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Rabid TiVo Fanaticism
surfacearea writes "The New York Times [free reg] is running an article that, without sounding like over-the-top blatant product placement discusses the reasons why TiVo owners are at times frighteningly fanatical. Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there."
Heck... I'd very gladly into the fanatiscism if only they'd offer Canadian guide content on most of the common (but few and far between) PVR's out there. Can't even be done with most software, darnit! :)
You don't realize how much you love it, until it is dead.
My Tivo died this morning. WAH!!!
Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.
Huh? What a bizarre, ill-informed remark to make. The cost-benefit ratio would be ridiculous.
Why not just buy a recordable DVD drive and record TiVo programs on to that? Oh, you probably don't want to check out recordable DVD drives until they make one that has a MiniDV deck built in.
Alright, that didn't work, do the Google Affiliate I guess.
There, this one works.
Sorry about that, but still, it's not too hard. There should be no more straight links that require registering in the main story, just get the Google affiliate.
The RIAA can take my TiVo from my cold, dead hands!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/20/fashion/20TIVO.h tml?ex=1051416000&en=a77422bb2a91649e&ei=5062&part ner=GOOGLE
I made a PHP/MySQL library that prevents SQL injection & makes coding easier!
Google NYTimes News Partner link thing
No free reg required.
"...why TiVo owners are at times frighteningly fanatical."
I can't say it's a huge surprise. Tivo (and variants, I have a Replay TV for example...) has this way of making your TV work within your schedule. It's just a glimpse of how cool TV really could be. Sadly, the broadcasting companies think it'll hurt their ad revenue.
Personally, I can't wait until I can easily exchange shows with friends. (that would include knowing a bunch of people with a similar device...) If I had this capability a couple of years ago, who knows what Futurama's fate would have been? I mean, how was anybody supposed to catch it the way Fox schedules their shows?
"Derp de derp."
1) Be able to watch one program and record another. With the gol darn digital cable, I can't do that any more. My VCR was cable ready for regular cable, why can't I get a PVR that's digital cable ready? As it is, I can get around this for cannels in the regular cable line up by bypassing the digital cable box, but since my cable provider puts all premium channels on digital, I can't tape a movie and watch Junkyard Wars at the same time. It also makes the timer feature on the vcr practically worthless.
I love the hypocrisy of our local cable company; they have anti-satellite dish commercials that point out that you can't tape one show and watch another without a separate descrambler. No different than digital cable.
2) Like the poster said, it needs a dvd recordable. I'll still buy the dvd collections, but sometimes I want to take a show on the road or loan it to a friend. I can do that just fine with my vcr.
3) HDTV ready. Just to be future safe.
You give me those things and then we'll talk price.
Back when TiVo was new, some friends of mine got it. They tended to say things like "TiVo has lots of minor usability bugs and YOU HAVE TO BUY ONE RIGHT NOW ANYWAY!!!". As hackers, of course, they wanted to be able to change things, but the improvement in their TV viewing experience was the big appeal.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there.
Yeah, it would be such a shame to lose all those old Will & Grace episodes. But seriously, how many add-ons does it have to have before buy it? mp3 and ogg decoding? programmable from any computer? hackable? Id be happy if it does what it does efficiently and reliably. What's the facination with bloating products, adding unnecessary features? My fire extiguisher doesn't heat up hot pockets, nor do I want it to. It's a fire extinguisher.
" Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there."
Why are you more worried about what you don't get than what you do get?
"Derp de derp."
I have also felt the same way about my TiVO. I feel like I have broken the shackles from the schedule. I don't know what times certain programs come on, because I watch them when I want to. Now, I haven't gone and convinced anyone to buy one, but I have always spoke positively about them when people asked me about mine. I had not realized that TiVO hadn't advertized in two years.
Off Topic (tm), but how did NYT figure out how to make a popup activate under mozilla? That (VISA Gold) was the first popup I have seen in months! Moz guys, you need to look at that code some more!
Pop in a 10-hour tape, and tell it to play all those Farscape episodes while you're at work, and you can free up the space on your disk while keeping the program content manageable. It'd be nice to have it record stuff at 8x speeds onto a DVD burner instead of 1x, but remember, this is mostly the TV you haven't watched yet, or the episodes you've seen already plus the one from the last week or two. And if the software's at all bright enough, if you do want to watch the tape later, you should be able to spool it back into the TiVo for random-access play rather than just using your VCR's fast-forward and reverse and such.
(I don't own TiVo myself; we kept dithering about whether we'd rather improve our TV watching experience or stick the TV in the garage so we don't watch it at all, and buying a TiVo would have committed us to one of those strategies :-)
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I think that TiVo makes watching TV even more of a passive activity. You do not have to remember when a show comes on, you don't have preview as many new shows to see if you're interested in them, etc... Perhaps there is also an exhibitionist aspect to TiVo viewers... they enjoy someone else seeing what shows they watch.
One thing people rarely talk about is the fact that using a tool like Tivo actually subtly changes your outlook on yourday to day life.
Local news, TV advertising, radio advertising and the like play to our basest insticts, vanity, sex and fear. We naturally pick up on these things and they use it to their fullest advantage. Tivo, NPR and other methods of controlling advertisings impact are hugely valuable.
I'd go into the benefits but it would sound to Ra Ra Ra. I would most likely stop watching TV without my Tivo. Watching TV without Tivo is a completely depressing and morbid experience that, overtime, leads to depression, anxiety and even MORE consumerism.
So fanatical about 2.2.x software! (Kernel, KDE and gnome 2.2.x).
TV or not TV, that is the question.
Please expand on this, we may answer the mystery of digitally recorded TV.
Why slashdot? Why not?
We're worse than Mac evangelists! And if we are Mac users as well,.... well... we're in need of help.
Let's see... If I were on tivocommunity's forums, my sig. would be something like:
Philips HDR112
194 Hours + Turbonet
I had a sucky sig.
You sir are an idiot! Christ was born on CHRIST-MASS, and was only resurected on EASTER!
Sorry I'm not a slave to religion.
