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[tedtropy]

I live in the Houston area and just dropped Time Warner's DVR cable service to opt for the significantly cheaper basic bulk cable offered by the apartment I'm at. Of course, the obvious caveats of that are no DVR or interactive guide support, and since I love (and miss) my damn DirecTiVo so much I'm contemplating buying one of the stand-alone 80 hours Series 2 TiVos from their website. Right now you can get the DVR, a year of service, and free shipping for about $200. I hate that the service is so fricken' much after any kind of specials expire, but even after my year is up I think I can justify it just for how much better the interface is in addition to the other features it offer (TiVo2Go, etc). I just couldn't justify paying for TW's DVR as it had, quite seriously, the worst interface I have ever seen on a DVR. It would randomly lockup, recording quality was garbage, and was just completely unintuitive. So any GAFers out there have a similar setup and still feel it's worth it? Thanks.

 

[DonCuco]

I currently have a stand alone tivo (believe it was the first series that came out), and yes to update my guide it dials out on the regular phone line. To be honest I had not used that tivo for about a year , because I moved and have been working so much that I don't have time to watch tv. Anyways, about a week ago I called up the Tivo customer service and told them that I wanted to cancel and they talked me into staying and dropped my $12 a month fee to $6 a month. Now my tivo is up and running once again I couldn't be happier.

 

[sefskillz]

My series 1 unit died a few months ago and with it my lifetime subscription. I felt it was worth it enough to get a new unit and now I pay the monthly fees instead. Love it, can't imagine not having it.

 

[tedtropy]

Took up the Sony TiVo website offer and seriously looking forward to finally having a TiVo again. After having to deal with Time Warner's absolute crap Scientific Atlantis DVR for a year after coming from a DirecTiVo, it's gonna be nice to kinda come home again. Plus the stand-alone TiVos have things the DirecTV version didn't have that I'm really looking forward to playing around with, such as TivoToGo, Podcast support, etc.

 

[DarienA]

I've owned a few TIVO's over the last few years having come from direcTV. Currently I have a series 2 Dual Tuner unit in our living room... I love the thing, absolutely love it.

I think I'm going to have to give it up once we get Verizon FIOS TV service though (I need to check to see if it works with that service), that makes me sad.

 

[tedtropy]

I've owned a few TIVO's over the last few years having come from direcTV. Currently I have a series 2 Dual Tuner unit in our living room... I love the thing, absolutely love it.

I think I'm going to have to give it up once we get Verizon FIOS TV service though (I need to check to see if it works with that service), that makes me sad.

I know Time Warner's DVRs are the epitome of awful and Verizon's is likely a good bit better, but just speaking for myself, I missed my DirecTiVo something fierce when I moved into an apartment complex that had absurd security deposit for having a dish. I honestly don't even mind the idea of paying for the monthly TiVo service. It's that much better. I don't know why the copycats don't understand it's all about the interface...

Besides, after dropping to just the basic bulk cable provided by my apartments (pay as reduced rate as part of your rent), getting rid of the Time Warner DVR fees and assorted bogus rate hikes (whereas the bulk rate's guaranteed with my lease) I actually wind up paying about the same or even a little less and get a far better DVR.

 

[DarienA]

I know Time Warner's DVRs are the epitome of awful and Verizon's is likely a good bit better, but just speaking for myself, I missed my DirecTiVo something fierce when I moved into an apartment complex that had absurd security deposit for having a dish. I honestly don't even mind the idea of paying for the monthly TiVo service. It's that much better. I don't know why the copycats don't understand it's all about the interface...

Besides, after dropping to just the basic bulk cable provided by my apartments (pay as reduced rate as part of your rent), getting rid of the Time Warner DVR fees and assorted bogus rate hikes (whereas the bulk rate's guaranteed with my lease) I actually wind up paying about the same or even a little less and get a far better DVR.

