Tivo subscription question

[The village idiot]

I'm looking into getting a Tivo, but I don't want to use their scheduling service. Will the newer Tivo's still work, or are they like Replay that will stop functioning after a few days. All I want to be able to do is manually enter a day, time,and channel, and have the thing record while I'm away.

[The village idiot]

From what I have found the answer, for a series 2 tivo, is no. Anyone know of anything that will do this, and under the price of a DMR-HS2? Must have a hard drive with many hour capacity. Must also be a set top, stand alone box.

[Blaksvn]

The service cost of $12.99 is worth every penny!

I have had TiVo's for well OVER 2 years now and WILL NEVER go back to regular TV without TiVo EVER!!!!

I have a 4 units -
1 - 14 hour unit hacked to 94 hours - TRUE lifetime service !
(TV room unit - records my regular TV shows @ medium quality)
Red TiVo remote!

1 - Direct TV combo box Prototype - FREE service from both DTV and Tivo
(Computer room - for stuff I record to VCD/SVCD)
Clear TiVo remote!

2 - 20 hour units - Monthly service each
(1 in TV room and 1 in my bedroom for Adult shows :P Cinemax = Season pass heaven!)
Blue and Green remotes!

ALL my units are first series Philips TiVo's -

I WILL NOT TOUCH the new Series2 units since the are SMALLER then ALL my other stereo equipment.

Get one you will be happy!

I have also tried

- Dishnetwork PVR 501 for a while but it was WAY too unreliable (I had tried 2 of em') BUT it did have much better record quality in both video and audio then my DTiVo

- Replay TV - cool but not a TiVo period.

GET on soon....
You will be pleased

[ktnwin]

I have the TIVO for more than two years now, I cannot watch live TV without it anymore.
To answer the question: without the service, the TIVO box functionality will be reduced to "control live TV" (pause, rewind,...) You cannot tell it to record favorite shows and movies.
I paid the life time service fee (200$) and it saved me lot of time: 10 mins to go thru a 30mins news program, 1:20 min to watch a 2 hour movie (there are about 30 to 40 mins of commercial in each movie), 45mins to watch a 1 hour show such as CSI. If time = money then it has paid back much much more than I spent.
Besides the time saving feature, it frees me to do what I want and only watch TV when I want, not when the program is aired.
Up to now, TIVO is still not that popular. Anyone (I knew of or heard of) who has used it got stuck with it because they love it.

[sterno]

I'm like The village idiot (hmm, that statement sounds funny...), I really just want the equivalent of a VCR with longer recording time and without tapes that wear out. I don't even care about pausing/rewinding live broadcast. And I certainly don't want to pay a monthly service fee after paying for the unit itself.

That's probably one of the things that keeps the popularity of these services pretty low, first you pay $200 (or more) for the box and then you have to pay again for the right to actually use it. And this is for television, when there's less that's worth watching every year.

I'm guessing that VCR-like boxes will probably show up within a few years. Right now this stuff is still about like DVD players were a few years ago, the technology isn't very mature and there aren't many off-the-shelf components they can use. Things like Tivo boxes are still almost full-blown computers inside.

[The village idiot]

Things like Tivo boxes are still almost full-blown computers inside.

Almost?????

You can surf the web on modified tivos. If you so desire that is.