TiVo

I've heard so many good things about TiVo and I'm thinking about buying one. However, after summer is over I'm going to be at college for about 5 months before getting my own apartment. I have a couple questions that maybe someone could help me with...

liDo you need anything special to hook it up?
liIs it a hassle to move to different places, or is it pretty much, pick up the box and leave?
liIs it worth it?
liIf I wanted to cancel for a couple months incase it wouldn't work at my dorm, is that possible?
liDo you think it would work in a dorm?
liWhich model (hours) would you suggest?
liCan you pay your bill automatically online?
liDo you need to do anything special with your cable or phone provider?

I think that's about all I can think of right now. Any help will be appreciated. Thanks.

phone line or ethernet connection. you might have to transfer the subscription to your new address. yes. yes. yes. as much as you need/can afford. probably. no.

Most people are happy with the basic tivo box. The 40 hour one.

At a dorm you could probably only use phone line access and not ethernet because you wouldn't be able to use a router on a school network.

Nothin special needed to hook it up, you can hook it to your tv via coax or AV cables. And when you move it you don't have to worry about changing any settings, unless you are moving to a different zip/cable provider.

It's a pain to use it with most cable boxes, so it works best with analog cable. If you want to use it with digital cable your cable provider probably provides a better dual tuner option for cheaper.

My bill is paid automatically each month by deduction on my CC. You can set that up online.

For TV watchers there is no doubt that it is worth it.

Personally I've decided to take a personal sacrifice and not pay for cable for awhile and see if it doesn't drive me crazy. So I'll be cutting off my Tivo service. I just feel like I should be reading more and TV wastes so much of my time. Anything I really want to see I'll just DL off of a torrent.

the cable company provided dvrs are crap. go with the tivo. also, it comes with an IR blaster (last i checked) and a serial connector as well for working with digital cable and satellite.

[quote4962560762="mrdelayer"]the cable company provided dvrs are crap. go with the tivo. also, it comes with an IR blaster (last i checked) and a serial connector as well for working with digital cable and satellite.[/quote4962560762]

Yea, but I've heard most digital cable boxes don't connect via the serial controller and the IR blaster creates a lame delay that makes browsing live TV damn near impossible.

MOST cable company dvrs are crap... but the one Comcast and its affiliates provide, it's a motorola I think, is a dual tuner HD DVR... Tivo definately can't do that yet.

I building my own TiVo (or Personal Video Recorder).

It's only costing me about $300, I'll be able to store 125 hours of TV and I don't have to pay that stupid monthly fee.

[quote86af0e9de5="megacoupe"]I building my own TiVo (or Personal Video Recorder).

It's only costing me about $300, I'll be able to store 125 hours of TV and I don't have to pay that stupid monthly fee.[/quote86af0e9de5]
How, i thought the monthly fee was for the service that shows whats playing etc.

Thanks for the informations guys. I went to bed right after I posted this last night and my lazy ass just woke up.

My aunt gave me her old one and it is sweet. the thing I hate about TV is you have to watch the shows on their time and whatch their ads. Tivo gets rid of all that crap. Now every week is shark week. I do notice that the picture quality is a little fuzzy compared to watching straight TV. My wife hooked it up so maybe there is a better setting or better cable to use?

use composite video, or svideo or component if possible.

[quotea2af62ffe4="Crynos"][quotea2af62ffe4="megacoupe"]I building my own TiVo (or Personal Video Recorder).

It's only costing me about $300, I'll be able to store 125 hours of TV and I don't have to pay that stupid monthly fee.[/quotea2af62ffe4]
How, i thought the monthly fee was for the service that shows whats playing etc.[/quotea2af62ffe4]

There are free programs you can download that will give you scheduling info for network and cable channels.

[quote5aebb3db7c="megacoupe"]I building my own TiVo (or Personal Video Recorder).

It's only costing me about $300, I'll be able to store 125 hours of TV and I don't have to pay that stupid monthly fee.[/quote5aebb3db7c]
Building some sort of MythTV box? I am thinking about it. How bout showing some specs of yours.

1.8Ghz Athlon Duron on an average MoBo (Machspeed? Don't remember)
512mb PC3200 RAM (Ultra)
250gb HDD (Seagate)
128mb Nvideo Graphics card (Chaintech?)
PVR150 Hardware Mpeg Encoder (Hauppage)

Since I don't know how to set up Linux (yet), I'll be going with WinXP and using GBPVR.

I have all the parts at home, but I haven't built it yet. This weekend I'll probably get most of it done. We'll see how it turns out.

I'm still new at Linux, but that's what i will be using. I am currently building a new PC, and i don't know if i want to incorporate DVR into it, or build another one later. Right now, we get DVR included in our free dig. cable, so the price is right wink

[quote613aec7123="megacoupe"]1.8Ghz Athlon Duron on an average MoBo (Machspeed? Don't remember)
512mb PC3200 RAM (Ultra)
250gb HDD (Seagate)
128mb Nvideo Graphics card (Chaintech?)
PVR150 Hardware Mpeg Encoder (Hauppage)

Since I don't know how to set up Linux (yet), I'll be going with WinXP and using GBPVR.

I have all the parts at home, but I haven't built it yet. This weekend I'll probably get most of it done. We'll see how it turns out.[/quote613aec7123]

I'd suggest going with XP Media Center edition... if you're using a computer based pvr XPMCE beats all the competition. Also, it allows HD recording and dual tuner recording.

Good choice with the PVR150 though, the hardware encoding feature is nice and a must have for this kind of thing.