs - ripped or otherwise - these days and even less often anything SD from sources other than a DVD.



davefred99 said:


> Monthly subscription costs for my Sage/HTPC is $0.


And how many hours did you spend ripping or selecting the things you do watch?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

jmoak said:


> My local cable company uses the SA 8300hd for their hd dvr.


Barf!! When I got my first HD Television, Tivo had just intimated they were going to have a CableCard based, HD capable DVR out soon. I bit my lip and kept my Series I / STB combination going for a few weeks. Then the anouncement came out: the Series III would be available in the fall. Looking at the price of the other new releases, I figured it might cost up to $1000, but would drop in price rather quickly. So I decided to get a leased DVR and keep it for maybe 18 months, until the price on the S3 came down. When the S3 came out, I could not live another week with that piece of crap, and I didn't care in the least what the TiVo cost.



jmoak said:


> Sometimes it will record what I tell it to, sometimes it doesnt.


I had the same experience. It typically failed to record between 20% and 30% of the things I had specifically told it to record. It was a real craps-shoot. Unfortunately, poor reliability was far from the worst problem with the wretched thing. When I got the 8300HD, I was planning to shut down the Series I for the duration, but within 2 days I had it operating again. Unfortunately, the SA STB also had a habit of rebooting itself, and after reboot it would not automatically come back on, so the Series I / Scientific Atlanta STB combo would also frequently miss recordings. Frequently it might be several days before I turned on the TV, so sometimnes I would miss nearly a week's recordings.



jmoak said:


> My tivo beats the hell out of my 8300 in reliability, at least in my experience.


'And almost everything else. There was one, tiny, minor feature of the 8300 that was actually easier than the TiVo, but it was so minor I can't even recall what it was at the moment. It seems to me it was a status display of some sort. 'Not a core feature, anyway.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> One feature offered by Moto's s/w is that a hi-def STB can be programmed to change channels from a program's EPG listing as a timer function for recording from its standard-def line out.


Huh?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> Your half right, I am not willing to spend $5 per month extra on top of the $250 upfront costs of the Tivo. I was spending about $90+/month for Tv content. That was too much for me also that's why I switched to Fios TV.


If FIOS were available in my area, I would probably switch to it. That doesn't mean I wouldn't keep the TiVos.



davefred99 said:


> I now pay about $60/month for the same basic content.
> The Whole point of all this was that I was spending more than I was comfortable with on everything. Tivo is just one part of the overall issue. In general I am trying to reduce the cost of everything.


I'm certainly no fan of needless spending. The fact is, however, that using the TiVo essentially saves me something on the order of 15 - 20 minutes a night or more through the intelligent design of its recording capabilities. At $6.95 a month, that is less than $0.23 a night to save me about 1/3 an hour of time, or more. Even if I were paying a full $36 a month for 3 TiVos, it would still amount to less than $1.20 to save that 1/3 hour of my life, or better than 10 hours a month. I would say it is easily worth it.



davefred99 said:


> I like many others need to make my hard earned money go as far as it can. If I was rich it would not matter, if I wanted ti I would have it.


So you are complaining about being poor? It sounded much more to me like you were criticizing those of us who choose the Tivo:



davefred99 said:


> It amazes me how loyal some Tivo fans are. For all that Tivo can do there it is no the holy grail of DRV's. Tivo has some shortcomings as do all its competitors.


How does "I'm amazed at how loyal some Tivo fans are" translate into "my budget won't allow me to purchase a TiVo"?



davefred99 said:


> All along I have stated that I can not justify spending more for Tivo just because it has a more polished interface.


First of all, if you ask me, the polish of the interface is fairly unimportant. I want the Tivo for its features, not its interface. Secondly, the thing I like most about the TiVo is I fairly rarely have to use its interface at all, except to play a program which was recorded at some time - perhaps years - in the past. Once every couple of weeks I check for HD movies I might want that are not slated to be recored, and I pull up weather and traffic. If I want music I bring up Galleon's music app and shut off the TV. The rest the TiVo handles without my being anywhere near it.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

Mars Rocket said:


> Am I mis-reading the OP or is he saying that the ~$5 more per month that the TiVoHD costs is not worth it? Somebody who is willing to pay close to $100/month for his TV content and viewing experience is saying that the last $5 is too much?


I won't speak for the OP, but why would such a comment be surprising? When the difference in experience between two options is so small, even a small difference in price may be more than is justifiable.



Mars Rocket said:


> I like the TiVo interface *much* better than whatever DVR Comcast is offering


That's you, though. I like it better too, but probably not as much as you do. My brother probably doesn't see any significant difference between the two. Maybe some of my friends don't either. And perhaps my father prefers the iGuide experience. There could a whole range of perception, all rational, and anything other than "it's worth $5 more per month" (and surely all perspectives where it is no different or worse) would mean that TiVo isn't worth it.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

davefred99 said:


> All along I have stated that I can not justify spending more for Tivo just because it has a more polished interface.


And I'm the exact opposite - I could justify a much higher cost than I am paying* for the TiVo interface and features, because it simply *works* for me and my family. The Comcast soution did not - much too difficult to use, and not nearly as many features.

* I paid $249 + $200 for lifetime, so if I get 4 years of service out of my TiVoHD then it will have cost me < $10/month overall, and even less if I make it work longer than that. I'm still using a Series 1 TiVo (with Lifetime) that I purchased in March of 2000, so I suspect I'll get far more than 4 years out of the TiVoHD.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

bicker said:


> Are you talking about the remote command stacking problem? In that case, the FF and RW worked fine -- the problem was that the FF and RW commands you entered were stacked up (sometimes for up to a minute or so), and then executed all at once. A lot of us figured the box was busy indexing, and it wasn't adequately backgrounding that activity.
> 
> That problem subsided over time, and by the time I gave up my DCT-, this past Winter, it was pretty-much gone.


No it wasn't that kind of glitch at all. Just a very noticiable stutter when accesing FF/RW for the first time after not using the functions for awhile. After the first FF/RW usage the stutter wasn't gone but was greatly diminished.

Sounds as if the problem has been eliminated because it was obvious and was ridiculed by TiVo users.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

Mars Rocket said:


> I like the TiVo interface *much* better than whatever DVR Comcast is offering (Motorola? My sister-in-law has it, and it's awful). I didn't even bother to compare the pricing because I knew I wanted a TiVo.


Just goes to show how 'one man's meat is another's oatmeal'. 

I like Comcast's Moto DVR/STB GUI better than TiVo's, and wish TiVo offered 'search' functionality from its EPG without cutting off the audio. 

To put my views in perspective though: 

I don't buy into TiVo's concept of watching everything timeshifted. I only record programs that either don't fit my TV viewing schedule or play at the same time. I generally don't record in hi-def but usually watch hi-def live or buffered. 

There's way too much decent TV programming to watch, whatever scheme a TV viewer uses to select programs. For me, if a program's not worth watching it's not worth recording, so I always set recordings for KUID. TiVo enables effortless recording of far more than I want to spend time watching. 

The only HDD expansion that makes sense to me is (chuckle) a HDD of infinite size, *or* Echostar's scheme of enabling an unlimited number of interchangeable HDD's to be connected to one DVR. However, as I don't use Echostar's Dish service, that's not possible. 

I use TiVo for many reasons other than its GUI though. Nobody's perfect!


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Huh?


Gotta' do better'n that for me to explain the obvious! However I've edited the quoted post for clarity. Hope it helps!

I'm sure you can ask in more detailed fashion as evidenced by the post linked to below:



lrhorer said:


> VOD offers nothing more than the ability to time-shift one's viewing.


But without using any HDD capacity whatsoever!


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## Adam1115 (Dec 15, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> I recently switched form Direct TV to Verizon FiOS TV. the move was mostly predicated on cost. I was paying about $90.00 a month for Direct TV with one HD DVR one Dtivo and one SD DVR. Since I was already a Fios phone and internet customer there triple play offer seemed like a good deal.
> I figured I would give the Fios HD DVR a try first and then decide if it was worth the cost to upgrade to an HD Tivo.
> The Verizon FiOS HD-DVR costs me an additional $15.99 a month to rent. I have now lived with the Fios box for about a month and would love to have the HD Tivo but not at the current cost. I could live with the upfront cost of the HD Tivo if it were not for the ongoing subscription costs but $12.95 to Tivo plus the Cablecard rental fees of $7.98 for two s-cards is just too much. I know I can lower that cost some by purchasing annual or lifetime subscriptions but its not enough savings for me. It would take at least 4years to recover my out of pocket expenses after the upfront cost for equipment and and a lifetime subscription and by then I would likely have to replace the HD Tivo box anyways.
> I know that most Tivo users don't look at it on a break even basis. Most Tivo users just want a Tivo no matter what. I think I am more like the average consumer who want to make sure that they get the most bang for there buck and Tivo is nice but its a luxury.
> ...


Only you can decide if the features of TiVo are worth it to you.

But one thing you're missing is that, although there is the upfront cost, you own the equipment. You are free to take it with you to the next provider, or sell it down the road.

You might consider purchasing it will lifetime. While it's an expensive up front cost, that lifetimed box will always be worth at least $300-$400....


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## TexasGrillChef (Sep 15, 2006)

davefred99 said:


> I recently switched form Direct TV to Verizon FiOS TV. the move was mostly predicated on cost. I was paying about $90.00 a month for Direct TV with one HD DVR one Dtivo and one SD DVR. Since I was already a Fios phone and internet customer there triple play offer seemed like a good deal.
> I figured I would give the Fios HD DVR a try first and then decide if it was worth the cost to upgrade to an HD Tivo.
> The Verizon FiOS HD-DVR costs me an additional $15.99 a month to rent. I have now lived with the Fios box for about a month and would love to have the HD Tivo but not at the current cost. I could live with the upfront cost of the HD Tivo if it were not for the ongoing subscription costs but $12.95 to Tivo plus the Cablecard rental fees of $7.98 for two s-cards is just too much. I know I can lower that cost some by purchasing annual or lifetime subscriptions but its not enough savings for me. It would take at least 4years to recover my out of pocket expenses after the upfront cost for equipment and and a lifetime subscription and by then I would likely have to replace the HD Tivo box anyways.
> I know that most Tivo users don't look at it on a break even basis. Most Tivo users just want a Tivo no matter what. I think I am more like the average consumer who want to make sure that they get the most bang for there buck and Tivo is nice but its a luxury.
> ...


You get what you pay for. TiVo isn't about saving you money. TiVo is about providing the best alternative to watching TV the way you want.

Like buying a BMW, Mercedes or other high end automobile. If all you care about it getting from point A to point B then a BMW is to expensive. But if you want to get from point A to point B in style... well then choose a BMW, Mercedes or other high ennd luxury automobile.

TGC


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> I wouldn't say I am very loyal in any significant sense of the word. The simple fact, however, is there are a rather large number of deal-breaking features whose absence makes TiVos competitors completely unacceptable....


Hmmm. 

Your post brings DrStrange to mind. But DrStrange would never have said that he wasn't loyal to TiVo.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

> That's you, though. I like it better too, but probably not as much as you do. My brother probably doesn't see any significant difference between the two. Maybe some of my friends don't either. And perhaps my father prefers the iGuide experience. There could a whole range of perception, all rational, and anything other than "it's worth $5 more per month" (and surely all perspectives where it is no different or worse) would mean that TiVo isn't worth it.


Precisely. TiVo market share at 1.5 mil subs is less than 10% of DVRs on the market. It means that 90% of DVR users do not see that advantages of having TiVo are worth extra cost or just don't even know that TiVo exists. Reminds me whole MAC vs PC arguments. Free market has decided what platform is best for the majority of users, but there is no shortage of people who honestly believe that MAC is worth the extra cost and is better than PC.


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## dad2n2 (Jul 9, 2003)

well, i for one can't get back to Tivo fast enough. I owned series 1 from the get go and the combined Directv units, then moved to Directvs DVR, massive mistake, then cancelled Directv and moved to FIOS and their DVR and just learned that I can have Tivo again... 

I'll be on the phone tomorrow with Verizon to schedule the cablecards right after I order the THDs from Amazon (4 I think). More expensive, hel! yes, worth every penny, absolutely.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

Mars Rocket said:


> And I'm the exact opposite - I could justify a much higher cost than I am paying* for the TiVo interface and features, because it simply *works* for me and my family. The Comcast soution did not - much too difficult to use, and not nearly as many features.
> 
> * I paid $249 + $200 for lifetime, so if I get 4 years of service out of my TiVoHD then it will have cost me < $10/month overall, and even less if I make it work longer than that. I'm still using a Series 1 TiVo (with Lifetime) that I purchased in March of 2000, so I suspect I'll get far more than 4 years out of the TiVoHD.


Great to be you, but I don't qualify for a $199.00 lifetime subscription. If I did I might have a different opinion.
There seems to be two classes of Tivo users. One, those that already paid for a lifetime subscription or have been subs for many years and qualify for more reasonable rates. The Second group are folks like me who would have to pay the full price of $399 for a lifetime sub or more expensive monthly/annual rates.
Someone who is getting a discounted rate is not in a position to say what is or is not justified to a new full price customer.
One of the previous posters accused me of being to poor to afford TIVO and basically spewing sour grapes. I am just frugal and in no way telling anyone else to follow my example. If you are lucky enough to get a good deal on it and or feel its worth it great. I just cant see the Value for me. Then again I have a different option in that I have a SageTv/HTPC setup so I don't miss many of the features that Tivo might bring to the table.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> Gotta' do better'n that for me to explain the obvious! However I've edited the quoted post for clarity. Hope it helps!


No, not much, and it's anything but obvious. You said:



fallingwater said:


> One feature offered by Moto's s/w is that a hi-def STB can be programmed to change channels from a program's EPG listing as a timer function for recording from its standard-def line out.


And then you edited it to:



fallingwater said:


> One feature offered by Moto's s/w is that its hi-def STB can be programmed to change channels from a program's EPG listing to enable external recording from the STB's standard-def line out.


The two aren't really substantially different. I'm a bit at a loss where to start asking you to clarify, since I'm having trouble figuring out exactly what it is you are wanting to accomplish and how the TiVo fails to accomplish it. I don't follow what the resolution of the output has to do with it, at all, and I don't know what feature of the EPG you are saying the Moto has that the Tivo doesn't. I'm not having a fit over the notion the TiVo might not have a feature the Moto doesn't, I just can't figure out what it is based upon your post. Note, however, the fact it involves the EPG at all pretty much makes it worse than worthless in my book, and irrelevant to me whether the feature exists in the TiVo or not.



fallingwater said:


> But without using any HDD capacity whatsoever!


*WHO FREAKING CARES!!* With the exception of tap water, there is almost nothing out there as cheap as HDD space. That is unless, of course, one is limited by the fact one has a leased DVR. While the list of reasons not to have a leased DVR is rather extensive, the inability to upgrade the local drives is the very first reason on the list. The inability to spool the programs off onto external online storage is #2. What's more, it's not as if the HD space is "used up". If the user doesn't wish to keep the program forever, then he can delete it, or let the DVR do it, and the space is reclaimed without impact.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Mars Rocket said:


> And I'm the exact opposite - I could justify a much higher cost than I am paying* for the TiVo interface and features,


Shhh! Don't give the bean counters at TiVo any ideas! 



Mars Rocket said:


> because it simply *works* for me and my family. The Comcast soution did not - much too difficult to use, and not nearly as many features.


I won't say the UI of a system is completely unimportant, and indeed a realy lousy UI can make a system all but unuseable, but as long as two UIs are fairly comparably decent, being somewhat more difficult to use is not really a big issue, to me. Taking much more time to use is. The lack of important features, however, is an immediate and complete deal breaker.



Mars Rocket said:


> I'm still using a Series 1 TiVo (with Lifetime) that I purchased in March of 2000, so I suspect I'll get far more than 4 years out of the TiVoHD.


I certainly hope so. I retired my Series I when I purchased my 3rd Series III class unit - a TiVo HD, and like you it had been working well - after extensive hacks and upgrades - for 8 years. I will be disappointed if my Series III units don't last at least 4 years, but at this time there is nothing in place or on the near horizon which suggests they won't.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> I don't buy into TiVo's concept of watching everything timeshifted.


It's more fundamental than that. As with any paradigm shift, learning to think in a new way can be unsettling, or even difficult. As a physics major, I had to work my way through several major paradigm shifts, and some of them were all but painful. Fortunately, TiVo's parqdigm is much easier to swallow. More on the details of the TiVo paradigm below, but the TiVo is not only something much more than a VCR on steroids, it is something much different than a VCR, its greater capabilities aside.



fallingwater said:


> I only record programs that either don't fit my TV viewing schedule or play at the same time.


Then you are missing out on a vast resource simply because you remain locked into a time-and-channel mentality. Of course, you are free to use your DVRs any way you choose. If you want, you can use them for doorstops, and I have no right to prevent you, or even criticize you personally for your choice. That doesn't mean I have to consider it a wise choice.



fallingwater said:


> I generally don't record in hi-def but usually watch hi-def live or buffered.


"Buffered" is time-shifted. It doesn't matter if it is 10 seconds or 10 years, it's still time shifted, and viewing the two as different is simply unnecessary. Personally, I watch almost nothing but HD, but that's not really relevant to the core of the discussion.

There is something more, though. In my opinion, speaking generally, if a program isn't diminished by missing the first 5 minutes, then it probably isn't worthwhile to watch in the first place. There are of course exceptions. The point is, however, unless I just happen to sit down right on the hour or half-hour and just happen to notice the program is going to start in a few moments, then I won't even know the program is on until it is no longer worth watching. The point is, why bother? The TiVo usually knows I will like the program and will have slated it to record two weeks previously. It will be there, waiting for me to watch, whether I am ten minutes or ten days late in sitting down. At some point, of course, it will be replaced by some other program of interest, but that's life. If it's on the DVR ten days then I have a much better chance of catching it than the very long odds of just happening to sit down and see it in the guide a few moments before it starts. It's also significant that just browsing the guide for a particular hour can easily waste 5 minutes just so I can find the program the TiVo was quite capable of selecting for me.



fallingwater said:


> There's way too much decent TV programming to watch, whatever scheme a TV viewer uses to select programs. For me, if a program's not worth watching it's not worth recording


Well, I agree, to a point. While I prefer not to have to wade through a lot of detritus, I certainly don't demand absolutely everything the TiVo records be something I want to watch. I do require that it eliminate the 99 plus percent of junk on the CATV lineup and present me with a good, long list of desirable programs whenever I have an hour or so to watch. That the list contains a few dozen or so turkeys isn't exactly wonderful, but they will be overwritten soon enough. It's one heck of a lot better than having to wade through the tens of thousands of turkeys in the unfiltered CATV lineup.



fallingwater said:


> so I always set recordings for KUID.


Which means you are probably wasting a lot of time. 'Not in that you are setting the recording to KUID - that only takes a few moments, but in that you are selecting programs to be recorded. For the most part, it is not necessary for the TiVo user to select programs to record. That is not to say one should never do so. I myself do specifically set a handful of programs to record on my TiVos, but those programs only represent a very tiny fraction of the total number of programs recorded by the TiVos. These programs do represent a somewhat larger fraction of the programs I watch - that number being much, much smaller than the number the TiVos record, but even so they only represent less than 1/10 of the programs I watch, and it is quite rare that I watch one of the manually selected programs within 2 weeks of recording it.



fallingwater said:


> TiVo enables effortless recording of far more than I want to spend time watching.


