Tivo

[drthundr]

So I have been mulling over getting a Tivo. We currently have the shitty Time Warner Scientific Atlanta box that we rent from TW for $6 a month, coupled with it's remote that we rent for $4 a month. Currently i can get a 40 hour tivo for $205.39, that's $49.99 for the box and $155.40 for one year of service

Comments

[michaelallroy]

after using a series 2 box (shipped with 40GB drive, upgraded to 120GB) for nearly three years, i can recommend real tivo without reservation, especially if you're only viewing SDTV. i was up to like 130 season passes and auto-record wishlists...it was so rad. i dunno about nhl center ice, but i was able to get ppv fights with no issues. i use comcast's dvr now, because i require dual HDTV tuners, and the overall user experience is not even close. we don't have TW here, but everyone i know that's had a chance to use both the TW box and real tivo have said the same thing - it's like night and day. tivo is cheaper than ever now, so unless a switch to HDTV is in yr immediate future, i say go for it. if you are handy, you can even swap the HDD out and give yrself a ridonkulous amount of recording capacity.

[drthundr]

thanks, it was actually your post about you NOT needing the HD Tivo that sent me off investigating the cost of the series 2 box and service, since I do not have a high def set, and won't for a long time.

As for the pay-per-view, did you just have to order via the phone then, or could you use the remote?

[michaelallroy]

assuming you usually authorise ppv via yr cable box's on-screen display, you'll still do that. you can set tivo to record the event, authorise using the cable box, and you're golden - you'll have the same functionality with the program that you would with "free" content on any other channel. getting a ppv event was one of the few times i ever picked up the remote for my cable box after tivo joined the family - the tivo interface is so sweet you'll just do all yr tv viewing thru it.

[drthundr]

alright, so this may sound dumb, but I will still need a cable box?

[michaelallroy]

yes, assuming you have digital cable. tivo is more analagous to a vcr than a cable box; that is, it needs a pre-tuned/descrambled signal to work with, be it cable box, satellite box, or OTA (series 3 will change this, but ignoring that so as not to cloud things further). if TW uses different cable boxes for its DVR and non-DVR subscribers, i suppose you'll have to swap boxes. ask TW for a box with an active serial port on it - tivo needs to talk to yr cable box to switch channels, and the best way is via a serial connection. if TW doesn't have boxes with serial ports (or worse yet, has them but deactivates them) you'll have to use the "IR blaster", which is a wire that runs from tivo and adheres to the cable box in front of its infared port, controlling channel-switching that way. the IR connection is wonky because it is one-way, and tivo cannot verify that it's on the correct channel after tuning to it. if there's a misfire while changing via a serial connection (say, it tries to tune channel 520 and gets 50 instead), tivo can