Hi Larry,
There's a discussion board that's great for all information about TiVo:
http://www.avsforum.com/ubbcgitivo/Ultimate.cgi
Here's a recent thread where people trumpet the TiVo advantages while trying to convince a skeptic:
http://www.avsforum.com/ubbtivo/Forum1/HTML/008886.html
The largest TiVo you can buy is a 60 hour unit. 60 hours is the capacity when recording at the lowest quality level. There are four quality levels: basic, medium, high, best. Medium is fine for everything but sports where you have to use best. Capacity of the 60 hour unit at best level is about 18 hours. At medium level it's probably around 40 hours.
To be useful, a TiVo has to hooked up to a phone line so it can phone home once a day to get program schedules. It gets software updates the same way. I bought my first TiVo a couple years ago, and there have been two software upgrades since then, both took place automatically with no incidents. It uses local dial-up numbers.
All you do is tell your TiVo what shows you want and it figures out what time they're on. While watching a recorded show you can pause, rewind, slo-mo, frame advance, etc. TiVo also works with live TV. Everything you can do with recorded shows you can also do live.
Sound and picture quality are superior to the new HVHS VCRs. If you get a good picture in you'll get a good picture out. I have an HDTV (no HD inputs yet), and when I bought it I had to upgrade my VCR to HVHS because the old VCRs quality was unacceptable. It looked fine on my old TV, so the old VCR is now in the rec room with the old TV. The TiVo's picture is great on the HDTV.
One comment about picture quality, though. If you get a good picture in then you'll get a good picture out, but a bad picture gets noticably worse. If you have antennae service with lots of weak stations then don't get a TiVo, or any other brand of PVR, either. Or if your cable company puts out bad picture quality, don't get one. My cable company has a few stations that are barely watchable, and when you pass them through the TiVo they're unwatchable. I switched to DirecTV and completely solved the problem. My cable company is switching over to optical/digital now, so I could switch back to cable now if I wanted.
TiVos can be upgraded to higher capacity if you're not afraid to tinker with computer inards (it's really just a computer - it runs Linux) and you don't mind voiding the warranty. The instructions for doing this are simple and clear, and I've upgraded all four of my 30 hour TiVos to 130 hours by dropping 80 Gig disks into the 2nd drive slot. I only have two TiVos in the house, the other two I gave to relatives.
TiVo comes in several flavors:
- Standalone Phillips - one tuner, but smoothly integrates inputs from antennae or cable (one or the other but not both) and satellite. Cable tuner is integrated (except for premium channels, in which case you have to use the cable companies box), satellite is not.
- Standalone Sony - same as Phillips, just looks a little different, remote is different.
- DirecTV - two satellite tuners integrated into the box, but only receives DirecTV. No cable, no antennae, no Dish Networks, etc.
If you can afford one, buy one. You won't regret it. I don't spend much time at the discussion board I mentioned above, but I've seen occational rumors about a new version of the standalone hardware with two tuners, so you might want to find out if there is something new on the horizen. However, it might not be upgradable to higher capacity.
--Percy
™ Version 4.2
