Hey, I wanted to ask you about TiVO. I know you are a fan of it... I'm kind of dissatisfied with this digital cable & it's free on-demand shows. They aren't captioned and they aren't the greatest selection. People keep telling me to get DVR's and create my own on-demand library. I was in class thurs. night and missed grey's anatomy and pissed about it! Then they didn't rerun it on friday night like they usually do. So if i had had DVR, this wouldn't have been a problem. Soooo... What makes this subscription better than regular DVR players? I'm liking the remote scheduling thing as I'm not home alot and would appreciate being able to go right online and set a show to record when i think of it at work!
Okay, here's the scoop: -Tivo is not the lowest cost solution, but I love their interface and reliability.
In addition to being able to reliably (unless your power goes out) record shows, you also get: -Wish lists (let's say you want to stalk an actor, or a certain type of movie, you can do it with tivo) -Amazon unbox - You can rent movies from Amazon.com (or buy, but buying isn't that much cheaper than buying the dvd, but the instant gratification is nice. I do like their 99 cent rentals, though!) -Podcasting, and other web gadgetry. You can subscribe to podcasts and listen to them via your tivo. There are also traffic/local weather reports, some games, tivocasts on various issues. -Streaming music and photos from your pc. Assuming you have a lot of music burned to your computer, you can share it with your tivo. -Remote scheduling is great. You can also do overlap protection for special events, which you'll need to do for the oscars, superbowl, etc. -The Season Pass manager is great. You can go in there and make any adjustments you need to. -Tivo To Go, you can then transfer much of your recordings to your pc if you want to preserve them. If you go hd, I do notice that some of the premium channel hd stuff (like Showtime's Dexter, or Weeds is now copy protected, so it's not letting me download that stuff. But just about everything else is transferrable. You can also buy extra software to burn those programs to dvd, if you so desire. -the newer hd tivos can have their hard drives expanded with external hard drives if you ever are interested in that. -I like, if you're looking into an had tivo, the cablecard feature where you won't need a separate receiver for your tivo. -If you're into hacking or non-standard customizations, there's an active tivo community board full of people who tinker and provide very detailed feedback and assistance. I'm not sure if other folks have the same for all those other dvrs. -Tivo recommendations are fun if you like to rate various programs, tivo will record shows it thinks you might like based on what you've said you enjoyed. This never has interfered with your preferred recordings, and it's kinda fun. I just don't have time to play with it that much.
Now, if you already have an xbox 360, you can do the photos and music streaming (or some other setup). So that feature may not be so handy
Now, since I've had tivos since 2001, I got in on the lifetime membership. I've granfathered that to my tivo series 3. So you'd be looking at the monthy feeds of anywhere from 10-13 bucks a month. However, there may be promotions here and there where you might be able to get in on a lifetime membership (current tivo customers can if they buy a new tivo.
I'm not so sure if I didn't grandfather that lifetime membership, and had never used a tivo before , that i'd like that fee.However, I'm very pleased with my tivo, and have heard other people kvetch about their dvrs that the satellite or cable providers purvey. However, I can never bring myself to do without a tivo. And I did drop a lot on the series 3. :D
Anyway, if you have any other questions, ask! Also, the tivolovers community on livejournal is very helpful. You may want to join the community and ask for feedback. I am sure there might be others who have been non-tivo dvr customers and they can be more specific about the differences.
One big problem though... i'm noticing the closed captioning is not working for hearing impaired users on some models of TiVo and that is an absolute must for me.
I can't get into the Tivo community forums where some talk about it because they are moving to a new platform or something tonight. I've got to find out what the best models are before buying. The lifetime membership, i'm soooo jealous. I plan to get in on the lifetime membership of LJ next time it's offered. didn't have the bucks last time..
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sforzinda
no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 08:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 08:59 am (UTC)-Tivo is not the lowest cost solution, but I love their interface and reliability.
In addition to being able to reliably (unless your power goes out) record shows, you also get:
-Wish lists (let's say you want to stalk an actor, or a certain type of movie, you can do it with tivo)
-Amazon unbox - You can rent movies from Amazon.com (or buy, but buying isn't that much cheaper than buying the dvd, but the instant gratification is nice. I do like their 99 cent rentals, though!)
-Podcasting, and other web gadgetry. You can subscribe to podcasts and listen to them via your tivo. There are also traffic/local weather reports, some games, tivocasts on various issues.
-Streaming music and photos from your pc. Assuming you have a lot of music burned to your computer, you can share it with your tivo.
-Remote scheduling is great. You can also do overlap protection for special events, which you'll need to do for the oscars, superbowl, etc.
-The Season Pass manager is great. You can go in there and make any adjustments you need to.
-Tivo To Go, you can then transfer much of your recordings to your pc if you want to preserve them. If you go hd, I do notice that some of the premium channel hd stuff (like Showtime's Dexter, or Weeds is now copy protected, so it's not letting me download that stuff. But just about everything else is transferrable. You can also buy extra software to burn those programs to dvd, if you so desire.
-the newer hd tivos can have their hard drives expanded with external hard drives if you ever are interested in that.
-I like, if you're looking into an had tivo, the cablecard feature where you won't need a separate receiver for your tivo.
-If you're into hacking or non-standard customizations, there's an active tivo community board full of people who tinker and provide very detailed feedback and assistance. I'm not sure if other folks have the same for all those other dvrs.
-Tivo recommendations are fun if you like to rate various programs, tivo will record shows it thinks you might like based on what you've said you enjoyed. This never has interfered with your preferred recordings, and it's kinda fun. I just don't have time to play with it that much.
Now, if you already have an xbox 360, you can do the photos and music streaming (or some other setup). So that feature may not be so handy
Now, since I've had tivos since 2001, I got in on the lifetime membership. I've granfathered that to my tivo series 3. So you'd be looking at the monthy feeds of anywhere from 10-13 bucks a month. However, there may be promotions here and there where you might be able to get in on a lifetime membership (current tivo customers can if they buy a new tivo.
I'm not so sure if I didn't grandfather that lifetime membership, and had never used a tivo before , that i'd like that fee.However, I'm very pleased with my tivo, and have heard other people kvetch about their dvrs that the satellite or cable providers purvey. However, I can never bring myself to do without a tivo. And I did drop a lot on the series 3. :D
Anyway, if you have any other questions, ask! Also, the tivolovers community on livejournal is very helpful. You may want to join the community and ask for feedback. I am sure there might be others who have been non-tivo dvr customers and they can be more specific about the differences.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-11 09:05 am (UTC)One big problem though... i'm noticing the closed captioning is not working for hearing impaired users on some models of TiVo and that is an absolute must for me.
I can't get into the Tivo community forums where some talk about it because they are moving to a new platform or something tonight. I've got to find out what the best models are before buying. The lifetime membership, i'm soooo jealous. I plan to get in on the lifetime membership of LJ next time it's offered. didn't have the bucks last time..