I picked up a Tivo that patched into my Direct TV dish. Doing a little homework, they persist the encrypted stream on the local hard drive rather than something that could be ripped. Disappointed, I bit the bullet and picked one up anyhow.
My god, does that change satellite TV.
First off, it makes 'VCR programming' bonehead easy. Get a list of all sci-fi shows for the next couple weeks, pick what you want, and eventually they will be waiting there for you. Pick a show like Futurama or Cowboy Beboop, and it will snag every episode. The only downside is how good of a job it can do if you set it for Dora the Explorer, Blues Clues - a couple marathons later and you will have more shows than I'll let my little one watch. As for persisting files, I prefer to push stuff into my computer to strip out the ads before ripping them to removable media. Turns out the downside - not ripping direct to dvd-r - was a major plus. Good Eats or Serial Experiments: Lain fits soo much better after taking out the credits, ads, and all the other things that gets shoveled in the non-premium channels.
Second, there is no prime time. Time and channel has no meaning at all. I don't spend a lot of time watching TV, so what I was interested in - it is two clicks away. Think of Tivo as limewire - you find the content you want, queue it up, and let it download whenever.
Lastly, the pause and fast forward are handy. Once you get in the habit that most of your viewing is a local file rather than something you happen to catch at the right moment and channel, you start expecting the same from live TV. Nothing is more aggravating than hitting FF, only to find you are on the tip of a live feed.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
GW Bush invaded Iraq because Dick Cheney thought it would be funny to hide the White House TiVo and blame it on Saddam.
I am a Tivo owner and have been since day one, and yes I have been accused of being "brainwashed" or being a walking Tivo advert. But people really don't understand what it is like till they own one. You never have to rush home to see a show, you don't have to sit through commercials, if you want a hard to find movie or show you just have the Tivo look for it. Hell my wife was skeptical when we got married but now even she is hooked. If you like TV, or even if you really just like a couple things Tivo is great.
Television sets with digital cable ready tuners will be introduced in the near future. This will allow you to watch non-premium digital cable channels without a digital cable box. I would expect them to eventually show up in PVRs.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
...that are sitting on 100Mbit connection (hello student home, yes I mean you) and where most stuff is availible on the local network at blazing speeds. As far as I can tell, they basicly don't watch much TV at all. They're so used to having stuff on-demand they don't adapt to any schedule, and when they do find the time (no VCR/PVR since they watch so little TV) the ads bugs them. I think they and the TiVo users are pretty much the same group, ignoring certain legal differences.
Like most other things in life you grow used to it, like so many people have gotten used to banner ads. Like, I never felt my ISDN line was that "slow" until my friends got DSL (not in this street, thanks for nothing) and I got myself a laptop and hooked myself up to the Uni internet. Now this line feels like a stinking slow modem, barely good enough to reload slashdot, nevermind actually downloading Game demos/Legal music/Movie trailers/Linux Distros and whatever else I might like to get. Nevermind thinking of those pay-per-minute charges ticking, it wasn't that much an issue until everybody else started having 24/7 connections.
In short, once you've tasted something better you won't let go.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
what that fuck. just because this guy expresses an ugly truth about linux he gets modded "offtopic"? fine, mod him down. but don't label it "offtopic".
Well, a recordable DVD would be nice. But how many of you really really want to record the evening news to DVD? I not stupid - I see the utility of this, but as a Tivo owner, I really haven't suffered that much for not being able to record to DVD. 35 hours is enough for me right now, and I can upgrade cheaply to over 100 hours. Also, recording Tivo to DVD, especially at digital quality, would certainly raise the ire of Hollywood. Tivo doesn't need to fight this battle now, when they are already fighting a battle over commerical skipping.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Today at 12:30 pm I was at my grandmother's house who does not have anything other than over-the-air TV. The same Ronco infomerical was running on both the Fox and UPN stations in town. In fact, the only stations that were not showing infomericals were PBS, the ABC affiliate who had barely-watchale public interest drivel, and the three Spanish-speaking networks running in an area where most of the population doesn't speak that language.
It's over for the purely commercial-supported TV. Over the air TV now consists of local news and access to the "major networks". At times when there is no news or national program, the station effectively puts on a program of negative value just to keep the tower warm.
We're already paying subscription rates for most of the TV programs we get. The loss of ad revenue to the TiVo-ish technologies is simply going to mean that they'll have to raise those subscription rates a bit, and that some of the marginal projects that are going forward today won't be able to go forward in the future. (Does the world really need ESPNews?)
Just because there's a change in business models forced by technology doesn't mean it should be blocked, the businesses involved just need to learn to adjust.
Where do you get Serial Experiments: Lain? I have digital cable with a zillion channels but haven't seen that in any of them.
"The deluded are always filled with absolutes. The rest of us have to live with ambiguity." - Aristoi, Walter Jon Willia
I've been doing all that tivo stuff with my trusty VCR for the last 10 years. I don't have cable or subscription fees. I just look at the TV schedule and program my VCR. I actually have two VCRs; I can watch one while I record with the other. Why would anyone pay $350 for a Tivo, then pay $40/month for cable, and then pay $13/month for Tivo's subscription scheduling crap. Looks like the Tivo company is the real winner here. I can't believe that slashdotters can't simply program a VCR! Another advantage to VCR is that I can make a tape library and save the programs I watch as long as I like. Skipping comercials is a breeze with the fast forward button on my remote. What am I missing here?!
Tech TV kicked off their Anime Unleashed series with it.
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
I must admit, I think that it could be _the_ killer app for DVD recordables to record from a TiVO.
Click one button, you get all the episodes of some series for the season. A few months later, you burn them all to DVD, and stash it in your collection. I could see that being _very_ compelling stuff.
Perhaps this is what MythTV and Freevo need to automate?
-DMZ
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
WAKE UP YOU BLIND FUCKING IDIOTS!
...hell, you pay through the nose for your doublespeak.
It's TELEVISION. It's a goddamn scripted version of what someone -- a someone with a vested interest in not upsetting you about anything whatsoever so their advertisers stick around -- thinks life should look like.
