Video recorder is now extinct (TiVo in General)

Member Name: annette_tr9

Product:	TiVo in General
Date:	22/01/03 (437 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: records your favourite programs even if you forget!

Disadvantages: no way of operating without the remote

We bought our Tivo just before Christmas at the bargain price of £99. Usually they are supposed to be £300 but you can generally find them around at £200.

A Tivo is like a video recorder with a hard drive. Instead of putting a video into the machine it downloads the program onto a hard drive. This is just the basics though.

If you like a particular program you can set it up as a season pass and your Tivo will record every episode for you without you telling it too. You can even set it up to record first run only so that it doesn’t record all of the repeats.

Tivo will also learn the sort of programs that you like to watch. This is done by you putting thumbs up and down to different programs. If you really like a program you can give it up to three thumbs up (depending on how much you like it) or if you hate it give it thumbs down so that Tivo knows that you don’t like it. Once Tivo has started to learn about the programs that you like it will record things that it thinks you may want to watch. This can be turning off though!

Searching for programs to record is very easy. You can either search by the name of the program or by the channel it’s on. Programs can be recorded in four different qualities. If you only want to watch the latest episode of Eastenders you can just record basic quality, which is about the same as watching the television through a normal aerial. If you think you may want to keep the program (you can back up to video from Tivo) you can select the highest quality. The higher the quality the bigger space it will take up on the hard drive. At the best quality you can fit about 20 hours of running time onto the hard drive although now you can buy bigger hard drives to fit inside your Tivo if you are feeling brave!

Setting up your Tivo, well, I’m not going to lie, it’s a nightmare. If you are just plugging your Tivo into your television and that’s it, very e
asy and simple. Add in digital sky, a video recorder and a dvd player you have a complete nightmare and lots and lots of leads!! It took us quite a while to sort it out. There are pretty good instructions in the back of your Tivo book and I would suggest you follow them step by step and make sure it’s all right! All of the leads for your Tivo are included in the box.

Once you have managed to plug the Tivo in (probably two weeks later!!) you need to set it up. This is all done on screen. You need to choose your channels that you receive and inputs/outputs etc. This may sound complicated but everything is explained and is very easy to follow. When you have finished your setting up Tivo will connect to the phone line (if you have remembered to plug it in and if you have it plugged in correctly) to download the account data and the television schedule for the next two weeks. Total setup time including download is about three hours, do it just before you are going out.

You get about a week free use of the Tivo service before you will need to start paying your monthly subscription. Just like Sky you need to pay for the privilege to use the service. It’s either £10 per month or you can pay £200 for lifetime subscription. I would recommend the £200 if you can afford it! After that every night Tivo will connect using the phoneline and download television schedule data and any new messages Tivo want to send you (like new channels added etc). This is a freephone telephone number so it won’t cost you anything.

Tivo is definitely worth a purchase for £200. I have heard that they are discontinuing it though so I would get in there and buy it now! Tivo have confirmed that the services will continue even though the box is not being made any more.

The one thing wrong with the Tivo is that once you have lost the remote control then you are lost. There are no buttons on the front of the box to operate it so my advi
se is DON’T LOOSE THE REMOTE CONTROL!!!

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