Absolutely. My point is, by thinking of the TiVo not as a souped-up VCR, but rather as a time and channel independent filter, you can be presented with an even broader array of select programs to fit your momentary mood for a smaller investment of time and effort. The TiVo itself can wade through the vast list of programs in the schedule without worrying about how obscure the channel might be or how early or late in the day it will be showing and take note of almost all the programs which at some time you might be interested in watching. Then it presents them all to you so you can watch whenever you, your family, or friends want to watch them. Whether the program was scheduled to start 10 minutes or 10 months before you decide to watch it is irrelevant.



fallingwater said:


> The only HDD expansion that makes sense to me is (chuckle) a HDD of infinite size


A HDD of infinite size is not required, as long as more HDDs can be added to the storage string whenever space gets tight. That's one reason why I store the "KUID" class programs on the video server. If the RAID array runs out of space, I just add another hard drive. Another is that once on the video server, I can edit out commercials and other extraneous folderol. The ability to create multiple sort folders and place each program in one or several of them is an added bonus. For example, Galaxy Quest shows up inside folders on all 3 TiVos labeled as "Science Fiction", "Comedy", "Romance", and "Family". The Star Wars saga episodes show up under "Science Fiction", "Family", and "Drama", but not "Comedy" or "Romance". Admittedly, the latter is a UI function.



fallingwater said:


> I use TiVo for many reasons other than its GUI though. Nobody's perfect!


Quite. The UI is not at all at the top of the list of reasons I prefer the Tivo.
It is in the list, and maybe in the top 10, but certainly not in the top 5.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> Great to be you, but I don't qualify for a $199.00 lifetime subscription. If I did I might have a different opinion.


Fair enough. The point is, it's neither TiVo's fault nor ours they produce a product which is beyond your means to purchase, or perhaps more appropriately said beyond your consideration.



davefred99 said:


> There seems to be two classes of Tivo users. One, those that already paid for a lifetime subscription or have been subs for many years and qualify for more reasonable rates.


Well, the spectrum is a bit more continuous than that, and it doesn't necessarily require having been a sub for many years to qualify for discounts.



davefred99 said:


> The Second group are folks like me who would have to pay the full price of $399 for a lifetime sub or more expensive monthly/annual rates.


One might argue the early adopters had to go through a lot of exasperation and frustration and are thus deserving of a discount. Regardless, if you don't jump on the bandwagon now, you won't be eligible for grandfather discounts in the future. Of course, there is no guarantee you will be, either, but come a year from now, will you again be griping because you are not eligible for a discount due to your decision today?



davefred99 said:


> Someone who is getting a discounted rate is not in a position to say what is or is not justified to a new full price customer.


Nor is someone who is not getting the discounted rate in a position to say what is or is not justified for a discount eligible customer.



davefred99 said:


> One of the previous posters accused me of being to poor to afford TIVO and basically spewing sour grapes. I am just frugal and in no way telling anyone else to follow my example.


If it was neither sour grapes nor a desire to discourage others from buying the TiVo, then why did you start this thread? That's not a jab or a sarcastic comment. If you had some other intent for starting the thread, then please inform us of what it was, because to the best of our ability it seems to have been an attempt to either bash the TiVo or it's owners, apparently on an economic basis rather than a technical one, as is usually the case. It's also not intended to suggest you should not have started the thread. I'm just asking you to be clear and honest concerning your intentions.



davefred99 said:


> Then again I have a different option in that I have a SageTv/HTPC setup so I don't miss many of the features that Tivo might bring to the table.


That's only true if one is willing to accept the limitations of SageTV / HTPC which I consider completely unaceptable. Oh, BTW, what did that SageTV / HTPC system cost you?


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> *You said:*
> 
> One feature offered by Moto's s/w is that a hi-def STB can be programmed to change channels from a program's EPG listing as a timer function for recording from its standard-def line out.
> 
> ...


Unlike you an EPG is important to me.

The feature has nothing to do with TiVo but is a STB feature that allows for external recording on a VCR, DVR, or DVD recorder. The signal *can* be recorded in standard-def on a hi-def TiVo via analog Ch. 3.



> fallingwater: (in referrence to watching VOD programs)
> But without using any HDD capacity whatsoever!





> Irhorer: *WHO FREAKING CARES!!*


I do!



> Irhorer: With the exception of tap water, there is almost nothing out there as cheap as HDD space. That is unless, of course, one is limited by the fact one has a leased DVR. While the list of reasons not to have a leased DVR is rather extensive, the inability to upgrade the local drives is the very first reason on the list. The inability to spool the programs off onto external online storage is #2. What's more, it's not as if the HD space is "used up". If the user doesn't wish to keep the program forever, then he can delete it, or let the DVR do it, and the space is reclaimed without impact.


Tell ya' what. You do your thing and I'll do mine!

There are way too many decent programs available than I have time to watch regardless of how they're organized or saved. For watching TV my way the only external HDD for a TiVo that would make sense is one of infinite size. So I don't add one and also don't record programs without watching them. KUID is my way of managing recordings!

I watch a high percentage of TV programs, both hi-def and standard, live or from the buffer. To conserve HDD space for programs I do record I almost never record in hi-def.

TiVo's scheme of external storage is simple but stupid. It expands storage once without any further flexibility at the cost of doubling the possibility of HDD failure. Echostar's method of using multiple external interchangable HDD's isn't as simple as TiVo's but offers unlimited flexibility.

I used to routinely get into it with DrStrange because timeshifting everything was the only use he had for a DVR. He grudgingly approved of ReplayTV 5000's when SoniBlue completely revamped ReplayTV's recording priorities to a scheme similiar to TiVo's, while I didn't give a rip!

I like ReplayTV's 4000's better; kept mine when Sonic Blue offered its free swap offer, and bought a couple more. 4000's offer a unique instantly switchable DVR ByPass feature to enable watching TV live without any delay, which makes using them with an external source (like that Comcast STB) extremely simple while providing a HDD sized recording buffer.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

ok, I think we all agree then that a TiVo DVR was not engineered with fallingwater's useage patterns as the goal.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

To say the least.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Just to add my two cents, here are a few things to consider regarding Tivos and monthly fees, etc.:

I pay a ridiculous amount of money for programming and rental fees for STBs from Verizon (I'm on FIOS). My monthly cost for HBO alone costs me more than a S3 Tivo with cablecards. A HD STB would cost me almost as much as the Tivo but with far less features and flexibility. VOD with a Tivo is ludicrous because I already record everything I want to watch. The only live TV I watch is sporting events. PPV is also not important to me because I subscribe to NetFlix and rent Blu-Ray versions of movies that look and sound better than anything I can get on PPV, and at a much lower price.

I looked into the Motorola DVR offered by Verizon but when I listed the features vs. a Tivo I quickly removed it from consideration. It only has a 160GB drive with no way to upgrade the capacity. 160GB is almost criminal considering the low cost of HDD storage these days. I think it equates to around 15-20 hours of HD recording. During the regular season I record at least three times that much on a weekly basis so it's not exactly cost effective for me considering I'd need at least three boxes to do what my Tivos and HTPC can do, again at a much lower cost. The Moto DVR only has one IR codeset so if you try and operate one with a remote you will interfere with the opration of any additional DVRs in the same room. Tivo has nine different codesets that allow multiple DVRs to be used independent of each other. If you only watch a few shows a week in HD then the Moto box would be more than adequate. A DVR is more of a lifestyle than an appliance, which is how some people look at it. It allows you far more freedom and flexibility in how you manage your free time. That fact alone makes it worth far more than the monthly fees.

The Tivo GUI is antiquated and has never been my favorite, but I've gotten used to it and have no problems with it. I preferred the UI on the UltimateTV and ReplayTV DVRs much better but since both of them are defunct I'll settle for the Tivo. It's all a matter of personal preference anyway but, let's face it, there really aren't a whole lot of choices when it comes to recording HD content. The SA DVR offered by many cablecos is a total POS and the Moto box has too many shortcomings to make it a viable contender for HD recording, IMHO, which places the Tivo clearly ahead of the rest of the pack. lrhorer's post (#47) lists all the features available with a Tivo HD and no other DVR even comes close to what it has to offer.

I bought my first Tivo when they first came out and a lifetime sub only cost $99 at the time. I also had a ReplayTV and it came with lifetime service included in the price. ReplayTV went out of business but somehow Tivo still survives. If it weren't for Tivo and ReplayTV, there wouldn't even be a DVR market so be greatful for what you have.

Current lifetime subs cost $399 last time I checked. If you're an existing Tivo customer you can purchase a new Tivo HD and add lifetime service for $299 according to the e-mail I received recently from Tivo. Get a 2nd Tivo HD and it will only cost you $199 for the lifetime sub on the 2nd unit.

The OP can't justify the monthly expense of owning a Tivo. So be it. It's his loss. Not everyone feels the need to own a DVR and all the arguments in the world won't make them change their mind. What gets me is that some of the posters are amazed at how many people here are defending Tivos. I guess that would seem odd to find so much support for Tivos in a Tivo forum.

If there's one thing I've learned, it's pointless to try and convince someone about the virtues of owning a Tivo if they've already made up their minds to the contrary. You can lead a horse to water, etc.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> *fallingwater:
> I don't buy into TiVo's concept of watching everything timeshifted.*
> 
> It's more fundamental than that. As with any paradigm shift, learning to think in a new way can be unsettling, or even difficult. As a physics major, I had to work my way through several major paradigm shifts, and some of them were all but painful. Fortunately, TiVo's paradigm is much easier to swallow. More on the details of the TiVo paradigm below, but the TiVo is not only something much more than a VCR on steroids, it is something much different than a VCR, its greater capabilities aside.


The fundamental difference between HDD recorders and older recorder technologies is a HDD recorder's capability to record and playback at virtually the same time. All other refinements are secondary, clever and useful, but not fundamental.

*fallingwater: 
I only record programs that either don't fit my TV viewing schedule or play at the same time. *



> Then you are missing out on a vast resource simply because you remain locked into a time-and-channel mentality. Of course, you are free to use your DVRs any way you choose. If you want, you can use them for doorstops, and I have no right to prevent you, or even criticize you personally for your choice. That doesn't mean I have to consider it a wise choice.


Suit yourself. As I've posted before I don't have time to watch everything that's worth watching no matter how cleverly organized or presented.

*fallingwater: 
I generally don't record in hi-def but usually watch hi-def live or buffered. *



> "Buffered" is time-shifted. It doesn't matter if it is 10 seconds or 10 years, it's still time shifted, and viewing the two as different is simply unnecessary. Personally, I watch almost nothing but HD, but that's not really relevant to the core of the discussion.


True. However a recording buffer requires absolutely no fiddling with whatsoever and disappears in a relatively short time. It's also impossible for TiVo *not* to record to its buffer so, whether a program is standard or hi-def, watching from the buffer doesn't affect HDD capacity.



> There is something more, though. In my opinion, speaking generally, if a program isn't diminished by missing the first 5 minutes, then it probably isn't worthwhile to watch in the first place. There are of course exceptions. The point is, however, unless I just happen to sit down right on the hour or half-hour and just happen to notice the program is going to start in a few moments, then I won't even know the program is on until it is no longer worth watching. The point is, why bother? The TiVo usually knows I will like the program and will have slated it to record two weeks previously. It will be there, waiting for me to watch, whether I am ten minutes or ten days late in sitting down. At some point, of course, it will be replaced by some other program of interest, but that's life. If it's on the DVR ten days then I have a much better chance of catching it than the very long odds of just happening to sit down and see it in the guide a few moments before it starts. It's also significant that just browsing the guide for a particular hour can easily waste 5 minutes just so I can find the program the TiVo was quite capable of selecting for me.


Sounds like you should be a time-study man!

*fallingwater: 
There's way too much decent TV programming to watch, whatever scheme a TV viewer uses to select programs. For me, if a program's not worth watching it's not worth recording *



> Well, I agree, to a point. While I prefer not to have to wade through a lot of detritus, I certainly don't demand absolutely everything the TiVo records be something I want to watch. I do require that it eliminate the 99 plus percent of junk on the CATV lineup and present me with a good, long list of desirable programs whenever I have an hour or so to watch. That the list contains a few dozen or so turkeys isn't exactly wonderful, but they will be overwritten soon enough. It's one heck of a lot better than having to wade through the tens of thousands of turkeys in the unfiltered CATV lineup.


I prefer a different approach when selecting what to watch.

*fallingwater: 
so I always set recordings for KUID.*



> Which means you are probably wasting a lot of time. 'Not in that you are setting the recording to KUID - that only takes a few moments, but in that you are selecting programs to be recorded. For the most part, it is not necessary for the TiVo user to select programs to record. That is not to say one should never do so. I myself do specifically set a handful of programs to record on my TiVos, but those programs only represent a very tiny fraction of the total number of programs recorded by the TiVos. These programs do represent a somewhat larger fraction of the programs I watch - that number being much, much smaller than the number the TiVos record, but even so they only represent less than 1/10 of the programs I watch, and it is quite rare that I watch one of the manually selected programs within 2 weeks of recording it.


Suit yourself. Watch TV 'efficiently' if that's what floats your boat. I don't select a lot of programs to be recorded, just a few that are either worth recording to DVD, or watching within a day or so.

*fallingwater: 
TiVo enables effortless recording of far more than I want to spend time watching. *



> Absolutely. My point is, by thinking of the TiVo not as a souped-up VCR, but rather as a time and channel independent filter, you can be presented with an even broader array of select programs to fit your momentary mood for a smaller investment of time and effort. The TiVo itself can wade through the vast list of programs in the schedule without worrying about how obscure the channel might be or how early or late in the day it will be showing and take note of almost all the programs which at some time you might be interested in watching. Then it presents them all to you so you can watch whenever you, your family, or friends want to watch them. Whether the program was scheduled to start 10 minutes or 10 months before you decide to watch it is irrelevant.


By all means use your TiVo however you choose. As do I. Something about the concept of watching TV 'efficiently' totally turns me off, much as being a bean counter does. YMMV.

*fallingwater: 
The only HDD expansion that makes sense to me is (chuckle) a HDD of infinite size *



> A HDD of infinite size is not required, as long as more HDDs can be added to the storage string whenever space gets tight. That's one reason why I store the "KUID" class programs on the video server. If the RAID array runs out of space, I just add another hard drive. Another is that once on the video server, I can edit out commercials and other extraneous folderol. The ability to create multiple sort folders and place each program in one or several of them is an added bonus. For example, Galaxy Quest shows up inside folders on all 3 TiVos labeled as "Science Fiction", "Comedy", "Romance", and "Family". The Star Wars saga episodes show up under "Science Fiction", "Family", and "Drama", but not "Comedy" or "Romance". Admittedly, the latter is a UI function.


What 'storage string'? What 'video server'? You're not talking about TiVo.

*fallingwater: 
I use TiVo for many reasons other than its GUI though. Nobody's perfect! *



> Quite. The UI is not at all at the top of the list of reasons I prefer the Tivo. It is in the list, and maybe in the top 10, but certainly not in the top 5.


TiVo's GUI is pretty enough but clunky at best.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ok, I think we all agree then that a TiVo DVR was not engineered with fallingwater's useage patterns as the goal.


And why should it be? TV viewers have many choices available. It's my choice whether or not to use TiVo or how to use it, not TiVo's to choose me as a customer.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> And why should it be? TV viewers have many choices available. It's my choice whether or not to use TiVo or how to use it, not TiVo's to choose me as a customer.


I completely agree. I was not the one arguing with you about it


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## mattack (Apr 9, 2001)

lrhorer said:


> It should be. At this time with the exception of a very small number of programs which are available only via VOD, VOD offers nothing more than the ability to time-shift one's viewing. *HELLO!!!* That's what a DVR does. Owning a DVR - especially a TiVo - for the most part makes VOD completely pointless.


I agree with you in theory.. but serious questions about VOD:
1) Are there commercials on VOD?
2) Are the network 'bugs' still on VOD?

Even though I can/do skip by commercials just fine on my Tivos, if the commercials weren't there in the first place, that would be a plus for VOD.. same with the network bugs.

I would also say that I'm one that cares about (lack of) disk space usage with VOD too.. though I presume that the 'network' (including cable channels) shows are there for only a few weeks.. not the full season & previous seasons.. so then that's a plus for a Tivo.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

VOD video tends to be of lower quality since it's distributed over a network connection instead of a direct broadcast feed at full resolution. I signed up to receive HD with the best picture possible, regardless of whether or not I am inconvenienced by having to FF through commercials or not. I don't use Amazon Unbox or NetFlix downloads for the very same reason. Most downlaods of this type don't even have stereo audio, let alone Dolby Digital soundtracks. 

Sure, VOD is a convenience and having programs at your beck and call seems like a really cool feature, but only if you don't have a means to record it at full resolution. VOD is a worthless feature if you own a Tivo, IMHO, at least for many of us that appreciate higher quality. Some people are just satisfied to watch the show, regardless of how bad it looks. If you don't own a HDTV then I can see the appeal for VOD. If you do have a HDTV and still use VOD then I'd say you just wasted a lot of money. OTOH, what you watch is none of my business so if it makes you happy then go for it.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

fallingwater said:


> It's my choice whether or not to use TiVo or how to use it, not TiVo's to choose me as a customer.


BTW, Just for the record I'm a better than average TiVo customer. I've actually got way more TiVo's than I need as well as other DVR's, because it's a hobby interest basically.

Besides an unsubbed S1 which can record manually and an unsubbed 40 hr. 240 S2 which can't (anybody want them for $25 each + $15 shipping), I've got 2 540 80 hr. S2's, and a 649 DT 80 hr S2, all with Lifetime Service. (Anybody want them for $200 each, plus $15 shipping?)

Then, I've got 2 S3's plus an HDTiVo, all with Lifetime Service plus an S1 with Lifetime Service eligible for the one-time grandfathered transfer.

So at $300 a pop for Lifetime Service Tivo has earned $2100 from me, (and I should live 'til I'm 500! )


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> Some people are just satisfied to watch the show, regardless of how bad it looks. If you don't own a HDTV then I can see the appeal for VOD. If you do have a HDTV and still use VOD then I'd say you just wasted a lot of money. OTOH, what you watch is none of my business so if it makes you happy then go for it.


You bet!

480i done right looks fine on a 42" widescreen HDTV (especially with a YPrPb connection). But I don't seek image perfection nearly as much as interesting programs.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

fallingwater said:


> One Moto hi-def STB was DOA when I recently brought it home from the Comcast Store. I replaced it the following day and actually persuaded the Comcast CSR to give me 2 weeks of STB service because of the inconvenience.


This is partially OT here, but I can't find the original thread which brought the issue up:

We got the Comcast bill yesterday and Comcast's CSR's promise of 2 weeks of STB service wasn't on it. For $3.25 I'm gonna' let it go w/o another pointless squabble with them. The replacement Moto STB works fine and the GUI is similiar to Moto's DVR GUI.

Comcast's standard-def STB was free. For me the $6.50 hi-def STB rental is worth paying for the additional programming unavailable from the standard-def STB, especially on PBS. S3/HDTiVo used w/o CableCards receives such programming for free, but recordings must be set up manually.

