amungusPremium
join:2004-11-26
America Reviews:
 ·AT&T DSL Service
| reply to major marco
Re: knew this one was coming... "...and you're limited as to what you can record/watch simultaneously, *and* you're complaining that Tivo charges a rental fee?"
Not really, I can record 1, watch another, record 2, watch pre-recorded, HD or SD, or both :P
Difference is, I pay only the rental, not hardware purchase outright in addition to monthly fee... Being as I don't plan on keeping it forever, I'd say I'm getting a better deal 
...Morbo - cable card fees would allow you to get HD, yes? In that case, the $3 (or whatever it is) brings you darn close to that nearly $13-15...
My basic dislike for Tivo is that after purchase, you still have to pay a monthly/yearly fee on top of that in order to use the thing. Why should I bother with that if I can pay the same amount to Cox, get (enough of) the same features, and, NOT have to purchase the unit? If I purchase the thing, I want to be able to do what I want with it - enter the Media Center/PVR - upgrade to however much storage I want, encode to whatever format I want, and no fees at all unless I choose to get this wonderfully pointless little cable card ...RENTAL.. in order to get digital channels and HD which should be "in the clear" in the first place...
My BIGGEST gripe is that scrambled channels should be the ONLY thing such "keys" are needed for, and you should be able to BUY said key at a cheap price.
Only "advantage" I see w/Tivo is its built in transcoder and ability to transfer directly to portable. Currently, I CAN still dub off shows via Firewire, but it's kind of pointless. Everything seems to dub off in MPEG2 without trouble except for premium content - everything else is regular MPEG2 that I can transcode until my processor melts...
That, and I have no desire or need for portable recordings of TV/Movies.
Don't get me wrong, I don't hate Tivo, I just don't like them or their business model. What I dislike much more is the way the content providers, cable companies, whoever - decided that I can't BUY a box, or a "cable card." Unless there IS a way to just buy a card, for, say $10, I'd say it's a ripoff. These things are nothing more than a very small "Smart Card" with special programming for their service...
One should be able to go to the local office, buy one, and use it on whatever device they want. If you have the latest most expensive Tivo with 80,000TB worth of storage, direct cerebral interconnector, Octo-HD hyper-reality enhancement, and your own dedicated bundle of ultra-multiplexed-faster-than-light-fiber, why not?  |
