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Television Media

Rabid TiVo Fanaticism 404

Posted by michael from the evangelical dept.
surfacearea writes "The New York Times [free reg] is running an article that, without sounding like over-the-top blatant product placement discusses the reasons why TiVo owners are at times frighteningly fanatical. Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there."
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Rabid TiVo Fanaticism More

Rabid TiVo Fanaticism

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  • Us poor Canucks. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lukano ( 50323 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @04:59PM (#5770209)
    Heck... I'd very gladly into the fanatiscism if only they'd offer Canadian guide content on most of the common (but few and far between) PVR's out there. Can't even be done with most software, darnit! :)
    • I've been thinking the same thing for a while... but last week stumbled upon the fact that there are a bunch of folks up here with 'relatively' (if hacked) normal/working TiVo (that has Canadian content).

      Unsure how much faith to put in the online descriptions, I emailed one guy, got invited to his house, and can attest that it's true... at least in Ottawa. Too cool. I went home and won a tivo auction on ebay that night. (too early to say whether the machine actually makes it to me.) ;-)

      Check out tivo_cana [yahoo.com]

  • You don't realise how much you love it... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by kramit ( 137973 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:00PM (#5770218) Homepage
    You don't realize how much you love it, until it is dead.

    My Tivo died this morning. WAH!!!

  • Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by TPIRman ( 142895 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:01PM (#5770221)
    Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.

    Huh? What a bizarre, ill-informed remark to make. The cost-benefit ratio would be ridiculous.

    Why not just buy a recordable DVD drive and record TiVo programs on to that? Oh, you probably don't want to check out recordable DVD drives until they make one that has a MiniDV deck built in.

    • Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:08PM (#5770248) Homepage Journal
      "Huh? What a bizarre, ill-informed remark to make. The cost-benefit ratio would be ridiculous."

      Not to mention that you'd have to constantly change discs on that thing. Kinda defeats the purpose. Do what I did, spend $300, get it with an 80 gig drive. I still haven't filled that thing up. When I do, I've got another 80 gigger I'm going to throw in there.
      • What I think would work really well for me is to have it set up where I could use the tivo as normal and when I wanted to archive some content I could dump it to DVD.

        Tivo will most likely not be the first company to do this, they are working very hard to remain friendly to the cable and sattelite companies to avoid any possible legal issues. It sort of sucks in some ways but I can understand why they do it.

        • Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker? (Score:5, Insightful)

          by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:45PM (#5770390) Homepage Journal
          "What I think would work really well for me is to have it set up where I could use the tivo as normal and when I wanted to archive some content I could dump it to DVD."

          It's a bit round-about, but if you buy a ReplayTV it's got an ethernet port on the back of it. You can download an app to pull the show off the Replay to your PC to have your way with.

          It's not as good as having a built in DVD-R or anything like that, but on the flip side you could re-encode to DivX and burn to much cheaper CD's. :)
        • What I think would work really well for me is to have it set up where I could use the tivo as normal and when I wanted to archive some content I could dump it to DVD.

          Well... the TiVo I have here (the original Thompson one) in the UK has that, albeit not internal...

          I just select the recording I want to archive from the "Now Playing" list, select "Save To VCR" (It even generates you nice Info screens) and start the VCR recording - Ive used it a total of once, and that was just to see how it worked... Cant

    • Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by NMerriam ( 15122 ) <NMerriam@artboy.org> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:19PM (#5770292) Homepage
      Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.

      You can upgrade a TiVo with two 120 gig hard drives and record a few hundred hours of TV for the same cost as a DVD recordable drive.

      I have a DVD-recorder, but I don't use $10 discs on recording stuff off TV...
      • I have a DVD-recorder, but I don't use $10 discs on recording stuff off TV...

        Are DVDs really that expensive in the states? in europe 12 euros buys you 10 4.7GB DVD-R discs, in jewelboxes and everything.
        • For what they're made of, the discs are a bit overpriced here. For now the effect seems to be at least in part due to short supply - quite a few people got DVD recordable drives for Christmas or are buying new computers with the drives included. At my local office supply/computer store, a 3 pack of Memorex DVD-R discs cost me $13 - that's $4.33/disc. Buy no-name discs (Optimum 5-pack for $20) for a small discount, or the real way to save, buy in bulk. About the only brand that consistently works well fo

      • CD-R would be better (Score:2, Insightful)

        by autopr0n ( 534291 )
        Using the SuperVCD format or Divx/Xvid would be a much more cost-effective use of such drive. for just 20 per show, it would be totaly worth it. Of course, 99% of all people would never watch 99% of their disks again.. :P

    • Re:Recordable DVD Drive a Deal-Breaker? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by @madeus ( 24818 ) <slashdot_24818@mac.com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:58PM (#5770439)
      I agree with your sentiments entirely.

