Are TiVo's worth the money? I'm tired of taping our tv programs on VHS and was just wondering if TiVo is worth a change. How does it work... can it record a program while you watch a program already recorded?

8BF

TiVo's are wonderful. I have used both the real TiVo extensively and the DVR on the Comcast system and TiVo is quite wonderful and user friendly. The Comcast one not so much, but people who use it and have never tried TiVo are perfectly happy with it. The new TiVos can tape two things at once or tape one thing while you watch whatever you want. The Comcast DVR can also do that.

They all tape as you watch your recorded stuff. I love it and I now hate watching TV without being able to back it up or stop and finish something later. Funny how you get so used to it.

Well worth the money.

Cable is not available in our area... can TiVo work off an antenna?

Oh yeah!!! The best thing I ever did!! I love Tivo...you can record while you watch, you can record and decide not to watch, you can start it 12 mins in on a 60 min show and watch commercial free (by FFwd thru). Things get complicated if you have multiple tivo receivers. but to answer your ??, yes, you can have two recordings going and still watch something previously recorded.

I'm sure plenty of other people will chime in here...but I can't live without it now.

Flip21

Cable is not available in our area

Dish and DirecTV also have DVR's/Tivo's if that works for you. I don't think it will work on an antenna because the receiver is recording onto it's little motherboard.

Flip21...who agrees with Archimedes...hate to watch TV w/o it now (kids want it for the radio in the car :0))

Is it really true that you can program it to record your favorite series one time and not have to worry about if an episode is changed from say Thursday night to Wednesday night? I have missed several episodes in the past because I didn't know it changed schedules one particular week.

My husband bought TiVo with a special "lifetime" amount/contract before I married him (17 months ago) so I don't know the details of that. I went from recording VHS to TiVo and doubt if I could go back! No more searching for start times and channel, keeping VHS tapes on hand, limited to what I could record/view, etc.

I can get a season pass based on the show name and then it records the show whenever it is on. There are settings for recording first runs only or first runs and repeats, for how many episodes it keeps until recording over (default is 5) with other scheduled programs. The only issue is if the TiVo doesn't have an updated schedule such as Sunday night shows that are delayed due to football games running over. There is an option of start / stop recording a certain amount of time before and after a show is scheduled (ie, start recording 10 minutes before show is scheduled and then it records the 10 extra minutes plus the duration of the show).

Yes, I can watch a program I previously recorded while it is recording a program currently on the air. Since my husband had it all set up, I don't know if this is typically but we have two "tuners" so we can record two different channels at the same time. We did have to do some change out when we got an HD TV so it would record and play back in HD.

Note: last time we were pitched a sale for AT&T cable/internet, my husband turned them down since they are not compatible with TiVo (unless they have changed that).

If you have more technical questions, I can ask my husband.

oh yeah, one more great thing about TiVo - the pause, play, rewind, and FF work on shows you are watching as they are being aired! You can pause and do other stuff (up to 30 minutes) and then come back and FF through commercials. It's awesome. I cannot stand to watch commercials any more - especially with all the political ads on TV right now (in central Ohio).

I know this is probably a stupid question... but... does it keep the recorded shows in order of the date it aired? In other words... if I get behind on watching the programs will I be able to tell which is the next one to watch in order? And... I'm sure you can delete the episodes you have viewed and don't want to keep?

We don't like the commercials either... a complete waste of time... that's why I VHS record EVERYTHING. But VHS recorders are becoming outdated and I'm even finding that VHS tapes are hard to come by in the stores lately.

does it keep the recorded shows in order of the date it aired?

Yes. The list of recorded shows are by recorded date - most recent on top. The day of the week and the date are shown next to the title of the show. There may be options on how it displays the lists. Our settings put shows in folders if there is more than 1 episode of a certain show (example: all NCIS are in a folder together). Even in the folders, the episodes are listed in order of recorded date.