Your finger pointing at the moon isn't the moon and excited phosphor choreographed to look like life isn't life! PUT THE FUCKING TIVO, REMOTE, DVD, INSERT-YOUR-FAVORITE-OPIATE-HERE DOWN AND EXIST.
Jesus H. Christ on a greased up pogo stick... Isn't this the crowd that is so anti-1984? Yet you welcome
My
Limekiller
I picked up my ReplayTV last year for my dad and we both love it. He works late and misses his favorite shows. He's not a tech savvy guy so I was a bit worried about how he would like the gift. At first he was a little discouraged...having to use another remote control and all but he has grown to love it. I'm just echoing what has been said but once you have a PVR you don't change your schedule to watch TV. You're free to watch what you want, when you want...as long as it's after the first air date :).
For what they're made of, the discs are a bit overpriced here. For now the effect seems to be at least in part due to short supply - quite a few people got DVD recordable drives for Christmas or are buying new computers with the drives included. At my local office supply/computer store, a 3 pack of Memorex DVD-R discs cost me $13 - that's $4.33/disc. Buy no-name discs (Optimum 5-pack for $20) for a small discount, or the real way to save, buy in bulk. About the only brand that consistently works well for me (others will likely attest to this as well) is Ritek, and I like to get the 4x ones so as to reduce burning time. Rima.com has a terrible, ugly web site but they have great prices (comparatively anyway) - a 25-spindle for $2/disc or as low as $1.75/disc for a 100-spindle. Of course, I don't have $175 to blow on dvd-r's at the moment. I'm saving up for Lite-On's DVD recordable drive, due out in May or June, and hoping media prices drop dramatically on dvd media RSN (real soon now).
Just in the last 3 weeks, I replaced the dead HDD with a 120GB Maxtor in the HDR112 I bought in February, d/l'ed and restored a pristine image to it, expanded the capacity (the right way), and just last night added TurboNet, setup telnet, ftpd, and switched the daily call over to broadband. Next week I expect to add the Linksys 802.11 bridge and move it to the big tv. I'm already thinking about starting the next project unit. This one was fun. I strongly recommend hacker-types to take this route. It is **EASY**. My unit died the night it came in from E-Bay and I'm kicking myself for waiting so long to repair it.
I also installed TivoWeb, but I expected more out of it. I thought I would be able to browse the whole tv schedule much like Yahoo! TV, but no can do. I guess I'm going to have to integrate network-based remote control of the TiVo from my Misterhouse home automation box, since it already does Yahoo! TV-style schedule browsing and "click here to record"
I'm only home on the weekends, so the TiVo is just incredible for those early Saturday mornings when I get to catch up on all the missed shows. The only disconcerting thing (and reason enough to get another one) is that when my wife and I are watching the same channel on two different tv's and we can hear each other's set, the quarter-second delay between the two tv's is unnerving.
Hey, can anyone tell me if TiVo charges *per* unit or per address for the standard services? Thanks..
dead HDR-112-$99@Ebay
120GB Maxtor (144 hours)-$99@Best Buy
TurboNet-$75@9thTee
TivoWeb-GPL software
Intelligent Life on Earth
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
Jeff
Disclaimer: I do not work for Tivo, just a satisfy customer.
The saying around the Tivo (DVR) circle has always been, "you don't what you are missing until you used it".
Having a Tivo does not mean you have to watch every single show on all 500+ channels. The best thing is that it records what you tell it to record. And then you can choose to watch it whenever you want! No more re-arranging your schedule according to TV network's schedule. This is the most basic function of Tivo, along with a million other features to enhance this function.
Skip all the re-runs, you can tell it to record only new episodes of "The Simpsons". No problem, it knows the difference because it downloads TV Guide.
Tell it to record whenever "Robin Williams" is on any of your 500+ channels, anytime. (His movies, talk show guest, etc) No problems.
Because it is all digitally stored on a hard drive, you can watch the shows that still recording, you can pause, rewind, and fast forward commercials, etc. (too many to list)
The only question when you do get a Tivo is why you didn't get it sooner.
Amen to that last statement. After several hacks to Tivo-Tivoweb-Turbonet-etc.. I find it almost impossible to watch television the old way.
If you take a look at his posting history, he's been around enough to know that was a Troll, but as his post said, he "Felt the need to post."
You must have a real full life, eh? Sitting around giggling to yourself, "heh, I really Trolled him!" in between bouts of wacking off to your Natalie Portman collection. I'll bet you have clips of her in that tanktop in The Professional on your computer, don't you? If those clips were a magazine, they'd be all crispy with the results of your self-flagellation.
What a fucking luser you are, please send me your address so I can send you a rope to hang yourself with.
I watch TV programs, but only by downloading the Divx(s) and playing them. I'm in Australia, and I watch Six Feet Under which is not available here in Australia. So far I'm half way through season 2.
Beyond just the Tivos, I wonder if the commercial TV industry has file trading on the radar. With DVD player out there now that play Divx and Xvid, why would someone wait for Thursdays at 8:00 ?
"Must See TV", is becoming commercialess, "anytime I'm Free TV".
I have no pants and I must scream
Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there." Why stop at a recordable DVD drive? I am holding out for an integrated Bluetooth connectivity, PS2, coffee-maker, GPS and magic 8-ball. I also want it to be solar powered and to be totally waterproof at depths of up to 5000 meters. It shoud also cost less than $20 and run Debian. These are the reasonable consumer demands of me, Joe Slashdot.
Did you know, only 20% of the male population reads novels after 13? This figure actually predates PVRs...I don't think it will be improving...
Actually you can extract shows via ethernet and burn them to DVD now.
See http://dealdatabase.com for details.
Yeah, this used to work. But did you check it?
:P
Did you?
No, you didn't.
Please check things before you use them!
