What is TIVO and is it worth getting?

Question

What is TIVO and is it worth getting?

Answer 1

Tivo is VERY much worth getting!

It is a device that collects programs for you and saves them for you to watch at your leisure. you can also pause and rewind live TV.

Tivo beats out other brands because of it's intuitive "suggestions". The device learns what you like and finds programs for you that it thinks you might also enjoy.

So whenever you come home you have dozens of programs to choose from all of which are COMMERCIAL FREE!

Answer 2

Wooo.. did a top contributor just say tivo recordings are "Commerical Free"?   I don't think so!   Tivo records the commericals, but you have the ability to fast forward through them when watching pre recorded shows.  

Also, TIVO comes with a monthly subscription charge which I think is around $20.  

I find it odd that people use the TIVO 'Suggestions' as a strong point.   The suggestions for me have never been that good.  I check them and very rarely record any of them.  

For me, the biggest selling points of Tivo are:  

1) WISHLISTS:  In this feature you can enter information about Directors, Actors, Titles, or Keywords.   So, if you have favorite actors, or directors you can add them to your 'wishlist'.   Likewise, if you have favorite hobbies, or topics you are interested in you can manually add 'Keywords' to your wishlist.   Then, once a week, go and search for upcoming shows to record based on your wishlist entries.   Tivo will search and find all entries based on your wishlist, and you have the option to record them with a single click.  

I can not say enough about the wishlist!  

2) Networking ability.   You can network your tivo with your home based pc, making it easy to view photos and play music from your pc on your tv.  Also you can transfer pre recorded shows from your tivo to your pc using Tivo to go.  

3)  The onscreen guide.   If your current television provider has an onscreen guide, then this may not be a benefit.  However, if you don't have one, this is another strong point.  Tivo provides an onscreen guide for all of the channels you subscribe to.  

The answer to your question really is how much do you watch TV?    If you can afford the subscription costs I would get it.  

A hippie neighbor of mine once had a bumper sticker on his car that said "Kill your TV".    While I agree with that in some sense, I bet if he had tivo his comments would be different.  My bumper sticker would have read, "Give your TV LIFE... get Tivo!!"

Answer 3

It's just like Foxtel IQ

I is a VERY GOOD system but it only records free to air TV.

In the U.S they have hundreds of free to air tv channels so it is very handy.

I don't think it's worth getting if your an Aussie... Foxtel IQ is just as good recording free to air tv and all Foxtel channels.

It's just a DVR (Digital Video Recorder)... a box with a hard drive in it, records the shows to the hard drive.