I have 3 sources of 'live' programming available at the same time:

1. Comcast's STB supplies a ReplayTV with HDD sized buffer which gets dumped early each a.m. when ReplayTV gets its EPG download. ReplayTV is an alternate signal source for the Philips DVD recorder described below.

2. An S3 with its half hour buffer supplies both a Toshiba TiVo DVD recorder for making standard-def recordings on the fly and normally supplies a full fledged DVD recorder with editing capabilities with a constantly rolling 6 hr. recording buffer any part of which can be recorded either on the fly or later. This Philips brand recorder (no longer manufactured) offers by far the best 480i picture quality available (via YPrPb) with especially rich vivid colors, noticiably better than 480i YPrPb from Toshiba's TiVo.

3. LG's problematic hi-def DVR, which probably was the strangest hi-def DVR ever made. It's actually OK without TVGOS EPG, it's Achilles Heel. It's an alternate signal source for the Philips DVD-recorder. LG's DVR is a non CableCard hi-def recorder which doesn't buffer automatically. It's unique feature provides two switchable standard-def line inputs to record from in addition to standard-def analog and high-def digital tuners.

(The Philips recorder also uses TVGOS, which I've disabled. TVGOS system, which only gets EPG data when off, is adequate for a monitor which is routinely turned off but totally wrong for a recorder which remains on all the time. LG's DVR has a 'Catch 22' style hiccup, in addition!)

S3/HDTiVo's analog OTA tuner input can provide a standard-def input from an outboard source for TiVo's hi-def DVR's, unlike cable/satellite DVRs.


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## Mars Rocket (Mar 24, 2000)

davefred99 said:


> Then again I have a different option in that I have a SageTv/HTPC setup so I don't miss many of the features that Tivo might bring to the table.


And I have a MythTV box that records and plays back HD content wonderfully, but only from OTA sources. With TiVo I get all the HD channels Comcast offers me (31 channels at the moment). MythTV does some great stuff, but it's not as easy to set up or use as the TiVo. It's more of a hobby for me.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> You bet!
> 
> 480i done right looks fine on a 42" widescreen HDTV (especially with a YPrPb connection). But I don't seek image perfection nearly as much as interesting programs.


Program content is important to me as well but it's not the only criteria I use for selecting what I watch. A bad show will still be bad in Hi-Def. I tend to watch more shows in HD that previously wouldn't have caught my attention in SD simply because they are much more enticing to watch in HD. Channels like National Geographic are interesting in SD but now they're spectacular in HD. I do watch some standard def shows, but only because they are not yet available to me in HD.

I was mainly referring to VOD programming which is usually downrezzed at a lower bitrate and reduced to stereo or monaural audio to shrink the file sizes and facilitate faster delivery times. The vast majority of VOD programming is usually broadcast on the regular channels but is made available as VOD for the convenience of non-DVR owners. If you have a DVR then VOD is completely redundant. Besides, there are other means for acquiring shows you may have missed and they are usually available in a much higher quality format than what VOD has to offer.

480i "done right" should look decent on a 42" TV but tends to start falling apart on larger screens (i.e. gets noticeably grainier). Unfortunately, 480i is rarely done right by cable providers and DirecTV and Dish aren't any better. It's never been "done right" by any OTA broadcaster that I can remember. OTOH, the standard def channels I receive with FIOS look far better than any other provider I've had in the past. SD programming still falls way short iin terms of picture quality when compared with any HD program viewed on my 60" Sony LCoS RPTV.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

I have 2 hi-def LCD monitors; 37" and 42", plus a Sony 46" LCD TV (with tuner.) For these screen sizes 480(i or p) looks good.

Image quality is highly subjective. Balance is probably most important for me; some images just look OK while others have far more noticiable shortcomings. I'm usually hard pressed to immediately identify by sight which source is onscreen when a clean 480i signal from the three lowest quality sources, RF Ch. 3-4, composite, or S-video is displayed. OTOH, component YPrPb is unmistakenly better even with only 480 lines of vertical resolution.

I usually watch hi-def 'live' or from the 'live' buffer and rarely set up hi-def recordings. All three of my cable sources provide hi-def, two, including the cable STB, by HDMI, and the TiVo, with its 30 min. buffer, by hi-def YPrPb. The editing DVD recorder utilizes the other YPrPb input @ 480p, while the Toshiba TiVo is relegated to composite, and ReplayTV to the RGB computer input.

I basically disagree with your assessment of VOD's usefullness even when its overall quality is somewhat lower than that from other sources. Comcast has a huge selection of VOD, accessed from its STB, half of which is free! I value the capability of VOD to present a program in a completely impromtu manner without having to have even been aware of it, much less having to set up a recording for it.

Click on VIEW ALL PROGRAMS near the top of the page linked to below and then select from the letter menu on the top of the listings pages to see how much is actually available:

http://tvplanner.comcast.net/?initV...seAlpha=null,browseListing=null,1218723248780


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> I have 2 hi-def LCD monitors; 37" and 42", plus a Sony 46" LCD TV (with tuner.) For these screen sizes 480(i or p) looks good.
> 
> Image quality is highly subjective. Balance is probably most important for me; some images just look OK while others have far more noticiable shortcomings. I'm usually hard pressed to immediately identify by sight which source is onscreen when a clean 480i signal from the three lowest quality sources, RF Ch. 3-4, composite, or S-video is displayed. OTOH, component YPrPb is unmistakenly better even with only 480 lines of vertical resolution.
> 
> ...


Interesting. You disagree with my assessment yet you proved my point in the same post. The fact that you don't record anything means that VOD is a useful tool for you. You make it sound like setting up a recording is a major chore when in fact it is no less troublesome than selecting your VOD program from a menu. What's the point of having a Tivo if you don't use the very features that make it a Tivo? I set up a season pass for first-run broadcasts and never have to do anything to record that series ever again. If you actually used your Tivo in the way in which it was intended then perhaps you'd understand what I'm talking about. Based on your usage I'm confused as to why you bought a Tivo in the first place. You obviously have no interest in using it as a DVR. I'm also confused as to why you bought an HDTV since you seem to enjoy low-quality VOD programs and 480i material so much. I'm even more confused as to why you're in a Tivo forum discussing features you don't use when they're the most basic functions of a Tivo.

To me, image quality is easily discernible and I can usually see the difference when supplying a signal via RF, composite, S-video, or component/HDMI. There is usually little or no difference in the signal when using component vs. HDMI unless the source device and TV are of widely varying quality when converting a signal from digital to analog and vice versa. I'd be willing to bet that your HDTV is set at the factory settings (i.e., contrast is cranked to 100% and the color is oversaturated) and you've never considered calibrating it using Digital Video Essentials or Avia Home Theater DVDs. Image quality is only subjective if your TV monitor isn't set up properly, IMHO.

I realize there's additional programming available via VOD that I may or may not find interesting. I tried watching some VOD programs via the HD STB on the HDTV in my bedroom but it looked like crap compared to my regular HD recordings. The fact is, I already record more shows than I have time to watch PLUS I get Blu-Ray movies from NetFlix so VOD is the last thing I need to shoehorn into my lifestyle. Obviously, YMMV.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> The fact that you don't record anything means that VOD is a useful tool for you. You make it sound like setting up a recording is a major chore when in fact it is no less troublesome than selecting your VOD program from a menu. What's the point of having a Tivo if you don't use the very features that make it a Tivo?


we established a ways back that Fallingwater does not really seem to want any kind of DVR but looks forward to the day that all shows on some servers and you access them via some interface on TV and start watching them.

I look forward to that day asa well but am also happy with using a DVR to tide me over until I can just choose shows from something other than my DVR.


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## jtreid (Jan 12, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> Actually, not. The Earth has a diameter of roughly 13,000,000,000 mm. The highest mountain (Everest) is 8,800,000 mm. The deepest mid-oceanic rift (Mariana Trench) is 11,000,000 mm. If we shrunk the Earth to the size of a pool ball, or 57mm, the highest peak would only be .039 mm and the deepest valley would be .048mm, or less than 0.002". That is smoother than any ordinary pool ball that has seen any amount of use.


You've got to be kidding me! You actually know/learned this somewhere?! Geeze! Can't you put that energy to use for something worthy?!


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## thalador (Oct 26, 2007)

Ok, I have to jump in here. I am looking at switching from Dish to Fios and also thought about TIVO. The numbers I have seen do not make sense to me. If I get a HDDVR from Fios it will be 15.99 per month = 191.88 per year. If I get a TivoHD (refurb) it costs me $179.99 for the unit and lets say 1 year prepaid service for $129.00. Add in 1 M-cable card from verizon at $3.99 a month = 47.88.. So my first year total cost is this:

Verizon DVR - 191.88 yearly = 15.99 per month
TIVO - 356.87 first year = 29.74 per month.

So all the people saying Tivo is only 4-5 dollars more a month, what am I missing? I see it as almost double to cost. Not to mention I have two other rooms that I would want SD boxes in. Please enlighten me.

Thanks


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> You disagree with my assessment yet you proved my point in the same post. The fact that you don't record anything means that VOD is a useful tool for you. You make it sound like setting up a recording is a major chore when in fact it is no less troublesome than selecting your VOD program from a menu. What's the point of having a Tivo if you don't use the very features that make it a Tivo? I set up a season pass for first-run broadcasts and never have to do anything to record that series ever again. If you actually used your Tivo in the way in which it was intended then perhaps you'd understand what I'm talking about. Based on your usage I'm confused as to why you bought a Tivo in the first place. You obviously have no interest in using it as a DVR. I'm also confused as to why you bought an HDTV since you seem to enjoy low-quality VOD programs and 480i material so much. I'm even more confused as to why you're in a Tivo forum discussing features you don't use when they're the most basic functions of a Tivo.
> 
> To me, image quality is easily discernible and I can usually see the difference when supplying a signal via RF, composite, S-video, or component/HDMI. There is usually little or no difference in the signal when using component vs. HDMI unless the source device and TV are of widely varying quality when converting a signal from digital to analog and vice versa. I'd be willing to bet that your HDTV is set at the factory settings (i.e., contrast is cranked to 100% and the color is oversaturated) and you've never considered calibrating it using Digital Video Essentials or Avia Home Theater DVDs. Image quality is only subjective if your TV monitor isn't set up properly, IMHO.
> 
> I realize there's additional programming available via VOD that I may or may not find interesting. I tried watching some VOD programs via the HD STB on the HDTV in my bedroom but it looked like crap compared to my regular HD recordings. The fact is, I already record more shows than I have time to watch PLUS I get Blu-Ray movies from NetFlix so VOD is the last thing I need to shoehorn into my lifestyle. Obviously, YMMV.


You're completely wrong about how my HDTV's are set up. I have each picture parameter set according to what looks best to me. (Sony, which offers a gazillion adjustments, provides individual settings for each imput while the cheaper Westinghouse's don't, but the best picture available from each is comparable.) Hi-def via HDMI or YPrPb looks close to perfect. Contrast settings vary around 70%, color saturation around 30%, and backlighting around 75%.

I've considered further calibrating using the DVE DVD which I own, but just haven't gotten around to it. The picture is good enough so as not to compel me to go right out and fuss more, but of course I should.

When standard-def sourced images aren't perfect then subjectivity and overall balance become increasingly important. Some imperfections are far more annoying than others!

Being a DVR only requires that a device record and play back at virtually the same time from a HDD. Otherwise a DVR doesn't even have to have an EPG.

I use TiVos for their DVR and tuner functions and for their EPG. If Comcast's Motorola hi-def DVR could accept standard-def signals from RF Ch. 3 and output full screen height images to a DVD recorder it would fulfill my DVR needs, but it can't. TiVo can. Every DVR ever made has required compromises when using it.

You made my point when you closed your post by stating that 'I already record more shows than I have time to watch'. EXACTLY! That's the problem that I choose to solve in a very different way than you.

No matter how cleverly presented there's way too much stuff worth watching! I prefer to watch what's on NOW that's worth watching BEFORE watching recordings of other things worth watching. TiVo IS a tuner as well as a DVR, and provides, as do other DVRs and STB's, a searchable EPG to find upcoming shows worth recording or watching.

TiVo has been designed to optimize total timeshifting but that's not the only way it, or any DVR, can be used. Most viewers don't watch TV the way that TiVo was designed to optimize.

90% of DVR users use cable/satellite co. DVR's. They, like you or me, are neither right or wrong. Like this thread title suggests, it's a matter of balancing a viewer's wants and needs with price.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> we established a ways back that Fallingwater does not really seem to want any kind of DVR but looks forward to the day that all shows on some servers and you access them via some interface on TV and start watching them.
> 
> I look forward to that day asa well but am also happy with using a DVR to tide me over until I can just choose shows from something other than my DVR.


My previous posts deal with ways of using DVRs, but you're probably right that ultimately all shows will become available from hopefully hi-def capable servers. At present VOD is a mass-market alternative to using a DVR, but can also supplement using a DVR.

Music is now increasingly supplied from downloads, but interestingly mostly at lower levels of quality than is theoretically possible. Perhaps, much as hi-end stereo remains a viable market niche, hi-end video ala TiVo will also remain a viable market niche long after most video is no longer saved to home-based recorders.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

thalador said:


> Ok, I have to jump in here. I am looking at switching from Dish to Fios and also thought about TIVO. The numbers I have seen do not make sense to me. If I get a HDDVR from Fios it will be 15.99 per month = 191.88 per year. If I get a TivoHD (refurb) it costs me $179.99 for the unit and lets say 1 year prepaid service for $129.00. Add in 1 M-cable card from verizon at $3.99 a month = 47.88.. So my first year total cost is this:
> 
> Verizon DVR - 191.88 yearly = 15.99 per month
> TIVO - 356.87 first year = 29.74 per month.
> ...


Your not Missing anything except that you presently cant get M-card's from Verizon so you will pay $3.99 X 2 ($7.98) for two S-cards.

The TIVO fans want you to forget about your initial upfront cost and just consider the monthly subscription costs. There is some merit in that in that you can sell your TIVO if you want and recover some of the cost should you not like it. Bottom line is its more expensive to use a TIVO than to rent an in house DVR. You have to deside for yourself if the cost is justified. For me at least at this time the answer is no. Verizon is rolling out some major updates to there firmware and many new features are coming. I can not say that the Verizon DVR will be as good or better than TIVO since that's like women some like em thin, some like em full figured, some like all woman. Its all in the eyes of the beholder.
Dave.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> So all the people saying Tivo is only 4-5 dollars more a month, what am I missing? I see it as almost double to cost. Not to mention I have two other rooms that I would want SD boxes in. Please enlighten me.


In most cases TiVo will cost more but as I state before in this thread - if all you are doing is comparing cost then you are missing the point - the products are not equal its like comparing a Lexus to a Ford - the Ford will always be cheaper so I guess there is no justification for anyone to ever buy a Lexus - get the point?

If TiVo doesn't offer you anything that you think is worth paying extra for then you should get the cable/sat/fios company DVR nothing wrong with that at all (by the way I own a Ford and don't think the Lexus I looked at was worth the extra money).

Back to price I recently purchased a TiVo HD - through a special deal from TiVo - my cost with lifetime service and a TiVo wireless adapter was $500. I expect to be watching TV for a long time so I don't look at 1 year windows. How long will the TiVo last? I have no idea but I believe 5 years is very doable with maybe a $100 hard drive upgrade along the way. If I take $600 and divide it by 60 months that's $10/mo plus the TiVo will like still have residual value even after 5 years.

Thanks,


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

thalador said:


> Ok, I have to jump in here. I am looking at switching from Dish to Fios and also thought about TIVO. The numbers I have seen do not make sense to me. If I get a HDDVR from Fios it will be 15.99 per month = 191.88 per year. If I get a TivoHD (refurb) it costs me $179.99 for the unit and lets say 1 year prepaid service for $129.00. Add in 1 M-cable card from verizon at $3.99 a month = 47.88.. So my first year total cost is this:
> 
> Verizon DVR - 191.88 yearly = 15.99 per month
> TIVO - 356.87 first year = 29.74 per month.
> ...





davefred99 said:


> The TIVO fans want you to forget about your initial upfront cost and just consider the monthly subscription costs.


What you guys are missing is that it is cheaper over the long run. Like atmuscarella said, a Tivo lasting 5 years is not a stretch. Take it out to around 4 or 5 years down the road and the costs look like this.

Verizon DVR - 191.88 yearly x 5 years = 15.99 per month
TIVO - 356.87 first year + (176.88 x 4 years) = 17.74 per month.

You could also get a Lifetime sub ($399) which would bring your average monthly cost to:

Tivo - 626.87 first year + (47.88 x 4 years) = 13.64 month

You would be ahead of the game after about 3 years with this deal as opposed to the Verizon DVR. Also with the TivoHD you don't need a Verizon cable box. I don't know how much they charge for each box, but the CC fee would take its place.

Once you have that first unit, additional units can be had with a discounted subscription price of $299 for Lifetime or $99/year prepaid or $9.95/monthly. So those additional units would save you money even sooner.


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## NotVeryWitty (Oct 3, 2003)

thalador said:


> So all the people saying Tivo is only 4-5 dollars more a month, what am I missing?


You missed that most people plan on keeping their Tivo for more than a year.

After 3 years, the monthly cost of the Tivo (using your assumptions) comes out to an average of $19.74 a month ((179.99 + 3 * 129.00 + 3.99 * 36) / 36).



davefred99 said:


> you presently cant get M-card's from Verizon so you will pay $3.99 X 2 ($7.98) for two S-cards.


Dave's right about this, so let's assume you have to pay for an extra cable card for 6 months. That makes the monthly average for 3 years of service increase to $20.40, or $4.41 a month more than the FIOS DVR. Sounds just like what all of the "Tivo fans" have been saying...

Edit: Damn! WhiskeyTango beat me to it.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

NotVeryWitty said:


> You missed that most people plan on keeping their Tivo for more than a year.
> 
> After 3 years, the monthly cost of the Tivo (using your assumptions) comes out to an average of $19.74 a month ((179.99 + 3 * 129.00 + 3.99 * 36) / 36).
> 
> ...


One point I would like to make here. There are always ways to save money over time if you pay for things in advance. Its sorta like buying in bulk at the grocery store. You buy more than you need now and use it later.

With the Cable/Fios rental DVR's you pay as you go and can cancel at anytime. No up front cost except for maybe the first mos in advance.

If you want a true monthly comparison you have to compare on a monthly basis only with no upfront costs. That is not an option with TIVO. The only way to get TIVo is to incur some upfront cost. I agree its possible to get some of your money back if you later decide to sell it on ebay or some such.

Also why to all the TIVO fans keep bringing up the fact that they got some special pricing and saved because of it. If its a special deal that is not available for everyone then its not relevant to this comparison. Second Box discounts are irrelevant too.

The solution to this argument would be to somehow convince Verizon, TIVO or your cable Co. to purchase and lease TIVO's with cable cards installed as an alternate to there own boxes. Then we would see a more realistic comparison.


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## Langree (Apr 29, 2004)

bicker said:


> Yes.
> 
> You'd be mistaken. Here's one 'folk' that will not agree with you.