      The poster could as well have said "I won't bother to try it until it can play MP3's, Ogg Vorbis, DivX's and VCD's".

      I don't think market is yet ready to support such a device (PVR manufacturers are having a hard enough job convicing consumers to purchase a PVR as it is). The added resources required to add DVD burning functionality, in relation the likely level of adoption of such a costly device, would mean this unit would end up costing the same as - and, after a short period, due to the falling prices of DVD writers, ultimately more than - a seperate DVD writer & a TiVo.

      It should be pointed out that TiVo has quite an elgant interface for saving to an external recording mechanisim (tape, DVD, or video-in card in a PC), and even has an extra SCART socket for this very purpose.

      As for the article, it can be summed up by saying 'people harp on about TiVo because it's really great and want other people to try it because they know they'll like it too'. And I don't think anyone needed an NYT article to spell that out.

      I'm a bit dissapointed with TiVo in the UK as of late. My major niggles being slow speed of updates, UI issues (poor UI design in a few key of places force minor but regular menu furstration) and - of course - the fact that TiVo sold out to the BBC with regard to preferences. The latter nearly enough to make me cancel my subscription, though I do relish the oppertinuty to mark all the crap on the BBC as three thumbs down (hopefully they are getting some useful feedback - the show they pulled the 'spam all the TiVo users' trick with was so dire and unanimously dispised it's never seen the light of day again).

      The other thing that really gets me is that it's not nearly as good at finding similar shows with terrestrial TV (Freeview) as it is when you have Sky channels. I've gone through a couple of periods of having Sky, and not having Sky (moving, On Digital going bust, etc). When I have Sky, it's been really good at finding other stuff I might like, when I have only Freeview it find's not nearly as many matches and doesn't record stuff I have 3 thumbs up for (the maximum) unless I specifically tell it too.

      I think this may have something to do with the program data - the BBC (and other non-Sky) channel data is often not right, of course the company who handle the UK channel data - and who you actually pay our monthly subscription to in the UK - is of course Sky. I assume it's a case of Sky trying a bit harder to get their own stuff right (and the BBC not being nearly as arsed to provide them with correct data or to ensure they use the correct data). A tech support rep informed me once they have another company provide some of the BBC-and-non-Sky-related channel data (during a period when BBC 1 was without channel data for a couple of weeks).

      Don't let that put you off though (unless you are both (a) in the UK and (b) don't have Sky). If you watch around around 6 or more hours of televison a week you should really get a PVR. You'll watch MUCH less crap TV and get to see loads of cool new shows you've never seen. The only downside is you'll find yourself staying in more to watch all the neat stuff it's recorded.

      Which of course will end up making you even more, antisocial, braindead and even more of a sad git than you are already ;-) 'Get out less' indeed :-)
    • Yyou can insert a NIC card into the TiVo and extract the video streams, convert and burn on the PC. That way you only need one DVD recorder drive.

      Is this what you meant?
    • Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.

      Then you're missing out. No reason for me to try to convince you, you've obviously already made up your mind. You'll see, some day.

      -----another TiVo fanatic

    • Rip from your TiVo (Score:4, Informative)

      by pcwhalen ( 230935 ) <pcwhalen@g m a i l . com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @07:29PM (#5770798) Journal
      I had my TiVo modded to add 2 120 gig HDs [can't go bigger because of a BIOS deal...] and have over 300 hours of viewing goodness. That's over 10 DAYS of programming. That's a lot of SpongeBob. If I wanted, there is an Ethernet add-in that ostensibly allows the"daily call" [for programming info] to be made over your broadband connection. It also allows you to telnet to the TiVo and take programs off the unit to your computer HD for transfer to CD or DVD. Pretty much they are MPEG files with additional info for the TiVo OS. Try Ninthtee for info.

  • For FREEEDOM! (Score:4, Funny)

    by Robert Hayden ( 58313 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:01PM (#5770223) Homepage
    The RIAA can take my TiVo from my cold, dead hands!

  • Thanks Google! (Score:5, Informative)

    by FsG ( 648587 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:02PM (#5770227)
    Thanks to google, here is a URL that doesn't require registration to read. Enjoy!

    http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/fashion/20TIVO.h tml?ex=1051416000&en=a77422bb2a91649e&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE [nytimes.com]

    • Thanks to google, here is a URL that doesn't require registration to read. Enjoy!

      You know, it took you longer to find that site through google than it would have if you'd just made up a fake name for registration.

  • Understandably so... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by NanoGator ( 522640 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:06PM (#5770240) Homepage Journal
    "...why TiVo owners are at times frighteningly fanatical."

    I can't say it's a huge surprise. Tivo (and variants, I have a Replay TV for example...) has this way of making your TV work within your schedule. It's just a glimpse of how cool TV really could be. Sadly, the broadcasting companies think it'll hurt their ad revenue.

