amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
America Reviews:
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| Not that I care that much.. But Tivo is a ripoff. Monthly fees after buying the thing just seems wrong. Sure, I rent a DVR from Cox, but I chose to do that instead of buying/building a standalone device.
If I bought/built a PVR of some kind, say, a Panasonic DVD recorder with hard drive (do they still make those?), you can be damn sure I would NOT be paying additional monthly fees to use the thing. Same goes for MythTV or MediaCenter. Looks like a "Channel Direct" subscription is $20 per year if you go with this - »www.monolithmc.com/tvdvr.php ...At least that's a fair price compared to Tivo...
This whole Tivo situation seems like a pure money grab. Dish "stole" their idea and now Tivo wants their cut.
Why didn't they sue Motorola? My Cox DVR probably "infringes" on their patents too. What's next, Tivo sues everyone who makes anything remotely resembling a DVR? Coke sues Pepsi for making cola? Fender sues Gibson for making electric guitars?
...While I'm at it, why are cable channels that are "clear" on analog encrypted on the digital side? If you subscribe to cable, ANY QAM TUNER should be able to get ALL digital channels except for "Premium" ones (HBO/Showtime/etc.) without need for a freaking cable card and the associated fees. Why on earth should Sci-fi, or TBS, or CNN need to be encrypted?
Even then, if they require a cable card, why can't people simply BUY something like that outright for a one time fee?
Total crap that one is required to rent a cable card/box for what should be "in the clear." Those "expanded basic" channels aren't scrambled on analog, so why "scramble" them on digital?
It's a huge step backwards and shouldn't be legal for the cable companies to even do... |
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| The fees are for the service - without which the Tivo would be "just another DVR". Maybe I'm just brainwashed, but every time I have tried another DVR (UVerse, Dish PVR, DirecTV, Myth) I end up wishing they worked as well as Tivo and happily have continued to pay Tivo for a service that makes life easy for us. |
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 BF69Premium
join:2004-07-28
Camden, TN | reply to amungus
said by amungus:But Tivo is a ripoff. Monthly fees after buying the thing just seems wrong. Yep I neve r got the whole whole Tivo thing then once day I though "hey this might be an ok thing to have" well first the price of the damned thing nearly scared me off. Then I found out you have to pay $15 a month in addition. I thought "fuck that". In the days of VCR didn't you have to pay a monthly fee after you bough the VCR? Nope. All this is a modernized VCR. Renting one from cable/sat is almost as stupid. Do I get to keep all that I recorded if I decide I don't want the service anymore? With a VCR I record and I keep. Besides with sites like Hulu what's the point? Many shows you can watch online anytime if you miss it. |
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| Three features that I care about and nobody elsehave pulled off well (besides maybe ReplayTV, but they're dead and gone) :
- season passes that NEVER miss an episode (at least in my 7 years of using it)
- wishlists
- program suggestions
For now I am more than happy to pay my $13 to Tivo every month. Maybe I'm being ripped off, but there's nothing else out there that I've found competes with these features.
PS: FWIW, my biggest fear is that future DRM issues will screw it all up. I'm just doing OTA HD now, but plan to go back to DirecTV when they release their new Tivo based DVR, but I dread what DRM they may have plans to implement. But this probably would be more of a DirecTV mandate than anything Tivo would dream up. |
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| The only people that don't understand paying for Tivo's Service are those who've never used one. Anyone that's used one for a period will understand paying for it. May not want to pay for it, may not like paying for it, but will still understand why someone would.
DirectTV thought they could pull a Dish and do a DVR as good as Tivo. More than 3 years later with a box that's 4 times more powerful (raw computing power) the thing is 10 times slower responding to commands and has less than 1/4 of the features. There is literally a 3 second delay sometimes after pushing a button. I never had even a 1/2 second delay on my DirecTivo HD. Hopefully we'll be getting a new Tivo Box or Tivo software on the DirecTV box shortly as I'm simply getting fed up with the DirecTV HD DVR. I've been living with less since I got my HDTV and I want my TIVO back even if I have to pay them a separate fee to get it as I'm not willing to go to Comcast. |
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