I finally got a DVR with dish after a year of debating its worth and listening to a friend talk about hers. Now it would be really hard to live without! i can keep up with shows regardless of my busy schedule or outings. I automatically record all my regular shows so I don't even need to think about it. The only time that it's tough is with sunday football or a political interuption that pushes things late. (Or if there are 3 things on at the smae time I want to see!) I think it is a wise investment if you are a tv junkie like me!

Yes, the air date is written right next to the show name. The new one sorts them according to the show and makes files containing all the episodes taped together. You can just go to the lowest one and start working your way up. The older one just has a list of all the programs newest to oldest.

Yes, it will ask you when it gets to the end whether you want to save or delete the program. You can delete them also from a button on the remote.

THAT IS COOL!

My DVR keeps them in order. I can also group things by title to make it easier to sort through. I have it through dish network.

Has anyone heard of a TiVo running off an antenna? I don't want to have the extra expense of a dish. I also heard that you need to have it connected to a phone line for programming? Is that just for updating the programming or does it record through the phone line too?
In other words... is it tying up the phone line when a program is recording?

We are finally getting a DVR through Verizon. They are currently running a special where you get a family DVR for free for a year. With a family DVR you can watch any recorded show on any tv in the house, not just the one connected to the DVR. A good friend has this set up and LOVES it! Can't wait for installation!

WOW. We have verizon broadband internet and cell phone. I'll have to look at the Verizon website... THANKS!

Has anyone heard of a TiVo running off an antenna?

I don't think Tivo runs through an antenna but an internet connection (if you have dial up, then it may tie up your phone line for regular schedule updates but not when it records a show). TiVo needs to connect to [something] to get the TV schedule on a regular basis. Our schedule goes about 2 weeks out but I don't know how often it has to connect.

IF you watch TV without a Tivo or some type of digital video recorder...I think your crazy. I rarely watch TV, but when I do, I don't want the blasted with advertisements for everything from depends to RV's.

I have two Tivo's in my household...so yes they are worth it. You can get a Tivo that will record two programs at the same time, as long as one is in channels under 100 and the other is over 100.

Crazy that we talk about channels over 100 now.

special "lifetime" amount

Does he want to sell that Tivo and Contract?

You can't use a Tivo off an antenna, so you will either have to get a dish or suffer and I do mean suffer, cause I can't imagine not having Tivo now, without.

special "lifetime" amount
Does he want to sell that Tivo and Contract?

Haha - you ask silly questions! No Way! and if he does even consider it, that is grounds for a divorce...

I'm looking up on the TiVo website and it says: Works with digital and analog cable; digital and analog antenna. Now I'm confused.

It was an offer I got in the mail. Call them at 1.888.573.9011 It says the offer ends on 10/04.

Looks like it will. This is from TiVo's website:

The TiVo DVR requires a source for television programming for it to record. You may be getting your TV from an antenna, from a satellite dish on your roof, or from a local cable or phone company.

There are TiVo DVRs that work with:

* Cable (basic, digital, and high-definition)
* Antenna (analog and digital)
* Satellite (standard-definition only)
* Phone company (AT&T, Verizon, Quest)

TiVo DVRs do NOT work with:

* High-definition Satellite

I'm looking up on the TiVo website and it says: Works with digital and analog cable; digital and analog antenna.

Ain't nuthin' gonna work with analog antenna after February 2009.

Lots of responses by people who don't mind paying monthly fees for cable/satellite/TiVo or whatnot. I'm betting the OP would appreciate from someone else unwilling to pay those fees.

The end of analog broadcasting means that your old VCR's aren't going to work very well, either. The only way to record on one will be to set it up to record on the AUX input and connect up a DTV converter box to the AUX input and leave the DTV converter box powered up and tuned in to the station you want to record. That'll work, but you'll have to be around to change the channel on the DTV converter box before recording something on another channel.

The solution there is a new VCR with an ATSC (digital) tuner. These VCR's work just like the VCR's we're all familiar with, except that they can be programmed to record digital broadcasts. They use the standard VHS tapes.

Now, when I went shopping for ATSC VCR's, I was very surprised they weren't all over the place and selling like hot cakes; after all, they are going to be de rigeur after February. But it was difficult to find them, and it was difficult to find any salesmen that knew anything about them or why you would want one. Most of them seemed to expect that everyone will be forking over cable or satellite fees to deal with the termination of analog broadcasts.

