technology makes converts of us all

[aruan]

Brighthouse sucks in its cable packaging, and so it seems I'm finally moving into the 21st century as a TiVo subscriber. I hear it's delightfully idiot-proof and ingenious.

However:

I'm to understand that if you're not recording in High quality, you may as well not record at all, which reduces the amount of space on the hard drive to a little over a third.

Do I need it to be able to write DVDs? What do you make DVDs of? It'd be one thing if I could, say, record a certain SNL skit or Conan monologue, but it's an all-or-nothing system. I could record only certain episodes of shows like Law & Order that are hit-and-miss, but I don't subscribe to premium channels and therefore won't record movies with commercials. I have a lot of videotapes that need to be converted to DVDs, but I can just by one of those conjoined consoles for that.

Thoughts? Experiences? Is TiVo really all that? What size unit should I buy? I hear the remotes are oftenish faulty and that the units can be defective, which Humax likes to replace with refurbished models even though you paid for a new one.

Comments

[chenin.livejournal.com]

I love my TiVo and I've had a series 1 version for about 3 or 4 years now. At that point I think the biggest capacity one they offered was 40 hours, but now they have much larger ones straight from the factory. I actually ended up hacking mine though, and put in a second hard drive so I have about 160 basic hours down to 45 hours for best. I generally just leave it at high, but never really had an issues with medium either except for some pixalation on fast moving videos or sports once in a while. Since I have a separate dvd player/burning I can just route a second output straight into that, but I think some people enjoy the all-in-one version available.

I've never had a problem with my remote, well except after the 10,000 fall the case finally cracked open. It still works even after all that so I have no complaints. Depending on what you want www.weaknees.com may have something you like. They offer pre-hacked TiVos as well and plain hard drives if you'd rather do it yourself.

[gjstruthseeker.livejournal.com]

The same box for three years? Because that means the lifetime subscription is worth it. Thoughts in that way? And yes, that's the other question, should I bother with the TiVo box that burns if I'm in need of a real DVD burner to convert my tapes and otherwise play DVDs. Hm. That probably answers that question.

Whoa, that site is awesome. Many thanks for the tips.