jguru wrote:Let me get this

I pay every month to get f*** tv guide?

seriously?

No. You pay for a TV guide, plus something that tracks what you watch and automatically recommends shows for you. It also allows you to setup season passes to automatically record all future episodes, or only non-reruns. You can have it record based on keywords. You can record four different channels at once. It includes the clients for other video services like Hulu and Netflix and YouTube. It includes any software upgrades for the device. It includes free software that lets you transfer recorded shows to your PC.

With my FIOS setup, if I wanted a DVR that could transfer to other devices in the house I would be paying $13/mo for the box and another $20/mo for the home media "service". With Tivo I pay $4.mo for a cable card, $15/mo for the Tivo service and I get a more capable DVR with 4 tuners.

strohminator wrote:I greatly prefer a Home Theater PC setup to a TiVo. Using the SiliconDust tuner, you can record 3 or 6 channels at a time, and watch on your PC, as well as any other PCs or XBoxes in the house. Plus there's no monthly fees, aside from the CableCard.

I was a loyal Tivo user for years, but they haven't kept up with the changing market.

I was wondering when someone was going to mention media center. I'm using a Ceton card myself. Haven't looked back to Tivo since. Tivo was always too limited and too slow for my tastes. It can't touch having premium cable on a full Windows PC.

I like a number of TV shows okay, but if I ever feel the need to buy a device that is almost $400 so I "Never miss an episode." please remove me from woot.com first, then hunt me down, and punch me in the face.

riocobra wrote:Except that one in new and not refurbished. Not that great of a deal. Especially if you don't use iOS devices. There are still a few of us out there. I know. Crazy, right?

I bought a refurbished Premiere for $50 a year ago and I love it. No problems at all.

toonvox wrote:Only the Premiere 4 is new, and only the Premiere 4XL is refurbished. The order process bears that out.


[MOD: The Sream is NEW. We just can't show two different conditions for one order.]

Stream is a separate box, so yes - new in all cases.

scmtim wrote:No. You pay for a TV guide, plus something that tracks what you watch and automatically recommends shows for you. It also allows you to setup season passes to automatically record all future episodes, or only non-reruns. You can have it record based on keywords. You can record four different channels at once. It includes the clients for other video services like Hulu and Netflix and YouTube. It includes any software upgrades for the device. It includes free software that lets you transfer recorded shows to your PC.

With my FIOS setup, if I wanted a DVR that could transfer to other devices in the house I would be paying $13/mo for the box and another $20/mo for the home media "service". With Tivo I pay $4.mo for a cable card, $15/mo for the Tivo service and I get a more capable DVR with 4 tuners.

I would just like to confirm that these need only 1 cable card for all 4 tuners. FIOS charges me $3.99/month/card, so if I need 2 cards, my breakeven changes.

DigMe wrote:I was having a lot of issues with my Tivo Premier. Lots of lagging and freezing when I would go to the menus or perform other functions SO I went home and looked through the options and changed my menus to SD menus from HD menus. A lot of other people on the internet seem to have freezing issues and whatnot with the HD menus.

brad

I had the same issue on my woot-ed refurb Premier, and used the same fix. Beware, though, my HD died prematurely (at about 16 months). I had a lifetime subscription (which is for the lifetime of the device), so if I had done nothing, I would have paid double for the service.

I upgraded the drive via Weaknees.com and guess what? The HD menus work fine now! I think there may have been a batch of shoddy Premier hard drives.

Cable customers considering switching to a Tivo (or any other CableCard-ready device) should all be aware of their rights guaranteed by the FCC.

In particular, even if you are receiving a package deal from your cable company that includes a STB, then your cable company must always itemize the rental cost of that STB on your bill, and give you a discount if you ever return it and switch to a CableCard to use in your own device.

I learned this the hard way when I bought a Tivo and tried exchanging Time Warner's STB for a CableCard. They told me I would lose my package discount if I returned the box, so I ended up getting rid of the Tivo, only later finding out the TWC rep was wrong.

