Buying a DVR for my mom, don't want "service"

My mother’s 70th birthday draws nigh, and my sibs and I thought we might free her from the tyranny of videocassettes and get her a DVR. She mostly time-shifts a couple of soap operas each day, but occasionally will record a movie or sporting event.

My mom’s smart and can program stuff, given reasonably clear directions, and what’s more doesn’t need to be laying out money every month for stuff like TiVo’s subscription service, so I’d like to just buy the device and let her treat it like a VCR she never has to feed tapes into.

Is buying a TiVo* without subscribing to the service as simple as “1) Buy TiVo, 2) Hook TiVo up, 3) Never sign up for the service”? Or is there some other hoop to be jumped through?

*or any other DVR, I’m not married to TiVo. Recommendations for any other brands welcome.

Does it not come with her digital cable service? Isn’t all cable digital now? I know the biggies al have DVR Cox, Comcast, Fios etc…

The TiVo experience will not be pleasant without the service. I don’t recommend doing it, especially for a family member who has never used a device like this. IIRC, it complains at you regularly about not having guide data and/or valid service. It also will not get any software updates, bug fixes, etc. I would also say that easily 85% of the value and features in the TiVo require valid guide data. As a “tapeless VCR” the only benefits you’re getting are not having to use tapes and pause/rewind live TV. Nice, but IMHO not nearly worth the cost. If you’re still interested, and no one who has recently used a TiVo without service chimes in, go ask about this on tivocommunity.com. (I think the way TiVo handles this has changed with newer models or software releases, so it’s important to hear from someone who has done it recently with a recent hardware model).

You can buy service for a year or even lifetime up front, if you just don’t want her to have to deal with monthly fees (the cable company DVR would also come with monthly fees). You may also be able to find TiVo devices with lifetime service on eBay.

I was recently told by a Best Buy person that you had to subscribe to Tivo and DTV’s DVR units in order for them to work.

What sucks is that every store in my area stopped carrying stand-alone DVR’s.

Current Tivo DVRs are almost entirely useless without service. You can’t record anything, not even manually (specifying the date and time, like a VCR). Pretty much all you can do is pause and rewind live TV.

You can get a lifetime subscription for the Tivo box so there will be no fees. It’s $399 if you aren’t eligible for a discount (you can get it for $299 if you already have an eligible Tivo).

How does she get her programming? Cable, over the air with an antenna, satellite, Fios? Without knowing that there’s no way to make a good recommendation.

If she’s getting cable already, just get the cable company’s DVR.

I had the same goal for my mother. I never did find a DVR, but I bought this:

Panasonic DMR-EZ48VK 1080p Upconverting VHS DVD Recorder with Built In Tuner

For reasons unrelated to the device, it was not suited for mom, so I ended up bringing it home with me. I use the DVD recorder for shows and it seems to work OK.

Thanks to all for the comments. It sounds like we’re going to have to re-think our plans.

To answer your second question, not all cable is digital now. There’s still analog cable out there, and there has to be until at least 2012.

A fallback option is the Archos TV+. It’s a DVR that does have a rudimentary ‘service’- for about $15 a year (1st year free) you get the auto updates to the TV guide-but half the time it’s down (like, one week on, one off). And I think you may need a computer connection to get the updates-don’t know if you mom’s on wifi. But it does allow to manually set up recordings-and if it’s soaps, the M-F every 2pm until the apocalypse setting isn’t tricky. Warning: Remote is not user friendly and I seem to need to reset the box about once a month. I have it (the 250gb) primarily as my digital media storage drive. It only records in 480, so if she has a sweet HD tv, the recordings look rather poopy. But no worse than the VHS, for sure.

I have a DVD Recorder/VCR combo and think it’s great. Programing the timer and stuff is just as easy as with a VCR. I’ve been using/erasing/reusing the same couple DVD+RWs for over a year now and have no complaints.

Hey Knead.