I do agree with him, the Comcast HD DVR is a POS, I still use one in my bedroom but only as a tuner, I schedule no recordings on it or use it's DVR features.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

Tivo costs vary widely depending on what payment plan you choose. My first S3 Tivo costs me about $13.51 monthly vs. $15.99 for the Verizon DVR. I bought a 3-year prepaid plan for $199 which comes to $5.53 per month. Add the cost of two cablecards and the cost now totals about $13.51. I bought a 2nd S3 Tivo and added it to my account. I also signed up for a 3-year commitment for a monthly fee of $12.95 minus the $6 MSD for a monthly fee of $6.95. Add the two cablecards and it's now $14.93.

One thing I should mention that once my 3-year commitment expires I continue to get the same monthly rate with no further commitment. If I signed up for a lifetime service package on the first Tivo at the current discount rate of $299 it would take me 4-1/2 years at $5.53 per month to break even. At the standard lifetime fee of $399 it would take me six years before I'd see any benefit, which is probably beyond the life expectancy of the unit, not to mention that the current technology would probably be replaced by something newer like 1080p broadcasting.

You can buy into the Tivo service at whatever rate suits your budget or lifestyle.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davefred99 said:


> One point I would like to make here. There are always ways to save money over time if you pay for things in advance. Its sorta like buying in bulk at the grocery store. You buy more than you need now and use it later.
> 
> With the Cable/Fios rental DVR's you pay as you go and can cancel at anytime. No up front cost except for maybe the first mos in advance.
> 
> If you want a true monthly comparison you have to compare on a monthly basis only with no upfront costs. That is not an option with TIVO. The only way to get TIVo is to incur some upfront cost. I agree its possible to get some of your money back if you later decide to sell it on ebay or some such.


 yeah because I plan to only use my DVR for maybe 2 months and be done with it versus over the next 4 to 5 years  You are spinning way too much with this only one month at a time junk.



> Also why to all the TIVO fans keep bringing up the fact that they got some special pricing and saved because of it. If its a special deal that is not available for everyone then its not relevant to this comparison. Second Box discounts are irrelevant too.


 but yet the comparison was done using first box/new customer prices with no shopping around for better upfront price. THEN the poster said that second and on TiVo DVRs can get better pricing. SO nice try on making it seem like the comparison is not valid but your know very well it is and now your agenda is showing that no one should trust anything you post.


> The solution to this argument would be


for you to admit to the facts. Your very use of the word fanboy shows you have no desire for facts though, just a desire to bash.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> You're completely wrong about how my HDTV's are set up. I have each picture parameter set according to what looks best to me. (Sony, which offers a gazillion adjustments, provides individual settings for each imput while the cheaper Westinghouse's don't, but the best picture available from each is comparable.) Hi-def via HDMI or YPrPb looks close to perfect. Contrast settings vary around 70%, color saturation around 30%, and backlighting around 75%.
> 
> I've considered further calibrating using the DVE DVD which I own, but just haven't gotten around to it. The picture is good enough so as not to compel me to go right out and fuss more, but of course I should.
> 
> When standard-def sourced images aren't perfect then subjectivity and overall balance become increasingly important. Some imperfections are far more annoying than others!


This diatribe indicates how little you actually understand about broadcast TV and the way manufacturers market TV sets. Broadcasters calibrate their equipment to NTSC standards for standard TV and whatever standards have been established for HDTV. TV set manufacturers set up their TVs to look good in a showroom and are so far out of calibration it's a sin. Unless your TV is properly calibrated to meet the same standards the broadcasters use, you're just adding artifacts to the signal, creating an artificial image that is anything but realistic. Every TV set I've ever seen in recent years has the contrast setting cranked up to 100%. Proper calibration will usually bring this well below 50%. If you were as concerned about picture quality as you claim then used the DVE DVD to calibrate your set wouldn't be that much of a chore. Perhaps if you allowed your Tivo to actually record a show once in a while it would free up enough time to allow you to properly calibrate your set instead of sitting through all those commercials.



> Being a DVR only requires that a device record and play back at virtually the same time from a HDD. Otherwise a DVR doesn't even have to have an EPG.


That's the dumbest thing you've spouted so far. Unless you want to sit by the DVR and record everything manually, an EPG is essential to any DVR.



> I use TiVos for their DVR and tuner functions and for their EPG. If Comcast's Motorola hi-def DVR could accept standard-def signals from RF Ch. 3 and output full screen height images to a DVD recorder it would fulfill my DVR needs, but it can't. TiVo can. Every DVR ever made has required compromises when using it.


Tivo has fewer compromises because they hold the patents on most DVR features, which is why the Comcast DVR is so lacking.



> You made my point when you closed your post by stating that 'I already record more shows than I have time to watch'. EXACTLY! That's the problem that I choose to solve in a very different way than you.


Perhaps I should have stated this a bit better. I should have said that I record more shows than I have time to watch in real time. Timeshifting with a Tivo allows me to watch considerably more programming by having the ability to skip past commercials using fast forward or the 30-second skip. Watching shows in real time (i.e. live TV) is a complete time waster when you consider I can watch a 1-hour program in about 42 minutes sans commercials. With live TV you'd have to sit through the entire show for the normal duration and be saturated with all that Madison Avenue hype. No wonder your brain has turned to mush.



> No matter how cleverly presented there's way too much stuff worth watching! I prefer to watch what's on NOW that's worth watching BEFORE watching recordings of other things worth watching. TiVo IS a tuner as well as a DVR, and provides, as do other DVRs and STB's, a searchable EPG to find upcoming shows worth recording or watching.


Tivos and pretty much any DVRs suck as far as channel surfing. They take entirely too much time to switch between channels to use in that manner. It sounds like your mindset hasn't shifted over to new technology and you're still stuck in the past. Get with the program, Pal. Timeshifting is the ultimate in TV watching. Shows I want to watch are rarely on at the exact moment I decide to sit down to watch TV. With my Tivos, I know I'll always have something to watch at a time that's convenient for me. I have other things going on in my life besides watching TV and Tivo allows me to do both at my convenience. I know that VOD basically allows you to do the same thing but then there's that pesky image quality thing again. Oh wait, I forgot that you aren't that concerned with that so have fun watching your VOD.



> TiVo has been designed to optimize total timeshifting but that's not the only way it, or any DVR, can be used. Most viewers don't watch TV the way that TiVo was designed to optimize.


Then you've completely missed the boat on what a DVR is for. It's designed to let you timeshift programs so they'll be available to watch when you want to watch them. It's just a different form of VOD but with better quality. It also lets you record shows based on your likes and dislikes without having to scour the program guide or VOD listings to look for something to watch.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> Also why to all the TIVO fans keep bringing up the fact that they got some special pricing and saved because of it. If its a special deal that is not available for everyone then its not relevant to this comparison. Second Box discounts are irrelevant too.


TiVo "special deals' come and go all the time and generally are available to anyone. As a former TiVo stock holder I appreciated anyone who paid full retail but with 2 cents worth of effort and a little patients no one has to. Also many people have multiple TVs, and/or DVRs why wouldn't most people consider multiple unit costs?

My first TiVo cost $0 after rebate & $299 for lifetime and was available to anyone at the time. It will be 36 months old in few weeks - Cost so far is $8.30/mo and dropping every month.

My second TiVo cost $0 after rebate and I pay $7/mo for the subscription. Again the Tivo was available to anyone to get the $7/mo you had to have another Tivo.

My third TiVo was a special deal cost me about $30-50 less than if I had purchased it a Amazon. The $299 lifetime was again available to anyone with another TiVo. Monthly costs are unknown yet but I am guessing it will be under $10/mo by the time I am done with it.

I also owned a dish network 510 DVR which was a good product it cost me $120 upfront and $5/mo at the begining and $6/mo latter on. I am guessing that over it's life it cost $7-8/mo.

I did research, shopped around, and waited for good deals on all 4 DVRs and except for the TiVo HD pretty much anyone else could have done the same thing.

Thanks,


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> yeah because I plan to only use my DVR for maybe 2 months and be done with it versus over the next 4 to 5 years  You are spinning way too much with this only one month at a time junk.
> 
> but yet the comparison was done using first box/new customer prices with no shopping around for better upfront price. THEN the poster said that second and on TiVo DVRs can get better pricing. SO nice try on making it seem like the comparison is not valid but your know very well it is and now your agenda is showing that no one should trust anything you post.
> 
> for you to admit to the facts. Your very use of the word fanboy shows you have no desire for facts though, just a desire to bash.


Give me a break ZeoTivo,
Your the one spinning this "FanBoy". I never once have bashed TIVO on its functionality. My facts are very clear Tivo costs more upfront to use and depending on how you subscribe to Tivo plus the cost of cablecard rentals it can cost more per month than the monthly rental of a cable/Fios DVR.
Of course I should expect that most of the posters here are already Tivo users and will defend there choice to the end. More power to you, enjoy it.
I started this thread not to bash Tivo but to express my feelings on whether or not the additional cost was justifiable. To that end I still say not at this time.
If the cost where the same or just a few $more and there was no upfront cost I would probly have one too.

Base on the amount of hits on this thread it is obvious to me that this is a hot topic. There is no right or wrong answers here its all opinion.


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## DJHall (Nov 20, 2003)

Wow! That was a lot of posts that seem to boil down to this: If you want a DVR to watch live TV with a buffer and to manually control recording and deleting to a HDD instead of tape at the cheapest price possible without any upfront costs... TiVo probably isn't the best choice for you.

I'm kinda stuck in between on this issue. I am so cheap I won't pay for basic cable because I think it is too expensive for what I get, and I also think the new Tivo pricing schedule is too steep for me, but I am definitely part of the "TiVolution" and dread the idea of losing my TiVo and/or my longtime $6.95/mo service plan.

TiVos aren't designed for "fallingwaters". To really love a TiVo, you have to get to the point where you trust it. My personal test of where people are with their TiVo.... if you open Now Playing and don't see the new episode of your favorite show you were expecting, do you check the program guide and ToDo history to investigate why the TiVo didn't record it or do you simply trust that your TiVo didn't screw up and the show should not have been recorded that week for some valid reason.

When you get to where you trust your TiVo, the thing changes your concept of television permanently. I can honestly say I have no idea what the channel or timeslot is for any of the shows I follow religiously, and for a lot of them I couldn't even tell you what day of the week they air. Why would I care? Now Playing automatically gives me a list of what *I* want to watch whenever *I* want to watch it, and stupid nonsense like a network deciding to move a show to a new day or time is simply irrelevant. If you replaced my TiVo with a "DVR" I would have to learn to tust the new box all over again... something which a lot of us on this forum are extremely reluctant to have to do. Shopping for a new DVR to trust would would be like shopping for a new best friend.

From that perspective, arguing over whether or not the monthly and/or lifetime cost of a "generic" DVR is cheaper than a TiVo kinda misses the pont... are you in the market for a DVR or are you in the market for a TiVo? If you are in the market for a DVR, price and technical features are major fators. If you are in the market for a TiVo, trust is the major factor and price/technical features are weighed against that.

I think this hands off trust is the biggest source of TiVo loyalty, and also the biggest area in which TiVo is screwing up. I can only trust one TiVo... after that, I have to start driving again. If I have to do the driving, why do I need to pay a premium for TiVo? Especially if I am paying for several TiVos? In my opinion... major, major, major mistake! If you are listening TiVo.... you have to make some ability to add "slave" TiVos to a "master" TiVo so the master can use the tuners and storage of the slaves as if they were its own. Want a TiVo with six tuners and 3TB of storage? No problem, just slave two 1TB dual tuner tivos to a master 1 TB dual tuner TiVo and you've got it... plus TiVo gets subscription revenue for 3 boxes.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

davefred99 said:


> One point I would like to make here. There are always ways to save money over time if you pay for things in advance. Its sorta like buying in bulk at the grocery store. You buy more than you need now and use it later.
> 
> With the Cable/Fios rental DVR's you pay as you go and can cancel at anytime. No up front cost except for maybe the first mos in advance.


That's true but I don't know why anyone would get a DVR and decide to get rid of it after a couple of months unless they realize they really aren't using it enough to hold onto it. If you are really unsure about whether a DVR is right for you then getting a cable co DVR might be better for a trial run. Although, with Tivo you do have 30 days to cancel and get your money back.



> If you want a true monthly comparison you have to compare on a monthly basis only with no upfront costs.


Why, because that's the only way your argument is true?



> Also why to all the TIVO fans keep bringing up the fact that they got some special pricing and saved because of it. If its a special deal that is not available for everyone then its not relevant to this comparison. Second Box discounts are irrelevant too.


Like already mentioned, Tivo runs specials often so those deals are relevant. All of the numbers I used are standard prices and still showed Tivo can be cheaper. And why is the MSD irrelevant? Because it discounts your theory? The poster I responded to mentioned he was looking for 2 additional boxes. For him and many others it becomes more cost effective to go with Tivo as use increases.


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## WhiskeyTango (Sep 20, 2006)

DJHall said:


> Wow! That was a lot of posts that seem to boil down to this: If you want a DVR to watch live TV with a buffer and to manually control recording and deleting to a HDD instead of tape at the cheapest price possible without any upfront costs... TiVo probably isn't the best choice for you.
> ...
> 
> Want a TiVo with six tuners and 3TB of storage? No problem, just slave two 1TB dual tuner tivos to a master 1 TB dual tuner TiVo and you've got it... plus TiVo gets subscription revenue for 3 boxes.


Very well said, I think that may end the debate here. :up:


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## thalador (Oct 26, 2007)

I would love to see these special deals. I know about the refurb from tivo.com but where are the others found?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

davefred99 said:


> Give me a break ZeoTivo,
> Your the one spinning this "FanBoy". I never once have bashed TIVO on its functionality.


I said you bashed, did not say on functionality. More spin with no real basis.


> My facts are very clear Tivo costs more upfront to use and depending on how you subscribe to Tivo plus the cost of cablecard rentals it can cost more per month than the monthly rental of a cable/Fios DVR.


 and then others showed that a more reliable over a few years comparison came up very different and you implied they used special pricing to make the cost look lower. Not true, not factual. plus a few years of cost is simply a better comparison as no one uses a DVR for just a few moths or even 1 year if they like using a DVR. 


> Of course I should expect that most of the posters here are already Tivo users and will defend there choice to the end. More power to you, enjoy it.
> I started this thread not to bash Tivo but to express my feelings on whether or not the additional cost was justifiable. To that end I still say not at this time.
> If the cost where the same or just a few $more and there was no upfront cost I would probably have one too.


Yah, I often go looking for forums on products I do not use just to post at length about why I do not use it 
Since you seem to want to do that and could not be concerned with actual facts or usage, then have fun with that.


> Base on the amount of hits on this thread it is obvious to me that this is a hot topic. There is no right or wrong answers here its all opinion.


actually it is obvious that lots of TiVo users use the forum and hopefully you provided them a good laugh


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

DJHall said:


> I'm kinda stuck in between on this issue. I am so cheap I won't pay for basic cable because I think it is too expensive for what I get, and I also think the new Tivo pricing schedule is too steep for me, but I am definitely part of the "TiVolution" and dread the idea of losing my TiVo and/or my longtime $6.95/mo service plan.


 not as relevant this year with the move to all digital and HD DVRs but when I looked to get my first DVR - I had extended basic cable as I used Netflix to fill in the rest. To get a cable co DVR meant having to go digital and they had no deal so it would be 35$ more a month to get the cable co. DVR and digital. That made standalone TiVo 240 model a no brainer.


> you have to get to the point where you trust it. My personal test of where people are with their TiVo.... if you open Now Playing and don't see the new episode of your favorite show you were expecting, do you check the program guide and ToDo history to investigate why the TiVo didn't record it or do you simply trust that your TiVo didn't screw up and the show should not have been recorded that week for some valid reason.


hehe - you bring me memories of my Wife and I setting down to watch some show from the TiVo and she gets all up in the air if a show is not there. I go into history and show her it was a repeat week and she goes, oh. After about 4 of those then she too started trusting the TiVo had a good reason. Now she has gone back to just blaming me.


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

I currently pay Comcast about $16/month. If I want to get a DVR from Comcast, I have to pay $70/month, mostly for channels I dont' watch. Financially, that's a very easy decision for me.


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## DJHall (Nov 20, 2003)

ZeoTiVo said:


> not as relevant this year with the move to all digital and HD DVRs but when I looked to get my first DVR - I had extended basic cable as I used Netflix to fill in the rest. To get a cable co DVR meant having to go digital and they had no deal so it would be 35$ more a month to get the cable co. DVR and digital. That made standalone TiVo 240 model a no brainer.


True. I just wanted to point out that I am more in the "it costs too much" camp than I am in the "it is better so don't knock the price" camp before declaring my love for my TiVo anyway.

I don't get usable OTA reception, so I pay the cable company $7.50/mo for locals and won't have to change to digital until I'm ready. I went through the same math you did when buying my first TiVo... Buy a TiVo so I can watch the good network shows when I want to watch TV, OR upgrade to a cable package so hopefully something good will be on whenever I sit down. TiVo has been much cheaper than cable. I upgraded the HDD so I could store entire seasons of some less favorite shows to last me through the summer season garbage on network TV.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> Unlike you an EPG is important to me.


Let me put it this way. If Tivo were to completely eliminate its EPG (there are two BTW, not just one) it would not diminish the functionality of the TiVo by even the slightest bit. It would, however, force you to eliminate a huge amount of your own wasted time - up to several hours a week if you watch very much TV - and greatly improve both the number of recordings on the TiVo and your level of interest in those programs. The down side would be you would have to abandon an antiquated, inefficient, and ineffective utility in favor of one much more suited to a computer-based system. People are notoriously resistant to change, however, even when the change offers nothing but benefits. I don't understand it, but it is clearly true.



fallingwater said:


> The feature has nothing to do with TiVo but is a STB feature that allows for external recording on a VCR, DVR, or DVD recorder. The signal *can* be recorded in standard-def on a hi-def TiVo via analog Ch. 3.


You've still lost me. The Series III class TiVos allow standard definition recording to an external source using your choice of the RCA, S-Video, or VHF coaxial outputs. It can also record SD video from a VCR, DVR, or DVD using its Antenna input. How is what you wish to attempt different from every one of those?

I do!

Why? You are acting as if there is something precious or desirable about unused disk space. Unused disk space is nothing but a waste of the money you poured into the TiVo, and it's not as if you have to pay anything extra for the additional recordings. What is the advantage of only having ten or twenty programs on the Tivo as opposed to having dozens or even hundreds?

There is absolutely no disadvantage whatsoever to having more programs on the TiVo's hard drive, but there is a huge advantage in terms of the purpose of the Tivo. It's win/win. Extending your logic, the best use of the Tivo would be never to record anything at all, thereby conserving a maximum of drive sapce.



fallingwater said:


> Tell ya' what. You do your thing and I'll do mine!


It's not about "your way" or "my way". It's about pointing out the best ways to take the greatest advantage of the investment for the least amount of trouble. Would you be upset if I pointed out something to you about a small change in your driving habits which could save you 15% in your gasoline costs?



fallingwater said:


> There are way too many decent programs available than I have time to watch regardless of how they're organized or saved.


