what is the price?
believe me, the interface of tivo trumps any and all DVR’s made by cable companies. I don’t mean the stuff like netflix and blockbuster, I mean the search capabilities. They are ten times better and faster than anything else I have seen. Everything is seamless and comprehensive
can i offload recorded shows onto my PC or is it stuck in this box?
Tivo’s come a long way since I first bought one back in 2000, but I simply LOVE my PopcornHour C-200 now!
This only reminds me that I need to sell my upgraded Tivo S2 on Ebay!
ditto
I still have my Series 2 with lifetime service. It’s been awesome to me. I was thinking about getting the new TiVo Premiere - but deciding to get a Mac Mini with Boxee or XMBC.
If I could transfer my Series 2 Lifetime Service to this one, I’d probably jump at it. I understand TiVo is cutting the price of transferring lifetime memberships to the new Premieres…
Amen to that!
I totally agree!
I’m up in the air on this one. I started owning TiVo’s when Series 2 came out, and it was instant love. I had a house full of them. However, as someone who refused to budge from DirecTV, it was always a difficult situation. I insisted on stand-alones for the added functionality at the cost of multi-tuner. The move to MPEG-4 finally saw me move to the proprietary DVR’s and I have been empty ever since. After waiting years for the rumored rebirth of DirecTiVo, I have recently decided to move to cable on a trial basis. I need some HD TiVo’s, but TiVo Premiere just came out. Do I get these for half of what Premiere costs, or get the newest and best (and 1080p, too!?)
Later this year, at least according to TiVO. They say there’s a deal for a new series 4 DirecTiVO “sometime in 2010.”
I’d love it. I wouldn’t bother with TV at all without the TiVO, and I’d love to ditch comcast. I tried their remarkably shitty DVR and was less than impressed.
I’ve had one of these coming up on 2 years. The only problem I’ve had was with the cablecards going bad- Comcast is getting better (at least in the Twin Cities) about supporting these.
Note that this unit only supports single-stream. It will accept M-Cards (multistream), but only gets one stream per card so you still need two.
This has the nice feature of a clock on the front- something I miss in the newer units (and no- it doesn’t flash 12:00 all the time! Sets to Internet Time.)
High Wife Acceptance Factor on this thing, and if you have non-tech people in your life (I’m looking at you, dad!) looking for a DVR- this would be a great choice.
Weaknees has upgrade kits for more hours of HD recording goodness.
Lifetime is $400 now. FWIW
You can put Tivo Desktop on a PC and grab video off this (subject to broadcast flag).
This is available free from Tivo (there is a premium version, but I’ve never needed it.)
HP recently came out with a package for Window Home Server to pull programs off to your WHS.
You don’t actually have to pay for service, at least you didn’t w/the series 2.
If you don’t, your box is a glorified VCR w/an awesome UI. I’m OTA and this is a very tempting deal w/no listings.
W/out pay service everything just lists as “Saturday 1:00 on 41” etc.
For programming it to record shows you do it by time/channel instead. It’s not as useful w/out, but it’s free.
Be aware that the capacity of this model is relatively limited if you plan to record more than minimal HD BUT it is possible to add an external SATA drive for more. I don’t have this one myself and it might be a little finicky as to what kind of drive it will accept and how, so be sure to do a little Google research if this matters to you.
There are some reports over on the Tivo forums that reviewers are finding the new Premier interface to be sloooooow. I haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t say myself. It looks like the Premier is Tivo’s platform for future updates- this unit for example will not be getting the HD user interface.
I look at it this way- the Premier is new and appears to have some bumps. If you can put up with that- you’ll have the new features (qwerty remote, integrated search, etc) and be on the path for whatever else they roll out in the next few years. If you just want it to work now and can wait for/don’t want the new bells and whistles- it seems like the S3 would be a decent way in.
As for me- my S3 isn’t going to be on e-bay any time soon.
So, you’ve got the cable fee ($30 a month, say), plus that $12 Tivo fee, plus the card fee (~$2), right? Any other costs I should know about?
Is this worth it? Is this box obsolete? Most shows that we miss just get watched on Hulu or what have you; what’s the benefit of the Tivo when stacked against sites like that?
It seems you can transfer your subscription, both lifetime and regular, if you purchase the premium series 3 from tivo. Go to www.tivo.com and click on ‘upgrade to premium’ . An offer will be made to you after you log in so I’m guessing that it varies with customer status. My offer was for 20% off so the cost of the 45 hours machine was 239.99 with the 150 hours device coming in at 399.99.
I just bought this one a week or two ago when it was up. It is amazing and I love it but be aware that you HAVE TO use TWO cable cards. It took 4 Cox Communications techs and hours on the phone for them to finally believe me that you need TWO cards for this specific model. Capable of 35 recorded hours of HD or 303 hours of SD.
Just checked with Comcast, they charge $15 for installing the card, and no ongoing fee.