# Remind me why



## DamoUK (Feb 17, 2006)

Guy's,

Can someone just reassure me that I'm doing then right thing here? My partner and I both work shifts so after years of missing everything we decided to buy a Tivo but having stopped to count the cost I'm just wondering whether it was a good decision or not.

Tivo cost me £140 on ebay then cache card cost me another £100 and today I paid £50 for a bridge in addition to which I will probably upgrade the drive as the one I've bought is 80g, so potentially another £100.

Altogether that's going on for £400 quid double what Sky plus would have cost and more than Sky HD. So why then am I buying a Tivo?

Can somone just reassure me that the little guy is still worth the outlay.  

Damien


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Sky+ is a pile of poo compared to TiVo and SkyHD is no better apart from the fact that you can get a few programmes in HD.

Many people on this forum paid over £400 for their TiVo 5 or 6 years ago, and have been paying £10 per month for the sub ever since - and although they may now ruefully admit they should have paid the extra £200 for a lifetime sub to start with, I have yet to see anybody post that they're unhappy with their purchase. In fact, there have been plenty of people who were persuaded to 'upgrade' to Sky+ or SkyHD who have since returned to their TiVo :up:

If you have a networked TiVo with a large drive running Mode 0 from a digital source then you _still_ have the best PVR available in the UK today. Period.


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## DamoUK (Feb 17, 2006)

Just what I needed to hear.

Cheers Steve.


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

blindlemon said:


> Sky+ is a pile of poo compared to TiVo and SkyHD is no better apart from the fact that you can get a few programmes in HD.


Was archiving some stuff off SKY+ yesterday and looked at the synopsis of one of the films I have on SKY+. This is what it says....

Independance Day 12 AD,DD,W,S
Kim and Aggie snoop around some of the horrifyingly filthy homes imaginable. Tonight they tackle Glynis Horton and her teenage sone Aaron in Peterborough
Recorded: 8.00pm Sun 17 (149 mins) Used 4%

Now correct me if Im wrong but I dont think that is the plot of the film !!!!

Its not the first time SKY+ has screwed up the information either.

The majority of progams that *I* want to watch are still recorded on TiVo. SKY+ is for everyone else


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## katman (Jun 4, 2002)

katman said:


> Independance Day 12 AD,DD,W,S
> Recorded: 8.00pm Sun 17 (149 mins) Used 4%


Bum 

149 minutes. Thats 2.5 hours.

My old DVD recorder (Phillips DVDR880) had 1, 2, 2.5, 3 and 4 hour recording modes

the new one (Phillips DVDR 3380) has 1, 2, 4 and 6 hour modes 

GRRR!!!

Must get round to upgrading my Tivo


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

I paid £230 for my Tivo back in 2000 + £199 for lifetime subs + £30 for a cable adapter so already spent £460 for a 40GB machine with no network. Bear in mind that Tivo initially cost £399 + subs.
Since then I've upgraded the drive in 2001 to 120GB + 30GB at about £100 
Then I added a cachecard and RAM last year £144.

So my Tivo has cost me £673 and has been worth every single penny. It almost hurts to use normal TV when we're away, I can't understand how people can bear to be at the mercy of the schedules. 

I can't argue that an old Tivo is a cost efficient compared to a Freeview recorder, but my understanding is all of those are less friendly and flexible to use. Compared to Sky the cost equivilent is harder to work because what you 'pay' to use Sky+ varies according to how you subscribe but Tivo will work with all the programme sources and you don't have to pay a rental on a box you've had to buy just to keep it working (unsubscribe from Sky and Sky+ becomes a standard Sky box IIRC). It's probably on a par with a Windows Media PC (I haven't done the sums) but again that would require (at least) that bridge and a lot more fiddlling.


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## Jimus (Dec 28, 2005)

Best thing we ever bought and the the only gizmo in our house that my wife loves more than I do.

If ours broke we would buy another without question.

We had Sky+ when it was launched and boxed up our TiVo for sale on ebay. After 2 days we packed up Sky+, got a refund and reinstated TiVo. No comparison.

Jimus


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## terryeden (Nov 2, 2002)

Jimus said:


> Best thing we ever bought and the the only gizmo in our house that my wife loves more than I do.


Best thing we ever bought and the only gizmo in our hous that my girlfirend loves more than she loves me!


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## harey (Nov 13, 2002)

Yer, my family had to start taking to each other, when the drive failed on mine the other week!


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

Mine cost £399, plus £199 lifetime, plus a Turbonet card, then a cachecard, and a new PSU. My fisrt upgrade disk was a 120Gb which was about £130 at the time. My second cost £99, plus £199, plus cachecard plus 120gb disk (by then £80). 

Worth every penny.


