Educate me on Tivo/DVRs?

[Bodie The Cursed]

I know nothing except I want it..

Any recomendations?.. Is there a monthly service?..

Please help a nOob.

 

[King Darkness]

I have TiVo w/ Direct TV. I only pay $5 a month for the service, but I had to pay $125 for the DVR box itself.

I holds roughly 60 hours of stuff and is the single greatest thing I have purchased in the last few years. I NEVER have to miss anything again. And I refuse to watch live TV. It really is one of the greatest things ever ever ever produced!!!

Say you get a little too baked and forget that your favorite Conan movie is one, no prob, if you set it to record you're covered. You just to remember to set it to record

 

[Darth Caedus]

I know nothing except I want it..

Any recomendations?.. Is there a monthly service?..

Please help a nOob.

I have a DVR, through the cable company it's $4.95 a month. Don't know about any other cable company.

Tivo I believe can either be bought outright for like $200 or like a montly cost of around $10.

Tivo can do more features like send shows to your computer and other features. I would personally go for the DVR if you can, it's a little cheaper and they both pretty much do the same thing.

 

[Darth Caedus]

I have TiVo w/ Direct TV. I only pay $5 a month for the service, but I had to pay $125 for the DVR box itself.

I holds roughly 60 hours of stuff and is the single greatest thing I have purchased in the last few years. I NEVER have to miss anything again. And I refuse to watch live TV. It really is one of the greatest things ever ever ever produced!!!

Say you get a little too baked and forget that your favorite Conan movie is one, no prob, if you set it to record you're covered. You just to remember to set it to record

SO funny, I'm watching Conan the Barbarian on AMC right now......tu es mi papa?

 

[Buttmunch]

I have a DVR through Comcast and it is great. I like to wait 15 mintues for a hour show like LOST to start and then I'm able to fast forward through the commercials and end pretty much live.

 

[Fubeca]

I have TiVo and the only education I can give you is DO IT!!! DO IT NOW!!!

 

[wookilar8]

I have a DVR Plus from DirecTV and I can't watch TV without it now. The best feature by far is it records live TV automaticlly for 90 mins. I recorded all six Star Wars movies when Cinemax ran them in order just to have them at the press of a button. Select a season pass for a series and never worry about missing it again. The only thing that can be improved if possible is that it records the timeslot not the show itself. So if you want to record the Amazing Race that airs after football and 60 Mins. you might want set it to record a larger block of time than the programed start and end time.

 

[darthviper107]

DVRs are really awesome. I've got one with DISH Network and it's really great. You can easily set it to record stuff when you want to, and it's brings great quality to the video. And it's really great that you can just pause TV when you want to and it allows you to skip commercials if you pause it when it starts and then wait for like 20 minutes (like someone said) then you can usually just watch the show and skip through all the commercials. Or if you don't want to do that you can just pause it when commercials come up and then skip ahead past them when it's over.

 

[Batty]

I've had a DVR for 4 years now. I can't imaging not having it. I almost never watch shows when they're actually on. It's so convenient to watch when I want and speed through commercials. It's also cool to be able to rewind live TV if you happen to miss what someone says or you just want to re-watch something that just happened. And recording two shows at once is great too.

 

[Darklord Dave]

I had TIVO and loved, loved, loved it!!!! Never watch a commercial, find stuff you didn't know you wanted to watch, never miss a new episode of your favorite show even when the network plays ping pong with the scheduling. However my TIVO crapped out, so I got a new cable box from Time Warner with DVR built in. And I hate it!!!!!! It's virtually unuseable, never records when I want it to, the interface is perhistoric and it's completely unresponsive to remote controls so when you're fast forwarding it won't stop when you want it to.

So I just dropped $700 on a new dual tuner HD Tivo. Haven't recieved it yet, but I've only heard good things about it.

 

[Wor-Gar]

Buy TIVO! It WILL change your life.

Seriously. Best invention since the computer.