The FCC rules are spelled out here:
http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CFR-2011-title47-vol4/pdf/CFR-2011-title47-vol4-sec76-1205.pdf

Jimmythemoose wrote:I would just like to confirm that these need only 1 cable card for all 4 tuners. FIOS charges me $3.99/month/card, so if I need 2 cards, my breakeven changes.

Yes, one multi-stream card per Tivo (4 tuner or 2 tuner).

I got the Elite (XL4) from Woot for $299 last June and paid a little over $100 for my stream, so today's deal is just OK.

My 4 tuner Tivo is a lot pickier for signal quality than my older 2 tuner HD Tivo. I had to reduce the signal level going to the Elite to stop it from freezing and locking up. Once I got that sorted it has been great.

The stream works well (I have an ipod and an ipad) and I use it a lot. The only negative is that it has to be network wired to the Tivo. Also HBO (and others) don't allow their shows to be downloaded off the Tivo. I can stream them when at home but can't transfer them to watch them elsewhere.

GossipNinja wrote:still shocked that tivo is $15 a month for what boils down to an EPG.
And lifetime keeps getting more and more expensive. And since this needs digital cable, you can already get a DVR from your provider for like $4 a month?

While I don't like Boxee as a company, they are on to something by offering a cheaper monthly price. You would think this would be a market ripe for disruption.

Verizon charges you extra for HD and a DVR. Cable cards are only $3 a month. If you're paying $11.99 a month for TiVo plus the $3 you pretty much break even.

powermatt wrote:I was wondering when someone was going to mention media center. I'm using a Ceton card myself. Haven't looked back to Tivo since. Tivo was always too limited and too slow for my tastes. It can't touch having premium cable on a full Windows PC.

I've used all three quite a lot over the years (TiVo, cable company DVR, HTPC) and I disagree.
Windows Media Center is dying even faster than people claim TiVo is. It doesn't even come with Windows 8 by default and the free licenses for new Win 8 users will no longer be offered after this month. Microsoft hasn't added any new enhancements/features to Media Center in years and they don't seem at all interested in its future at this point.
Further it's extremely annoying when you haven't used it for a bit and you go to watch something, then Windows update or Java update, or Adobe update (or all three) pop up and interrupt you. Then recordings occasionally fail at random due to Windows' general instability or due to it deciding not to download the latest guide listings for some reason, or the guide listings are just plain wrong sometimes. Also my Ceton card got messed up and wouldn't take a firmware update so I had to send that back for replacement. All that is in addition to other quirks like having to re-do the PlayReady nonsense periodically, the system deciding to change to an incorrect screen resolution any time I don't power on/off the receiver, TV, and HTPC in the just right order with an appropriate delay between the correct two, having to maintain virus protection, patch the OS, etc. It's also much more power-hungry than a TiVo or STB, and often much louder as well, unless you get super-expensive fanless or large-diameter-low-rpm-fan components.
Sure, it runs fine most of the time, and I can use it OK and work around the quirks myself, but a non-techie would want to throw it in the trash within the first month. Overall a Windows-based HTPC is a pain in the neck as a primary TV/DVR for multiple users.
A Linux HTPC can be either somewhat better or worse depending how it's set up, but that also invalidates the "full Windows PC" argument, and still isn't for non-techies in general.

As for the cable company DVR. The software is clunky and doesn't have nearly the feature set of either the TiVo or the HTPC, and the box doesn't have nearly enough space and doesn't support external storage expansion yet (and if it did I would still have to buy only a very specific WD eSATA hard drive for it, at my own expense).

All the while, my TiVo Premiere XL has worked flawlessly aside from a little bit of menu lag when deleting recordings. It has plenty of space and once set up, it "just works" and I never have to worry about it. To many people that's worth the price of admission.

GossipNinja wrote:still shocked that tivo is $15 a month for what boils down to an EPG.
And lifetime keeps getting more and more expensive. And since this needs digital cable, you can already get a DVR from your provider for like $4 a month?

