A personal request to TiVo owners out there. Our Replay TV unit is on the blink. We will probably have to send it in to be serviced, to the tune of $120 plus shipping. Alternatively, we could buy a TiVo box, for around $50, and pay for lifetime service for $299. Any helpful hints on making a decision?
Some factors: We have one of the old-timey ReplayTV units that automatically fast-forwards over commercials, which is fantastic. But it’s also been around for a few years so we don’t know what part is going to go out next. I keep hearing people rave about TiVos. Are they that great? Has anyone really had the chance to compare between the various DVR options? Please advise in the comments.
UPDATE: Thanks, MegaZone, for the great comments. We’ve taken the plunge and ordered a TiVo on Amazon. What put us over the edge? Comments like MegaZone’s, laziness about packing something up and sending it back, plus the desire to experience some of the innovation TiVo seems to be pioneering. (Media playing features, TiVo to Go, etc.) Also look forward to checking out some of the ad-related experiments on the new device. They say it’ll be here Monday but I’m rooting for an early UPS delivery (too optimistic?) so we can play with it over the weekend.
UPDATE2: May I just say how thrilled I am with UPS and Amazon Prime? Ordered the TiVo yesterday — with the regular, free shipping option. UPS tracking says it’s now “out for delivery.” It’s pathetic how excited I am.
I definitely think TiVo is that great. I run: http://www.livejournal.com/community/tivolovers/ and maintain this list of TiVo resources: http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=tivolovers
DVR to DVR, I think TiVo has more features and power than ReplayTV. With the 5.x software ReplayTV made their scheduling more TiVo-like, but I think TiVo’s system of Season Passes, Auto-Record Wish Lists, and the priority manager make for a *fantastic* system. Wish lists are especially powerful, and from what I’ve seen of RTV, and reading their docs, they don’t really have the same thing. TiVo also has a ToDo list where you can see all of the upcoming recordings, which is something I know RTV users have wanted.
Above and beyond the basic DVR functionality TiVo supports music playback over a network as well as photo viewing over the network (no need to set aside drive space and copy the files over like on RTV). Copying shows from TiVo to a PC and back is officially supported – TiVoToGo. Like RTV TiVo also has web based scheduling – only you can schedule recordings within 15 minutes if the unit is on a network, no day blackout as on RTV. And you can schedule recordings from within AOL, and now from Yahoo TV, as well. TiVo has also been testing broadband content delivery, and we’ll be seeing more content available that way too.
And then there is Home Media Engine – with HME you can download 3rd party applications to your PC and access them from the TiVo – media players, news readers, RSS aggregators, movie listings, weather, etc. There are some hosted online – such as here: http://www.apps.tv/ And others you run locally – the best is Galleon: http://galleon.sourceforge.net/html/index.html
I don’t know if there is site with a good current comparison, but there are older comparisons: http://www.pvrcompare.com/
TiVos are also easy to hack and upgrade if that’s your thing.
Definitely the right choice — I keep using my regular definition Tivo even though I have a Motorola HD DVR — it’s just that much better.