We've been fans of TiVo for a long time. I bought my first one way back in 2000 from the now defunct bid.com auction site. Back then they used to offer a lifetime service and if I recall it was about $200. It was a Series One with a whopping 14 hour recording capability, and it changed the way we watched TV.
A few years passed and they had a promo where you could upgrade to a new Series 2 and transfer your lifetime service to the new machine. What a Deal!! We jumped to the 80 hour version and were happy as clams (well, happy clams at least).
When we got rid of Comcast and got our DirecTV we opted for their TiVo DVR - it really was the main reason we went with them over Dish Network. It had dual tuners, digital outputs, and a whopping 35 hour recording time.
What? 35 Hours? Are you kidding me?
OK - I knew it was going to be that way, but I also knew how easily we could fix it. I opted for the easy upgrade kit from the fine folks at weaKnees and we jammed that baby up to 144 hours. Could have gone higher but that just sounded crazy. We still had the 80 hour series 2 upstairs.
All was grand in TiVoland. We had our season passes and wishlists set up. We watched what we wanted whenever we wanted. We stopped being slaves to our television. We had no idea when anything was on - it was just there on the TiVo.
And then they broke. First was the upstairs one. We really didn't use it much so while it did bug me, it wasn't a huge loss. I kept meaning to try to fix it but never got around to it - it just wasn't a priority.
And then tragedy really struck and the DirecTV one in the living room failed on me. Just wouldn't boot up one morning. This one hurt. We lived and breathed this thing. All of a sudden we had to worry about what was on. We had to be sure to be home when things we wanted to watch were on.
It sucked. It still does. That was a few months back and we are still TiVoless. I have them both in my office and really do plan on trying to fix them - they are just computers after all.
But it means taking them apart - booting the disks in a PC, scanning them, etc.. and I just haven't gotten around to it. One might say that if it was that important I would do it, but compared to trying to grow my business and support my clients I guess it does fall a bit short.
That doesn't make it suck any less being without them.
Why not replace them? The series 2 has the lifetime service - buying a new one means paying a monthly fee. The DirecTV model is no longer made - they and TiVo have parted ways. We could get a new DVR from them, but not a TiVo (and yes, there is a difference)
I've been a TiVo evangelist for years - I still am. I always tell people that it will fundamentally change your life and the way that you watch TV, and now that we have been returned back to the dark side, I feel even stronger about that.
I guess if they were still working I would have added it to my list of things for which I am thankful, but for now I'll just repeat - I Miss My TiVo!!
SB
