Tivo Service?

Question

I couldn't find a definitive answer on their web site about this-.Does anyone know if you need an existing cable service in order to get movies and programing through Tivo or do I need to just be hooked up to my network?

Answer 1

If you want to record standard TV (Discovery Channel, Local news, etc) then you need to either have cable TV service or an antenna outside your house. If you want to watch movies or TV shows downloaded from Amazon Unbox, then you do not need to have any cable service - just a high speed internet connection. Either way you pay for Tivo service, which in my opinion is well worth it. No cable or satellite provider has been able to match the quality of the Tivo dvr.

Answer 2

Hi snowlight345,

You need a programming source. Internet service won't do it.

You can do over the air, cable or satellite but you need a source of TV other then the Internet. TiVo does not provide programming. TiVo only allows you to record the programs you have available.

Norm

Answer 3

Yes you do. You also need to subscribe to Tivo and pay not only your monthly cable bill but ALSO a monthly Tivo bill as well. My wife and I recently found this out. We had an old Tivo box we were going to use and hook up with our dirct tv satellite.  The only way to get it to work was to subscribe to Tivo and pay a very unreasonable monthly bill in ADDITION to our cable bill! unbelievable and sooo wrong so we just stick with our direct tv and their version of tivo for twice as cheep. YOU CAN however hook up your Tivo to any tv and watch any stuff that may already be recorded on it as long as you still have the remote. hope this helps.