If your cable company offers a DVR option for $4/month then this won't make sense at all. My provider charges $16-$25/month depending on which option you get and the box is worse than a TiVo. Cable card rental fees are usually in the $4/month range however.

I've been using TiVos since they came out. I currently have a premer xl. I won't be upgrading or buying any new ones until they have support for remote viewing on TVs (think streamer to tv or an apple tv app). I have 4 tv's in my house and I'm not going to buy a separate TiVo box (and service) for each one.

Does TiVO work with the signal from DirecTV?

harddavid wrote:I bought a refurbished Premiere for $50 a year ago and I love it. No problems at all.

I wasn't trying to question the reliability of the refurbished units. Just pointing out that you usually get a bit of a price break on refurbished versus new. You can even pick up a new XL4 right now for $350 directly from TiVo (with a couple reasonable restrictions). Anyone without an iOS device for streaming would probably be better off going that route. I have a refurbished Series 3 and like it way more than the Motorola box with the ugly and slow interface from the 90's that my cable company uses. But the same company also rents cable cards for $2 per month. So I feel lucky there.

kmartind wrote:I've used all three quite a lot over the years (TiVo, cable company DVR, HTPC) and I disagree.
Windows Media Center is dying even faster than people claim TiVo is. It doesn't even come with Windows 8 by default and the free licenses for new Win 8 users will no longer be offered after this month. Microsoft hasn't added any new enhancements/features to Media Center in years and they don't seem at all interested in its future at this point.
Further it's extremely annoying when you haven't used it for a bit and you go to watch something, then Windows update or Java update, or Adobe update (or all three) pop up and interrupt you. Then recordings occasionally fail at random due to Windows' general instability or due to it deciding not to download the latest guide listings for some reason, or the guide listings are just plain wrong sometimes. Also my Ceton card got messed up and wouldn't take a firmware update so I had to send that back for replacement. All that is in addition to other quirks like having to re-do the PlayReady nonsense periodically, the system deciding to change to an incorrect screen resolution any time I don't power on/off the receiver, TV, and HTPC in the just right order with an appropriate delay between the correct two, having to maintain virus protection, patch the OS, etc. It's also much more power-hungry than a TiVo or STB, and often much louder as well, unless you get super-expensive fanless or large-diameter-low-rpm-fan components.
Sure, it runs fine most of the time, and I can use it OK and work around the quirks myself, but a non-techie would want to throw it in the trash within the first month. Overall a Windows-based HTPC is a pain in the neck as a primary TV/DVR for multiple users.
A Linux HTPC can be either somewhat better or worse depending how it's set up, but that also invalidates the "full Windows PC" argument, and still isn't for non-techies in general.

As for the cable company DVR. The software is clunky and doesn't have nearly the feature set of either the TiVo or the HTPC, and the box doesn't have nearly enough space and doesn't support external storage expansion yet (and if it did I would still have to buy only a very specific WD eSATA hard drive for it, at my own expense).

All the while, my TiVo Premiere XL has worked flawlessly aside from a little bit of menu lag when deleting recordings. It has plenty of space and once set up, it "just works" and I never have to worry about it. To many people that's worth the price of admission.

What you said. I bought a TIVO HD (refurbished) here @Woot years ago, used it for a year, then my genius husband thought we should save some $$ by using a Acer REVO w/Media Center instead. Trouble is, my husband is so techno challenged he could never use the thing without help (I'm the techie in the family). Plus, as you mentioned, the Loco in the Coco updates were a pain in the butt. So then we tried the cable company's offer of a free DVR - yucko! We we were struggling with that TIVO gave me an offer of lifetime service for the HD model I still had sitting in the basement, and I took it. $99 for lifetime service! Other than a couple times when I pulled the cover off and lubed the fan It's working great (knock on wood). Will probably replace the fan next time I start to hear it.

Oh, I have a a side project where I work with a group from Microsoft. I'm afraid I agree with the comment about Media Center withering away.

bjrapp wrote:If lifetime is tied to the box, and your box breaks after 3 years, are you just DONE?