That's not the point, and it's not the engineering paradigm of the Tivo. It's not about how many programs you can or will watch. It's about how much of a choice of programs you have available to you when you (or friends and family) sit down to watch TV, and how interesting the available shows are overall. Is it better to have 10 shows from which to choose or 100? Is it better to spend an hour picking out 10 shows while missing perhaps 40 better ones and 50 of similar quality, or spend 5 minutes specifying all 100 shows, including the 10 you selected using the EPG?



fallingwater said:


> For watching TV my way the only external HDD for a TiVo that would make sense is one of infinite size.


That's a ridiculous statement. Even recording an infinite number of programs does not require an infinite hard drive. Is only requires the size of the drives can be increased incrementally. More to the point, unless you want to keep every single recording forever, the drive size only needs to increase to the point where every recording you do keep will fit until you delete it.



fallingwater said:


> So I don't add one and also don't record programs without watching them. KUID is my way of managing recordings!


That's total nonsense. KUID does not manage recording space at all. It doesn't manage anything, for that matter. It only prevents a recording from being erased should the amount of space be insufficient to record the next scheduled recording. In the event, the Tivo has two choices: erase the older recording or don't record the new one. Either way, your're going to lose one or the other. KUID merely prevents the Tivo from making the former choice, and only then in the event of your having scheduled too many recordings to watch in the timeframe during which they were recorded. Tell me something, though. How is it the older programs you have selected to record are somehow more precious to you than the new ones? Since the new ones aren't going to be recorded, why did you bother to tell the TiVo to record them in the first place?

None of this is impacted by or has anything to do with Suggestions, by the way, because a suggestion will never overwrite a scheduled recording, no matter what.



fallingwater said:


> I watch a high percentage of TV programs, both hi-def and standard, live or from the buffer. To conserve HDD space for programs I do record I almost never record in hi-def.


To say the least, your logic escapes me. There is no reason to conserve hard drive space unless you are archiving the content. If that is the case, why would you archive SD content in favor of HD content? Also, if archiving the content is your goal, then an external server is a better choice than keeping it on the TiVo. From your statements it seems fairly clear to me you are thinking of the TiVo as if it were basically a VCR, but just with random access to the shows and a larger tape that can't be changed. The Tivo is not a VCR. *It just isn't* It's only real similarity to a VCR is that it records video based on a schedule. Even so, since a recording is transient, there is no impact to reording and then watching an HD program. More importantly, from my perspective, is there is essentially never any intersting live TV. In the past 9 years, there have been perhaps a total of a dozen intersting programs on when I sat down to watch TV. Since by definition a program which is interesting at 21:00 is no longer so at 21:01, finding an interesting live program is all but impossible, unless the DVR just happens to be tuned to an interesting program and has it's begnning still in the buffer. I can just about count the number of times that has happned on the fingers of one foot.



fallingwater said:


> TiVo's scheme of external storage is simple but stupid. It expands storage once without any further flexibility at the cost of doubling the possibility of HDD failure. Echostar's method of using multiple external interchangable HDD's isn't as simple as TiVo's but offers unlimited flexibility.


Well, this point is fairly well taken, except it is far from stupid. Like all compromises, it has it's down side, and I can easily see why you would prefer Echostar's method. The main thing is it's made largely moot by the availability of networked storage. A network RAID array (which is what I use) offers ultimately nearly unlimited storage, and it's all on-line at the same time. For the record, the Tivo's direct storage can be expanded more than once, but I will allow it it a considerable hassle to do so.



fallingwater said:


> I used to routinely get into it with DrStrange because timeshifting everything was the only use he had for a DVR.


Depending on how you are defining it, timeshifting is the only purpose for any sort of recorder, including a VCR or even an audio cassette player. Of course one can use just the tuner section of a DVR or even a VCR as a matter of convenience, but then one can reasonably be said not to be using the DVR (or VCR) at all. We're taking the razor to some pretty fine hairs there, however.

Binging it back to the main point, the engineering paradigm behind the Tivo is not timeshifting per se, but rather a dimensional filter which can eliminate the time and channel axes as independent dimensions in the program space, allowing the user to watch any program any time without any considration for when or where, while at the same tijme narrowing down the program space to (mostly) only content in which the user is interested. Importantly, these facilities can be offered the user without the user ever having to know or find out when or what channel, or even selecting them manually. It's like having all the broadcasters magically arrange their schedules to fit your immediate whim, and have them change the channel for you without your having to ask.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

mr.unnatural said:


> That's the dumbest thing you've spouted so far. Unless you want to sit by the DVR and record everything manually, an EPG is essential to any DVR.


While I agree his statement was moronic, I also disagree with yours. In the last 9 years I haven't used the EPG even once, and I have also only viewed perhaps 5 or 6 live program other than the news or weather report. Even the weather report I usually watch from a recording rather than live.



mr.unnatural said:


> Tivos and pretty much any DVRs suck as far as channel surfing.


True, but I think there is a more important fundamental truth here. Channel surfing evolved almost entirely because of a bad situation. One channel surfed because what was on the current channel was boring - probably a commercial, but perhaps just a less than scintillating program. Channel surfing was a means of getting away from inferior programing and selecting superior programming, or at least an attempt to do so, even if only for a few moments until the commercial was over. It was a poor but singular solution to an undesirable yet unavoidable situation. It nonetheless became habit, and as such not only expected but even in a way comfortable. Now along come DVRs, and especially TiVos. Suddenly not only boring commercials can be eliminated but even all the uninteresting programs. With a large list of very little other than interesting programs, and the ability to at least skim over commercials, there is no longer any reason to channel surf at all. The problem is, the addicted channel surfer sees no reason to take advantage of the situation. They "like" to surf, despite the fact it is a huge time waster and only useful when watching something they don't want to watch, which never need happen. Add an ingrained habit of channel surfing to years of dealing with VCRs, and the user may be unable to even understand what they are missing or why they should seek out the better solution.

In short, many people come to strongly believe the things in their lives to which they have become accustomed are good or even great, no matter how lousy those things are in comparison to other, perhaps newer, ideas. They even become angry when someone suggests there is a better way. Use strong facts and figures to prove it to them and they really become angry. 'Sound familiar?



mr.unnatural said:


> Shows I want to watch are rarely on at the exact moment I decide to sit down to watch TV.


Not only that, but it takes a very significant amount of time to find them, even if they are. I would much rather spend the time watching a previously recorded program while letting the Tivo find and record the program without my having to lift a finger - or spend any time - to do it.



mr.unnatural said:


> I know that VOD basically allows you to do the same thing but then there's that pesky image quality thing again.


You lost me on that one. VOD shouldn't have any poorer PQ than live. Setting that issue aside, it's true a perfect implementation of VOD makes a DVR's time shifting function mostly moot, but similarly a DVR makes the availability of VOD almost totally moot. What an STB (or even DVR) with VOD cannot do, however, is filter through the list of available VOD offerings and eliminate the ones in which you are not interested, thus distilling the choices into a much purer blend of programming.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

DJHall said:


> Wow! That was a lot of posts that seem to boil down to this: If you want a DVR to watch live TV with a buffer and to manually control recording and deleting to a HDD instead of tape at the cheapest price possible without any upfront costs... TiVo probably isn't the best choice for you.


Or maybe a DVR isn't the best choice.



DJHall said:


> TiVos aren't designed for "fallingwaters". To really love a TiVo, you have to get to the point where you trust it.


I see what you are saying, and for many people this may be true, but I disagree a person has to trust the TiVo 100% to love it. I dearly loved my Series I for over 7 years, but the main problem I had was the STB it controlled would frequently decide to reboot itself (firmware upgrades from the headend or whatever - who knows) after which it would inevitably shut itself off and quite responding to IR codes from the TiVo. Four or five days later I would sit down to find I had missed nearly a week of recordings. Of course it was hardly the TiVo's fault, but regardless of fault I still loved the setup despite its failing to record many, many shows.

That said, the fact the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD DVR missed recording far more programs than the Tivo / STB pair ever even thought of was high on my very long list of reasons I truly hated the SA 8300HD.



DJHall said:


> My personal test of where people are with their TiVo.... if you open Now Playing and don't see the new episode of your favorite show you were expecting, do you check the program guide and ToDo history to investigate why the TiVo didn't record it


Well, yes. First of all there may be (and have been) reasons not related to the TiVo but over which I have some control. Reporting errors in the channel lineup, for example. There have been two occasions where I had to submit a channel lineup correction request to TiVo to get the channel lineup fixed. 'Never would have happened if I hadn't checked. Secondly, I was at one point having problems with my (at the time) two TiVos. By checking and troubleshooting I was able to submit the issue to TiVoand they fixed with with an upgrade release.

So while I don't absolutely 100% trust my TiVos (or anything else, for that matter), I don't think anyone would accuse me of not loving them.



DJHall said:


> or do you simply trust that your TiVo didn't screw up and the show should not have been recorded that week for some valid reason.


Even if I did trust my TiVo no matter what, or indeed even if I absolutely knew the TiVo was not at fault, I would still check because I am curious as to what did happen.



DJHall said:


> When you get to where you trust your TiVo, the thing changes your concept of television permanently.


That happened to me after about a week of owning my Series I. Changing my concept, that is, not the trust bit.



DJHall said:


> I can honestly say I have no idea what the channel or timeslot is for any of the shows I follow religiously, and for a lot of them I couldn't even tell you what day of the week they air. Why would I care?


Exactly. Me either. Why would I bother to take the time to find out, even if I were mildly interested?



DJHall said:


> If you replaced my TiVo with a "DVR" I would have to learn to tust the new box all over again... something which a lot of us on this forum are extremely reluctant to have to do.


Oh, it's much more than that. With suggestions, wishlists, and hyperfine but nonspecific search functions, the TiVo takes away all the tme and hassle of finding programs of all sorts, not just series. No other DVR has the wide scope of automated filtering the TiVop does,



DJHall said:


> Shopping for a new DVR to trust would would be like shopping for a new best friend.


Well, I wouldn't go that far. After all, it's only television.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

davefred99 said:


> If you want a true monthly comparison you have to compare on a monthly basis only with no upfront costs.


What nonsense! Remind me to never hire you as my accountant. For any device, the cost is the total cost of ownership, up front costs and monthly fees combined. It may be more convenient to pay out over time, but the ultimate impact to your bank account is only measured by adding it all together.



DJHall said:


> The solution to this argument would be to somehow convince Verizon, TIVO or your cable Co. to purchase and lease TIVO's with cable cards installed as an alternate to there own boxes. Then we would see a more realistic comparison.


No we wouldn't, because a leased DVR cannot be hacked, and a DVR which cannot be hacked is not worth it no matter how low the price.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

atmuscarella said:


> If TiVo doesn't offer you anything that you think is worth paying extra for then you should get the cable/sat/fios company DVR nothing wrong with that at all (by the way I own a Ford and don't think the Lexus I looked at was worth the extra money).
> 
> Back to price I recently purchased a TiVo HD - through a special deal from TiVo - my cost with lifetime service and a TiVo wireless adapter was $500. I expect to be watching TV for a long time so I don't look at 1 year windows. How long will the TiVo last? I have no idea but I believe 5 years is very doable with maybe a $100 hard drive upgrade along the way. If I take $600 and divide it by 60 months that's $10/mo plus the TiVo will like still have residual value even after 5 years.


For a potential brand-new customer TiVo with Lifetime Service costs no more than $251.71 (Amazon's current price with free shipping for HDTiVo) + $399 for a total of $650.71. HDTiVo requires a single 'M' CableCARD. My cable co., Comcast, provides one CableCARD for no additional charge.

Comcast's DVR rents for 13.95 a month. In less than 4 years TiVo will cost less than renting Comcast's DVR with no additional scheduled payments.

(HDD's do eventually fail and need to be replaced, but 5 years is a not unreasonable HDD life expectancy. Replacement HDD's formatted for TiVo are offered from several independent sources and from TiVo itself at reasonable prices. Users can install such drives themselves or have them installed by the vendor.)

Of course TiVo and cable co. DVRs provide different features and, more importantly, different design philosophies. (For me 'different' is a more useful term than 'better' when describing design philosophies.) But even when compared only from a price perspective, when considering the best deals offered from each source, TiVo and cable DVRs are competitive.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

davefred99 said:


> One point I would like to make here. There are always ways to save money over time if you pay for things in advance. Its sorta like buying in bulk at the grocery store. You buy more than you need now and use it later.
> 
> With the Cable/Fios rental DVR's you pay as you go and can cancel at anytime. No up front cost except for maybe the first mos in advance.
> 
> If you want a true monthly comparison you have to compare on a monthly basis only with no upfront costs. That is not an option with TIVO. The only way to get TIVo is to incur some upfront cost.


What you state is true. Cable DVRs require no commitment, while TiVo requires a substancial commitment of at least one year.

When weighing potential costs of competing products, it pays to consider all available options. I'd never buy TiVo with a one year commitment, but with a Lifetime Service commitment TiVo is a good deal!


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

Langree said:


> I do agree with him, the Comcast HD DVR is a POS, I still use one in my bedroom but only as a tuner, I schedule no recordings on it or use it's DVR features.


Why then do you rent Comcast's DVR instead of a STB, which in my area offers the same GUI and rents for less than half as much?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> What you state is true. Cable DVRs require no commitment, while TiVo requires a substancial commitment of at least one year.
> 
> When weighing potential costs of competing products, it pays to consider all available options. I'd never buy TiVo with a one year commitment, but with a Lifetime Service commitment TiVo is a good deal!


yes, stating you do not wnat a contract versus contract is ok is valid as a personal preference. I still do not understand contract avoidance though as I always think of a DVR or PC and thungs like that as something I will use over 4 years and what kind of 4 year cost am I looking at.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> Originally Posted by fallingwater
> *You're completely wrong about how my HDTV's are set up. I have each picture parameter set according to what looks best to me. (Sony, which offers a gazillion adjustments, provides individual settings for each imput while the cheaper Westinghouse's don't, but the best picture available from each is comparable.) Hi-def via HDMI or YPrPb looks close to perfect. Contrast settings vary around 70%, color saturation around 30%, and backlighting around 75%.
> 
> I've considered further calibrating using the DVE DVD which I own, but just haven't gotten around to it. The picture is good enough so as not to compel me to go right out and fuss more, but of course I should.
> ...


I've always tempered a fundamental distaste for TiVo's philosophy of focusing exclusively on watching timeshifted TV with respect for its attention to details and operational stability. I choose to utilize TiVo in ways peripheral to its engineered design because it has other useful capabilities important to me. TiVo for me is a tool, not a lifestyle.

You obviously have a different view and nothing I say will change it. Fair enough, but your post goes beyond the boundaries of honest discussion and is essentially bigoted propaganda which misstates facts.

If a post employed your style but was opposed to your views the poster would be labelled a Troll. Continuing an exchange with you would be a waste of time for both of us.

I've reported your post for its demeaning and hostile characterizations, but understand that the report may not gain equal traction as the same report would have about an (hypothetical) anti-TiVo poster who used your style.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

davefred99 said:


> Give me a break ZeoTivo,
> Your the one spinning this "FanBoy". I never once have bashed TIVO on its functionality. My facts are very clear Tivo costs more upfront to use and depending on how you subscribe to Tivo plus the cost of cablecard rentals it can cost more per month than the monthly rental of a cable/Fios DVR.
> Of course I should expect that most of the posters here are already Tivo users and will defend there choice to the end. More power to you, enjoy it.
> I started this thread not to bash Tivo but to express my feelings on whether or not the additional cost was justifiable. To that end I still say not at this time.
> ...


Yup!

(Animal Farm); (revised) principles of Animalism: _All animals are equal but some are more equal than others! _ 

(12 Monkeys): Jeffrey Goines: _'There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion.'_


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Originally Posted by fallingwater
> *Unlike you an EPG is important to me.*
> 
> Let me put it this way. If Tivo were to completely eliminate its EPG (there are two BTW, not just one) it would not diminish the functionality of the TiVo by even the slightest bit. It would, however, force you to eliminate a huge amount of your own wasted time - up to several hours a week if you watch very much TV - and greatly improve both the number of recordings on the TiVo and your level of interest in those programs. The down side would be you would have to abandon an antiquated, inefficient, and ineffective utility in favor of one much more suited to a computer-based system. People are notoriously resistant to change, however, even when the change offers nothing but benefits. I don't understand it, but it is clearly true.
> ...


Jesus! Gimme' a break. Your post reminds me of stories about _petit bourgeois_ re-education classes in the Gulag. Do your thing by all means but don't expect that everyone prefers to watch TV with perfectly maximized efficiency.

What a drag (for me), actually: *Canned World!* Good for you though; enjoy!

I don't care about programs which theoretically may be available over time, I care about what's available RIGHT NOW with relatively few exceptions. No matter how cleverly and efficiently programs are presented I'm gonna' miss more than I see. So ultimately all the fancy packaging doesn't matter a whit!

TiVo's a useful tool, not an epiphany for me. I value TiVo's 'trick play', hi-def buffer, and searchable EPG most. For me TiVo's Lifetime Service is worth it for those features alone. TiVo has of course many other capabilities, best of them the 'Season Pass', but most of them I don't care about.

Regarding recording from Comcast's STB to a hi-def TiVo's Antenna input: Hi-def TiVo can't control a STB, but the STB can be set to change channels all by itself; That's it; that's all! Simple, yet so many wasted words!

Equally simple; DVRs play recordings back at virtually the same time they record, totally unlike a VCR. That's it; the fundamental difference!


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## DJHall (Nov 20, 2003)

fallingwater said:


> I value TiVo's 'trick play', hi-def buffer, and searchable EPG most. For me TiVo's Lifetime Service is worth it for those features alone.
> ...
> Equally simple; DVRs play recordings back at virtually the same time they record, totally unlike a VCR. That's it; the fundamental difference!


Fallingwater: I really don't understand, so I hope you won't take it the wrong way when I ask two honest questions.

First, if you want to watch what is airing right now, why would you pay anything extra to have a DVR? Every digital STB I've seen has an EPG, so that leads me to believe you are willing to pay the price of a DVR just so you can have a live buffer. If you "play back at virtually the same time you record", you can't be doing much more with the buffer than briefly pausing or rewinding to watch something a second time. Are those options really much of a feature? Unless you have kids that interrupt you frequently or you suffer from extreme polyuria, I figure you must watch a lot of live sports and enjoy rewinding and slow motioning interesting plays or questionable rulings. Otherwise, why not use the restroom and grab another beer during the commercials like everyone else?

Second, why the "fundamental distaste" for timeshifting and the interest in "what's available RIGHT NOW with relatively few exceptions?" Is there something more interesting about watching a program live than watching the same program an hour or a day later? Do you shedule your TV viewing according to the network schedules, or do you just sit down at 8:20 and find yourself so fascinated by a show you missed the first 20 minutes of that you don't have any interest in watching an entire show that originally aired an hour ago? Do you not follow any shows where you don't want to miss a new episode, or do you tell mom you won't go out for dinner on her birthday because of a scheduling conflict with your favorite TV show? Or perhaps you mostly watch live sports, and you don't feel watching the game later than everyone else is as interesting as seeing it live?


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

Every DVR currently available costs something whether a user pays a flat fee upfront or rents it monthly or on a term basis. Why do you believe that a 'live' buffer isn't worth having?

TiVo works reliably. I 'trust' it as much as any electronic product. Until relatively recently I couldn't say the same for cable DVRs. Now Comcast's Moto boxes are within the same order of magnitude of reliability, even if they aren't 'equal'.

