If you don’t have TiVo, obviously this doesn’t apply to you…
For us, it has totally changed everything. For example, any time we want to watch TV, it doesn’t matter what is on, we have a choice of everything we like at our fingertips. We watch a lot better TV, too, because we can figure out ahead of time the stuff we REALLY want to watch, and program it in… before we’d always forget, or be asleep or gone, or whatever. There are just so many cool things about it!
Also, when I am watching TV away from home I find myself trying to pause or rewind and getting very frustrated–how do people watch without being able to pause for potty breaks or back up to re-hear something you missed?
Being able to pause a program if I’m interrupted or rewind if I miss something is just brilliant. And I love the “season ticket” option. I don’t have to remember to record my favorite shows; it just happens all by itself!
Downsides: Now my little girls can pause and rewind commercials and drag me into the living room to show me yet another toy they simply must have. And every 5 minutes I have to tell it not to bother to record South Park, as oldest daughter has it on season ticket and it records all 3 or 4 hundred episodes shown every week.
A simple rundown of what TiVo does, for the uninitiated:
First off, it’s a computer running Linux, though it looks like any peice of home entertainment equipment, but without buttons or a display on the front.
It keeps a 30 minute buffer while you are watching tv, so you can rewind up to 30 minutes, or pause at any time. It keeps recording while you are doing that. A good trick is to get up and make a sandwich and go potty at the beginning of your show, then when you come back, you have enough forward buffer to skip over all the commercials The 30 minute buffer also means that you can decide to record a show a bit late. For example, we were watching a documentary the other day, and after about 20 minutes I decided I wanted to keep it. I said “record” and it recorded the whole thing, back to the beginning, which was still in its buffer.
So that’s live tv.
The real feature though, is programming. It makes a daily phone call to the TiVo Secret Headquarters and gets your local listings. I think it usually goes about 2 weeks into the future for those. You can search what is coming up and choose things to record, and it will automatically record them when they come on. You can also get a “season pass” to shows you like, which means that it will record them whenever they are on (no matter what time or what channel. Currently it records X Files for us on about 3 different channels) You can give season passes priority… so if two shows are on at the same time, it will pick which one to record based on your preference. You can also set it to not record repeats that it has already recorded recently.
We added an extra hard drive to our TiVo which gives us a total of 86 hours of programming. That means that at any given time, I can sit down at the tv and watch any of the shows I like that have been on in the last week or so. When I want to watch tv, scheduling is totally irrelevant.
Oh I forgot… it also lets you search by categories… like sports, movies, comedy, childrens’ programming, etc. And it has reviews of movies that you can call up on your screen.
And at any time while you are watching something, you can click a button and see the blurb (like the little description that shows up in TV Guide)
It also has a suggestions feature where based on what you record and what you give thumbs up and down to it starts to figure out what you like. If you don’t have anything set to record in a time slot and there is something on that it thinks you will like it will record it for you. The recording of suggestions uses space that is not being used by your current recordings and if you choose to record somethat that needs the space a suggestion takes the suggestion will be erased.
Also if you try to record two shows that are on at the same time it will tell you about the conflict and let you reschedule one or the other depending on which one will air again.
My blessed wife got me TiVo for the World Cup. Because of TiVo I’ve been able to record and watch all of the games which has made the tournament so much better for me.
I’ve used TiVo exclusively for soccer so far, so I can’t comment on many of the other aspects. The live pausing is nice, though. It’s particularly nice for sports when missing a few minutes could make you miss something important.
One thing I forgot to add about TiVo. You can fast forward at three different speeds and the picture remains on the screen without any distortion. I like this when watching the World Cup games because it can give you a real sense of the flow of the game and the tactics of the two teams. I use it on the slowest fast forward setting and you can see the way a team passes and sets up an attack.
Can I hijack and ask you TiVo owners some questions? I’ve got a ReplayTV (basically the same thing- a DVR- but made by Panasonic) and am fairly happy with it, I’ve thought about buying a 2nd unit. There’s some drawbacks to the ReplayTV that I’m wondering if the TiVo has as well. For example:
-I assume the TiVo has multiple inputs. If an input goes through the TiVo, is there a ~3 second delay for buffering, like with the ReplayTV? I can’t use the inputs for videogame systems as the time delay makes the game unplayable.