    Personally, I can't wait until I can easily exchange shows with friends. (that would include knowing a bunch of people with a similar device...) If I had this capability a couple of years ago, who knows what Futurama's fate would have been? I mean, how was anybody supposed to catch it the way Fox schedules their shows?

    • Friends of mine's experiences (Score:5, Interesting)

      by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:09PM (#5770251) Journal
      Back when TiVo was new, some friends of mine got it. They tended to say things like "TiVo has lots of minor usability bugs and YOU HAVE TO BUY ONE RIGHT NOW ANYWAY!!!". As hackers, of course, they wanted to be able to change things, but the improvement in their TV viewing experience was the big appeal.
      • I bought my TiVo wanting to hack it, to upgrade it, put in a NIC, etc. I ended up doing none of that and I still use it regularly - it's truly changed TV watching for me.

        I may end up hacking it in the future, but for now I am quite content to let it sit and do what it does.

  • I need just three things to replace my vcr (Score:3, Informative)

    by jd142 ( 129673 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:07PM (#5770242) Homepage
    1) Be able to watch one program and record another. With the gol darn digital cable, I can't do that any more. My VCR was cable ready for regular cable, why can't I get a PVR that's digital cable ready? As it is, I can get around this for cannels in the regular cable line up by bypassing the digital cable box, but since my cable provider puts all premium channels on digital, I can't tape a movie and watch Junkyard Wars at the same time. It also makes the timer feature on the vcr practically worthless.

    I love the hypocrisy of our local cable company; they have anti-satellite dish commercials that point out that you can't tape one show and watch another without a separate descrambler. No different than digital cable.

    2) Like the poster said, it needs a dvd recordable. I'll still buy the dvd collections, but sometimes I want to take a show on the road or loan it to a friend. I can do that just fine with my vcr.

    3) HDTV ready. Just to be future safe.

    You give me those things and then we'll talk price.

    • Re:I need just three things to replace my vcr (Score:4, Informative)

      by microbob ( 29155 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:11PM (#5770261)
      You can do #1 already. My TiVo has dual tuners so I can watch one channel and record another. If you don't have dual tuners, then you can record a channel and watch a pre-recorded show.

      As to #3, I don't care to record HDTV, but I would like a HD decoder built in. Once I got my TiVo I've not turned on my Proscan HD decoder since. It just collects dust until something really good comes on in HD (like Band of Brothers).

      M.B.

      • Re:I need just three things to replace my vcr (Score:5, Informative)

        by LoadStar ( 532607 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:19PM (#5770291)
        You can do #1 already. My TiVo has dual tuners so I can watch one channel and record another. If you don't have dual tuners, then you can record a channel and watch a pre-recorded show.

        You missed that the poster said he has cable, specifically digital cable. The dual tuner PVR is manufactured by and for DirecTV with TiVo Technology - it doesn't work with cable. Neither TiVo nor ReplayTV make a cable-compatible PVR with dual tuners.

      • they already have tivo's with HDTV tuners in them as well...

        as for the digital cable dual tuner problem, tivo can never do that. you need the decoder from the cable company. if any 3rd party vendor could make digital cable decoders legally we would all own one.

        you simply need a dual tuner tivo with HDTV built in. they don't have internal dvd burners, but with the home media edition you could network to your PC dvd-r and record there. you'll need to get a seperate digital cable box for each tuner, or g
    • Since I added digital cable, I've lost the PIP functionality on my TV, (not that I could use it even with a second tuner) and I still haven't figured out how to patch my VCR to allow recording easily.

      Splitting the cable to drive the VCR and digital box is out too. The cable line spits before it hits the digital box, and the signal is so weak that I need an amplifier to get *most* of the digital channels (some still drop out, but not as bad as before)

      Why is it so hard to have *one* box that does everything
    • Television sets with digital cable ready tuners will be introduced in the near future. This will allow you to watch non-premium digital cable channels without a digital cable box. I would expect them to eventually show up in PVRs.

    • Be able to watch one program and record another.

      Important note: With a single tuner Tivo (read: not one for satellite), you can watch one recorded program and record another; but you cannot watch live TV at the same time you're recording something. It's very much not a VCR.

      With the gol darn digital cable, I can't do that any more. My VCR was cable ready for regular cable, why can't I get a PVR that's digital cable ready? As it is, I can get around this for cannels in the regular cable line up by bypassin

      • Important note: With a single tuner Tivo (read: not one for satellite), you can watch one recorded program and record another; but you cannot watch live TV at the same time you're recording something. It's very much not a VCR.

        Actually it's exactly like a vcr in this respect.