Back in the old days something similiar could be said of ReplayTV, which, while not in the same league as TiVo regarding recording selection parameters (a la Season Pass functionality), was for me more fun to use.

But TiVo provides several options unavailable from Moto such as receiving analog and digital signals from both OTA and cable. TiVo is the only DVR with such functionality.

TiVo also outputs full height pictures squeezed only horizontally from hi-def sources so anamorphic DVD's are created automatically from a DVD recoorder. Moto's hi-def output is squeezed both horizontally and vertically and thus loses resolution when recorded to DVD.

I would consider renting one no commitment DVR from Comcast, but not more. After the first, Comcast charges $5.10 monthly for additional digital outlets. Hi-def TiVo used without CableCARDS escapes that charge and incurs no additional Comcast fees. An HDTiVo and an S3 used w/o CC's receive cable programming at two locations in our house. In addition a CableCARDed S3 provides full service in another room, while, in place of a DVR, a Moto STB used in conjunction with ReplayTV enables Comcast's full service in one of the two locations mentioned in the previous sentence.

I'd never use TiVo unless its service was available on a 'Lifetime' basis. Fortunately TiVo has re-enabled Lifetime Service availability, which for $399 for a new customer is a good deal!

I've got seven Lifetimed TiVo's which is four more than I need now. Three of those four are no longer connected, but TiVo got paid first. No harm, no foul, no complaints!

I watch TV because it's enjoyable and informative, including some commercials. I never use 30 sec. skip but instead FF when appropriate. BTW, Both TiVo and Moto DVRs permit going back in a 'live' show to the beginning if it remains in the recording buffer. I've found through experience that I don't watch recorded programs in 'Now Playing' when there's anything available in realtime that catches my interest. I do like watching news and 'live' entertainment 'live'.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reading posts in this thread from people with (apparently) bean counting mentalities concerned with watching TV 'efficiently' is a total drag. I suspect such posters are affiliated professionally with the computer industry. That's TiVo's business, not mine!

I realize that posters here are individuals and, unless they identify themselves as such, aren't TiVo representatives. IMHO, when posters go on-and-on, ad infinitum, about how superior TiVo is in, bla, bla, bla, every respect, and therefore should be used as they decree, they ultimately do TiVo and these Forums no favors. They're self-righteous, arrogant, boring, and (in one case) rude. Not an approach which is generally successful at winning converts!

A poster in this thread accused the OP of using the term 'fanboy'. I searched through the posts and found that not to be true. Again, such an accusation isn't the best way to convince people to consider TiVo on its merits, although it's tempting to use 'fanboy' when describing certain posters' styles.

People may be ignorant but usually aren't stupid. Stop with the hard sell; it's counterproductive!

Here's one approach to efficient TV watching:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/cultureshock/flashpoints/theater/clockworkorange_big.html


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> IMHO, when posters go on-and-on, ad infinitum, about how superior TiVo is in, bla, bla, bla, every respect, and therefore should be used as they decree, they ultimately do TiVo and these Forums no favors. They're self-righteous, arrogant, boring, and (in one case) rude.


In long threads there tend to be posts that some people find less than beneficial. It's the price of open expression. I personally find my TiVos to be exceptionally useful products, however I will not recommend buying a TiVo to anyone unless I know they are only an OTA user. When you have Satellite/FIOS/Cable TV in the mix there are to many variables to make a blind recommendation.

If you go back to the original post you will find that davefred99 basically stated that in his situation he felt the extra cost of a TiVo HD wasn't worth it to him. Perfectly fine statement - not sure why he posted it as there really wasn't any question asked.

However that wasn't all that post said it also went on to make the blanket statement that TiVo pricing was to expensive for most everyday consumers. Which is highly subjective and certainly open to debate and now a 119 posts later we are where we are.

Thanks,


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

Did you have a problem with davefred99's OP? I didn't. 

It did come to a conclusion not shared by everyone, but wasn't overtly hostile. On balance, IMHO, this thread has been informative.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> Did you have a problem with davefred99's OP? I didn't.
> 
> It did come to a conclusion not shared by everyone, but wasn't overtly hostile. On balance, IMHO, this thread has been informative.


I have the same problem with davefred99 as others in this thread. He starts off with a personal opinion and that is fine, but then goes on to say it applies to everyone, and yes he was not the only one to do that. He Also misstates things in a way that bolsters his opinion without regard to the actual facts, in a well trafficked forum I do not let that go bu unchallenged.
I am also highly suspicious of why he felt he needed to take the time in a forum for a product he does not even want to use.??

as for DVR usage
Ironically in your case FallingWater, you could get by with an unsubscribed TiVo making use of the live buffer if you had some other source for the EPG.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> Did you have a problem with davefred99's OP? I didn't.


No - no problem with it - but I really didn't get why he posted it but that's just me - I wouldn't think of finding a Lexus user forum and posting I bought a Ford because the Lexus cost to much.



> It did come to a conclusion not shared by everyone, but wasn't overtly hostile. On balance, IMHO, this thread has been informative.


I'll agree that the thread has been interesting, informative might be a stretch for me. I just wanted to point out where we started, which to me was at a place that was highly subjective meaning everyones opinion could be correct for their situation and wrong for the next guys, which normally means some heated posts.

Thanks,


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I have the same problem with davefred99 as others in this thread. He starts off with a personal opinion and that is fine, but then goes on to say it applies to everyone. Also he misstates things in a way that bolster's his opinion without regard to the actual facts.
> I am also highly suspicious of why he felt he needed to take the time in a forum for a product he does not even want to use.??
> 
> as for DVR usage
> Ironically in your case FallingWater, you could get by with an unsubscribed TiVo making use of the live buffer if you had some other source for the EPG.


I completely disagree with your assessment of the appropriateness of davefred99's posting about TiVo's cost and thought that he stayed within the bounds of an honest discussion of TiVo's pricing. Why did you accuse him of using 'fanboy' when he didn't?

I disagree with davefred99 but apparently his resources limit him to only consider paying on a monthly basis while mine don't.

Your idea regarding using hi-def TiVo unsubbed actually ain't half bad, although I do use them to record some programs! Wish that TiVo could initiate searches right from its EPG while a program continues to play like ReplayTV does!

I'm not sorry to have paid TiVo $2100 for service; TiVo is the last provider of independent DVR service. (FWIW, ReplayTV's have retained full functionality even after being orphaned; if some TiVo users are concerned about TiVo Service becoming a 'virtual' product only.)

(Anybody want S2's with Lifetime Service cheap? Send a PM to make offer. Understand please; 'cheap' doesn't mean 'free'.)


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

atmuscarella said:


> ...informative might be a stretch for me.


Informative about posters' philosophies as much as TiVo's pricing!


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> I completely disagree with your assessment of the appropriateness of davefred99's posting about TiVo's cost and thought that he stayed within the bounds of an honest discussion of TiVo's pricing. Why did you accuse him of using 'fanboy' when he didn't?


I know I was responding to the use of "fanboy" but now all I see are TiVo Fans. hmm, yet more mystery around the postings. Too bad I did not quote it directly. 
and the discussion on costs is perfectly fine, again davefred99 lost appropriate discussion when he implied that a repsonse used special pricing when in fact it was retail and first time pricing. He did not repsond to the facts of the post with his own logic and facts but instead tried to spin off the facts of the other poster.

Oh well this thread has run its course anyway.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I know I was responding to the use of "fanboy" but now all I see are TiVo Fans. hmm, yet more mystery around the postings. Too bad I did not quote it directly.
> and the discussion on costs is perfectly fine, again davefred99 lost appropriate discussion when he implied that a repsonse used special pricing when in fact it was retail and first time pricing. He did not repsond to the facts of the post with his own logic and facts but instead tried to spin off the facts of the other poster.
> 
> Oh well this thread has run its course anyway.


The questions about my motive for posting here in the TIVO forums about why I feel the cost is too much for me to justify are valid . I posted her because well its a TIVO forum and not sure where else to express my thoughts/opinions. Just because I have a different opinion than others does not mean I should shut up and let the majority rule. I feel that I have made some valid points and have enjoyed the discussions. It has never been my intention to demean or insult anyone here. I did take exception to the fanboy comment because I never used it.
Its difficult to have a civilized conversation when every sentence gets parsed and your every word is analyzed for motive or truthfulness. I am just another average guy with my own opinions based on the the facts as i know them. I don't see where I twisted any facts just to suit my personal opinion. That said I do not understand the reference to special pricing. It is clear that many of the posters in this thread have have referred to to how they found TIvo to be a better deal because they were on special pricing plans not available currently for new customers. That is great but does nothing for me or any other new first time customer. I suppose I could or should have stated " Pricing As it applies to new or first time customers".

So Here we are and I think I have had my say and have heard what others have had to say too.

By the way in case you missed it early on I do own a TIVO its just DTIVO and its no longer in service because I no longer use Direct TV since I switched to Verizon Fios TV. This whole subject came about because I was investigating the possibility of using TIVO with FIOS. Part of my frustration was with Verizon because they force you to rent 2 S-cards @ $3.99 each because they don't currently offer M-Cards. That is not TIVO's fault but $12.95 for TIVO service is and there Annual or lifetime time subscriptions are still not a great bargain in my personal opinion when you include the upfront costs too.
Enough said, Life goes on.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

lrhorer said:


> While I agree his statement was moronic, I also disagree with yours. In the last 9 years I haven't used the EPG even once, and I have also only viewed perhaps 5 or 6 live program other than the news or weather report. Even the weather report I usually watch from a recording rather than live.


If you set up a recording using Wishlists, searches, or any other part of the Tivo database then you used the EPG. It's stored on the Tivo as a searchable database. Without the EPG the Tivo just becomes a dumb recorder just like any garden variety audio tape recorder.



> You lost me on that one. VOD shouldn't have any poorer PQ than live. Setting that issue aside, it's true a perfect implementation of VOD makes a DVR's time shifting function mostly moot, but similarly a DVR makes the availability of VOD almost totally moot. What an STB (or even DVR) with VOD cannot do, however, is filter through the list of available VOD offerings and eliminate the ones in which you are not interested, thus distilling the choices into a much purer blend of programming.


VOD is delivered via your network interface and does not use the same delivery method as live TV. Why do you think DirecTV took so long to work out a VOD delivery scheme? VOD is available for viewing almost immediately after you select it. That's because it's been converted to a lower resolution format (i.e., extremely small file size when compared to the original) and stored on a server. When you select a VOD program it gets downloaded to your DVR or STB and stored in a buffer or, in the case of a DVR, the hard drive. If the content was at the same quality as the original broadcast program it would take considerably longer to transfer and you'd need a lot more storage space on your STB to handle it. You wouldn't be able to use a standard STB with VOD if this were the case. You'd need a DVR to handle the larger file sizes.


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## thalador (Oct 26, 2007)

I for one have found this thread very interesting. As I have stated I am planning on going with Fios to get rid of dish and am considering a tivo. The cost is obviously an issue but there are advantages, as have been pointed out. If I can move the topic a bit, what about service? When you "rent" or "lease" a dvr if it breaks you get a new one dropped off. I assume if a tivo breaks you are out of luck if after the first year? Is this the case? If I get a new or refurb tivo and put $399 lifetime on it and it blows up is the service lost or can it be transferred?

Thanks again


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

WhiskeyTango said:


> What you guys are missing is that it is cheaper over the long run. Like atmuscarella said, a Tivo lasting 5 years is not a stretch. Take it out to around 4 or 5 years down the road and the costs look like this.
> 
> Verizon DVR - 191.88 yearly x 5 years = 15.99 per month
> TIVO - 356.87 first year + (176.88 x 4 years) = 17.74 per month.
> ...





davefred99 said:


> Also why to all the TIVO fans keep bringing up the fact that they got some special pricing and saved because of it. If its a special deal that is not available for everyone then its not relevant to this comparison. Second Box discounts are irrelevant too.


Sorry about the "fanboy" statement then. I was sure I was responding to use of that word but it is not there so sorry.
ok then, lets start over..

Above is the pricing for a Verizon and TiVo DVR. they used a price of 227.87 for the TiVo HD -which is the best shop around CostCo type price but a first time customer could get that. Add on the 70$ upfront and then it becomes an extra 1.46 a month over 48 months or 15.10 per month for a new TiVo HD with Cable Cards. Install fees are variable. Bottom line it looks like the two options are close enough in price at 4 years to not really be the factor you post that it is.

Above the part of you post I Quote you said it should be only a monthly comaprison to be fair. Would you favor the Bus or a cab over buying a car then? Or else wait for the cab company to make a deal with Ford to get you a cab that stays parked outside your front door? 
Please explain for all the TiVo fans out there exactly why the above numbers are not accurate or of valid deliberation?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> Originally Posted by *thalador*
> I for one have found this thread very interesting. As I have stated I am planning on going with Fios to get rid of dish and am considering a tivo. The cost is obviously an issue but there are advantages, as have been pointed out. If I can move the topic a bit, what about service? When you "rent" or "lease" a dvr if it breaks you get a new one dropped off. I assume if a tivo breaks you are out of luck if after the first year? Is this the case? If I get a new or refurb tivo and put $399 lifetime on it and it blows up is the service lost or can it be transferred?


Officially you are SOL - but unofficially TiVo has offered to replace defective lifetime service units with a refurb unit of the same model and transfer the lifetime service - the price normally quoted by those effected is around $150. Also according to this forums general consensus when a TiVo fails it is most likely the hard drive which can be replaced by the owner if they have some computer skills.

Good Luck,


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

atmuscarella said:


> Officially you are SOL - but unofficially TiVo has offered to replace defective lifetime service units with a refurb unit of the same model and transfer the lifetime service - the price normally quoted by those effected is around $150. Also according to this forums general consensus when a TiVo fails it is most likely the hard drive which can be replaced by the owner if they have some computer skills.
> 
> Good Luck,


If you fall into the category of not wanting to fix it yourself - then you can also buy from Best Buy and get a warranty on it. you are betting money the TiVo will break though so it may still be better to not get the extended warranty and work with TiVo if that time ever comes.

I had a DT that was on a month to month, It was hit by lightening and the ethernet and USB ports went down. I called up TiVo to cancel the service on it and they shuffled me to retention who sent me another DT at no charge. This will not be everyone's experience but TiVo has shown many times it will work with customers on dead hardware.

Form a DIY perspective - I upgrade my drives when I get a TiVo DVR (a nice bonus of ownership) and keep the original drive on a shelf. If I have a hard drive issue, I pop the original drive in and have a working DVR again in 15 minutes if needed. Also I can get a new drive, copy the image to the new drive if the old one is not completely gone and within 1 to 8 hours depending on number of gigs have my DVR working as before complete with all shows and settings - versus a new DVR from cable company and my 10 unwtached Burn Notices gone for good and working to setup all my season passes again.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

thalador said:


> I for one have found this thread very interesting. As I have stated I am planning on going with Fios to get rid of dish and am considering a tivo. The cost is obviously an issue but there are advantages, as have been pointed out. If I can move the topic a bit, what about service? When you "rent" or "lease" a dvr if it breaks you get a new one dropped off. I assume if a tivo breaks you are out of luck if after the first year? Is this the case? If I get a new or refurb tivo and put $399 lifetime on it and it blows up is the service lost or can it be transferred?
> 
> Thanks again


The main item that fails in a Tivo is the hard drive. This is easily replaceble by the Tivo owner, especially if you have access to forums such as this. There are lots of threads that tell you how to replace a drive in a Tivo as well as upgrading one with a larger capacity drive. Like any other consumer device, if it breaks out of warranty, you're pretty much SOL if there's a problem with the mainboard. If it's something else replaceable, such as the power supply, you can usually buy a replacement from Weaknees.com.

There are places you can get a Tivo repaired but it would probably cost you almost as much to repair one as a used replacement or refurbed model would cost. I believe Tivo will allow you to transfer lifetime service to a replacement unit on a one-time basis. If the replacement dies out of warranty then you're completely SOL.

FWIW, I've owned literally dozens of Tivos over the past 8 years or so and I've never had any problems with them other than one or two hard drive failures. Odds are, if anything will go wrong with a Tivo, other than the hard drive, there's a good chance it will happen within the first 90 days anyway.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

thalador said:


> I assume if a tivo breaks you are out of luck if after the first year?


90 days, I believe.


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## davefred99 (Oct 31, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> Sorry about the "fanboy" statement then. I was sure I was responding to use of that word but it is not there so sorry.
> ok then, lets start over..
> 
> Above is the pricing for a Verizon and TiVo DVR. they used a price of 227.87 for the TiVo HD -which is the best shop around CostCo type price but a first time customer could get that. Add on the 70$ upfront and then it becomes an extra 1.46 a month over 48 months or 15.10 per month for a new TiVo HD with Cable Cards. Install fees are variable. Bottom line it looks like the two options are close enough in price at 4 years to not really be the factor you post that it is.
> ...


Apologies accepted,
Here is my explanation for all the TiVo Fans out there on whats different about my Cost comparisons to the above.

First lets start with the best Price I know of for a new and or first time customer. For the sake of this conversation lets talk about just one DVR to start with. Also this is based on the cost to rent a Verizon DVR vs an HD TiVo DVR including cable cards at the current prices.

1) cost to rent a Verizon DVR = *$15.99 mos* = 191.88 yr X yrs = $767.52

2) Best price available for an HD-DVR = $179.95 (refurbished) / 12 = 14.95 Mos
Monthly cost for TIVO subscription= $12.95 mos
Monthly Cable card renta l = $3.9 X2 = $7.98 mos
Grand total monthly for the first year is $14.95 +12.95+$7.98 = *$34.88 Mos*
After the first year the recurring costs are $7.98 +12.95 mos = *$20.93 Mos*

3) Using a 4yr (48 mos comparison)

Cost of HD-Tivo (Refurbished) = $179.95
Lifetime subscription on TIvo = $399.00
Cable card rental (2) @ $7.98 X 48 mos = $383.00

Grand Total $179.95 +$399.00 + #383.00 = $961.95 or *$20.04 mos*

So There is no break even point until the after the 4th year of service. This is in part due to the current situation where Verizon does not offer M-cards and thus the need to rent two S-cards. If they make M-cards available and they are supposed to in the future and they keep the cost the same @ $3.99 mos then the numbers would change some.

I am waiting to see if and when Verizon makes M-cards available and TiVo comes up with a better deal. As I said before I would love to have TiVo instead of the FiOs DVR but not at the current costs. Others with different cable providers may have slightly better deals on cable cards and that would make it a little easier.

The reason I have mostly limited the cost comparison to monthly only is the upfront costs for TiVo are the only way to get a favorable total cost that is reasonable in my mind. Too me its like Taxes I prefer to hold onto my money as long as I can and pay for things as needed and not let someone else use it.
Hope this clears things up.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

GREAT analysis. However, there are a few things you didn't factor in. First, the cost of renting the cable company DVR is almost surely going to increase in each of the four years. That, alone could easily overwhelm the $383 cost for CableCARDs, even if you were able to eliminate that cost entirely. Also, as has been alluded to earlier, we need to come up with a repair/replacement risk-price -- some pro-rated amount based on the small likelihood of TiVo failure. (That pushes the numbers back the other way.) And of course, finally, there is the issue with regard to whether a THD will be better than what the cable company is renting, three and a half years from now.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

What I have tried to point out before is that the analysis davefred99 has completed is great - great for him - not worth much to anyone else. The answer to questions such as:

Does TiVo cost more than my Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR
Is TiVo to expensive
Is TiVo worth what it costs - is it a good value
etc.
Can only be answered by the individual doing the analysis because everyone's numbers will be somewhat different and what value a person puts on Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR features/options that TiVo doesn't have and on the features/options TiVo has but the Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR doesn't is highly individualized.

