God Made TiVo, THEN He Rested

Introduction

I am a huge fan of prime time television shows. The shows I tend to love (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Lost, Alias, 24) have ongoing multi-episode storylines so it's extremely annoying to miss even one episode. It used to be a pain to have to set my VCR every single day, since there was always at least one show I liked on each day. Eventhough I got very good at working with the VCR time recording feature, there was still too much margin for error. Every once in a while something would go wrong and I'd miss a key episode of one of my favorite shows. Those of you that like TV as much as I do can probably understand how unhelpful it is when someone tells you "well you can catch it on rerun". Finally, i broke down and bought a TiVo and it has solved about 99% of my problems.

The Hardware

The first thing you'll need to enjoy the TiVo service is the hardware. There are many different styles with varying amounts of recording space. The box I purchased, a TiVo Series 2 40 Hour DVR, is just enough to do the job although it would be nice to have a little more space. The main thing you'll have to watch out for is the misleading recording time that is advertised. There are 4 different recording methods:

Best - This is the highest recording quality you can choose. Unfortunately, in a 40 hour box you can only record 13 hours at Best quality.

High - This is the next best recording quality and the one I automatically choose. It's more than enough for your average TV show and just enough for a movie. You get 19 hours with this method.

Medium - I have not used this method very much because I noticed some shadows when characters moved quickly across the screen (this was particularly noticeable during Alias and Buffy). This method will give you about 25 hours, not much more than high so I definitely recommend that.

Basic - This is just downright awful quality. I wouldn't recommend this for recording anything. You'll get the full 40 hours here but won't be able to enjoy any of it. The best use here would be to play a joke on your significant other by changing the quality of their favorite show to Basic, but I take no responsibility for any consequences of such an action.

I purchased the 40 hour box for $199.99 with a $100 mail-in rebate bringing it down to $99.99. If you need more space, the 80 hour box is $299.99 and the 140 hour box is $399.99. Both also offer a $100 mail-in rebate.

Installation

Installation is a fairly time consuming process. I would schedule at least an hour of free time to get this ready depending on your technical skill. Thankfully, the manual is very well written and describes many different ways to set up your cables. It will show you how to set it up with a VCR and DVD player as well. After you've completed that, you'll need to make an initial phone call through your TiVo to set up your channels and download program information. This is a time consuming call but you can walk away for most of it. After this is completed, you will have to wait about 8 more hours before your box will be completely ready for use. If you do purchase the TiVo service (which I recommend), your TiVo will need to be plugged into a phone jack so it can make regular phone calls to update program information. These phone calls will not interfere with your regular phone use. There is also a networking option which I have not yet tried.

The TiVo Service

There is nothing else you need to start recording TV shows with your DVR. This is completely free. However, without the TiVo service, you basically have a glorified VCR and are missing out on the best features TiVo has to offer. The TiVo service only costs $12.95 per month or $299 lifetime. Unfortunately, the latter only refers to the lifetime of your box so I would stick with the monthly fee. Once you have activated the TiVo service, you
will be able to fully appreciate the true power of your DVR through the following features:

Season Pass

This is what it's all about. Is there a show you watch every single week and can't bear to miss a single episode? Or do you love the nightly talk shows such as Letterman, Conan, Leno (my condolences)? With the season pass feature, you no longer have to try to remind yourself to record the show. With the click of a button, you can tell TiVo to record the program whenever it is on. You can also tell it whether you want to record reruns or only first-run airings.

Rewind Live TV

My next favorite feature is the ability to rewind Live programs. The Tivo automatically records the prior 30 minutes (at Best quality) of any program you are watching. Say you are watching the Superbowl, but need to go to the bathroom or go get a snack and don't want to miss any of the action. All you have to do is hit pause. The TiVo will keep recording and when you come back you can unpause and continue watching. It's like having the ability to make time stop.

Other Features

There are other useful features that make purchasing the TiVo service worthwhile. Wishlists gives you the ability to search for movies or programs with your favorite actor or director. You can also rate programs, which will help TiVo make recommendations for you. If you have free space TiVo will automatically record some of these recommendations, but these will always be deleted first and won't interfere with your regular recordings. You can also search by time, channel, or category to find out what's on. TiVo keeps up to 2 weeks worth of scheduling information.

Nobody's Perfect

TiVo does have some problems. It does not have the ability to record more than one program at a time (unless you have the Direct TV DVR). However, you can record a program while you watch one of your earlier TiVo recordings. I also have a problem with the way the service treats overlapping programs. It's nice that you can set priorities so the TiVo knows which program to record if they conflict, but if they only partially overlap it will not begin recording when they stop overlapping. An example: For some reason, ER starts at 9:59. If I wanted to record a show that is on from 9-10pm and that show was higher on my priority, it would record that show until 10pm, but it's not smart enough to start recording ER one minute late. You can fix this by setting up a manual recording for ER starting at 10:00, but it's annoying that the TiVo will not do this automatically.

Survey Says: Buy It Now

Despite these complaints, the TiVo box and especially the service that comes with it are incredibly useful. I have not missed a single episode of any of my favorite shows this season (except a brief moment where I moved and i did not have the TiVo hooked up). For a TV junkie like me, this is the best invention since the remote control.