-does the TiVo go to bluescreen (or an equivalent) with unusable video signal? For example, I have a VCR going in to one of the inputs of the ReplayTV. For normal playback (or recording) this works OK. But if I FF scan, REV scan, pause, or try to use the onscreen menus for the VCR, it will show a bluescreen instead. I haven’t been able to adjust my VCR clock for daylight savings because of this.
Overall I’m real happy with it, I don’t know if I could go back to watching TV the “old way”.
We have a digital cable hookup, so we have an adapter box (cable to box to VCR to TV).
As a result, whenever we record anything to VHS, we need to turn the cable tuner to the channel we wish to record. Basically, the VCR only knows that it’s recording channel 3, and can’t do anything else. This is mildly annoying.
Would TiVo work the same way–it could only record what we’re watching?
TiVo works the same, although it changes the station on your cable box for you, so you don’t have to be there to change the channel. But yes, you can’t record one program while simultaneously watching something else on a different channel. However, I have found that this is very rarely a problem; typically while TiVo is recording one show for me, I will watch something else that it’s recorded previously. It’s only when two shows are on at the same time and neither will be repeated do you have a problem; on the very few occasions where that’s happened, I watch one of them on another TV.
Same deal. If your TV has multiple inputs then plug your game system directly into that isntead.
Yes, the TiVo has a default screen for a poor video signal (mostly blue, with a picture of an unhappy TiVo mascot and some text explaining that there’s no signal), but I haven’t had that problem when using my VCR. Again, my solution is connecting the VCR directly to the TV. (Actually, my TiVo is run through the VCR to the television.)
Unfortunately I’ve used all the inputs on my TV and receiver. I could buy a switchbox (and probably will) but you would think that there’d be some way to use the inputs on this thing. It’s got 4 inputs but I can only use 1 due to time delay from buffering, unrecognizeable signal to bluescreen, and Macrovision blocking. What are you supposed to use all those inputs for?*
[sub]*TiVo has all those same problems, correct?[/sub]
I never, ever watch anything live. The start of my prime time has basically been moved from 8 PM to 9 PM. That way I can fast forward through all the commercials, and be just about caught up by 11 PM. Instant savings of an hour.
I can actually watch a whole season of This Old House, instead of catching a random episode every other month. In fact, of the series I watch, I pretty much never miss an episode, for the whole season. It does become a minor tragedy when two shows are on at the same time – damn you Buffy and Gilmore Girls.
NASCAR and MTV have become much more interesting, because you can record them effortlessly and fast-forward directly to the crashes and good videos respectively.
And most important of all, I never have to think about what’s on TV. The TiVo will automagically record it for me. I don’t have to remember to set the VCR, or hurry home to see something, or any of that crap. Pure bliss!
I got TiVo as a present this past X-mas.
BEST…PRESENT…EVER!!
I was in Spain for 2 weeks and when I got back I was able to see the 24 and X-Files season finales. Thank you TiVo!
The only problem I have is that sometimes when it changes to a 3 digit channel it goes to the wrong channel. Let’s say TiVo is changing to channel 302 (one of many HBO’s). Somehow the signal to the cable box gets mixed up. The cable box will ignore the 3 and ends up on 02 (CBS). I’ve changed the codes and tried the different speeds but can’t seem to fix it. Again, it only happens sometimes but it’s a real pain in the ass when it does.
By the way, does anybody know if they make universal remotes that will also control the TiVo and it’s special functions such as the thumbs up/down buttons? I need to reduce the clutter on the coffee table.
elbejay: wow, your friend is the only person I’ve ever heard of who isn’t totally blown away and taken in by TiVo. Maybe he didn’t understand how to use it? Hard to imagine, though, since it’s really user friendly.
The 30 minute buffer also means that you can decide to record a show a bit late. For example, we were watching a documentary the other day, and after about 20 minutes I decided I wanted to keep it. I said “record” and it recorded the whole thing, back to the beginning, which was still in its buffer.