        With a vcr, you can only watch a second program by bypassing the tuner of the vcr. So if you are recording something on HBO (for example) you patch the cable box into the vcr and set it for HBO's channel. Now you want to watch somet
    • They'er $250 now. Get one, start enjoying the benefits, and in 2 years (which is how long it'll take for HDTV to really be common and worthwhile), upgrade. $10/month ain't too bad. And why worry about a TiVo being HDTV-ready anyway? Do you have an HDTV right now?
    • There's no reason to integrate a DVD recorder into a TiVo, and actually quite a number of reasons not to.

      You can buy a standalone dvd recorded these days, just plug it into your tivo just like you would a regular vcr.

      The cost of adding a DVD recorder to a TiVo would raise the price over the $600-700 mark which puts it out of the realm of most home buyers. Plus, a large number of us don't want that functionality, which makes it a niche product in an already niche market.

      And they will soon have the HDTV t

  • why? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Savatte ( 111615 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:11PM (#5770259) Homepage Journal
    Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.

    Yeah, it would be such a shame to lose all those old Will & Grace episodes. But seriously, how many add-ons does it have to have before buy it? mp3 and ogg decoding? programmable from any computer? hackable? Id be happy if it does what it does efficiently and reliably. What's the facination with bloating products, adding unnecessary features? My fire extiguisher doesn't heat up hot pockets, nor do I want it to. It's a fire extinguisher.

    • How many add-ons does it have to have? Or how many more add-ons does it have to have? There's a TON out there already, from TiVo and from the hacking community.

      mp3 and ogg decoding?

      There's an addon available (for cost) that does mp3 [tivo.com], but not ogg.

      programmable from any computer?

      The same addon as the mp3 ability does that [tivo.com], too. Or you can use the free, community-provided [lightn.org] tool, that's been around for awhile.

      hackable?

      There is plenty [tivocommunity.com] of that [samba.org] going on [9thtee.com] .

      How about a pop3 client [networkhackers.com]? Or perhaps AIM [tivocommunity.com] on your Ti

    • But what if the fire extinguisher put out electrical fires as well as regular ones? Or was reusable? Those would make it better, because they are related to what it does. That is why people want the data in the Tivo to be movable to other Tivos. It would make it better, because it adds related value to the system. That said, I don't see why a DVD recorder would be that great...
  • " Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there."

    Why are you more worried about what you don't get than what you do get?

  • I have to agree (Score:4, Insightful)

    by MrGibbage ( 303753 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:18PM (#5770284) Homepage
    I have also felt the same way about my TiVO. I feel like I have broken the shackles from the schedule. I don't know what times certain programs come on, because I watch them when I want to. Now, I haven't gone and convinced anyone to buy one, but I have always spoke positively about them when people asked me about mine. I had not realized that TiVO hadn't advertized in two years.

    Off Topic (tm), but how did NYT figure out how to make a popup activate under mozilla? That (VISA Gold) was the first popup I have seen in months! Moz guys, you need to look at that code some more!

  • The Space Management Issue - Workaround. (Score:4, Informative)

    by billstewart ( 78916 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:18PM (#5770286) Journal
    Sure, TiVo could do a better job with disk drives, and their early hacker-friendliness was nice for their early adopters, and it'd be nice to have a recording capability built in, but now that disk drive capacities have gotten big enough to store 60+ hours instead of 10 hours, the easy workaround is to back things up to VCR (Remember the VCR you used to use before you got TiVo? It's still on your shelf somewhere, probably even still near the TV :-)

    Pop in a 10-hour tape, and tell it to play all those Farscape episodes while you're at work, and you can free up the space on your disk while keeping the program content manageable. It'd be nice to have it record stuff at 8x speeds onto a DVD burner instead of 1x, but remember, this is mostly the TV you haven't watched yet, or the episodes you've seen already plus the one from the last week or two. And if the software's at all bright enough, if you do want to watch the tape later, you should be able to spool it back into the TiVo for random-access play rather than just using your VCR's fast-forward and reverse and such.

    (I don't own TiVo myself; we kept dithering about whether we'd rather improve our TV watching experience or stick the TV in the garage so we don't watch it at all, and buying a TiVo would have committed us to one of those strategies :-)

    • Re:The Space Management Issue - Workaround. (Score:4, Informative)

      by volkerdi ( 9854 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:50PM (#5770410)
      Pop in a 10-hour tape, and tell it to play all those Farscape episodes while you're at work...

      It would be delightful to be able to do this, but the TiVo only supports dumping one program at a time to tape, and then you have to select another program from "Now Showing" and pick the "Save to VCR" option again. A playlist feature would be a most welcome addition.

      I'm sure TiVo's heard this already, but it wouldn't hurt to tell them again.
    • Recording to videotape at EP speed is going to give you eye-blurring low quality. About the only thing it works for is simple, clear TV like the Simpsons or King of the Hill. One of the attractions of the tivo is its crystal quality.
    • Actually you can extract shows via ethernet and burn them to DVD now.