I finally got a TiVo earlier this year. I wish I would have bought one the day they hit $300/40 hrs. It's just great, plain and simple. Remember the first day you got broadband? How much better it was than dialing up? Even if you had a big pipe at work, how great it was to have an always-on super-fast connection at home? TiVo is like that. Even though you know the benefits--pause & rewind live TV, super-easy recording--you just don't know how good it is until you experience it first-hand. Just like sex--you can hear all about it, you can tell yourself, "Yup, I bet it'll be pretty good" and be right, but you just don't know how good until you do it. (Although, unlike sex, I can just about guarantee the first time with a TiVo will be great.) I don't know how else to describe it.
:-)
Fellow TiVo owners, mod me up so the nonbelievers can be enlightened.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Do you want this because you want to "share" what you've recorded with friends? If you sell what you've recorded, that's clearly illegal. If you don't profit by this activity, it's not clearly illegal, but it's not clearly legal, either. In the past, it's been unlikely to be enforced; but the times, as you may have noticed, are changing fast.
Time shifting is legal. Tivo, as is, is a wonderful machine for time shifting. Beyond that, the ice gets thin.
Stupid job ads, weird spam, occasional insight at
The outside world is full of extremely witty, attractive, slim mid-twentyish people who will like you if you buy products X, Y, and Z. Oh, and family values and frolicking puppies. Can't believe I forgot the frolicking puppies.
I'm still a little confused about why they're all hell-bent on killing each other, though.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
I don't have a TIVO or Replay or anything, but I did notice that there were some open source alternatives like Freevo and MythTV. How do these stack up to TIVO? Is it worth waiting for those projects to mature, or do I get a TIVO or Replay now?
That is, if I ever watched television anymore :P
Seriously, though. A TiVo seems like it would make TV watching almost convenient enough actually view. I got a little Via EIPA mini-itx PC that I was planning to set-up as a sort of mail-server/emulation game machine/media player/PVR box, but it turned out to be kind of unstable (I think it's the RAM) and I turned out to be to lazy to get that stuff setup. Plus, a homebrew system would still require me to keep up with listings to program.
On the other hand, I don't really want to pay for the listing service. I'd like to see an open source PVR software package with TiVo-like abilities and user-supplied listings... like the old CDDB before it got corpritized. It would be a lot of work, but I think it could work if there were enough users.
Another solution would be to have people pay the minimum needed to pay for people to license Tvguide listings or whatever. It probably wouldn't be more then $5/year or something.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I'm moving next month - the 22nd is my last day in the states for awhile.
I've grown quite fond of the bastard while I've had it.
I don't care at all about shows that it thinks I will like (aside from it really being adamant that I would like more of my shows in other languages - lately it seems to think that I would prefer the spanish stations over much else).
But I love being able to watch whatever the hell I want - specifically for me, the late night stuff. The Daily Show, Conan, Letterman, etc.
I really do wish that it could do multiple shows at the same time - right now I have to be watching nothing, or something it has already prerecorded in order for it to record something else.
I would really like for it to be able to record two things at once - I haven't personally come to a situation where it has been more than two things, but having the ability to record N channels at once would be nice too. (N would have to be greater than 1, but as it passes 10 it gets pretty silly for my use... hell, past 4 even(
I have my eye on MythOS and FreeVo (I think those are the ones), but I don't think I will have internet at my apartment for some time, so that rules those out (in terms of getting the schedules and stuff).
I'm hoping that my time away from it all will 1) allow the technology to move ahead and really impress me by the time I come back to it, and 2) allow me more time to either program or read.
I also wish that TiVo would allow me to jump ahead 15-30 seconds instead of larger amounts. that way I don't have to fast forward through an ad or show, but I can jump. There are increments that I can jump through now, but they look to be 10-15mins... not seconds.
There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
You know what TiVo feature I'd like? I'd like the ability to specify that I only want X episodes of a show recorded, but to not keep replacing those X episodes unless I've deleted them. Right now, you can specify that you want 2 episodes, but the TiVo will keep recording the latest aired episodes regardless of whether you've touched those two.
I live in Canada.
Therefore I only have 1 Sattelite choice. CRTC Approved, (in 2 flavours, BEV, and Dish).
BEV does have a PVR but without any of the goodness that TiVo offers.
Is there any hope for me? Are there any choices out there that I am missing?
Help me please.
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Using the SuperVCD format or Divx/Xvid would be a much more cost-effective use of such drive. for just 20 per show, it would be totaly worth it. Of course, 99% of all people would never watch 99% of their disks again.. :P
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I see I'm not the only /. geek that tivos Good Eats. I guess it makes sense with the science and puns and all.
I don't even like cooking and I love that show.
Yeah, but did you check to see if somebody else had already noticed this and responded to the comment fixing it?
Did you?
No, you didn't.
Please check things before you be a redundant asshole.
He just stole it from this earlier anonymous comment.
This alternative allows saving to removable media- primarily CD-ROM.
EyeTV is a drive sized box that attaches to the USB port and either/both the cable wire or AV cables (DVD players, VCRs, DV cameras etc). It is also a software interface that is easy to use. It does the usual stuff like letting you watch live or recorded TV on your monitor in a window size you choose.
It can wake or turn on the computer for a timed recording. It can copy from cable and DVD, but not at full DVD quality. The two quality options are roughly equivalent to regular TV and VCR quality EyeTV can save programs on hard drive, or inexpensive video CDs (readable with DVD players, 70 minutes each), or QuickTime format for use anywhere.
It doesn't require a paid subscription, but a free web link allows convenient scheduling for most US and some Canadian users. I just do mine manually, which is quite easy and reliable.
EyeTV software has been frequently updated and improved. It is now possible to edit (remove commercials, etc) recordings within the program. Editing an hour of commercial television takes me about 5 minutes if I want to save it permanently. It's wonderful for taking clips from SNL or other variety programming which can then be forwarded to others or stored for future reference.
I've been using it all year and I'm beginning to trust it to work correctly. I set it to record and forget about it. Whether I'm using the computer or not, it quietly does its thing in the background.
My understanding is that this uses a standard chip set so that similar devices should be available to PC and 'nix users.
http://www.elgato.com/ about $200
...omphaloskepsis often...