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## Happytiv (Oct 30, 2006)

The only drawback for me is that you can't record two channels at once - as you can on Sky+. (unless of course there is a way and I just haven't figured it out yet)


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## Pete77 (Aug 1, 2006)

Happytiv said:


> The only drawback for me is that you can't record two channels at once - as you can on Sky+. (unless of course there is a way and I just haven't figured it out yet)


Just try having several hundred hours recording capacity on a Tivo like I have and you start to realise that even with only one Tivo a Tivo records far more tv programs that you know you ought to watch but don't always have the time to ever get to........

Sky HD is a lot more expensive than people make out compared to Tivo. You are talking at least £540 a year in subs to keep a Sky HD box running and £299 to install the box too. Then £540 every year after that unless Sky's sub prices come down at all. Of course for those who run a Tivo box with a fully subbed standard Sky box anyhow the economics of going for HD work out differently.

A Freeview PVR would be a lot cheaper but only really like a glorified video recorder compared to a Tivo. Freeview Playback may be more interesting although not as good as Tivo apart from the dual recording bit.


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## andyjenkins (Jul 29, 2001)

Paid £400 (I think) back in early 2001 and been paying £10 a month ever since. That was a wise decision eh? 5 years+ at £10 per month is ... urgh .. I don't even want to think about it. I still stand by the thought that he day I upgrade and buy a lifetime sub, either TiVo will completely pull out of the UK, or launch a new box in which the service won't be transferable.

Only other outlay has been a CacheCard at about £70 direct from 9thTee - already had memory here that was suitable, and a HDD crash about 3 years ago was replaced by Maxtor free of charge under warranty 

So, over £1k - whichever way you look at it.


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## jonphil (Aug 7, 2002)

Tivo is still the best PVR on the market. Sky did little to market Tivo as they just wanted to sell Sky+


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## DamoUK (Feb 17, 2006)

Hi guy's,

Thanks to everyone for taking the tiime to reply. I now remember why I decided to buy a Tivo !  

Damien


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

jonphil said:


> Tivo is still the best PVR on the market. Sky did little to market Tivo as they just wanted to sell Sky+


Indeed, which is why it's particularly galling that Sky's latest advertising slogan is "Entertainment your way" - a clear rip-off of TiVo's "TV your way"! Grrrrr


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## Happytiv (Oct 30, 2006)

Unfortunately Tivo had the most dreadful UK launch imaginable. The PR and publicity were awful and their posters didn't explain what the hell the device was. They only have themselves to blame for the it not taking off here. You can't blame Sky, they took advantage of a competitor's poor merchandising skills and flourished.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Happytiv said:


> You can't blame Sky, they took advantage of a competitor's poor merchandising skills and flourished.


The point is (I think) that is _was_ Sky that did the marketing, wasn't it? Or did Tivo have their own team here in the UK? I can't remember that far back


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## AMc (Mar 22, 2002)

IIRC Tivo was discontinued by Thomson well before Sky+ was launched. To blame Sky for spoiling the marketing seems a little OTT even for a Murdoch basher like me.

FWIW I bought my Tivo so I could record more than 4 hours of TV with a watchable picture quality without having to play hunt the tape - that was all I thought I was buying, a better quality video. I really only heard of it because I enviously read a ReplayTV review on a US gadget site and remembered the Tivo name as a competitor. When the initial price was cut from around £400 to around £200 I took a punt. I liked the idea of having a menu of 40 hours of recordings, I didn't even know it did automatic recording of series!

What I got was so much more, but I had no idea until after I'd plugged it in!

And you can hardly blame Sky for learning the marketing errors made by Tivo when they launched their product. At least people have heard of Sky+. A friend of mine who has had Telewest for longer than me didn't know you could get their TVDrive! Almost no-one has heard of the Freeview PVRs.


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## Happytiv (Oct 30, 2006)

I was the same!! I got a free machine from a friend who was dealing with Tivo's PR. She kept telling me how fabulous it was but was totally inarticulate when it came to explaining WHY it was fabulous. 

I only "got it" once she plugged it in and paused my live pictures. It was like was like seeing fire for the first time! (slight exageration, but you get the drift).


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## timboreeves (Oct 29, 2006)

Happytiv said:


> I only "got it" once she plugged it in and paused my live pictures. It was like was like seeing fire for the first time! (slight exageration, but you get the drift).


I like that  you got it exactly 

It still amazes me how few people have heard of Tivo - I don't know anyone else who has one or has even heard of it other than the guy who told me about it (some time in 2001, I think) and my friends who I have told.

I love being able to skim through adverts, getting through an hour of Stargate Atlantis (for example) in 40 minutes, and yet being able to stop it if you want to make a cuppa.

All without getting tapes out and setting start and finish times.

It has changed my life and saved my sanity when we had kids (4 and 2 years ago) there were so many frequent interruptions I would say they should have marketed Tivo in the maternity wards.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

AMc said:


> IIRC Tivo was discontinued by Thomson well before Sky+ was launched. To blame Sky for spoiling the marketing seems a little OTT even for a Murdoch basher like me.