      See http://dealdatabase.com for details.
  • I think that TiVo makes watching TV even more of a passive activity. You do not have to remember when a show comes on, you don't have preview as many new shows to see if you're interested in them, etc... Perhaps there is also an exhibitionist aspect to TiVo viewers... they enjoy someone else seeing what shows they watch.

  • Other Tivo benefits (Score:5, Insightful)

    by siberian ( 14177 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:22PM (#5770305)
    One thing people rarely talk about is the fact that using a tool like Tivo actually subtly changes your outlook on yourday to day life.

    Local news, TV advertising, radio advertising and the like play to our basest insticts, vanity, sex and fear. We naturally pick up on these things and they use it to their fullest advantage. Tivo, NPR and other methods of controlling advertisings impact are hugely valuable.

    I'd go into the benefits but it would sound to Ra Ra Ra. I would most likely stop watching TV without my Tivo. Watching TV without Tivo is a completely depressing and morbid experience that, overtime, leads to depression, anxiety and even MORE consumerism.

    • TV w/o TIVO Sucks (Score:2, Insightful)

      by gleman ( 625817 )
      Amen to that last statement. After several hacks to Tivo-Tivoweb-Turbonet-etc.. I find it almost impossible to watch television the old way.
  • I picked up a Tivo that patched into my Direct TV dish. Doing a little homework, they persist the encrypted stream on the local hard drive rather than something that could be ripped. Disappointed, I bit the bullet and picked one up anyhow.

    My god, does that change satellite TV.

    First off, it makes 'VCR programming' bonehead easy. Get a list of all sci-fi shows for the next couple weeks, pick what you want, and eventually they will be waiting there for you. Pick a show like Futurama or Cowboy Beboop, and it will snag every episode. The only downside is how good of a job it can do if you set it for Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues - a couple marathons later and you will have more shows than I'll let my little one watch. As for persisting files, I prefer to push stuff into my computer to strip out the ads before ripping them to removable media. Turns out the downside - not ripping direct to dvd-r - was a major plus. Good Eats or Serial Experiments: Lain fits soo much better after taking out the credits, ads, and all the other things that gets shoveled in the non-premium channels.

    Second, there is no prime time. Time and channel has no meaning at all. I don't spend a lot of time watching TV, so what I was interested in - it is two clicks away. Think of Tivo as limewire - you find the content you want, queue it up, and let it download whenever.

    Lastly, the pause and fast forward are handy. Once you get in the habit that most of your viewing is a local file rather than something you happen to catch at the right moment and channel, you start expecting the same from live TV. Nothing is more aggravating than hitting FF, only to find you are on the tip of a live feed.
    • I see I'm not the only /. geek that tivos Good Eats. I guess it makes sense with the science and puns and all.

      I don't even like cooking and I love that show.

    • Re:Don’t sweat the removable media… (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iabervon ( 1971 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:14PM (#5771172) Homepage Journal
      The biggest advantage I've noticed is that the shows are aligned with you, not with the clock. When you sit down to watch an hour of TV while eating, the hour show actually is ending when you've been watching for an hour, even if you start watching at 7:15. This makes it much easier to watch the amount of TV you plan to, rather than watching for an hour and then being 15 minutes into another hour show.

      If you make a point of never watching anything live, it also means that there's nothing bad on, there's a limited amount of TV, and it stops if you just sit there. This makes it much easier to stop than if you can always watch the next thing that's on, even if it's no good. You can't just let it run, you can't channel surf. You have to be in control and decide what you're going to do next, and that might involve doing something other than staring at a screen. (Like, for example, posting on slashdot...)

  • Well, it reminds me of some of my friends... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kjella ( 173770 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @05:47PM (#5770398) Homepage
    ...that are sitting on 100Mbit connection (hello student home, yes I mean you) and where most stuff is availible on the local network at blazing speeds. As far as I can tell, they basicly don't watch much TV at all. They're so used to having stuff on-demand they don't adapt to any schedule, and when they do find the time (no VCR/PVR since they watch so little TV) the ads bugs them. I think they and the TiVo users are pretty much the same group, ignoring certain legal differences.

    Like most other things in life you grow used to it, like so many people have gotten used to banner ads. Like, I never felt my ISDN line was that "slow" until my friends got DSL (not in this street, thanks for nothing) and I got myself a laptop and hooked myself up to the Uni internet. Now this line feels like a stinking slow modem, barely good enough to reload slashdot, nevermind actually downloading Game demos/Legal music/Movie trailers/Linux Distros and whatever else I might like to get. Nevermind thinking of those pay-per-minute charges ticking, it wasn't that much an issue until everybody else started having 24/7 connections.

    In short, once you've tasted something better you won't let go.

