Who here has Tivo? I am thinking of getting Tivo. Like some advice.

They have a special. Get the 40 hr. box for $49.99 when you buy a one year subscription. Is the 40 hour box enough time or should I try to get a better box?

How does the Tivo to Go work? I'd like to be able to record shows and put them on DVD. Anything special you need to have to do this?

I'd just like some thoughts and advice if anyone here wouldn't mind telling me the pros and cons they have learned from having Tivo.

Thanks.

If you don't have to share it with anybody or you've got a burner to back things up to, the 40 hour'd be okay, otherwise I'd want a bigger hard drive.

something I was told. Read more into it.

different boxes depending on whether or not you have cable or dish.

I have a DVR through my cable co. I love it!!!!!!!!!! I record everything first so I can skip the commercials. Get the biggest storage you can afford.

80 hr. box. I think that with the burner will be enough time. I wonder if you can skip the commercials with this Tivo box? Well, at least you can fast forward if you can't skip.

Thanks for the advice.

The TiVo boxes come with extra cables to hook up for digital cable or dish...

and I have no idea what we did without it. It rocks for convenience, ease of use and functionality.
We have the 40hr box and it is plenty for our family of 4. By the end of the week were are close to having it full and take the weekend to go through stuff.
We discussed getting a different box with more memory to save more shows, but felt that we were getting enough tv with the 40.

It depends on what kind of free time you have vs time you are away(at work etc).

It all depends. With kids, it filled up fast. Without kids it wouldn't have been so bad. 40 hours isn't a heck of a lot, but if you set the recording options for a lower quality you can get more to fit on. The only stuff we use Best Quality for is movies. If you have kids or a larger household, or want to record a lot of movies, you might want to consider something with more memory. You might be better off buying a box with more storage and paying the monthly fee. We've always done the monthly fee rather than paying bulk. You never know when you might want to upgrade, and that one time fee is for the unit. I don't think you can transfer it.

It was worth it :)

up on the Tivo site. It said I can use Tivo to Go and burn shows to DVD, but I will need the software and a wireless home network system. I have no idea what a wireless home network system is. LOL

How much does something like this cost and is it complicated?

Do any of you use your Tivo and then burn shows to DVD to save them? If I could burn things easily, 40 hrs. might not be too bad.

Just connect the DVD player/recorder to the TiVo unit, which is what we used to do. If you're using your computer to burn the DVDs, the network doesn't have to be wireless, but it would probably be easier. Our TiVo has the DVD burner in it so we burn a lot of DVDs. Edited for clarity.

They have an 80 hr. box with a burner in it, but it is $199.99 with the purchase of a yr. of service so it would cost me $150 more. Do you think it would be worth the extra $150 not to have to try and burn using the computer? You can also get a 300 hr. box for the same price (but no burner).

for the one including the DVD burner, I'd go for it. I love ours. We use it all the time. We could burn DVDs from our TiVo before, but we didn't do it very often. Now we do it all the time. What's really cool is the DVDs you've burned are formated like the shows you've recorded onto your hardrive. You push play, pause, etc and it looks just as if you were watching a live show or a show you recorded on the hard drive. And blank DVDs are so cheap nowadays. I do think it's worth the extra money.

posted wrong place. :grr:

If all this is foriegn to you, then you should find people and books to help. I say it's easy, but then again I've been messing with PC's etc for 23 years.

and never use it all.

However, we watch VERY little TV, anyway, so we're not sure if it's really worth it. We're a family of 4. Two kids, ages 9 & 12, and two adults.

If we were to jump on the TIVO bandwagon doesn't it follow that our TV viewing would become much more prevalent in our lives? Or at least have to, to make the investment worthwhile??

I have mixed feelings about that, hence my hesitation.

The one thing we've noticed about having TIVO is that we actually watch less tv because we are more discernible about what we watch.

but we watch better stuff and do it when it's convenient to us. Oh, and we skip the commercials so a 1 hour show takes a little under 45 minutes.

