Questions about DVRs/Tivo

[disneysteve]

Okay. I'm a dinosaur in certain areas of technology. We are still using a VHS VCR to record TV shows. The other day, my mother's VCR died. No problem, I thought. I headed over to Target and picked up a VCR/DVD combo for $69.99. When I went to connect it, however, I discovered that they no longer have tuners, so you can't connect them to the cable TV. That means that you can only record the show you are watching or, in timer mode, can only record the channel that the TV is set on. You can't watch one show and record another. You can't set the timer to record one channel at one time and switch to record another channel at a later time. Also, if you have the timer set because you want to record channel 10, for example, you have to remember to leave the TV on channel 10 when you turn it off, even if you were watching some other channel.

All of that makes it fairly worthless.

What we will probably end up doing is going to a thrift shop and buying a used VCR, but I also wanted to explore the modern option of a digital video recorder. I know very little about them.

1. Do you have to have digital cable to use a DVR?
2. Do you have to pay to subscribe to a programming service to use a DVR?

Basically, I want to know if there are any additional costs to using a DVR beyond the cost of the unit itself. Neither my mother nor I have digital cable and neither of us would be willing to upgrade to digital or to pay a monthly fee to be able to record shows. If we could just buy a DVR and be done, that would be great.

[poundwise]

Digital cable and satellite providers will charge a monthly fee for DVR service. Likewise, TiVo.

For a comprehensive DVR/media device, check out Moxi, which has no monthly fees.

For something more basic (in terms of operation) like your old fashioned VCR, you might look into this option from Magnavox; a unit that records digitally onto its 160GB HDD and/or DVD recordable media.

[minnie1928]

Steve,

I can help you out somewhat. I've had a Tivo for close to 10 years I believe. It's honestly one of the best things I've ever bought.

Ok, do you need digital cable...no, it's not necessary. Do you have to pay? Most likely, yes. When I bought mine Tivo offered a lifetime subscription for about $200, which I bought. From what I understand, they no longer offer that service. So, if you bought a tivo unit you'd have to pay the monthly service fee. Unless you found an older unit like mine on ebay and bought that. The subscription is tied to the machine, not to the user.

Now, what I don't quite know for sure is if you bought the machine, but didn't buy the service. Could you "manually" program the unit to record x show on x channel at x time? The way my machine works is that I tell it what show to record and it goes and finds the time/channel/day for me. If a show has been cancelled due to the World Series (for example), it won't record it.

I hope that helps...

[Fizgig]

I've had a tivo for years and absolutely love it. Mine has a lifetime subscription, which tivo still sells but they charge $400 for it. Pretty steep.

1. It will work with antenna, analog cable, OR digital cable.

2. I don't know about other manufacturers, but tivos need an active subscription even to record manually on channel or time. The exception are Series 1 from before 2001, but those are probably getting too old to be reliable anymore.

I agree with minnie that ebay might be the way to go. If you use a standard definition television, a Series 2 40 or 80 hour with a lifetime subscription would cost less than $200, and I guarantee that you'll love it. If you use HDTV, the high def tivos are considerably more pricey.

I really lucked out because my old standard def unit died right before the warrantee ran out, so they just replaced it with a new high def unit and transferred the service. If you upgrade a unit by choice they charge $150, I think, to transfer a lifetime subscription.

[minnie1928]

I agree with minnie that ebay might be the way to go. If you use a standard definition television, a Series 2 40 or 80 hour with a lifetime subscription would cost less than $200, and I guarantee that you'll love it. If you use HDTV, the high def tivos are considerably more pricey.

I have a 2000 vintage unit and it died a few years ago. It had a 40 hour drive in it. We found a website that sells new drives for the units, so for about $100 my husband swapped out the drive in about 5 minutes for an 80 hour drive. It was really easy, or so he tells me .

[skruggie]

For your purposes, you are much better off using a thrift store vcr. Unless you have a large breath of channels and are using the dvr as more of a "smart" vcr to find programming, I don't think it would fit your needs. Especially the monthly fee, which is really only worth it if you are going to use the advanced features.

I used to be a very early Tivo adapter, I now no longer own a DVR, nor do I have any form of pay tv. Just a vcr when necessary, and a digital converter with an antenna.

[jIM_Ohio]

We have a DVR from a satellite dish... you can have a DVR with cable too, not sure if the digital signal is a requirement.

DVR is better than VCR
if you want to keep things, no reason to store 30 video tapes, you can store 30+ shows on one DVR.