However davefred99's methodology may be very useful to others and where a forum like this can shine is pointing out what feature/options TiVo may offer that a Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR doesn't.

Thanks,


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## jkalnin (Jan 8, 2003)

davefred99 also didn't add into the equation that you can sell your TivoHD + LIfetime on ebay for about $300-500 while a DVR has no value when your done with it. Add that in and the monthly cost comes down. Also, most cable companies (FIOS) offers a cable card for free so that shouldn't go into the cost.

Lastly, my original Tivo is running on about 7 years now without any problems. The cost of the unit and lifetime have long since been forgotten and it is still working like a champ.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

The NPV of the sale of a TiVO HD + lifetime three years from now is probably a lot less than $300. 

I've got a S2 DVD burner with lifetime... how much is that worth?


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

bicker said:


> GREAT analysis. However, there are a few things you didn't factor in. First, the cost of renting the cable company DVR is almost surely going to increase in each of the four years. That, alone could easily overwhelm the $383 cost for CableCARDs, even if you were able to eliminate that cost entirely. Also, as has been alluded to earlier, we need to come up with a repair/replacement risk-price -- some pro-rated amount based on the small likelihood of TiVo failure. (That pushes the numbers back the other way.) And of course, finally, there is the issue with regard to whether a THD will be better than what the cable company is renting, three and a half years from now.


plus at what point does Verizon finally provide an M-card thus halving the cost there. I see now that Whiskey Tango used just one card in his costs
Also even if just yearly - you can prepay 129$ a year and thus lower the 12.95 a month charge to 10.75 on the TiVo.

Verizon is slated for an update to the FIOS DVR that by early reviews does much improve it.
If Verizon gets its hands on M-cards then the 4 year cost starts to match up again.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> I've got a S2 DVD burner with lifetime... how much is that worth?


$200-$300? This highlights one of the main issues when comparing a TiVo DVR with a Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR with TiVo there are many unknowns (risks?), when renting monthly from a Cable/FIOS/Sat provider there isn't much concern beyond the monthly fee.

Edit: Just checked ebay - looks like the $200-$300 is a little low for bickers Pioneer 810H Series 2 with lifetime- there is one listed now; as is no returns, no remote or cables, no lifetime, maybe damaged, and it is up to $160.

Thanks,


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

atmuscarella said:


> What I have tried to point out before is that the analysis davefred99 has completed is great - great for him - not worth much to anyone else. The answer to questions such as:
> 
> Does TiVo cost more than my Cable/FIOS/Sat DVR
> Is TiVo to expensive
> ...


What some people are not seeing here is the fact that you are comparing apples to elephants with the Tivo and a cableco DVR. The monthly cost depends entirely on how you want to pay for the Tivo service (i.e., monthly with no commitment; monthly with a 1, 2 or 3-year commitment; lifetime service). The cableco DVR is a flat rate no mater how you slice it.

Cableco DVRs are very limited in the features they provide and the amount of recording capacity they offer. Tivos can be upgraded to whatever size hard drive you want to install. The stock Tivo has a larger drive than the Motorola HD DVRs so it already has the edge right out of the box. Motorola DVRs only have one set of IR codes so it is near impossible to operate more than one of them in the same room. Tivos have multiple codesets available (up to nine Tivos can be installed in the same room and operated independently of each other). I've had as many as seven Tivos functioning simultaneously and working in perect harmony in one room.

Tivos have other features too numerous to count. The basic Tivo functions are far more refined than any of the cableco DVRs and are less likely to miss recordings as a result. The pros of a Tivo far outweigh any cableco DVR so taking that into consideration makes it a better deal even if it cost more than a cableco DVR. The fact that you have ways to get it at a lower monthly rate than a cableco DVR makes it an absolute steal (and a no-brainer for most of us).

If you are really adventurous you can dive into the realm of hacking a Tivo. That's when the magic really starts to take place. There are currently no hacks available for any cableco DVR that I am aware of, mainly because nobody wants to risk screwing up a box they don't own. Tivo hacks mainly involve modifying the software so if you hose it up you can simply reinstall a backup image and start over. The only hardware mod is the PROM hack and there are people out there that can do this for you with minimal risk.

Tivos cost you money up front but when you consider the initial cost of ownership plus the reduced monthly rates minus the resale value if and when you decide to get rid of it and you're easily at a break even point financially, if not more than a bit ahead.


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## samo (Oct 7, 1999)

> And of course, finally, there is the issue with regard to whether a THD will be better than what the cable company is renting, three and a half years from now.


This is always overlooked in most con vs. pro posts, but it is much more important than any of the other arguments. 2004 model of TiVo doesn't do HD, we don't know what the state of the art will be in 2012. We don't know how much advertisement will be on TiVo in 4 years, nor do we know if TiVo will exist as we know it (could be bought by Dish for example or will change the business model to be provider of software to cable companies only).
3.5 -4 years in electronics are a lot and it conceivable that cable companies will adapt central server approach and make TiVo or any other STB the thing of the past.
Another thing is often overlooked in cost comparisons is a fact that TiVo market share is under 10% and declining. That means that for the majority of DVR users alternative DVRs are either working better or are more cost efficient.
Regardless how numbers are calculated in favor or against TiVo, the fact is majority of DVR users do not think that TiVo is worth the money.


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> the fact is majority of DVR users do not think that TiVo is worth the money.


Or have been locked out of using TiVo because of their provider. According to a recent article on Engadget HD the number of cable homes is down to 60.9% and satellite homes is up to 28.2% of the total households. TiVo is effectively locked out of any new/HD satellite customers because the FCC refuses to force the satellite companies to open up their networks as they have with cable.


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## bicker (Nov 9, 2003)

I suspect that the numbers will show that both are actually the case, i.e., that if you *just* consider cable subscribers (i.e., among people who *do* have that choice), more folks will still have the cable company DVR than a TiVo. Does anyone know where to find the numbers for this, so we can see, for sure?


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## atmuscarella (Oct 11, 2005)

> (i.e., among people who do have that choice), more folks will still have the cable company DVR than a TiVo


I would agree with this - but also do not have any numbers to a back it up - It is my belief the TiVo has become a niche product - the cable companies have not really supported having open networks and have done everything possible just this side of full non-compliance to make using anything but their own equipment more than problematic. TiVo shined it's best with the Series 2 DT and a pure unscrambled analog cable network - anything other than that and there are compromises. The only other place where TiVo is as user friendly is the TiVo HD used solely for OTA or OTA with analog cable.

Even if the TiVo HD worked flawlessly with digital cable and Satellite there still is the issue of the providers subsidizing the cost of their DVRs through their cable/sat subscription fees. There is no way dishnetwork can change $7/mo for a dish VIP 722 DVR with no up front costs and ever break even. their DVRs are effectively loss leaders.

Thanks


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

samo said:


> Regardless how numbers are calculated in favor or against TiVo, the fact is majority of DVR users do not think that TiVo is worth the money.


too much credit dept.
many consumers do not even think through such things and just take whatever the cable company offers so they can let the cable installer set it up, then ***** about the cable bill without really looking past ads on TV for more info.

Generally people are just starting to become aware of what DVRs can do

PS - my First TiVo - 240 model is still recording shows and serving them up for my BIL in Switzerland. Many consumers also have 4 or more year old PCs and can not understand why they might think about upgrading it as it still does email and web browsing


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ... Many consumers also have 4 or more year old PCs and can not understand why they might think about upgrading it as it still does email and web browsing


And for many that's perfectly adequate.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

samo said:


> This is always overlooked in most con vs. pro posts, but it is much more important than any of the other arguments. 2004 model of TiVo doesn't do HD, we don't know what the state of the art will be in 2012. We don't know how much advertisement will be on TiVo in 4 years, nor do we know if TiVo will exist as we know it (could be bought by Dish for example or will change the business model to be provider of software to cable companies only).
> 3.5 -4 years in electronics are a lot and it conceivable that cable companies will adapt central server approach and make TiVo or any other STB the thing of the past.
> Another thing is often overlooked in cost comparisons is a fact that TiVo market share is under 10% and declining. That means that for the majority of DVR users alternative DVRs are either working better or are more cost efficient.
> Regardless how numbers are calculated in favor or against TiVo, the fact is majority of DVR users do not think that TiVo is worth the money.


Other DVR's don't work better than TiVo; they work differently. Despite TiVo advocates' constantly urging viewers to adapt TiVo's paradigm shift, (and ridiculing those who don't) the mass-market is ultimately not going there in the forseeable future. Most TV viewers watch only a portion of TV timeshifted and a DVR which allows doing so without chopping up the experience with trips to menus or Now Playing is better suited for the mass-market than TiVo as long as it works decently. It doesn't have to work perfectly.

Renting a DVR from a cable company by the month with no obligation is much simpler and usually cheaper than any of TiVo's pricing schemes except Lifetime Service. Satellite DVR pricing is as complicated as TiVo's but TiVo isn't compatible with that market.

TiVo is opimized for cable/OTA timeshifting and then adds 'more than DVR' features and probably will always remain a niche product. The question is can TiVo become consistently profitable despite its comparitively small market share?


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> If you are really adventurous you can dive into the realm of hacking a Tivo. That's when the magic really starts to take place. There are currently no hacks available for any cableco DVR that I am aware of, mainly because nobody wants to risk screwing up a box they don't own. Tivo hacks mainly involve modifying the software so if you hose it up you can simply reinstall a backup image and start over. The only hardware mod is the PROM hack and there are people out there that can do this for you with minimal risk.


The mass-market, 'er, can't hack it! 

Echostar's approach to increasing DVR storage capacity has perhaps the greatest mass-market appeal. Enabling the use of unlimited HDD's in conjuction with a single DVR allows DVD storage to become obsolete and storage space is reduced by an order of magnitude.

(Has any poster ever heard of a TiVo 'hack' which, by disabling TiVo's internal HDD, allows using TiVo's outboard HDD as TiVo's only HDD. Such a hack would allow for greatly increased storage without doubling the risk of HDD failure, and most importantly, would allow one TiVo to utilize multiple HDD's by merely re-running Guided Setup whenever the outboard HDD is exchanged.

Is there a specific (perhaps financial?) reason that TiVo doesn't offer a TiVo version that employs only easily plugged in external HDD storage with no internal HDD at all?)


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

RoyK said:


> And for many that's perfectly adequate.


exactly, they are not looking for the coolness of hooking up their smartphone to the PC and syncing or loading on shows or what not. They are not looking for tech hassles either.

So they get a free cell phone with contract and make calls and maybe pay a fee for texting as their big tech plunge.
If they want music or video they get an iSomething and iTunes on the PC or Mac and do not care they could pay less by using a Tivo and a smartphone to get the same shows or Rhapsody on sub basis, etc.. Hacking Hulu to download their shows onto a portable would not even occur to this type of consumer. Ripping a DVD to the hard drive as a playable file makes them look on in wonder but then ask, "Why? I can just pop it in my DVD player."

for them a DVR that records shows so they can watch it within a day is just fine and if the cable company comes along and installs it with no hassle and cable company problem if it does not work then so much the better.

These consumers are probably not reading a board about TiVo though, and if they are it is because they want to find out what else is possible and take new stock of what is REALLY better.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> Is there a specific (perhaps financial?) reason that TiVo doesn't offer a TiVo version that employs only easily plugged in external HDD storage with no internal HDD at all?)


it is called CableLabs. TiVo had to hold off just enabling the external storage as is while waiting for Cablelabs blessing for cable card models.

DISH can do as it pleases as long as content owners are Ok and can hold one entity accountable in case of issues.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

ZeoTiVo said:


> ...These consumers are probably not reading a board about TiVo though, and if they are it is because they want to find out what else is possible and take new stock of what is REALLY better.


I am, for one. And I consider myself one of 'those consumers'

Not that I can't hack such things of course (I'm presently writing c++ code for a legacy product that I'm consulting on using an old Nucleus RTOS running in a virtual PC on my new eeePC 900). I just have no interest in most of those things.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

RoyK said:


> I am, for one. And I consider myself one of 'those consumers'
> 
> Not that I can't hack such things of course (I'm presently writing c++ code for a legacy product that I'm consulting on using an old Nucleus RTOS running in a virtual PC on my new eeePC 900). I just have no interest in most of those things.


Yah, I did leave out "or those that just use some tech simply as they have no interest to do otherwise"

Too bad TiVo does not want to complicate pricing structures
they might have a market in 5$ a month and all you do is record and playback - No MRV or HMO, etc..
Of course UNBOX downloads would still be avaialble, along with ads


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## 1283 (Sep 8, 2000)

fallingwater said:


> (Has any poster ever heard of a TiVo 'hack' which, by disabling TiVo's internal HDD, allows using TiVo's outboard HDD as TiVo's only HDD.


With the TiVo HD, you can easily take the internal drive outside by swapping the SATA cables. However, I would rather upgrade the internal drive and transfer recordings I want to keep via TiVo2Go.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> The mass-market, 'er, can't hack it!


Sounds like a personal problem to me.


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## GreenMonkey (May 28, 2008)

A weird discussion going on here. Especially the guy that just uses a DVR as a live buffer. Weird. I used to watch TV almost never - with a DVR I actually started watching a few TV shows again. I never watch stuff live unless I'm doing something with the kids and not paying attention to the TV. We used the Dish VIP622 for I think 2-3 years before getting the Tivo a few months back.

I got the Tivo precisely for the longterm savings, along with the fact that Dish was being annoying WRT installing another dish for my HD locals ($50 or 2-yr contract renewal...and $59/mo).
I ended up paying full retail for the kit with the wireless adapter (ebayed the adapter for $30) minus some cashback. 

So like $250 + $400 lifetime = $650 with no monthly fees. 

This let me get expanded basic from the cable company (like $35) and a multistream cablecard ($2/mo) for a very cheap cable bill but with HD locals. 

The Charter HD DVR kinda sucks in comparison from all accounts (no 30sec skip? The horror!) and it was $6/mo. At 66 months (5.5yrs) my lifetime Tivo fee = my Charter DVR fees. And it didn't sound like they wanted to sell me the same kind of setup - expanded basic + HD locals - the freebie HD DVR seemed to require I get normal HD service (at least another $10).

I preferred the upfront costs and cutting down on the monthly bill. And the Tivo with lifetime is mine to keep or ebay later. I doubt I will upgrade it. I just want my HD Heroes and Lost and the wife gets her HD Red Wings games  My HT upgrading/spending is normally on HD-DVD/BD, the receiver and the like, plus gaming (360/Wii/PS3). Not TV.

The Tivo is cheaper in the long-long run (4-5 years or so). I'm shooting with more longterm thinking these days.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

GreenMonkey said:


> A weird discussion going on here. Especially the guy that just uses a DVR as a live buffer. Weird.


Ain't it so.



> The Tivo is cheaper in the long-long run (4-5 years or so). I'm shooting with more longterm thinking these days.


And that's the way you should be looking it at it. Kids these days want it now without looking at the big picture.


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## thalador (Oct 26, 2007)

After going through this thread, and many others, I am going to buy a Tivo. Now the question is, get a TivoHD or Series 3.. I will probably start a new thread as not to hijack this one.

To all those that gave input, that you very much. It was very much needed and appreciated.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

c3 said:


> With the TiVo HD, you can easily take the internal drive outside by swapping the SATA cables. However, I would rather upgrade the internal drive and transfer recordings I want to keep via TiVo2Go.


But TiVo can't enable an outboard HDD configuration from the factory because Cablelabs won't permit it? If true that's unfortunate.

If TiVo could be sold without a built in HDD it probably wouldn't require an internal cooling fan either. The entire box might be a sleek inch tall if it maintained standard component rack width and depth demensions.

Most importantly TiVo hardware's cost of production would drop significantly enabling cheaper prices, while out-of-warranty maintenance would become virtually a non-issue!

TiVo could then sell formatted HDD's, HDD enclosures, and fans (if required) as add-on accessories. Perhaps the basic external HDD TiVo configuration would include a relatively small (80 Gb?) formatted external HDD as part of the initial price with the option of an equivalent credit toward a HDD as big as a user wants. (Is 1 Tb currently the largest available?)

Another, perhaps better, business plan might be for TiVo to outsource all accessories (or all hardware?) to one approved manufacturer or a short list of approved vendors and concentrate on developing and selling DVR software and Service for a profit, while enabling such approved and licensed business partners to pitch TiVo as the upscale mass-market alternative.

But whadda' I know?


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> Originally Posted by fallingwater
> The mass-market, 'er, can't hack it!
> 
> Sounds like a personal problem to me.


The mass-market isn't a person, but rather a compilation of business statistics which are surprisingly accurate!


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## sjashe (Mar 3, 2008)

fallingwater said:


> Surely you jest!


Almost every month that I had the Comcast DVR with Tivo sw, the thing locked up, failed completely or got into a continuous reboot loop.

Each time it took about a week to get someone out to look at it (a week without tv .. I got real used to just watching dvds)

Each time, the tech had to replace the box (lose all recordings, search settings), redownload.. get it going again.

Two weeks ago when it happened again, I went to tivo.com and ordered a TivoHD from them with 1 year of service.

After I had the guy come out to fix the comcast one (I just wanted to make Comcast pay for another tech visit).. I called them again to come install a cable card, and take away the set top boxes/dvrs.

Overall, I think the monthly cost (not including the upfront cost of the refurbished unit) will be less than the Comcast dvr & tivo service.

Now, I'll have to watch to see how reliable this TivoHD is..


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

GreenMonkey said:


> A weird discussion going on here. Especially the guy that just uses a DVR as a live buffer. Weird.


I can't really disagree with you except to propose that that's the beauty of current TV and DVR technologies; they can be utilized in many different ways to truly enable watching TV however we choose!

I prefer watching most TV 'live' because I've found through experience that I don't watch delayed programs (in Now Playing) until there's nothing on right 'now' that I want to watch. Overall there's way more programming worth watching than time to watch it!

Last night, during a lull, I went searching through Comcast's VOD (for a specific program, which turned out not to be available) and inadvertantly discovered that _Twelve Monkeys_, one of my favorite movies, was available instantly in HD for free. I've got it on DVD, but when watching it from VOD required no pre-planning or fiddling with whatsoever, and as a side bonus offered at least a subjective impression of HD VOD picture quality, watching it again was an opportunity to enjoy!

FWIW, while VOD picture quality in HD 1080i wasn't as good as it theoretically can be, it was good enough to have taken for granted if picture quality wasn't an issue. The movie started within a minute and played without any hitches or glitches whatsover!



> I got the Tivo precisely for the longterm savings...like $250 + $400 lifetime = $650 with no monthly fees.
> 
> This let me get expanded basic from the cable company (like $35) and a multistream cablecard ($2/mo) for a very cheap cable bill but with HD locals.
> 
> ...


Competitive pricing and you watch TV and/or play Games just as you want. You win; I win, as weird as that may be!