So, the Googlebot took the time to register for the NYT, but you can't?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Combine a 120GB HD and a DVD recorder capable of recording DVD-RAM and DVD-R and you have all you'll ever need. There are tons of models that combine DVD and HDD here in japan.
I've been wondering - why is that I still have to pay $12.95/month for the service fee, even though all of my data downloads are done over broadband? Isn't it a helluva lot cheaper for TiVo to deliver them that way, rather than needing the modem pool capacity (provided by Worldcom/MCI, btw)? Even if I was able to go back to a $9.95/month fee, I'd be happy.
I had my TiVo modded to add 2 120 gig HDs [can't go bigger because of a BIOS deal...] and have over 300 hours of viewing goodness. That's over 10 DAYS of programming. That's a lot of SpongeBob. If I wanted, there is an Ethernet add-in that ostensibly allows the"daily call" [for programming info] to be made over your broadband connection. It also allows you to telnet to the TiVo and take programs off the unit to your computer HD for transfer to CD or DVD. Pretty much they are MPEG files with additional info for the TiVo OS. Try Ninthtee for info.
Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain with all your metadata.
it'd be a whole lot cooler if slashdot had an affliate agreement with NYTimes. and for that matter if they mirrored articles they linked to. (shudder)
So now you're reduced to not even stealing things that should cost money, but stealing the accuracy of their statistics for the number of readers? Jesus, spend 30 seconds and sign up (no, they don't spam you, trust me) and then you can feel as if you're giving something back to the damned writers of these articles. Y'all should be lucky that you're getting this for free and without spam, Jesus, spend 30 seconds and don't be such a fucking lazy bum.
For TV? A VCD or maybe SVCD recorder maybe.
And you're worried about 80% of people not reading novels?
TiVi just simply frees you from your TV while letting you watch more of what you want to watch. It is a Zen thing. And with the Gen 2 Home Media Option which allows sharing program conent from room to room and playing Mac or PC hosted photo and MP3 content over the TiVo it just keeps getting better. (BTW DirectTv has declined to offer the HMO upgrade even though they'd make $99 for the first receiver and $49 for each addition upgraded receiver in the same household. A petition is available online to allow one to voice their wish for DirectTv to reconsider. It is available here.
- Tjp
I am in wallow with my inner money grubbing capitalistic pig. ... Oink!
Also, with old-fashioned schedule-driven tv watching, there are times (most of the time, usually) when nothing on the tube is of much interest to me.
And personally, I rather prefer things this way. Because it limits the amount of time I am willing to spend watching tv, as opposed to doing something creative, recreational, charitable, etc
--TRR
I'd be won over when I can put in a DVD into the TiVo, have the TiVo rip it, maybe convert it to MP4, and keep it like a "jukebox" onto its HD.
.02
Storing all my DVDs (and shuffling them into and out of the DVD Player) is a major pain the arse. The software exists to create something like the above now, it's just not legal here in the U.S. (what a bunch of crap, really). If I own a DVD, I should be able to store it on a HD for personal use.
The major problem may be with people renting DVDs and ripping them to "own" them forever. This situation could be handled by TiVo, the movie industry, and blockbuster (etc) agreeing to "tag" rental DVDs so that they cannot be ripped on a TiVo.
I have considered making my own DVD jukebox, the software is definetely there, configuring it is a pain though. Also, without some type of conversion, you'd need multiple HDs just to hold more than a dozen movies.
Just my
Chad
Why doesn't your Big Mac cost less when you order it from the drive-thru? after all, you aren't creating a mess inside the restaraunt...
Sometimes it costs more to bill at actual cost + margin than it does to just set a price.
Buy the lifetime subscription. It's worth it in the long run.
When I sat my wife down in front of Windows ME for the first time, she was freaked when the first error dialog box showed up. She was even kind of afraid of the mouse. She HATES computers, but is slowly coming around. When our neighbors bought a Tivo, my wife wanted me to take a look at it after visiting them. I was like "Yeah, yeah, I'll go over and see it one of these days." It was a long time later then I went over. WOW! As an UberGeek I was thrown for a loop and flabbergasted. A few weeks later after doing research after research I bought my 30 Hour Tivo from Ebay. My transaction went smooth and "Tivo changed my life". Since then I've upgraded my Tivo hard drive to 80 GB and I'm thinking of getting a second one for the bedroom.
EVERYONE NEEDS TO GET A TIVO! IT WILL CHANGE YOUR LIFE!!!
After getting used to Tivo, you will find yourself trying to fast-forward a friends television or the movie screen when you are at the theaters. FUNNY!!!! How many of YOU have done the SAME thing?? HA HA HA!!
Click one button, you get all the episodes of some series for the season, which you are only allowed to watch once. Strong DRM prevents copying them to any removable media. A few months later, the series comes out on DVD via MPAA-approved distributors for $50/disc. You buy it, because your recorded episodes all stopped playing the day after the DVD release.
While commercial skipping is far from the whole picture on a PVR, it alone can cause you to justify buying one of these things today, rather than waiting for any improvement in it.
Consider if you watch 1 hour of TV per day that you don't watch on videotape, which is quite low for the average viewer.
That means about 20 minutes saved per day. Or 10 hours a month. If you watch more TV, multiply it out.
How much do you value your time? You should value it as much as others will pay for it. Are you a $50/hour consultant? That's $500/month, enough to pay for itself in ONE MONTH. Are you a $6/hour burger flipper? Still a $47/month gain (after monthly fee.) and enough to pay for it in just a few months.
You are absolutely crazy to wait, and the commercial skipping is just one of the features you will want. Every month you don't buy it you are wasting money.
Of course you can videotape everything, and watch it at lower quality with incvonenience. But most don't. But with the Tivo you record everything, you almost never watch live. So it really makes this difference.
There is one caveat. When you first get it, you will watch more TV for a while. If you have discipline, you will bring it back down over time.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Well, if you've got a Debian Linux box sitting around and a supported tuner, just apt-get mythtv. :-) It was pretty simple to setup and I've got my computer in the basement recording shows for me all the time. The trouble is finding time to go down and watch them. I really need to work on a front end machine for my living room to make it worthwhile to do this.