 

[Bodie The Cursed]

I had TIVO and loved, loved, loved it!!!! Never watch a commercial, find stuff you didn't know you wanted to watch, never miss a new episode of your favorite show even when the network plays ping pong with the scheduling. However my TIVO crapped out, so I got a new cable box from Time Warner with DVR built in. And I hate it!!!!!! It's virtually unuseable, never records when I want it to, the interface is perhistoric and it's completely unresponsive to remote controls so when you're fast forwarding it won't stop when you want it to.

So I just dropped $700 on a new dual tuner HD Tivo. Haven't recieved it yet, but I've only heard good things about it.

Do you still pay a monthly fee after dropping 700?

 

[Darklord Dave]

Yep, you still pay the monthy fee, I think I pay $12.95.

 

[nash]

Can you record more than one program at a time?

 

[lcummins]

I had TIVO and loved, loved, loved it!!!! Never watch a commercial, find stuff you didn't know you wanted to watch, never miss a new episode of your favorite show even when the network plays ping pong with the scheduling. However my TIVO crapped out, so I got a new cable box from Time Warner with DVR built in. And I hate it!!!!!! It's virtually unuseable, never records when I want it to, the interface is perhistoric and it's completely unresponsive to remote controls so when you're fast forwarding it won't stop when you want it to.

So I just dropped $700 on a new dual tuner HD Tivo. Haven't recieved it yet, but I've only heard good things about it.

Interesting about your Time Warner box... I also have a DVR from Time Warner, and twice now, it has mysteriously reset all my scheduled recordings for two days later than they were supposed to be. The first time it happened, I missed the fall finale of a show I was really interested in (can't remember which one at the moment). The only solution from tech support was to delete the schedules and recreate them; it worked, but now it is starting to happen again. And you're right, the interface could be a little more user friendly.

 

[screamingmetal]

I had TIVO and loved, loved, loved it!!!! Never watch a commercial, find stuff you didn't know you wanted to watch, never miss a new episode of your favorite show even when the network plays ping pong with the scheduling. However my TIVO crapped out, so I got a new cable box from Time Warner with DVR built in. And I hate it!!!!!! It's virtually unuseable, never records when I want it to, the interface is perhistoric and it's completely unresponsive to remote controls so when you're fast forwarding it won't stop when you want it to.

So I just dropped $700 on a new dual tuner HD Tivo. Haven't recieved it yet, but I've only heard good things about it.

I've had the same experience. I've had two different DVRs and they both screwed up some of the time. The one I had from Comcast was unresponsive at times, only recorded parts and not the whole of the TV show (sometimes only a minute or second) and would freeze up and not do anything at all. I'd have to unplug it and plug it back in in order to get it to work. The one from Comcast also would lose all my recording info if it's been without power for a significant time.
The current one I have is from Dish Network and it's flaws are that it refuses to record something when I want it to. I'll repeatedly tell the machine to record a program weekly and it refuses to do it the following week even if the show is brand new. It does that all the time with the revamped Star Trek and AOTS. It also records stuff that I didn't want it to.

Having said that, they are a huge improvement to watching TV. I would hate to be without one again even with all it's problems. I've never used Tivo, but from what I hear it's the preferred method.

 

[screamingmetal]

Can you record more than one program at a time?

You can record two programs with a Dual tuner but you are forced to watch one of them, if you want to watch TV.
A dual recorder will also allow you to watch live TV even while pausing/rewinding live TV and record another program at the same time.
You can also be recording two programs and watch another recording at the same time.

 

[Bodie The Cursed]

Hrmmnn.. Extra 15 or so for Tivo.. Extra 10 or so for HDTV..

*pinches pennies*

 

[Darklord Dave]

With the dual tuner you can record 2 channels at the same time, and if your TV has a tuner and is set up properly, you can watch a 3rd from the TV tuner.

My TW box has a dual tuner, but for some reason if it's recording both channels I get no sound at all. The only way to get the sound back is to stop the recording.

 

[user 1190]

I have 3 DirecTivo units one is a HD unit. When a couple of them died after 6 or so years I looked all over to get real Tivo units not the crap DirecTV put out after the fact. If you have never had the true tivo unit the other DVRs are great but crap if you are use to Tivo. I would probally not watch any shows if it were not for Tivo.