(_Twelve Monkeys_): Jeffrey Goines: *'There's no right, there's no wrong, there's only popular opinion.'*


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## thalador (Oct 26, 2007)

I have seen the refurb tivo's for sale, amazon, besy buy etc.. Are these the best places to check for good pricing, or is there somewhere else I should be checking?


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

thalador said:


> After going through this thread, and many others, I am going to buy a Tivo. Now the question is, get a TivoHD or Series 3.. I will probably start a new thread as not to hijack this one.
> 
> To all those that gave input, that you very much. It was very much needed and appreciated.


Can't resist!

Both S3 and HDTiVo work comparably, and are operationally much more similiar than different.

HDTiVo has had a few infrequent glitches which for me required rebooting. Supposedly these have (largely?) been fixed by TiVo s/w updates but aren't a deal breaker in any case.

HDTiVo can use one 'M' CableCARD which usually lowers the monthly cable fees.

S3 is no longer manufactured but is still available from many sources. It requires two 'S' CableCARDS. It's presents a much classier looking component image in an equipment rack than HDTiVo and includes a snazzy learning remote.

An S3 for $100 more than HDTiVo is offered at a fair premium. It's your choice!


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

thalador said:


> I have seen the refurb tivo's for sale, amazon, best buy etc.. Are these the best places to check for good pricing, or is there somewhere else I should be checking?


Yep! eBay too, but check a seller's Feedback.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

fallingwater said:


> But TiVo can't enable an outboard HDD configuration from the factory because Cablelabs won't permit it? If true that's unfortunate.


 yah, cable labs gets loopy about content that seems to easy to get at.

Maybe if TiVo would have enough of an onboard image that it could connect to mothership and then check the drive for security(eg prevent some hacks like the prom chip already does) and then set a drive image that does not already have a recognized one. That could pass muster. Be nice for TiVo to say bring your own size drive, but they would have to careful of crappy drive models and crappy wires connecting it and so forth. We are seeing some issues already with a small subset using an external as seond drive just for show storage.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

thalador said:


> After going through this thread, and many others, I am going to buy a Tivo. Now the question is, get a TivoHD or Series 3.. I will probably start a new thread as not to hijack this one.
> 
> To all those that gave input, that you very much. It was very much needed and appreciated.


I would get a TiVo HD, but then I would also know I can and would upgrade the size of the internal drive for just the price of a drive. The LED readout on front is nice but I feel better about the cable card hardware on the TiVo HD.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> Last night, during a lull, I went searching through Comcast's VOD (for a specific program, which turned out not to be available) and inadvertantly discovered that _Twelve Monkeys_, one of my favorite movies, was available instantly in HD for free. I've got it on DVD, but when watching it from VOD required no pre-planning or fiddling with whatsoever, and as a side bonus offered at least a subjective impression of HD VOD picture quality, watching it again was an opportunity to enjoy!


Once again you completely miss the point of having a DVR. Had you set up a wishlist for Twelve Monkeys you would have recorded it in true 1080i HD months ago when it was playing endlessly on HDNet Movies instead of stumbling across it by dumb luck, and in a low rez format to boot. You continually try and convince everyone that using a DVR in exactly the opposite way in which it was intended is perfectly natural. I think you're just trying to convince yourself rather than admit you don't know how to use a DVR for the best functionality. You are by far the exception to the rule when it comes to using a Tivo or any other DVR. Do yourself a favor and put your Tivo on ebay as soon as possible. You obviously have no need for a DVR so get rid of it and download all the VOD programming your little heart desires. At least then you'll have no further reason to be a troll in a Tivo forum.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> Once again you completely miss the point of having a DVR... .


And you sir miss the point that it's HIS DVR and he is free to use it any way that pleases him.

Quite frankly it's those who insist that THEIR way is the ONLY way to do something and anyone who does/thinks otherwise is (choose one or more "an idiot", "a troll", "unpatriotic", " a heathen", whatever) who disgust me.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

RoyK said:


> And you sir miss the point that it's HIS DVR and he is free to use it any way that pleases him.
> 
> Quite frankly it's those who insist that THEIR way is the ONLY way to do something and anyone who does/thinks otherwise is (choose one or more "an idiot", "a troll", "unpatriotic", " a heathen", whatever) who disgust me.


He can misuse his DVR any way he sees fit. Pardon me if I think that using a DVR just as a tuner is a bit silly and that VOD is a better way to get your programming. I'm just expressing my opinion, which I believe I'm entitled to, just as you are to yours. He can use his DVR as a doorstop for all I care.

A Tivo can be used in any number of ways. The thing that bugs me is that he's posting his opinion in a Tivo forum when he doesn't use his Tivo in any way it was designed to be used, which sort of defeats the purpose of owning one, don't you think? If he was talking about how he used the Tivo features then it would have some bearing on the actual subject matter discussed here. Instead, he could delete the Tivo from his system altogether and still have the same functionality he currently enjoys.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> ....The thing that bugs me is that he's posting his opinion in a Tivo forum when he doesn't use his Tivo in any way it was designed to be used, which sort of defeats the purpose of owning one, don't you think? ....


Not at all. It certainly works for him.

What I think is that he is a TiVo owner and his point of view is every bit as valid as yours or anyone else's. It's the mix of opinions and experiences that makes these forums interesting and useful.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> Once again you completely miss the point of having a DVR. Had you set up a wishlist for Twelve Monkeys you would have recorded it in true 1080i HD months ago when it was playing endlessly on HDNet Movies instead of stumbling across it by dumb luck, and in a low rez format to boot. You continually try and convince everyone that using a DVR in exactly the opposite way in which it was intended is perfectly natural. I think you're just trying to convince yourself rather than admit you don't know how to use a DVR for the best functionality. You are by far the exception to the rule when it comes to using a Tivo or any other DVR. Do yourself a favor and put your Tivo on ebay as soon as possible. You obviously have no need for a DVR so get rid of it and download all the VOD programming your little heart desires. At least then you'll have no further reason to be a troll in a Tivo forum.


Your disagreements with me are more of a personal thing than they are about using TiVo. You do a disservice to both TiVo and these Forums by carrying on this way.

I currently use just four, but own seven TiVos, including two S3's and one HDTiVo, all with fully paid TiVo Service, plus two TiVo based DVD recorders with free TiVo Basic. You don't reveal what TiVo equipment you use.

You're certainly free to use TiVo any way you wish and to post about your TiVo use.

As am I!

I don't know the actual resolution that _Twelve Monkeys_ was presented in on VOD but it looked fine. I sampled it in both 1080i and 720p and 1080i appeared marginally better. I have no reason to put the movie on a Wishlist or download it to a HDD. VOD is a useful supplement to TiVo.

http://tvplanner.comcast.net/?initV...seAlpha=null,browseListing=null,1219326445012



mr.unnatural said:


> He can misuse his DVR any way he sees fit. Pardon me if I think that using a DVR just as a tuner is a bit silly and that VOD is a better way to get your programming. I'm just expressing my opinion, which I believe I'm entitled to, just as you are to yours. He can use his DVR as a doorstop for all I care.


Actually you do care; a lot, apparently! Your attacks illustrate why some posters do get slandered by terms such as 'TiVo fanboy'.



> A Tivo can be used in any number of ways. The thing that bugs me is that he's posting his opinion in a Tivo forum when he doesn't use his Tivo in any way it was designed to be used, which sort of defeats the purpose of owning one, don't you think? If he was talking about how he used the Tivo features then it would have some bearing on the actual subject matter discussed here. Instead, he could delete the Tivo from his system altogether and still have the same functionality he currently enjoys.


Actually not. TiVo offers the only DVRs currently available which tune both digital and analog OTA and cable, and which, in conjuction with a cable (or even satellite) STB, can be used to record premium channels (and VOD) in standard-def when hi-def TiVos are used without CableCARDS.

The subject of this thread is whether TiVo is worth the price. Regardless of how I choose to use TiVo, for me it obviously is.


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## mr.unnatural (Feb 2, 2006)

fallingwater said:


> I currently use just four, but own seven TiVos, including two S3's and one HDTiVo, all with fully paid TiVo Service, plus two TiVo based DVD recorders with free TiVo Basic. You don't reveal what TiVo equipment you use.


What confuses me is that you have indicated more than once that you don't use your Tivos to record shows but rather like to watch what is on right now. How exactly does that work with seven Tivos? Do you have a bank of TVs being fed by all of the various Tivos so you can watch multiple shows at the same time? Otherwise, that sounds like a tremendous waste of money to pay for Tivos you don't use, not to mention the Tivo service fees. But hey, it's your money so who am I to judge? I'm sure you're a big hit at Tivo, Inc.

I indicated that I currently have two S3 Tivos in at least one post where I broke down the monthly cost of my personal Tivo setup (see posts #6 & #93). Apparently you didn't feel those posts were relevent to the discussion and blew past them. I started off with the original HDR112 and eventually migrated to a ReplayTV and a Panasonic Showstopper. When the DirecTivo models were introduced I picked up a Philips DSR6000 followed by another DSR6000, two Sony SAT-T60's and a Hughes GXCEBOT. I followed up with Philips DSR704's, Hughes HDVR2s, and a Samsung DTivo (I forget the exact model No. off the top of my head). I also had several DSR7000's and probably a few others along the way. I also had several UltimateTV models (i.e., both RCA and Sony versions) but eventually dropped them in favor of the DirecTivos, mainly because they were cheaper. I owned over a dozen HDTivos (the HR10-250 and not the Tivo HD as many people get confused by the terminology). I switched to FIOS about 18 months ago so the HDTivos and about a half dozen S2 DTivos are retired but still sitting on the shelf.

I currently use a homebrew HTPC with six ATSC tuners for recording my HD locals via two ChannelMaster 8228 UHF 8-bay antennas along with the two S2 Tivos that I use for recording encrypted channels on FIOS. I don't recall seeing all ten tuners in use at the same tuime but I know for a fact that the six ATSC tuners in my HTPC have recorded shows simultaneously at one time or another due to the fact that I pad each recording so as not to miss any of the show due to scheduling glitches or odd start and end times. In case you haven't noticed, the major networks tend to schedule their best shows against each other in hopes of getting the largest markey share. If I watched TV your way I'd miss a lot of good shows. DVRs allow me to record everything I want to watch and then view it at my leisure. It may be days, weeks, or even months before I get around to watching it but I eventually get caught up and watch everything that's on the drive. I've always got something to watch "right now" that I want to watch, even when many of my regular shows are into reruns. When I run out of TV shiows to watch (it happens) I get into watching all of the movies I've stockpiled. Blu-Ray is truly a viewing experience on my 60" Sony LcoS RPTV that's been fully calibrated for proper display. The picture looked OK out of the box but after I calibrated it the images jump off the screen with more realism.

Each and every Tivo, ReplayTV, or UltimateTV I ever owned was personally hacked in one way or another to increase the features or recording capacity. I also preferred both the ReplayTV and UltimateTV user interfaces far better than a Tivo's but the pluses offered by a Tivo in other areas outweighed the benefits offered by the other DVRs.

Anything else you'd like to know?

FWIW, anything I've said was never meant to be a personal attack on anyone. Many of my comments stemmed from frustration in seeing a perfectly good DVR going to waste in the hands of someone that doesn't feel that a DVR's features are worthwhile. I reiterate that if you have no interest in recording anything then why do you own a Tivo? Furthermore, why are you discussing your Tivos' lack of use in a Tivo forum where it is totally irrelevent to any of the discussions here? We're all about Tivos here, not just TV viewing, which is apparently all you're into. The S3 Tivo and Tivo HD cannot retrieve VOD programming since that requires 2-way communication, which the current cablecards do not offer, so you're apparently circumventing the Tivo for a lot of your TV viewing. You can use any plain vanilla tuner or STB to watch TV without paying for the Tivo service. You keep saying that the cost of owning a Tivo is worthwhile to you yet you apparently have no use for the features they offer. Am I the only one confused and bewildered by this?


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

mr.unnatural said:


> ... Am I the only one confused and bewildered by this?


It would appear you are.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

RoyK said:


> It would appear you are.


well the only one arguing over it anyway.

Long ago established Fallingwater does not use his DVR as designed and for his use any extra money or features adds no value for him. In fact I noted he could use an unsubbed TiVo and the only problem would be lack of the TiVo guide to look through 

All duly noted and readers of the posts can decide for themselves, so I let this one go personally.


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

mr.unnatural said:


> What confuses me is that you have indicated more than once that you don't use your Tivos to record shows but rather like to watch what is on right now. How exactly does that work with seven Tivos? Do you have a bank of TVs being fed by all of the various Tivos so you can watch multiple shows at the same time? Otherwise, that sounds like a tremendous waste of money to pay for Tivos you don't use, not to mention the Tivo service fees. But hey, it's your money so who am I to judge? I'm sure you're a big hit at Tivo, Inc.
> 
> I indicated that I currently have two S3 Tivos in at least one post where I broke down the monthly cost of my personal Tivo setup (see posts #6 & #93). Apparently you didn't feel those posts were relevent to the discussion and blew past them. I started off with the original HDR112 and eventually migrated to a ReplayTV and a Panasonic Showstopper. When the DirecTivo models were introduced I picked up a Philips DSR6000 followed by another DSR6000, two Sony SAT-T60's and a Hughes GXCEBOT. I followed up with Philips DSR704's, Hughes HDVR2s, and a Samsung DTivo (I forget the exact model No. off the top of my head). I also had several DSR7000's and probably a few others along the way. I also had several UltimateTV models (i.e., both RCA and Sony versions) but eventually dropped them in favor of the DirecTivos, mainly because they were cheaper. I owned over a dozen HDTivos (the HR10-250 and not the Tivo HD as many people get confused by the terminology). I switched to FIOS about 18 months ago so the HDTivos and about a half dozen S2 DTivos are retired but still sitting on the shelf.
> 
> ...


I am currently only using four TiVo's in conjunction with three LCD widescreen TV's. The one S2 still in use is actually non-essential but nice.

I'd really like to put my Grandfathered eligible S1 in its place but although the S1 works well, its dual HDD's are inordinately noisy. (I tried replacing its HDD's, which total 28Gb, with a single quiet 30Gb HDD from another unsubbed S1 I own but for some reason that didn't work. Although the unsubbed S1 worked fine the Grandfathered S1 couldn't initiate Guided Setup! After switching back the HDD's both S1's work fine!)

After reviewing what I did Weaknees was baffled and suggested sending the Grandfather eligible S1 to them which is tempting but expensive!

Thanks for posting details of your TiVo line up and usage. I 'blew past' the two posts of yours because each only stated that you had two S3's (which I did forget) and then went on about costs associated with them. I went to the site below to learn about LcoS about which I was unfamiliar.

http://www.projectorcentral.com/lcos.htm

I had confused LcoS with DLP, which I don't like from a technical POV because it employs an actual (hi-tech!) spinning wheel. (Remember CBS's color wheel technology, which actually replaced RCA's NTSC system for a couple years in the early 50's? Great images from a totally incompatible spinning wheel system!)

Your set-up is high-end unlike mine so you have legitimate considerations regarding picture quality which don't apply to me. I'm not unhappy with LCD's picture quality and appreciate the fact that I can single-handedly pick the damn thing up and move it when necessary. A 27" CRT was at the extreme limit for me to handle alone. (I live with a person who is mobility disabled.)

The most expensive of my three LCD flatscreens, a Sony 46", essentially cost $1500 because it was an in-warranty replacement for a Westinghouse 42" which developed what looked like burn-in problems, although that's not supposed to happen. Perhaps surprisingly, *Best Buy* came through for me!

I was intrigued with the DVR concept from its inception, mostly because it afforded instant playback while simultaneously recording. I actually started with Echostar's notorious Dishplayer before it was even a DVR, just 'pause 'n play'. At that time I swore I'd never pay a rental fee for DVR service, which was Echostar's bright idea at the time. After awhile they offered a flat rate promo for DVR service. Better! (I've still got a Dish 501, like-new in the box, which is Grandfathered for free Lifetime DVR Service.)

When TiVo and ReplayTV got into it, I was attracted more by ReplayTV's presentation than TiVo's, largely because its EPG resembled Dishplayer/UTV's and it offered a disc sized recording buffer instead of 'Suggestions'. I didn't care about TiVo's acknowledgedly superior system for prioritizing recordings but instead wanted a HDD TV recorder with a pleasant looking EPG rather than one optimized for timeshifting. I, like Casey Stengel, manage OK!

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/casey_stengel.html

DVR technology is basically a hobby interest of mine. I own many DVR's recently available including two non cable co. affiliated hi-def DVRs other than TiVo. But now only new hi-def DVR's from cable/satellite co's and TiVo are available.

Other than using it when appropriate I've no special interest in computer technology and am definitely 'mass-market' when it comes to DVR's. I've 'hacked' a few DVRs with pre-formatted HDD's but basically believe that I shouldn't have to fiddle with a brand new recorder to 'optimize' it. If a DVR can be 'better' with more storage, then TiVo (or Weaknees, or anyone) should sell it that way in the first place! Or merely provide a DVR which uses a plug-in outboard hard-drive. Judging from some problems being discussed on the S3 Forum some of this stuff isn't quite ready for mass-market primetime!

Simplified, there are basically three sources of live programming continually available on each of two TV's (in different rooms) I generally watch. Two of the three sources are continuously buffered while the third (usually CNN) has only TiVo's half hour buffer.

I often record hi-def programs in standard-def on a TiVo (or other) DVD recorder for burning to DVD and the post to which yours replies covered how S3/HDTiVo's offer tuning/recording options unavailable from any other currently available DVR.

Why does my use of DVR's disturb you so much? I'm not saying that you or anyone should use a DVR as I do; I'm saying that using TiVo the way I do works for me and allows for a uniquely increased flexibility when I watch TV. There's nothing wrong with VOD as a supplement to TiVo, especially as Comcast includes a standard digital STB with Extended Basic or higher levels of service. (For me it's worth paying $6.50 additional for a hi-def STB, more for additional PBS and other programming it accesses than the hi-def format.)

Using S3/HDTiVo without CableCARDS is a freebie loophole for both hi-def OTA simulcasts and Extended Basic for which Comcast doesn't charge anything. In my area, not using CableCARDS actually accesses an additional PBS channel which is on Comcast's system but is unavailable through their STB's or CC's. Using TiVo w/o CC's requires setting up manual recordings, but there's even a partial workaround (using TiVo's DVD recorder) for that!

A TiVo used 'outside the box' is both cheap and rewarding. Not for most users true, but don't knock it! :up::up::up:


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## fallingwater (Dec 29, 2007)

ZeoTiVo said:


> I noted (fallingwater) could use an unsubbed TiVo and the only problem would be lack of the TiVo guide to look through


You did, and that would actually work although I do record (mostly standard-def and 'on-the-fly' programs which have already begun in the buffer) stuff.

One of my recorders is a HDD DVD recorder with DVR characteristics which employs a continually rolling six hour recording buffer which isn't dumped when changing inputs or channels, from which any part can be turned into a permanent recording and then burned to DVD.

It uses TVGOS which requires turning the recorder off for a few hours daily for guide data updates. I leave the recorder on, and use it w/o an EPG as S3's default buffer.

Works great! Recordings are easy to initiate, edit, and then burn to DVD.


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