jducoeur | Thoughts on TiVo?

msmemory and I find ourselves pondering what we're going to do about the whole digital-TV switchover. Not that we're receiving signals over-the-air, mind -- the supposedly-government-subsidized converter boxes aren't relevant to us. No, our problem is that the cable industry is lying through its teeth about the "if you have cable, you don't have a problem" thing.

You see, we are on cable, and we pay a pretty penny for a fairly high-end package. But the reality is that the cables are *also* switching over to digital, for reasons related to those for the over-the-air change -- it's just lower-bandwidth, which lets them cram more channels in. And this means that any TV that is directly plugged into the cable (as opposed to through a cable box) is potentially screwed. Particularly to us, I am fairly sure that our trusty old Panasonic DVR, which has served us so well for many years, only has an analog receiver, so it's probably toast sometime fairly soon.

So we're pondering our options. We clearly want a functioning DVR -- it's how we watch all the TV we actually give a damn about. (Food Network is fine when we're simply looking for background noise, but we watch most of our series on the DVR.) Enough people have raved about TiVo for long enough that we're considering knuckling under and becoming part of the body.

In which case, the next question is *which* TiVo? The temptation is to go for way-high-end, but I'm taking my time and considering it carefully before spending that much money. The logic for it is that it's a good investment. We're clearly going to want HD capability within the next year or two, so it only makes sense to buy one of the HD models. Besides, the HD model accepts two CableCards, which is probably what we're going to want. (Not to mention the ability to download from Netflix, which is *very* appealing.)

And if we're going to do that, it may make the most sense to shell out the extra $250 for the insanely-large hard drive. The ordinary HD model has more than enough space for conventional-definition shows, but only about 20 hours of HD. Given that we routinely have 100 hours of stuff in our backlog on the Panasonic, this seems like it might become a problem if HD becomes common.

Related to this is the question of which plan to get. Again, there's an argument for going whole-hog: the "lifetime of the DVR" plan is pricey -- about $400 -- but that's the equivalent of about three years of service. If we expect to keep the device in service for a long time (and I'd certainly like to), then the lifetime plan might make sense. Moreover, it potentially increases the resale value of the device considerably if we decided to trade up to something else a few years down the line. So the question there is, how reliable have people found TiVos to be? Can we reasonably expect to get the 5+ years of service it'll take for the lifetime plan to be worthwhile?

Opinions welcomed. I don't have any idea what Comcast's timetable is, but I have no faith that the Panasonic will continue to work past mid-February, so this is gradually turning into a pressing question for us, and we'll have to act soon...

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We went with the lifetime plan and it's great for a low-cost Tivo. Like something that could ostensibly be a usable secondary workhorse in the 3rd floor guest room. As ours still is.

I presently have a Dual-Tuner Series 2 and think it is fine for what it does. But then I also have Digital Cable packages and several shows that I watch. I have a script that will unDRM the Tivo files once on my Storage network and they get filed away by show for later re-uploading.

Tivo's "video upload" feature is pretty cool but you need to be sure the network connectivity to the Tivo is wired if you're going to be transfering between 2 tivos, pulling stuff to store or uploading torrented files onto it. It also works with Netflix and Amazon's Unbox which can take hours to download a single TV episode or movie if your Net bandwidth is slow and you don't have a decent cable going to the box.

That's MY experience.

In the next few years I'll probably upgrade to an HDTV, Series 3 HDTivo which will also let me auto-pull videos off YouTube which is always fun.

For now, this seems to work OK. I need to get over to Comcast to return the broken cable box upstairs which doesn't appear to be showing digital content.

Tivo's "video upload" feature is pretty cool but you need to be sure the network connectivity to the Tivo is wired if you're going to be transfering between 2 tivos, pulling stuff to store or uploading torrented files onto it. It also works with Netflix and Amazon's Unbox which can take hours to download a single TV episode or movie if your Net bandwidth is slow and you don't have a decent cable going to the box.

Hmm. Okay, that's a useful insight. Doesn't necessarily kill the idea, but does strengthen the argument for running a damned ethernet cable upstairs. The cablemodem is necessarily in the basement, since that's where my server lives. For the time being, the upstairs is on 802.11g from there -- it gets adequate but not spectacular signal. It wouldn't be rocket science to run ethernet between the floors, but I'm always leery about punching holes in walls, since I really don't know my way around the carpentry side of the job...

Thoughts on TiVo?

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