    Kjella
  • Well, a recordable DVD would be nice. But how many of you really really want to record the evening news to DVD? I not stupid - I see the utility of this, but as a Tivo owner, I really haven't suffered that much for not being able to record to DVD. 35 hours is enough for me right now, and I can upgrade cheaply to over 100 hours. Also, recording Tivo to DVD, especially at digital quality, would certainly raise the ire of Hollywood. Tivo doesn't need to fight this battle now, when they are already fightin

  • Free TV is already dead. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LostCluster ( 625375 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:01PM (#5770451)
    Today at 12:30 pm I was at my grandmother's house who does not have anything other than over-the-air TV. The same Ronco infomerical was running on both the Fox and UPN stations in town. In fact, the only stations that were not showing infomericals were PBS, the ABC affiliate who had barely-watchale public interest drivel, and the three Spanish-speaking networks running in an area where most of the population doesn't speak that language.

    It's over for the purely commercial-supported TV. Over the air TV now consists of local news and access to the "major networks". At times when there is no news or national program, the station effectively puts on a program of negative value just to keep the tower warm.

    We're already paying subscription rates for most of the TV programs we get. The loss of ad revenue to the TiVo-ish technologies is simply going to mean that they'll have to raise those subscription rates a bit, and that some of the marginal projects that are going forward today won't be able to go forward in the future. (Does the world really need ESPNews?)

    Just because there's a change in business models forced by technology doesn't mean it should be blocked, the businesses involved just need to learn to adjust.

  • Hmm (Score:2)

    by Erwos ( 553607 )
    I must admit, I think that it could be _the_ killer app for DVD recordables to record from a TiVO.

    Click one button, you get all the episodes of some series for the season. A few months later, you burn them all to DVD, and stash it in your collection. I could see that being _very_ compelling stuff.

    Perhaps this is what MythTV and Freevo need to automate?

    -DMZ

  • The timeliness of /. never fails.. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:18PM (#5770498) Homepage Journal
    Just in the last 3 weeks, I replaced the dead HDD with a 120GB Maxtor in the HDR112 I bought in February, d/l'ed and restored a pristine image to it, expanded the capacity (the right way), and just last night added TurboNet, setup telnet, ftpd, and switched the daily call over to broadband. Next week I expect to add the Linksys 802.11 bridge and move it to the big tv. I'm already thinking about starting the next project unit. This one was fun. I strongly recommend hacker-types to take this route. It is **EASY**. My unit died the night it came in from E-Bay and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to repair it.

    I also installed TivoWeb, but I expected more out of it. I thought I would be able to browse the whole tv schedule much like Yahoo! TV, but no can do. I guess I'm going to have to integrate network-based remote control of the TiVo from my Misterhouse home automation box, since it already does Yahoo! TV-style schedule browsing and "click here to record"

    I'm only home on the weekends, so the TiVo is just incredible for those early Saturday mornings when I get to catch up on all the missed shows. The only disconcerting thing (and reason enough to get another one) is that when my wife and I are watching the same channel on two different tv's and we can hear each other's set, the quarter-second delay between the two tv's is unnerving.

    Hey, can anyone tell me if TiVo charges *per* unit or per address for the standard services? Thanks..

    dead HDR-112-$99@Ebay
    120GB Maxtor (144 hours)-$99@Best Buy
    TurboNet-$75@9thTee
    TivoWeb-GPL software

  • DVD drive project... (Score:2, Informative)

    by apexchin ( 622309 )
    There was an informal group that tried to hack a DVD burner into a Dtivo. Not sure how far they got, but you can check out the thread here [dealdatabase.com]

    Jeff

  • It's all about the freedom to choose (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Dag Maggot ( 139855 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:26PM (#5770538) Homepage
    I don't have a TV, but I have a 21 inch monitor and a broadband connection.

    I watch TV programs, but only by downloading the Divx(s) and playing them. I'm in Australia, and I watch Six Feet Under which is not available here in Australia. So far I'm half way through season 2.

    Beyond just the Tivos, I wonder if the commercial TV industry has file trading on the radar. With DVD player out there now that play Divx and Xvid, why would someone wait for Thursdays at 8:00 ?

    "Must See TV", is becoming commercialess, "anytime I'm Free TV".

  • I won't buy it until... (Score:5, Funny)

    by gonerill ( 139660 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:27PM (#5770539) Homepage
    Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there." Why stop at a recordable DVD drive? I am holding out for an integrated Bluetooth connectivity, PS2, coffee-maker, GPS and magic 8-ball. I also want it to be solar powered and to be totally waterproof at depths of up to 5000 meters. It shoud also cost less than $20 and run Debian. These are the reasonable consumer demands of me, Joe Slashdot.

  • Males, Novels and PVRs (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mindpixel ( 154865 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:28PM (#5770544) Homepage Journal
    Did you know, only 20% of the male population reads novels after 13? This figure actually predates PVRs...I don't think it will be improving...