I have no idea how this works, but I can only assume there is some sort or warranty replacement process, so I'll go ahead and also ask:

Is it at all possible that your box could be out of warranty and you'd get screwed over by buying a lifetime sub and not having the box last very long?

In theory, yes. In practice: usually not. The box has a 90 day warranty, plus a year on parts. Unless your TiVo gets zapped by a power surge, dropped, burned, or otherwise physically damaged the only thing likely to die after the 90 day burn in period is the hard drive.

As has been mentioned a couple of times already, these actually take regular SATA drives. With a bit of hackery you can buy a 2GB SATA drive and get it to work.

When my TiVo HD (the one between the Series 3 and Premier) died, I took the easy route. I bought a TiVo formatted drive from Weakknees.com. They included directions and even tools to open the case and get at the drive. Popped in the new drive, and it worked like a charm. I also see they will repair your TiVo for a flat $200.

So you aren't completely out in the cold if/when it dies.

WilfBrim wrote:In theory, yes. In practice: usually not. The box has a 90 day warranty, plus a year on parts. Unless your TiVo gets zapped by a power surge, dropped, burned, or otherwise physically damaged the only thing likely to die after the 90 day burn in period is the hard drive.

As has been mentioned a couple of times already, these actually take regular SATA drives. With a bit of hackery you can buy a 2GB SATA drive and get it to work.

When my TiVo HD (the one between the Series 3 and Premier) died, I took the easy route. I bought a TiVo formatted drive from Weakknees.com. They included directions and even tools to open the case and get at the drive. Popped in the new drive, and it worked like a charm. I also see they will repair your TiVo for a flat $200.

So you aren't completely out in the cold if/when it dies.

I don't normally say this on the first date, but I think I love you.

bjrapp wrote:Also, I'm having a little trouble understanding what exactly you get from WOOT, (and I'm attributing this to the fact that it's 8AM on Monday morning).

Is the $300/$400 price for the box itself and no service? If I were to buy the $300 box, and I am not a current TiVo customer, I would then need to pay $500 for lifetime service (or choose monthly @ $15 a month), correct?

Since nobody's answered yet:
Yes. The Woot price is for the unit *only*. No subscription (monthly or lifetime) is included.

jguru wrote:Let me get this

I pay every month to get f*** tv guide?

seriously?

A lot of you kids probably have no idea, but back when I was your age, the nice lady at the store never let me take TV Guide out of the store without paying for it, either.

So wait... you have to pay like $300 for the box and then ALSO pay them monthly? Just to record some TV shows?? This sounds like a ripoff to me. I know I'm behind the times on this, but I've never looked into TiVo before. I've thought about other options, like building my own DVR, or just signing up for the "cloud DVR" service from my cable company (it's like $15 a month, no box to buy!) Is this really worth it just to record some shows that I could probably watch online?

ThunderThighs wrote:Good catch. I'll pass it on to the writers for fixin' later this morning.

You get the proof-reader badge of the day! It doesn't exist and has no monetary value but I'm sure you'll still treasure it.

Well, now that I'm pinned with this redolent badge, I'd be remiss not to mention that the edited write-up STILL boasts a pesky "and once."

See the third paragraph: "And we always say "No! A TiVo is made to time-shift recordings, up to four shows and once, with anywhere from 500GB to 2TB of recording space with full 1080p/1080i video!"

I'm thinking my badge sash is a little empty...

mtoy wrote:What you said. --praise for Tivo --

Given that your husband clearly needs the Tivo more that he realized, not to mention what a smokin' deal you got on Lifetime, if I were you I'd immediately check out the directions on the Tivo Community site on how to upgrade the HD (as has been suggested by others in this thread), follow the link to download that little program from that other site whatever it's called, winmfs I think, and make a truncated backup of your drive, just in case the unthinkable happens. You won't have your recorded shows, but at least you'll have an image of the original drive that you can use to get your replacement drive going. And for a techie like yourself, doing a full copy, programs and all, while upgrading to a larger hard drive would be a simple matter (though the copying takes longer, of course). I've done an upgrade myself, and I am by no means a tech person by nature.