- Does the 'sports' bar have a PVR?
- What would happen if someone brought a book?
- Do the 'chicks' smoke cigars too?
Important note: With a single tuner Tivo (read: not one for satellite), you can watch one recorded program and record another; but you cannot watch live TV at the same time you're recording something.
I think this may have been true at one time, but with version 3 of the software you can just hit Messages & Setup->Standby. The TiVo will continue to silently record things in the background, but it will pass the unfiltered signal through to the TV so you can watch any channel live.
Or pass a honey in short-shorts, and just catch a quick glance. Let's go to the replay, Jim!
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
I have PVR as part of my Dish network service (Dish M#501). I don't pay a penny extra for it. Everyone is right, It is awsome, changes the way you watch TV. I miss it anytime I am watching a set that doesn't have it. I recorded the entire final season of DBZ for... a... my kids! ya thats it! to watch. Skip over comercials in about 2-3 secs. How did I live w/o it?
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Where I come from, paying for something (in any way) that can be obtained for free in other, legal ways (Affiliates, for instance), is called just plain foolish.
You dumbass...did you not read one word of what I said? It's FREE! Meaning that you wouldn't have to pay for it!
Yeah, I think the NYTimes would want to get paid before they let Slashdot host their content. My guess is, the NY Times can handle the load.
"I don't think I will buy a car until they come with self healing engines." If you cannot afford one right now that is fine but do not make some lame excuse like your waiting on them to put DVD burners in them.
I know I know I am just a "fanatic". Does anyone else find irony in a story about fanatics coming out of the New York Times?
BTW, can anyone tell me if Michael's last name is Moore, cause it would explain a lot?
...still gives me the willies. I can't go near that OS.
Tivo sucks all my time. I used to watch 1-2 hrs TV a week; now (because Tivo catches all the stuff I want to watch) I watch 2-3 hours a day .
Good God. I used to have something resembling a life.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Why is this post not moded to troll?
TGD, Do you prefer week-minded vacillators that do nothing in office but spend a lot of time talking in circles and getting head jobs in the oval office? I know for an adolescent immature mind this would be a dream come true but it is not something I would consider a valuable trait in the leader of the free world.
Do you prefer week-minded vacillators that do nothing in office but spend a lot of time talking in circles and getting head jobs in the oval office?
Ingoring the fact that you're trolling, YES! This would be vastly preferable to the current evil dictator of the U.S.
I'm sure Bill knows how to spell 'weak' properly as well, moron.
How does an Aussie get one of these puppies which will work here ? I don't care too much about subscriptions - I can program my times in myself. But, it needs to work with PAL.
So, where can I get one ?
Do I have to hack one to get it to work ? I'd rather just buy one which works out of the box.
My cat did something REALLY cute a few weeks ago and I found myself wanting to do the 8 second replay... oh well that would only work in the Matrix...
I recently cancelled my TiVo subscription, because my unit has a defect. I bought a series 2 Tivo from an online company, and it died, so I sent it back for service. They fixed my TiVo (took about a month) but left off the id chip.
;)
Basically my TiVo doesn't identify itself properly when it calls in, so I don't get any of the software updates (mine is still on 2.0). It gets the guide data just fine. No home media option, no broadband, etc. I found this out by calling up Tivo and talking to one of their guys for a long time.
Anyway, they suggested I cancel my subscription while I have my system fixed, it might take a couple weeks to get the fix turned around.
Not to be cheap, but I'm thinking of just not having it fixed until something more drastic happens. I can live without Tivo recording suggestions, and can replace my season passes with manual recording (I mean, hey, how often do shows move around?). I would still get the benefits of time-shifting and large recording space.
Plus, I'm half thinking about building my own Tivo for fun, using a shuttle pc, ATI Radeon All-in-Wonder, etc. Then I would have access to the files for archiving, be able to easily add disk space, possibly add extra features like HDTV decoding, etc. Funny thing, I don't mind building a PC but am squeamish about opening up consumer electronics
Sadly, yes... I, too have done this. I remember the first time very clearly. I was in a theater seeing 40 Days & 40 Nights. During one scene the main character ran past a billboard with graffiti on it. I didn't catch what the graffiti said (not that it was inportant, I just wanted to know), so I instinctively reached for the non-existant TiVo remote.
>And, as you can see from this thread, nobody has posted that they have a TiVo and don't love it.
I have one and, yes, its great but...
First of all, I don't watch that much TV so paying the monthly fee just to get Simpsons reruns and a hodgepodge on new programming I may or may not have the time to watch seems like a waste. Its nice for my roommates, but as the Tivo owner it makes me wonder how much TV you have to watch to truly get your money's worth.
Secondly, the device is digital yet there's no digital out (say an SMB server to copy episodes in their original mpeg format to my PC). This is a real downer as the capture card and encoding take A LOT of time and effort. At least with the old fashioned VCRs your could just connect the two together and make a copy, albeit a lossy copy. The plus side is that someone else probably encoded it and its available on some P2P network (or bittorrent) thus saving me time. Replay had the right idea with their ethernet port.
Tivo's suggestions are crap. Truly crap. Just because I like the Simpson and Futurama does not mean I want kid's cartoons, let alone spanish kid's cartoons. I shut that feature off two or three weeks after I bought the thing.
They still need to be more open about their privacy policy. A legalese free sticker saying "we track what you watch to opt-out call this 800 number" would make everyone happy. Or better yet, "opt-in and get a coupon" or somesuch.
Please design a remote that will not give me a 50% chance of pointing the wrong end of it at the TV. Come on, this is a no brainer. The layout of the remote itself it pretty good, but the shape should suggest a front and a back. Oh, and lets try not to make it look like a little black dildo when its lying upside-down on the bed. Thanks.
Its also is in desperate need of a smarter season pass. I want the daily show once per day, not the rerun two hours later. Sure, I can go into "VCR mode" and tell it what channel and time to record on, but then again the Tivo should be able to do something about this.