  • 1 thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sootman ( 158191 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:32PM (#5770559) Homepage Journal
    I finally got a TiVo earlier this year. I wish I would have bought one the day they hit $300/40 hrs. It's just great, plain and simple. Remember the first day you got broadband? How much better it was than dialing up? Even if you had a big pipe at work, how great it was to have an always-on super-fast connection at home? TiVo is like that. Even though you know the benefits--pause & rewind live TV, super-easy recording--you just don't know how good it is until you experience it first-hand. Just like sex--you can hear all about it, you can tell yourself, "Yup, I bet it'll be pretty good" and be right, but you just don't know how good until you do it. (Although, unlike sex, I can just about guarantee the first time with a TiVo will be great.) I don't know how else to describe it.

    Fellow TiVo owners, mod me up so the nonbelievers can be enlightened. :-)

    • Re:1 thing (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Chester K ( 145560 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:59PM (#5771305) Homepage
      Although, unlike sex, I can just about guarantee the first time with a TiVo will be great.

      And, as you can see from this thread, nobody has posted that they have a TiVo and don't love it. The fanaticism is justified, as this is truly a lifestyle-altering device.

      I got my TiVo just over a month ago. Now, I don't know what I'd do without it. When I get home from work, I can spend the evening watching what I want on TV, instead of what just happens to be on at the time. In fact, I've discovered (well, actually TiVo suggested to me) a couple programs that it turns out I like quite a lot, and I catch every episode, and I have no clue what time they're on, and I only know what channel they're on because TiVo stores the channel's logo in the program listing. My only complaint is that I want another one now to resolve some scheduling conflicts (though TiVo generally does a good job at managing those itself when one of the programs is on a cable station that replays their shows throughout the day).

  • Legal limitations (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Lumpish Scholar ( 17107 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:35PM (#5770576) Homepage Journal
    I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.
    Do you want this because you want to record for archival purposes? The Betamax [virtualrecordings.com] case ruled home recording for time shifting was fair use. It didn't rule that home recording for permanent archiving was legal. ("Reconstructing the Fair Use Doctrine" [harvard.edu]: "All parties and all members of the Court assumed, at least for the sake of argument, that librarying is not a fair use and that therefore a substantial number of VCR owners often violate the copyright law.")

    Do you want this because you want to "share" what you've recorded with friends? If you sell what you've recorded, that's clearly illegal. If you don't profit by this activity, it's not clearly illegal, but it's not clearly legal, either. In the past, it's been unlikely to be enforced; but the times, as you may have noticed, are changing fast.

    Time shifting is legal. Tivo, as is, is a wonderful machine for time shifting. Beyond that, the ice gets thin.
    • The Betamax case ruled home recording for time shifting was fair use. It didn't rule that home recording for permanent archiving was legal.

      I view my time shifting as 'temporary' - much in the same manner as the motion picture and recording industry considers Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act of 1998 a 'limited time'. If a million years would still be a valid "limited time" under the letter of the Constitution... well, what is good for the goose...
  • That is, if I ever watched television anymore :P

    Seriously, though. A TiVo seems like it would make TV watching almost convenient enough actually view. I got a little Via EIPA mini-itx [mini-itx.com] PC that I was planning to set-up as a sort of mail-server/emulation game machine/media player/PVR box, but it turned out to be kind of unstable (I think it's the RAM) and I turned out to be to lazy to get that stuff setup. Plus, a homebrew system would still require me to keep up with listings to program.

    On the other ha

  • A TiVo Feature I'd Like (Score:3, Interesting)

    by telstar ( 236404 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @06:54PM (#5770655)
    You know what TiVo feature I'd like? I'd like the ability to specify that I only want X episodes of a show recorded, but to not keep replacing those X episodes unless I've deleted them. Right now, you can specify that you want 2 episodes, but the TiVo will keep recording the latest aired episodes regardless of whether you've touched those two.

    • Re:A TiVo Feature I'd Like (Score:5, Informative)

      by Bleck ( 203017 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @07:44PM (#5770857) Homepage
      You know what TiVo feature I'd like? I'd like the ability to specify that I only want X episodes of a show recorded, but to not keep replacing those X episodes unless I've deleted them. Right now, you can specify that you want 2 episodes, but the TiVo will keep recording the latest aired episodes regardless of whether you've touched those two.

      Actually, TiVo already does that -- we use that feature quite often. Just set the "Keep Until" date to the "Keep Until I Delete" option (green-dot mode). That will make it record the shows, and since it won't erase them until you do it manually, it will stop recording any newer ones; it won't overwrite them. Works like a charm!

      --Tom
  • I live in Canada.
    Therefore I only have 1 Sattelite choice. CRTC Approved, (in 2 flavours, BEV, and Dish).
    BEV does have a PVR but without any of the goodness that TiVo offers.
    Is there any hope for me? Are there any choices out there that I am missing?
    Help me please.