I have a Tivo with a lifetime subscription, because my stepdad never used it. When I had it hooked up to the phone lines, it was kind of a pain in the ass, like sharding mentioned. I then bought the wireless adapter for it, so it connects to my home network for updates instead of calling it in - I LOVE it. It never complains, I can download recorded shows to my home network, and if I took the time to call up Tivo and get some serial number I can’t find, I could have it do all sorts of wonderful things (allow me to schedule a recording from my iPhone, iron my pants, etc.).

Looks like there are lifetime subscription boxes on ebay for less than $200. I didn’t check the completed prices, though.

Is there any advantage to getting your cable company’s DVR rather than Tivo (assumintg the Tivo can connect to your LAN)?

This is all IMHO, of course. I’ve had TiVos for almost 10 years, so I’m somewhat biased, but I did have a cable company DVR for some time a couple of years ago (between the time I got an HD TV and TiVo came out with an HD-capable model). This is based on Comcast’s DVRs – I can’t speak to any others.

Advantages

[ul]
[li]You don’t have to buy the hardware[/li][li]If it has a problem, the cable company will (probably) fix it without blaming it on someone else[/li][li]You can probably get your cable company’s on demand movies, etc.[/li][li]As new models come out, you may be able to just swap it out with the cable company[/li][/ul]

Disadvantages

[ul]
[li]Much worse user interface[/li][li]Buggier[/li][li]Worse picture quality[/li][li]No Netflix or Amazon video features[/li][li]No multi-room viewing features[/li][li]Much more (and more obtrusive) advertising[/li][li]Smaller hard drive (less storage available)[/li][li]No way to add extra storage[/li][li]No way to download videos from the DVR to your computer[/li][li]Monthly fee may be higher[/li][li]Less configurable[/li][li]When it breaks, the cable company still might not be able to help you much (mine twice deleted ALL of the shows I had recorded, and the cable company just said “sorry.”)[/li][/ul]

Just an FYI: the lifetime subscription for Tivo is good for the lifetime of the Tivo unit, not the lifetime of the owner. So if your Tivo conks out after a good while or you replace it with a newer model, you’ll need to purchase another lifetime subscription.

This was one of my misconceptions when I looked into it.

Also important is the ability to record digital and premium channels directly without extraneous hardware.

A cable card TiVo avoids that, but then there will be monthly fees for those as well.

I don’t think that’s such a big issue. The cable card fee is like $2, at least around here, so it’s negligible. Last time I checked, the TiVo service+CableCard fee was a dollar or two less than the Cable Company DVR fee. TiVo is still more expensive when you factor in the hardware cost, of course, but I don’t think the Cable Cards change the equation significantly.

Once you have the Cable Cards in, the TiVo works seamlessly (it is technically extraneous hardware, but it’s not like it’s an extra box or anything – pop them in, activate them and forget them).

Tivo with service is great, it’s worth $12 a month because it hardly ever misses a program (only if a football game runs long or something), and it’s very easy to use.

That said, I’ve looked the DTVPal DVR looks somewhat good. Reviews are mixed, but it’s like $250 with no subscription fees.

I have a DVR from DishNetwork. (I wouldn’t buy a coloring book from the cable company.) It did break (disk fail) and they replaced it for free, no problem. I didn’t much like the interface on the old one, but the new one is much improved - better firmware.
Not buggy at all, and the picture looks fine.

I have no desire to load movies onto my computer - and I suspect that this isn’t high on the OPs grandmother’s list either.

The one nice thing about Tivo is how damn easy to use the interface is. I’ve used some cable-based DVRs, and though the feature list is the same, the interface is miserable.

Assuming that your grandmother is an older lady, I’d go with Tivo for that reason alone. I’m relatively young and work with technology for a living, and the UI on the Comcast unit I used was so bad that I simply didn’t use the thing.

My Tivo, on the other hand, is so easy that even my mother in law, who refuses to use an answering machine or voice mail because it’s too complex and won’t use the DVD player we bought her, can at least figure out how to tell the Tivo not to record something when it pops up and asks if it can change the channel. If you knew my M-i-L you would be truly impressed. She is the ultimate test for a UI.