They need to optimise the code or do something to avoid the long 20 seconds of lag I get pretty often. Worse, it backlogs all your commands so when the lag ends its going crazy, jumping around from one screen to another.
Lastly, it needs some kind of user level password protection. Something simple like a folder which only I have access to. Keeps the kids away from porn, protects me from accidental deletions, helps categorize, etc.
The wordiest comparison is at pvrcompare.com. It's a little out of date right now because Tivo just pushed out it's home media option.
The main reason to prefer Tivo is it's focus on making it easy know what will record. When shows conflict Tivo uses priorities you assign to decide what wins, and lists what will and won't record. Replays conflict rules are hard-coded and complicated and it has no handy list telling you what the results will be.
Good thinking.
It is possible to make a DVR that will not require a separate box to handle digital cable. However, such functionality would not allow you to watch multiple channels at once, no matter how well engineered it was. The reason lies in the fundamental differences between analog and digital cable.
In analog cable, every single channel is sent simultaneously, so all your TV has to be able to do to play two shows at once is interpret two parts of the signal. With enough processing power and a blazingly fast RAID array, your DVR could theoretically record every single show being aired on analog cable, simply because it's all being blasted at it. There is no request system with analog cable, which is partly why you can't do video on demand.
With digital cable, however, delivery is entirely request-based. When you change channels, your cable box sends a request back to the cable provider, who in turn starts streaming content from the requested channel. That's why digital cable systems can have hundreds or theoretically millions of channels, while on analog cable, you get a maximum of 120 or so. On analog, the company has to blast them all at you, which means there's a theoretical limit to how much you can send before you get frame drop. With digital, there's only one channel being sent out at a time, at maximum quality, regardless of how many channels are being offered.
Now it's actually possible to implement a cable system that supports picture-in-picture or recording multiple shows. Since there's plenty of bandwidth to go around (enough to send 120 or so shows at once), the cable company could just send you, say, the last nine channels that you requested, and leave the selection up to the DVR or cable box. Unfortunately, to my knowledge, none of the networks have implemented it this way.
Actually if you really want to pay 200-500 bucks to use a Tivo like a 49 dollar VCR you are more then welcome to, I mean it isn't my money you will be flushing ;)
Wish Lists are able to record any show based upon certain characteristics.
:)
For example, I have a wish list to record any movie with Bruce Lee in it.
Works great, too!
And if you thought that Bruce Lee movies were badly dubbed before, try watching the Spanish versions, like "Operacion Dragon". lol
Actually, I just tried it...and it gave me an error that flashed up on mozilla for a second or two. Then, however, it bumped me straight to the front page and I could click on any link I wanted with no registration. Interesting.
Project Steve
TiVo also is great for live TV. I can't count how many times I have been watching the news live and a story come on and my wifw will be in the back and catch a snippet of a story and yell "Rewind that for me" or the kids run through and I miss something and I can rewind there on the spot. That is a nice feature that often gets overlooked when TiVo discussions take place.
We've had Tivo for a while now, and we always skip commercials when possible. We were at a hotel room, of course without it, watching TV and a commercial came on and we all just sat there watching. Our three year old daughter yelled out "Daddy, rewind it" (being three she didn't know the difference between rewind and fast forward, but she DID know we didn't need to watch commercials)
I'm in the process of installing a TurboNet card in my TiVo and enabling shell access, ftp, etc. Ultimately I want to push stuff to my computer in the same manner as you described.
Do you have any software recommendations for stripping ads and the like?
I stopped watching TV, not sure to say exactly when, but at least 1-2 years ago before stopping altogether. I must admit, I'm prone to sit by the computer playing chess when I'm home (mental masturbation), but my surfing habit's also gone down compared to what I did before; surfing, playing Evercrack or whatnot. Now I'm very active and social compared to before, so I'm rarely home. Going out to yoga-class, be with friends or other truly alternative mindboggling activities like singing (satsang), meditation, etc, doing some charity for Red Cross or just watch a nice thought-provoking movie (they rarely come from Hollywood) like "Bowling for Columbine".
Yesterday, I had the benefit of watching the "news" here in Norway about what's up in the world, at my new girlfriends parent-house.. Unmistakedly I felt the fear and confusion spread across the entire room as new moving horror-scenes from Iraq demanded all attention. Scenes and stories, that could easily be planted and certainly didn't paint the whole picture, were portrayed as truth, and the fear of course, and then the confusion of what is truth or not, then some dictator in USA justifying crippling children for life in a new-spun "War against Terror".
No real knowledge were presented, just cynical views, fear, confusion and conflict. When you're balanced and accustomed to beauty and knowledge, you notice this, and disconnect, unless you become confused and fearful yourself. Being disconnected through dispassion, which is were hindsight gains its clear vision from, makes you free of the tyranny of today's agenda someone else wants to force on you.
So I don't regret stopping watching TV. Now I'll just have to make up for all the time already lost to it, and see what I can do for others when opportunities presents themselves.
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
About 99% of the voting public voted for either Bush or Gore. 99%! And you're only worried about half of them?
This here is a prime canidate. Just because you can't find quality programming a little after noon during the weekday (or weekend, god forbid), doesn't mean that nothing else is available for free.
And look at your examples. UPN barely has enough original content to fill an evening schedule apart from their syndicated reruns, and FOX's primetime programming is pretty good, especially on Sunday's at 7PM where everyone else is News Magazines dominate.
What's on during the daytime? Informercials and Daytime Soap Operas. You might find a "Peoples Court" type show (Judge Judy, et al) hanging around there, or a talk show (Sally Jesse, Jenny Jones), but don't get high expectations. This is low-rated fare, just there to sell dishwashing detergent or maxi pads to mothers who stay at home wondering what Bo is going to doing on Days of Our Lives.
Think about what she gets during PrimeTime. All of those ABC shows, FOX's programming (American Idol, etc), and while it's surprising that she isn't getting a CBS affiliate, rest assured she wouldn't have to pay for its programming if she did.