The feature I like best is you can set a show to record always. It knows to find the channel that show is on, and record it. Two good examples are 2 1/2 men- its on more than one station, and can find them both, and Law and Order- again on more than one station, it can find them. It keeps them until I have time to watch them, and I don't need to sort thru 2-3 video tapes, its all on one menu.

The DVR thru direct TV costs us about $5/month

[MonkeyMama]

We've had a first generation TIVO for over a decade. Thus, my standards are HIGH (it still beats everything else out there, but for newer TIVOs), but admit even a crappy DVR is better than a VCR.

In general, a TIVO only works with over the air, and cable. Ours is no longer compatible since we switched to satellite and IPTV. Our little cable company got bought out and we finally settled on IPTV as an option. We will probably sell our TIVO. You can get a used one with lifetime subscription, off ebay.

Your only options with satellite and the like is to rent their DVRs. (This is my understanding anyway. All this is over my head- and my spouse is a bit of a video snob - there may be options he just wouldn't waste his money on).

For us, our only option is to rent from our TV provider. It can get pretty expensive though. Once you get used to a DVR you will never go back. So, if the goal is to save money, I'd probably stick with the VCR. Ignorance is bliss? Never would have spent a forune on TIVO, but we are hooked now. So NOW we are looking at monthly fees, for eternity, to keep a DVR in our house.

[wincrasher]

I have a 3rd gen HD Tivo. It is the kind with the cablecard slots.

In short, I just love it. You can watch 1 thing while recording another. Or record 2 things while watching something stored on the drive.

The Tivo system is by far the easiest to use. You can find programs by names, genre, who's in it, etc. You can 1 click record an entire season of a show.

The subscription is like $10 a month or so. You pay for a year in advance to get a discount. The cablecard is $2 a month. Totally replaces the cable decorder box, which is very nice (saves $10 a month) and keeps the hookup simple.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

I'm hooked since 2005. And our neighbors bought the lifetime tivo, gave it up last year when they had to "box" the cable instead of using the basic plug in the wall. They now are addicted to HD DVR as well. Don't go there if you want to save money.

I will say that I only watch DVR though and not real tv.

[wincrasher]

Just a note - a "lifetime" membership is for the life of the DVR, not you.

If the box goes caput, guess what? you gotta pay for another membership. If you want a newer unit, then you gotta get another membership.

That's why I go year to year.

[ktmarvels]

We have a Toshiba DVR that isn't related to our cable company. There is no subscription costs and works just like your VCR would....but better. I can go through and pull up the menu of the weeks listings and set what I want to record on a daily, weekly or one-time basis.

It completely meets our needs and is similar to TiVo but it won't record shows it thinks I'd like, record EVERY episode of a given show, doesn't make the noise (DH liked the noise), or adapt for reaction time while fast forwarding or rewinding.

[feh]

You'll want to do some research, Steve, to make an informed decision. There are a lot of options available here, and this probably isn't the place to get information. You may want to join a forum specifically for DVRs.

That being said, you may want to think about hooking up a computer to the TV. With more and more content being available over the internet, this option may save you some pain down the road. Coupled with an external or internal tuner, the computer would function as your DVR. No subscriptions would be necessary this route.

If you have questions, please ask.

[Broken Arrow]

Several times, I've almost mentioned just building your own....

A TiVO is basically nothing more than a stripped-down PC with a hard drive, video card with tuner, and some extra stuff such as CableCard for digitally encrypted content.

Considering the total cost of ownership for something like a TiVO (not to mention several over the course of upgrading units), you might as well be building one and save yourself the subscription cost....

However, to do so means that you have the technical interest to DIY one, and is willing to commit to the potentially bigger upfront cost, which somehow I didn't think would be appropriate for someone's mother, who may be perfectly content with an used VHS recorder....

Poundwise mentioned Moxi, which I think is worth another mentioning again... even though they've sort of been panned by reviews on tech sites (but these are people who are more interested in the technology itself rather than the price).

Bottom line is, there are indeed alternatives to TiVO. The question is, "How far do you want to go?" If an used VHS recorder is good enough, then there's no need to look much further. Otherwise, if you want a long term solution for DVR, I say DIY a PC with an appropriate video card and software, and save a bunch of money in the process.

[skruggie]

The other thing I didn't really care for with DVR's is what a pain it is to transfer something to vhs or dvd that I wanted to archive.

Going back to using a vcr was the best solution for me.