I have a Tivo Premiere (refurb, works great) I bought on Woot a couple of years ago. I am thinking of buying the XL primarily for the larger drive. Is that the way to go or should I just look to upgrade the drive on my current Tivo? Also, how hard is it to add an external drive? Any other advantages with the XL?

Thanks.

No disrespect here but I would have to be either rich and lazy or just stupid enough not being able to record tv shows using manual timer and pay $14 monthly instead.

Besides, who records 4 tv shows simultaneously? I would have to be unemployed with no family to take care of or friends to see or retired tv junkie to spend so much time watching not one tv show at the time but four. With all massive amount of junk in today's shows plus repeating adds this would make me really stupid in fairly short period if time wouldn't it?

tom2688 wrote:

ALANHWOOT, did you replace the hard drives yourself or did tivo do it for you? i'm just wondering about replacement costs and warranty. tom.

Long time TiVo user here and seriously considering this. A few things to note:

1) Yes, you have to pay a monthly fee in addition to the cost of the box. TiVo has a significant user base who either fork it out gladly or buy lifetime service. There's a reason for that, and it's not that we're all rich. It's a superior product - period. Once you have it for a while, it's impossible to go back. Many posts here have outlined the substantial benefits.

2) TiVo doesn't have a monopoly by any means, and they've been on the brink of bankruptcy on and off for ages. Every DVR out there rips TiVo's patent off and they don't really have the resources to defend it well. If they really could defend their patent, they'd be huge. Anyone who thinks they're making bank off this business model isn't in touch with reality.

3) TiVos are easy to fix. There is a huge user base that helps people out and plenty of on-line instructions on how to make different repairs. Most of them require no more than hard-drive replacement - it's not free, but it's not disastrously expensive, especially if you've forked out for lifetime service.

4) A bad hard-drive is not the ONLY way that TiVo's die. My S3 went dead with bad capacitors. Do a google search - there are a huge number of bad caps out there in a host of consumer electronics devices due to corporate sabotage. If your hard drive isn't the culprit, the caps might be. Mine was easy to open and to ID the bad caps. Total cost to buy and repair it was $10 or $15. Total knowledge required was use of a screwdriver and how to solder.

5) Yes, cable companies give you a cable box, maybe with a (usually terrible) DVR for "free" with your service. Guess what - if you give it back to them to use your own box, they'll often refund a part of your service fee. Call and ask. This helps defer most if not all of the TiVo service fee.

eskwadrat wrote:No disrespect here but I would have to be either rich and lazy or just stupid enough not being able to record tv shows using manual timer and pay $14 monthly instead.

Besides, who records 4 tv shows simultaneously? I would have to be unemployed with no family to take care of or friends to see or retired tv junkie to spend so much time watching not one tv show at the time but four. With all massive amount of junk in today's shows plus repeating adds this would make me really stupid in fairly short period if time wouldn't it?

Right now there's probably not much point in 4 tuners. The benefit will come when TiVo releases the Mini Extender, which will allow you to stream from your single Premier to a variety of other rooms. Each tuner can feed a different channel to a different room, meaning you can still record two shows, and watch different shows live in each of two separate rooms. Currently you'd need a different TiVo box (with $15/month fee for EACH) for each room. If you're looking to reduce your monthly fees, this is going to be awesome since you'll be able to pay just the one fee on the one box and watch whatever you want in each of a variety of rooms.

In other words, if there's more than one TV watching person in your home, and you live in something with more rooms than a loft or efficiency, this will be of benefit.