The complaining about too many useless channels is for those who have no use for them. Some people actually like to watch ESPNews, and some really dig the seven different Discovery channels. I know its crazy, but people pay for the privilege of watching that stuff.
The loss in ad-revenue is nill at best, based on estimates that Tivo provides. During the last superbowl, the commercials were played back more than original content was (unless I'm mistaken, I read it somewhere, feel free to correct me).
This chicken little talk of free TV being over with is as goofy as saying the local water municipality is going to raise water prices because bottled water is butting in on their market.
Just because there's an alternative that may or may not be to your liking doesn't mean you have to pay for it, use it, or agree with it. But of course it doesn't limit your right to complain about it, as seen here...
I also wish that TiVo would allow me to
Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select-[lower right of your pause key].
That sounds like a fighting game maneuver. I dub that secret kung-fu move the "Noh Pah Ti Break."
[
This is not accurate. With VOD, the content is sent to a unique box. This is not the most common operating scenario in at least American digital cable, at $3.95 per show.
Digital cable boxes continue to support analog cable, so a digital-cable DVR could have two analog tuners and do record-one-watch-one.
The digital tier is comprised of small sets of digital channels multiplexed onto an RF signal, and the multiplexes are sent simultaneously. The QAM technique and MPEG compression allows these multiplexes to fit in the same spectrum as one analog channel. The digital demodulation and decoding process requires enough resources from the box that a dual-digital-tuner box would be a big deal. But theoretically, you could assemble the resources and decode all the non-VOD digital channels simultaneously.
I read here on /. that one of the Tivo manufacturers is putting a DVDR in one of their future models. I also got turned onto the Sony SVR-3000 from here.. i got it for my birthday ($450!!) Its a Series 2 and i have the "Home Media" option which means i can play MP3's and view pictures from Tivo (online) or from my desktop.. its very cool. not to mention i have 88 hours of recording time and i can backup to my Sony VCR... the only thing i can make it do is the dishes.. darn it :)
The early bird gets the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese!
One of the crazy things about Tivo is that your costs are lower than you think-- especially if you buy a lifetime subscription. You can recover a lot of your cost by selling your Tivo when you're done with it.
My Tivo that I purchased for $800, including lifetime subscription, now sells for about $380-400 on Ebay. Units modified with the same hard drive upgrade as mine sell for about $550-$600. (Which is extra nice considering the drive only cost me $120, but create a recovery price difference of $150-ish.)
So the cost comes down to $800 + $120 ($920) less the recovery value on Ebay ($550). This comes down to about $10/month for my three years of use including hardware costs.
Tivos without lifetime service generally sell for $300 or more less than those that have it. This means that the resale value of this feature actually increases over time. (It was $200 when I bought it.)
The big gotcha is that if your Tivo breaks, your recovery costs drop quite a bit. Not to zero, but certainly much lower unless you can find parts and fix it yourself.
Personally, I won't bother to find out first hand until they slap a recordable DVD drive in there."
The guy is a retard. The Tivo is essential. This stupid fat fuck loser cheapskate idiot likes to watch commercials, what can we do to convince him that sucks royal ass.
If he has said multiple tuners on the analog version, as there are on the satellite version, that maybe would have been valid.
Anyone who doesnt have a tivo is smoking crack, and you are a little bitch to the media empires watching crappy ads which crank up the volume on your TV. A 30 minute show is 21 minutes of show, and 9 minutes of ads.
so all you enemploed no responsibility losers who cant afford anything, keep watching ads. I have to conserve my time.
and how are people who have tivo rabid? its rabid stupidity to sit around and watch ads. i mean, if they were targeted i would probablyw atch them. but somehow im glad to be able to skip ads for shit i could care less about.
that puke with the DVD comment is a fucking retard. i just hope everyone recognizes it.
Most VCRs have a way to set up a 30-minute or 60-minute (or 90-minute, or 120...) recording. On mine, I press Record a couple of times until the display reads "1:00."
alt.binaries.multimedia
Um, well, three words.
OOOOOHHHH! Look at MEEEE!!! I'm so much BETTER than YOU because I don't watch TV!!! You stupid SIMPLETON, with your precious IDIOT BOX! I'm too GOOD for THAT!! OOOHHH!! WORSHIP ME!!!!
Seriously, though. There's plenty of excellent programming on TV in most places. You just have to pick and choose - spending a few moments to find good stuff can be well worth the rewards. And you don't have to act like a fucking stuck up prick.
How braindead simple would it be to come up with a radio Tivo? Let's see... at 1 Mb/min audio compression, even a little ol' 1Gb hard disk would give you gobs of pause and rewind...
And I'm not talking satellite radio either, at least not specifically. Just radio + Tivo.
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
BTW, thanks for the Bod reference. I had never heard of him before. I will read his work; it seems interesting.
Bods concludes [correctly I believe] in 'Beyond Grammar' [p. 144-145]:
"...any systemic restriction of the fragments [training] seems to jeopardize the statistical dependencies that are needed for predicting the appropriate structure of a sentence. We derive from this that the productive units of natural language cannot be defined in terms of a minimal set of rules (or constraints or principles), as is usually attempted in linguistic theory, but need to be defined in terms of a large, redundant set of previously experienced structures with virtually no restriction on size or complexity...It means that the knowledge of a speaker/hearer cannot be understood as a grammar, but as a statistical ensamble of language experiences that changes slightly every time a new utterance is perceived or produced. The regularities we observe in language may be viewed as emergent phenomena, but they cannot be summarized into a consistent non-redundant system that unequivocally defines the structures of new utterances. The notion of "Univeersal Grammar" becomes obsolete, and should be substituted by the notion of "Universal Representation" for language experience."
I happen to think binary propositions are the closest thing to a "Universal Representation" that we have, which is why I have spent the last nine years collecting them -- this might never have happened if PVRs were invented in 1994.
Fact: If you watch your CBS on cable, your cable supplier is paying for it. Yeah, even if they're retransmitting a free over-the-air signal, they have to pay.