When you do find an ATSC VCR, it always seems to have a DVD burner built in. I don't need that since I already have DVD players and would use my 'puter if I ever wanted to burn any, but I suppose it's kinda nice to have it all in one package rather than separate units.

These DVD burners/ATSC VCR's are about $175-$200. There lies more confusion. You can buy a DVD player/regular VCR for about $100 -- and they look exactly the same. And you can get a DVD burner/regular VCR for perhaps $125 -- and those look exactly the same, too. You have to check closely to make sure the VCR has a digital tuner in it or it won't be able to record broadcasts after February.

The feds offer free coupons for $40 off a DTV converter box. This coupon is not applicable to an ATSC VCR -- which it should be, since you can use an ATSC VCR as a converter.

I'll post a second message to describe what I've done about all this.

I'm looking up on the TiVo website and it says: Works with digital and analog cable; digital and analog antenna. Now I'm confused.

I recall hearing that you can record and use DVRs such as TiVo with an antenna, but it can't get the programming schedule for it so you can't just tell it to record everything of a specific show. You have to put in the start and stop times for when you want to record.

That's just what I've heard, though. I'm starting to watch more and more stuff on the Internet rather than live TV. =)

-- Ryan

Now, here's what I'm doing.

I already have four VCR's, which I purchased primarily to be able to watch tapes in any room in my house but also handy to record shows on ABC, NBC, CBS and FOX all at the same time. Of these VCR's, one has an AUX input and the other three each have two AUX inputs, L1 and L2, one with connectors on the back and the other with connectors on the front.

So far I have purchased five -- count 'em, five -- DTV converter boxes. Each household can get coupons for $40 off each of two, and they only cost about $50, so they're about $10 each to me. Most households -- with cable or satellite -- have no use for the coupons, so I talked a few friends and neighbors into ordering the coupons and giving them to me.

So: Connect up the DTV converter boxes to the VCR AUX inputs. Turn all the DTV converter boxes on and disable the default automatic shutoff (four hours) and leave them on. Tune one to ABC, one to NBC, one to CBS, one to FOX and one to PBS. Then program the VCR's to record the various AUX inputs as necessary to catch the shows you wanna tape.

Extreme? Well, I did figure out that I could, in fact, use at least 6 more converter boxes, and possibly as many as 8 more beyond that. If you kept track, you'll know there's two AUX inputs still unused. Also, each VCR still has an antenna input -- which won't do any good connected to an antenna, but the DTV converter boxes can be set to generate a signal on Ch 3 or Ch 4. So for each VCR, I could connect up one DTV converter box to Ch 3 -- and possibly both Ch 3 and Ch 4 by using a coax cable splitter to connect two DTV converter boxes to one VCR antenna input. I could be recording L1, L2, Ch 3 or Ch 4 at different times on one VCR, using four separate DTV converters looking at four separate channels.

But I don't expect to watch that much TV.

I should point out that, if you're using an antenna, you should buy a DTV converter box now. Yes, the stations are already broadcasting in digital format. For one thing, you get a much better picture and sound. For another, you get more channels. Each station broadcasting one channel now may broadcast as many as four in digital format. My local PBS station is broadcasting four different channels, although two of them shut off at 6:00 PM. My local FOX affiliate is broadcasting a channel called the CW, which has Sex And The City reruns and whatnot. My local CBS affiliate is also broadcasting something completely different, doesn't seem to be a network at all but they show a lot of movies.

I should also report that I went into the store fully expecting to buy a DVR. Imagine my surprise that nobody had one for sale! For some reason these things are considered cable-only devices. Apparently the electronics manufacturers don't think those of us using an antenna would be interested in recording programming on a hard drive rather than on VHS tapes.

I heard just a few weeks ago that somebody has finally realized there might be a market there and is in the process of introducing one -- and expects to demand many hundreds of dollars for it.

This is yet another product that the market should be glutted with and we should be able to choose from among a dozen for less than $200 each.