Not at all.

Sky were responsible for the marketing, it was wholly there fault. IMO the chronology goes like this:

Long time ago {

Tivo: Sky, will you be our trusted partner and do your very best to market our product?

Sky: Yeah, sure.
}

Slightly less long ago {

Sky: <double take> hey that's quite good, isn't there some way we can rip them off and bring out a substandard alternative that'll sell because people will have heard of it?
}

Slightly less long ago than that {
Thomson: Mmmm, nobody seems to want this product, let's not look into the reasons why and try salvage some dignity. Let's just jump on the sky+ boat
}

Slightly less long ago than that and ongoing {
TCFUK: When are TiVo gonna release a series x here?

Sky: Wha-ha-ha-ha!
}


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

timboreeves said:


> I love being able to skim through adverts, getting through an hour of Stargate Atlantis (for example) in 40 minutes, and yet being able to stop it if you want to make a cuppa.
> 
> All without getting tapes out and setting start and finish times.





Happytiv said:


> I only "got it" once she plugged it in and paused my live pictures. It was like was like seeing fire for the first time! (slight exageration, but you get the drift).


Erm, Sky+ does that. This is not what makes tivo.



timboreeves said:


> It has changed my life and saved my sanity





AMc said:


> What I got was so much more


That's tivo.


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## Happytiv (Oct 30, 2006)

"Erm" 

Thanks for your great insight. I'm quite aware of what makes my Tivo fabulous - don't need it to be... erm... pointed out... 

cheers anyway.


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

We're real geeks in here, you know. We'll talk about the wonders of Tivo ad nauseum at any given opportunity


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

Happytiv said:


> "Erm"
> 
> Thanks for your great insight. I'm quite aware of what makes my Tivo fabulous - don't need it to be... erm... pointed out...
> 
> cheers anyway.


  
Sorry my post seems to have upset you.

My understanding of the question in the OP was why spend so much money on a tivo when you can get Sky+ for much less.

I wasn't trying to offer a "great insight" just pointing out that sky+ does what you mentioned so that's not a reason for choosing tivo over sky+.

Really didn't mean to cause offence.


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## timboreeves (Oct 29, 2006)

Raisltin Majere said:


> Sorry my post seems to have upset you.
> 
> My understanding of the question in the OP was why spend so much money on a tivo when you can get Sky+ for much less.
> 
> ...


 :up: I 'got' where you were coming from dude - a good summing up! 

I don't think he was offended, but maybe he was and we have both now upset the poor fella.


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## Raisltin Majere (Mar 13, 2004)

timboreeves said:


> :up: I 'got' where you were coming from dude - a good summing up!


Thanks, felt quite guilty there for a bit.



timboreeves said:


> I don't think he was offended, but maybe he was and we have both now upset the poor fella.


I genuinely hope not


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## tefster (Mar 15, 2004)

>Best thing we ever bought and the the only gizmo in our house that my wife loves more than I do.

Ditto that, the TiVo is the only "gadget" that I've ever been forgiven for bringing into the house, and when I had an HD failure last year it was the first and last time that I've actually been _asked_ to spend time in the evenings working on "computer stuff".

Having said that (and I know its a whole seperate thread) but I'm getting more and more frustrated with the quality of listing data, I seem to have to spend a fair amount of time each week babysitting the to-do list in order to make sure that what I want gets recorded (esp. FRO season passes).


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## sanderton (Jan 4, 2002)

FRO season passes have never worked properly snce they were introduced. Avoid if you can!


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

Actually, from what I can remember, the majority of mine have; mostly


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

That's clearly because you have very predictable, mainstream tastes Carl 

<waits for denial/justification>


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## cwaring (Feb 12, 2002)

No-one like a smart-arse; especially not a snobby one


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## blindlemon (May 12, 2002)

Snobby? Me? I never watch anything other than Eastenders, Hollyoaks, Coronation Street and Casualty, personally....


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## healeydave (Jun 4, 2003)

Happytiv said:


> The only drawback for me is that you can't record two channels at once - as you can on Sky+. (unless of course there is a way and I just haven't figured it out yet)


Sky have simply shoe-horned two recievers into the Sky+ box, I always say how long is a piece of string, those that can record 2 channels simultaneously would probably wonder why they can't do 3!

It might seem overkill but simply copy their concept. Install another Tivo in another room / upstairs whatever. Not only will you be able to record two channels at once but you now have the advantage expanding on this further (say 3 tivo's etc.). Sure its going to cost but you can balance the benefits against the costs and decide if its worth it or not.

Before anyone says, what if I want to watch something recorded on the other device, even this can be overcome if you desire to do some serious hacking by being able to stream from one tivo to the other (nice one Stuart) but that has to be discussed elsewhere


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