  • EyeTV for Mac users (Score:4, Interesting)

    by swell ( 195815 ) <jabberwock@poetic.com> on Sunday April 20, 2003 @07:07PM (#5770708)


    This alternative allows saving to removable media- primarily CD-ROM.

    EyeTV is a drive sized box that attaches to the USB port and either/both the cable wire or AV cables (DVD players, VCRs, DV cameras etc). It is also a software interface that is easy to use. It does the usual stuff like letting you watch live or recorded TV on your monitor in a window size you choose.

    It can wake or turn on the computer for a timed recording. It can copy from cable and DVD, but not at full DVD quality. The two quality options are roughly equivalent to regular TV and VCR quality EyeTV can save programs on hard drive, or inexpensive video CDs (readable with DVD players, 70 minutes each), or QuickTime format for use anywhere.

    It doesn't require a paid subscription, but a free web link allows convenient scheduling for most US and some Canadian users. I just do mine manually, which is quite easy and reliable.

    EyeTV software has been frequently updated and improved. It is now possible to edit (remove commercials, etc) recordings within the program. Editing an hour of commercial television takes me about 5 minutes if I want to save it permanently. It's wonderful for taking clips from SNL or other variety programming which can then be forwarded to others or stored for future reference.

    I've been using it all year and I'm beginning to trust it to work correctly. I set it to record and forget about it. Whether I'm using the computer or not, it quietly does its thing in the background.

    My understanding is that this uses a standard chip set so that similar devices should be available to PC and 'nix users.

    http://www.elgato.com/ about $200

  • Combine a 120GB HD and a DVD recorder capable of recording DVD-RAM and DVD-R and you have all you'll ever need. There are tons of models that combine DVD and HDD here in japan.
  • I've been wondering - why is that I still have to pay $12.95/month for the service fee, even though all of my data downloads are done over broadband? Isn't it a helluva lot cheaper for TiVo to deliver them that way, rather than needing the modem pool capacity (provided by Worldcom/MCI, btw)? Even if I was able to go back to a $9.95/month fee, I'd be happy.

  • DVD-R?????? (Score:3, Informative)

    by /dev/trash ( 182850 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @07:44PM (#5770862) Homepage Journal
    For TV? A VCD or maybe SVCD recorder maybe.

  • Run, don't walk to buy your PVR (Score:5, Interesting)

    by btempleton ( 149110 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @09:05PM (#5771142) Homepage
    While commercial skipping is far from the whole picture on a PVR, it alone can cause you to justify buying one of these things today, rather than waiting for any improvement in it.

    Consider if you watch 1 hour of TV per day that you don't watch on videotape, which is quite low for the average viewer.

    That means about 20 minutes saved per day. Or 10 hours a month. If you watch more TV, multiply it out.

    How much do you value your time? You should value it as much as others will pay for it. Are you a $50/hour consultant? That's $500/month, enough to pay for itself in ONE MONTH. Are you a $6/hour burger flipper? Still a $47/month gain (after monthly fee.) and enough to pay for it in just a few months.

    You are absolutely crazy to wait, and the commercial skipping is just one of the features you will want. Every month you don't buy it you are wasting money.

    Of course you can videotape everything, and watch it at lower quality with incvonenience. But most don't. But with the Tivo you record everything, you almost never watch live. So it really makes this difference.

    There is one caveat. When you first get it, you will watch more TV for a while. If you have discipline, you will bring it back down over time.

  • Tivo Sucks (Score:3, Funny)

    by Tony ( 765 ) on Sunday April 20, 2003 @11:14PM (#5771574) Journal
    Tivo sucks all my time. I used to watch 1-2 hrs TV a week; now (because Tivo catches all the stuff I want to watch) I watch 2-3 hours a day .

    Good God. I used to have something resembling a life.

  • Explaining TiVo (Score:5, Interesting)

    by porkface ( 562081 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @01:03AM (#5771848) Journal
    TiVo's wonders can't be related with words sufficiently to sell people on it. People often dig it when they are at a house that has it, but they too catch only a glimpse.

    The only thing that can be said about it is that despite the fact that we're well beyond the early adopter phase, I've never met a TiVo owner who would keep a TV if they could no longer have a TiVo. You don't know its wonders until you have one, and there's no going back once you do.

  • DishPVR (Score:4, Informative)

    by RKBA ( 622932 ) on Monday April 21, 2003 @05:32AM (#5772223)
    The article cited in incorrect, at least as pertains to my Dish Network PVR receiver/recorder (DishPVR). For example, there is no monthly fee nor is a telephone line connected to my receiver/recorder. I receive the program guide as part of the regular programming fare at no extra charge. Since my satellite dish is receive only, Dish Network has no way of knowing what I'm watching. The DishPVR receiver/recorder is a one time purchase. I own it and could take it with me if I were to move.

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