TIVO requires a monthly subscription of $12.95, or a lifetime subscription of $299. As I understand it (and I really haven’t looked into it) you must have a scubscription for TIVO to work.
Are there DVRs that don’t require a subscription?
The subscription part gives software updates, allows you to download schedules of programs, makes recording recommendations for you, allows you to record shows based on the downloaded schedule one time or everytime the show airs and a host of other things.
I am almost certain that the device would still work without the subscription to watch live TV and pause for bathroom breaks and such. You could also probably tell it to record from 8-9pm on next Monday or something. It depends what you want. TiVo isn’t going to be very forthcoming about this because clearly they make most of their money on subscriptions.
You may want to check out ReplayTV. Years ago I was a beta tester and had a Replay I. Their business model at the time was a more expensive box and no subscriptions. They got their asses kicked by TiVo so you can see how well that worked. I’m not sure what the deal is with them now.
I rarely tape anything, and even more rarely tape anything to keep. Basically I time shift, watch the programme, and rewind the scratch tape for the next time. Don’t need schedules or recommendations. Another issue is that I can only record the channel I’m watching. Unlike the cable dad and I had back in the olden days (1980s), the cable I had in L.A. and up here requires a box. If you want to tape one channel and watch another, you have to rent another box. You’d think that they’d have the technology nowadays to sort your subscription at the transmitter (as they did in Lancaster in the early-'80s), but I guess it’s a technology that’s been lost. Super-capable recorders are not really an advantage when the input is so limited.
I’ve got a Windows Media Center computer that works like a Tivo. It’s hooked up up to the cable box and it downloads the channel guides off the internet, records, plays, pauses and you can even burn with it. I don’t have to pay anything to the cable company for this feature.
There are ways around it.
You’re missing the point if you think of TiVo as simply a replacement for your VCR; if you’re content with the way your VCR tapes, then keep it!
What TiVo does is change how you watch TV. Honestly, I don’t think we’ve watched anything not on TiVo since we got our first one a couple years ago. It doesn’t matter that you can’t tape one channel and watch another; within a couple weeks of getting the TiVo, you’ll have hours of stuff on the TiVo that you want to watch - there’s no reason to ever channel surf.
Put it this way: you sit down to veg out in front of the TV. On the TV, you have the classic “60 channels and nothing on” to surf through. On the TiVo, you have the last 3 episodes of ten of your favorite shows, a couple movies, a few shows you read about on the SDMB and thought looked interesting, and a few things that TiVo thought you might want to watch. Which are you going to watch?
We have two TiVos, one downstairs with the lifetime subscription, and one upstairs with no subscription. The upstairs one does everything hajario mentions with one bonus - even w/out a subscription, you get three days of schedule to work with (vs. two weeks when on subscription). You can’t do season passes which is a bit of a bummer, but the three days is workable and we haven’t really felt any need to get the subscription.
I very rarely have ‘nothing to watch’. Got a couple-hundred movies on DVD (and rarer ones on VHS) to choose from. I tend not to re-watch TV shows. Yes, there are some episodes that are really good, but there are very few I’ll go out of my way to watch again. If they’re ‘that good’, I’ll just buy the boxed sets. (Coupling, Thunderbirds, Red Dwarf, Monty Python’s Flying Circus…) So I’ll already have them and not need to record them.
My VCR broke a week or so ago. Still seems to work, but I have a spring and a broken nylon lever lying about. Sounds like TiVo doesn’t do much a VCR can’t. And I must have a VCR because a lot of the films I like are neither broadcast nor available on DVD. Guess I’ll just get a new VCR. They’re cheap enough!
Most cable companies now offer DVRs with a cheaper subscription fee than TiVo. I don’t know of any commercial DVR that offers tv listings without a subscription (and as others have said, you really do need the listings to get the true TiVo experience).
The best way to get a subscription-free DVR is to build your own. I’m in the planning stages of building my own MythTV box. If you’re not a linux person, there are several Windows-based solutions available as well. It’s easy to end up spending more on this than you would on a basic TiVo + lifetime subscription, though. 
I said this before I got a TiVo. My parents said this before I bought them a TiVo. We laugh about it now. TiVo is so much better than having a VCR it’ll blow your mind.
Yes. My DirecTV subscription is $5/month. The TiVo stuff is in the same box and the satellite stuff so there is only one box on the TV.
I have a DVR from Comcast cable. The unit combines the cable box, an HD reciever for my HDTV, and a dual-tuner DVR (record one show while watching another). I’m not at home, so I can’t check my last bill, but I think the cost is $10/month for the DVR plus $5/month for the HD service, on top of the digital cable fee. If you don’t have an HDTV, I guess you just pay the $10/month for the DVR.
The service is similar to TiVo. For me, the online guide is one of the best parts. You can access the listings on-screen (and continue to watch a program, picture-in-picture). The information is more up-to-date and detailed than any paper TV listing. I’m completely spoiled by that single feature. Pausing live TV, and never having to rewind or change tapes is just icing on the cake.
Formerly, I used a PC-based solution using BeyondTV software and no monthly subscription but now use the dual-tuner Comcast product, which I’m quite happy with. I especially like the integration with the digital cable converter.
I was looking around the TiVo website and was a little peeved that TiVo still seems to require a phone jack. Don’t they have a WiFi version yet? Did I just miss it? I might be up for getting TiVoed, but I’m too lazy to run (yet another) phone line when my WAP is less than 10 feet away.
Do all TiVo units have this feature (“TiVo Basic”, I believe)? Mine does, but I got the impression that it’s not available on all systems.
Yes, you missed it. I have two TiVos, both currently running through my wireless home network.
There’s several advantages to this - two that I use all the time. The first is remote scheduling. If I’m at work and read about a show I want to record, I go to the TiVo website and set up my home TiVo to record it.
The second is that you can set up your TiVo to play music and display pictures stored on your computer. My TiVo has now taken the place of my home stereo - when I want to listen to music, I turn on the TiVo and play music from my computer.
TiVo is so cool it hurts.
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- I have heard of people setting up PC’s like this–mostly in response to Tivo’s (and the like) restrictions they have put in place. At first, people loved Tivo because it would skip commercials automatically for you, and it would record anything you wanted. I heard some time back that they had disabled the ability to skip commercials automatically, and now (something to do with the DCMA or some shit) the broadcasters want to include digital flags restricting your ability to record their shows.
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I haven’t ever had much interest so I never paid much attention: does your Windows-based setup still skip commercials and record anything you want? Do Tivos still do this? Seems like I have seen people posting of their Linux machines for this–precesely because the Linux machines (running OS/GPL software) have no restrictions on what they can do–but the Linux machines can’t really use the “Tivo” directory service–they get the programming lists from somewhere else apparently, or are just programmed manually what shows to record.
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Upon closer inspection, I agree that the three featured models offer broadband connectivity, but ( and not that it is a problem; I think I have a few wireless adapters lying around here somewhere) is there a Tivo box with built-in networking? Is there an Uber-Cool Tivo box I should be checking out?
Wait… You need a phone line to run TiVo? So I can’t use TiVo and my computer at the same time? That’s a deal-killer.
As far as I know, there’s no TiVo box with a built-in network connector. They have USB ports, and you buy a USB wireless adapter to hook 'em up.
The phone line is for downloding program listings. You don’t have to have it connected all the time, just during the scheduled download times. With a cable DVR, the info comes through the cable, so you don’t need a phone connection at all.