I have had my TiVo for almost 2 years now and I absolutely love it. It's easy to use and response much faster than cable boxes. When you are channel surfing, you don't want to be hung up waiting for the box to respond but with TiVo, everything is quick. I bought the TiVo Stream when it was first released. It's a nice add-on for your DVR. I use mine all the time to download movies and shows onto my iPad for work. The only downside is that, the TiVo box and Stream box both have to be connected to the router via a wired connection. I used MoCA adapters for a while and it worked flawlessly. I recently changed cable providers and had to change my setup since MoCA was no longer supported. I connected the Stream to the router and used a wireless N bridge for the TiVo. This setup works just fine. There's no additional charge for the Stream. The cost per month is roughly 14.99 plus 2 dollars for the m-card rental fee from the cable service.

eskwadrat wrote:No disrespect here but I would have to be either rich and lazy or just stupid enough not being able to record tv shows using manual timer and pay $14 monthly instead.

Besides, who records 4 tv shows simultaneously? I would have to be unemployed with no family to take care of or friends to see or retired tv junkie to spend so much time watching not one tv show at the time but four. With all massive amount of junk in today's shows plus repeating adds this would make me really stupid in fairly short period if time wouldn't it?

Sports fans can easily find themselves in a dilemma on Sundays when games run long. If you're a fan of multiple sports and/or teams, two tuners isn't always enough. (And in some cases, neither is four, which is why I'm waiting for an XL6 to upgrade).

WilfBrim wrote:In theory, yes. In practice: usually not. The box has a 90 day warranty, plus a year on parts. Unless your TiVo gets zapped by a power surge, dropped, burned, or otherwise physically damaged the only thing likely to die after the 90 day burn in period is the hard drive.

As has been mentioned a couple of times already, these actually take regular SATA drives. With a bit of hackery you can buy a 2GB SATA drive and get it to work.

When my TiVo HD (the one between the Series 3 and Premier) died, I took the easy route. I bought a TiVo formatted drive from Weakknees.com. They included directions and even tools to open the case and get at the drive. Popped in the new drive, and it worked like a charm. I also see they will repair your TiVo for a flat $200.

So you aren't completely out in the cold if/when it dies.

I bought a refurbed base Premiere and upgraded the hard drive to 2GB (from 500MB). Now I've got the original drive as a backup, so I don't need to worry about getting the image on a replacement drive; I've got the image saved.

So far the most I've had used is 13%, and I've got a bunch of movies on it that I intend to watch some day.

eskwadrat wrote:No disrespect here but I would have to be either rich and lazy or just stupid enough not being able to record tv shows using manual timer and pay $14 monthly instead.

Some of us think we've got better things to do with our time than set up manual timed recordings, but if you don't, that's great for you.

Besides, manual timed recordings don't work to well when the show goes into reruns for the holidays or the summer, when the show is skipped because of awards shows or other special program, or when the show changes times and/or nights.

I could also spend time every week or two checking the listings to seen when a Jean Renoir movie will be playing on TCM, or I could just let the Tivo do the watching for me.

I'd rather spend what time I have for television actually watching something, rather than looking up things in a guide and programming a recorder, and I'm willing to pay a little for that.

Paying a monthly fee only matters if you think your leisure time has value.

when tivo is connected to cable via digital card you loose the capability to see the on demand features from the cable company

tborr123 wrote:I have a Tivo Premiere (refurb, works great) I bought on Woot a couple of years ago. I am thinking of buying the XL primarily for the larger drive. Is that the way to go or should I just look to upgrade the drive on my current Tivo? Also, how hard is it to add an external drive? Any other advantages with the XL?

Thanks.

You can do it yourself pretty easily, but it depends on your comfort level. Basically you have these steps:

1. Buy a 2TB hard drive.
2. Download and burn a free utility CD.
3. Remove the hard drive from your Tivo.
4. Connect both the Tivo drive and your new hard drive to your computer, either to internal or external connections.
5. Run the utility.
6. Go do something else for three or four hours.
7. Put the new drive in your Tivo.

This is the least expensive method and preserves your recorded shows, wishlists, season passes, etc.

Details are here.

vatchman wrote:Does TiVO work with the signal from DirecTV?