I think I am going to go with the 80-hr. box with the built in DVD burner. That way I can easily record right from the box.

4 tv "everything package" HBO/SHO/Bravo/etc.. for around 100 a month.

Love the thing, and wonder why I loved my VCR, when this thing was available,,:) I want to upgrade to the new one where you can watch one show and record a different one..

If you can get Dish, they give you a built in DVR for free. Saved me a ton of money because Tivo costs alot per month and you have to buy the equipment! Plus if you have Comcast. Switching the SBC phone/Internet/Dish saves about 80bucks a month.

Plus Comcast is evil GOP. With Dish you get Free Speech TV with Democracy Now.

.... I've looked into this very subject.

The Dish PVR doesn't have the Season Pass feature, the most important feature of the Tivo, or any PVR system.

The Season Pass says "record this show every time (or every time it isn't a repeat". With the Dish PVR, you have to go in and schedule each damn episode. Not that much better than a VCR IMHO.

It had a couple of bugs at first, but it works just fine now. The only thing I don't have is CD recorder built in. And that is ok for me. Not having to pay 12.95 to Tivo, plus Comcast cost more anyway.

I get DSL, nationwide telephone, every channel including HBO and Showtime for 150 a month.

Compared toComcast was like 100
plus tivo 13
plus Internet 50
plus telephone 50


Savings of at least 50 bucks a month. The DSL is slightly slower than Comcast, BUT! PROGRAMS WORK BETTER ON DSL vs Comcast. Basically a whole host of "direct link" type games didn't work on Comcast. Plus they are a HORROR of GOP SUPPORT. SBC is way, way better.

We tried to get a dish. Payed for the service and everything and then when the guy came out to install it he said he couldn't get a signal anywhere in our yard so they had to refund our money.

I have Directv. Do I have to buy a Tivo unit from them? Or can I buy one at an electronics store and just hook it in between my DTV box and my TV?

If I get one, I'd love to get one that plays and burns DVDs. Is that possible?

Can someone suggest a good brand and tell me about how much this is going to cost?

Go to the site: <http://www.tivo.com> and check out the boxes they have available. They also have a list of dealers. I remember they are sold at Circuit City and Best Buy, but there were a few others that I can't remember because they were not in my area.

The box with DVD burner also plays DVD as well.

There's a tivo unit with a burner on the tivo site, but I don't know how well that integrates with the Directv box.

I LOVE that I can pause a show to answer the phone or use the restroom. I can rewind if I miss something. I can fast forward through commercials. Plus, of course, I can record things when I'm out or sleeping.

I love it. I'm mostly recording BBCAmerica dramas and a few PBS shows that are on at inconvenient times. Since you can schedule it to record every episode of a designated show, I'm using it to review one of my favorite mystery series of all times, Jonathan Creek, as well as catching up on MI-5, which is being broadcast on A&E in the wee hours of Monday morning.

Since I can fast forward through all the commercials, I'm learning just how much of each hour those pesky things take up.

The main problem is finding time to watch all the things I've recorded,

... I've had Tivo for several years, and I guarantee you that you will wonder how you ever did without it.

I started with a 30 hour box, but the hard disk died so I stuck an 80 hour drive in its place.

But watch out on these hour specs. Tivo has 3-4 recording qualities. The better the quality, the most disk space used per minute of program. When Tivo says "30 hours", that's at a low quality recording. I have found the top 2 levels to be adequate, the lower quality isn't very good.

Long story short, a Tivo rated at 40 hours will hold about 20-25 hours at a reasonable quality, so keep that in mind when you select a size.

I bought a 40 hour box thinking it actually would record 40 hours but, like you said, it really only holds about 20 hours of programming.

I wish I had one that held more programs. The quality is so good I don't want to put anything on tape anymore. If you have the $$, go for more recording time.