I just did some reading and apparently you can use Tivo's with the FIOS service so I'm happy about that... still I haven't figure out how I'm going to set things up. I'm getting the Verizon DVR because it allows you to show media between it and two cable boxes which means I'll probably set it up here in the living room.... although now that I think about it I could probably set it up in the bed room and have a regular cable box here in the living rm where the tivo is now and connect it there and then have the other regular cable box in the family room, or put the verizon dvr in the family room and have regular cable boxes in the bedroom and then one in the living rm like it is now... hmm....

 

[tedtropy]

I say go TiVo in whatever room you'll wind up using the most. I am damn tempted by the Series 3 HD boxes, but the price of admission is too steep for even a dork like me, and that's saying quite abit...

Dual cable card slots, HDMI output. DVR let me touch you.

 

[DarienA]

I say go TiVo in whatever room you'll wind up using the most. I am damn tempted by the Series 3 HD boxes, but the price of admission is too steep for even a dork like me, and that's saying quite abit...

Yeah which means it'll probably end up staying in the living rm. As long as I can get the Verizon DVR to work with no trouble on the box connected to the Tivo(to share its' media).

This is going to be an interesting install that's for sure.

I'd heard a rumor that the Series 3 HD boxes might come down in price sometime this year. I didn't really check to see how strong the rumor was though.

 

[ckohler]

I'd heard a rumor that the Series 3 HD boxes might come down in price sometime this year. I didn't really check to see how strong the rumor was though.

It wasn't a rumor. The CEO of Tivo has gone on record saying that they plan to release a lower price (aka. reduced feature set) high definition Tivo by the end of the year.

 

[tedtropy]

I'd heard a rumor that the Series 3 HD boxes might come down in price sometime this year. I didn't really check to see how strong the rumor was though.

Probably. At $800 I can't imagine them flying off the shelves. Even the usually psycho early adopters are balking at the price, and no cable/satellite provider is going to want to play along and over some sort of service bundle discount when they're too preoccupied pushing their own, generally less superior, DVRs.

 

[DarienA]

It wasn't a rumor. The CEO of Tivo has gone on record saying that they plan to release a lower price (aka. reduced feature set) high definition Tivo by the end of the year.

Ah, thanks for the verification.

 

[tedtropy]

Whoo, got it in yesterday. It is so fricken' nice to go home and turn on a DVR that actually makes sense and has an interface that is a joy to use. I'm a little bummed I did get one of the models that has the nifty Apple-esque light-up white bezel, but eh. Now I'm guessing the next thing I'll be doing is nabbing a cheap HD and upping its recording capacity.

 

[Javaman]

Whoo, got it in yesterday. It is so fricken' nice to go home and turn on a DVR that actually makes sense and has an interface that is a joy to use. I'm a little bummed I did get one of the models that has the nifty Apple-esque light-up white bezel, but eh. Now I'm guessing the next thing I'll be doing is nabbing a cheap HD and upping its recording capacity.

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php was a great site to visit when I was upgrading my Dtivo a couple months ago. It gives specific instructions based on when model you have and what you want to change.

It may be worth while checking into "zippering" your Tivo if it's compatible. I went that route with my DTivo and can FTP to it, install other packages and most importantly copy shows off without reencoding them.

There's also the www.tivocommunity.com in case you hadn't heard of it before.

 

[tedtropy]

http://tivo.upgrade-instructions.com/index.php was a great site to visit when I was upgrading my Dtivo a couple months ago. It gives specific instructions based on when model you have and what you want to change.

It may be worth while checking into "zippering" your Tivo if it's compatible. I went that route with my DTivo and can FTP to it, install other packages and most importantly copy shows off without reencoding them.

There's also the www.tivocommunity.com in case you hadn't heard of it before.

Cool, appreciate the information.

 

[Jasoco]

I splurged the day before Thanksgiving last year and bought the last TiVo Series 3 at Best Buy. Then I had Comcast install my Cable Cards. My god it was the greatest thing I did since I got the HDTV.

I love my TiVo.