Not these Tivos. There is one available from DirecTV, but it looks as if they don't really want you to buy it, because they list the features it doesn't have that the other receivers do, but they don't list the Tivo features the others lack.

tborr123 wrote:I have a Tivo Premiere (refurb, works great) I bought on Woot a couple of years ago. I am thinking of buying the XL primarily for the larger drive. Is that the way to go or should I just look to upgrade the drive on my current Tivo? Also, how hard is it to add an external drive? Any other advantages with the XL?

Thanks.

See above and below. If you don't need the 4 tuners and/or really want the ATSC over the air tuner in your TiVo, then upgrading the HDD in your current unit is the way to go. You can either:

1) Following the directions on any number of web sites you can buy any number of SATA HDDs, get them formatted for TiVo, transfer necessary files, then get them to work in your unit. Advantages: cheapest route, end up with the most space for the least money. Disadvantages: Lots of work. Possibility of not working (fair). Possibility of bricking current HDD (low). May not save your current recordings.

2) Buy a already formatted HDD from Weakknees and put it in your box. Advantage: Pretty easy. Disadvantage: Kind of expensive (249 for 2TB). Lose your current settings and recordings.

3) Buy a 1 TB DVR Expander from Amazon for $99 bucks. You unplug your TiVo, then plug this into the eSATA port on the back of the Premier. Plug in the DVR expander with it's wall wart, and plug in the TiVo. When the TiVo starts up it will ask if you want to format the drive for use with the TiVo. After a bit it will be ready for use. Advantages: Least expensive. Easiest. Disadvantages: It is a bit of a kludge. If EITHER of the drives goes out, you lose all your recordings. EDIT: Link to DVR expander. Note this also works for most other DVRs as well.
http://www.amazon.com/Book-Expander-eSATA-External-Drive/dp/B003MVZ60S

yemilecohen wrote:when tivo is connected to cable via digital card you loose the capability to see the on demand features from the cable company

Actually this changed last year. In many markets you can now get ondemand on tivo. More markets may be coming.

Another point...

Lots of people get hung up on the "wait, I'm paying monthly for... a guide?" but that's just an option. For comparison's sake, just consider the "real" price to be the price of the device + lifetime, then there is no confusion about monthly fee.

When you look at it that way, yes it is an expensive device. But, keep in mind that they do hold value pretty well. A lifetimed tivo on ebay will get you a pretty good percentage of your money back.

I got the refurbed 2 tuner premiere from woot last May for $50, immediately upgraded it to 2 GB and have been loving it ever since. If you want to try tivo with a minimum up front cost, I think you can get them directly from tivo for about the same. That way, you can try it for a month for about $65 (refurbed 2 tuner tivo + 1 month service) + cable card rental fee. If I was unsure about tivo, this would be a tough woot to jump on, unlike the $50 premiere. From there, once you realize how great it is and how silly you sounded complaining about how you had to "pay for the guide", you can go ahead and get your lifetime and bigger hdd.

vatchman wrote:Does TiVO work with the signal from DirecTV?

Short answer No.

Longer answer, Tivo used to, I had a Series 1 DirecTivo that was awesome. After waiting for almost 8 *years* (it was still working after 8 years, so Lifetime was a winner for me!) for their promised new supported Tivo, I gave up and went to FiOS when the NFL was threatening a strike. (No point to DirecTv without NFL Ticket!)

After 3 months of the Verizon DVR, I ran back to Tivo because it's still the best thing out there. Verizon sucks but Tivo makes it a lot less painful

But DirecTV with their new 'TV Genie' commercials for their 5 tuner DVR is now even less likely to push Tivo again.

pixelpusher220 wrote:

But DirecTV with their new 'TV Genie' commercials for their 5 tuner DVR is now even less likely to push Tivo again.

The DirecTV HD Tivo is available. They aren't pushing it at all, and they try to make it look bad compared to their other DVRs. I think they only have it for Tivo diehards who won't accept anything else.

I priced it when I finally got an HDTV, but it cost too much extra, so I went with a Premiere and cable.