Because we don't have Tivo. Sure, we can get it from eBay and haxx0r it for our region but in the end, VHS will continue to be a dominant force.

Really there are no PAL DVRs in Kiwi-land? Sounds like a great market opportunity. What about Australia?

DVD Recorder boxes for TVs cost upwards of €600 here , so I might buy a DVD-R drive for my PC, and a TV card and sort something out that way..

You're seriously missing the point of TiVo.

My TiVo has something like 40 season passes programmed into it. It tapes shows, movies and anything else I want whenever they air, with no user interaction necessary, even if I'm watching something at the same time (no VCR can claim that).

I can set certain shows to only tape new episodes, others to tape new episodes and re-runs, and prioritize the list. So my TiVo will tape new episodes of Alias on Sundays, but if it's a re-run it'll tape The Sopranos on HBO (assuming that's new). If it doesn't tape The Sopranos on Sunday, it'll wait for the next airing (whenever that happens to be) and tape it, assuming there's no conflict with something else.

I can go through and pick out a couple of movies regardless of when they're on (many air during the day or very late at night), keep them on the HD, and if I like them, because I've modified my series 1 TiVo quite heavily, I can extract the video and burn it to DVD at a quality that is several times better than VHS (plus it'll last longer).

Don't attempt to compare VHS to TiVo. It's ridiculous. VHS is a dead, analog technology. The video quality is crap, you still have to set things manually, and the tapes degrade in quality after a year (assuming they last that long).

As long as TV is still broadcast in a format that VHS can handle it is far from dead. I have tapes that last much longer than a year. In fact I have tapes from the 80s that are good today.

I just think it is too early to justify the one time and monthly cost of Tivo. Who is to say that a new machine will not turn the Tivo format into the next Philips Cdi or 3DO.

There is no monthly cost with the TiVo -- as long as you pay the lifetime membership fee (which I did very early on). Yeah it's expensive, but it's worth it not to have a monthly bill to worry about.

As for the TiVo becoming the next CDI...you clearly don't own one. I know it seems like there's this weird cult of TiVo, but everyone I know that's gotten one has instantly become a convert. It's hard to explain just how amazing a device this thing is. It's not just a glorified VCR, it's a way to completely change how you watch television.

I don't watch any more television than I did before I owned a TiVo, I just watch better television, when I want to watch it.

The "lifetime" Tivo license is for that actual Tivo unit. If you upgrade, your Tivo dies or if Tivo goes bankrupt you are out of luck.

I just want to wait and see what Sony does with the PSX and the PS3.

Looking strictly at recording time is like asking why people buy cake or pie when oatmeal is so much cheaper.

TiVo's changed the way I get video entertainment. It's -almost- revolutionary even though the idea is fairly simple. It's amazing.

And the ability to pause live TV and quickly go back over something again is worth its weight in gold.

And TiVos don't need to be cleaned, there's no rewinding, and there are no racks of black rattly black boxes.

I'm sure VCRs will be around but then again I don't really care either way. I don't watch or rent or record or interact with them ever so I passively shrug over them.

The only PAL DVRs to my knowledge are in the UK and they flopped.

Well Kiwi you can make your own Pal Freevo ( http://freevo.sourceforge.net/about.html ) and ( http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,59088,00.html )

I COULD NOT live without my TIVO...phone rings, wife flabs her gib, etc. I can pick right up where I left off.

Jake, I think the reason why you prefer VHS is because that TV and video entertainment center you have is really inferior to the new and eveloping entertainment technologies that face the viewing public today.
(no offense)
You really should upgrade your entertainment/media center to deal with these new threats to our schedules!

Just look at what is possible in my basement/theater/video game parlor/bar/den of inequity!
http://peterclute.com/images/uploads/gotham2.JPG

I would not buy a TiVo but I would build an entertainment PC for just such an occasion with 4 frickin hard drives at 120 GB each.
I have a wall in my basement that is full of VHS tapes and I never watch them because the picture quality is soooo bad. I only keep my 4 head VCR(high tech?) so that my friends can let thier kids watch veggie tales or whatever kid show they have on my pathetically small 55 inch big-screen HDTV which is a joke compared to the 8 foot wide screen I have built for my projector!

SUMMARY:
Buy a bigger TV and get that video game madness happening on a large scale!

>That is 1380 hours of recording vs Tivo's 80 hours!

unless you're talking about archiving shows that's a very bad comparison. your tapes will provide you over 1300hrs of recording time assuming you 1. program your vcr for each show you want to record and 2. swap out the tapes whereas the tivo's single hard drive can easily provide you with more than 1300hrs of record time with less hassle of programming a vcr.

i dont think anyone has mentioned it yet. one reason i love my tivo (not sure if any other dvr has this feature) is the 7 second instant rewind button. say you're watching scrubs and a hilarious visual just happened. hit the 7sec flashback button and watch it again! and again and again!

also, another reason to love tivo is the remote. elegant and simple! here's a "reprint". http://cispom.boisestate.edu/murli/id/tivo-remote-design.html

>That is also without the $12.95 monthly Tivo subscription.

gah, i missed that line.

>Tell me again why people buy these things?

you're right. without the service i dont see why people would buy a dvr. then again, no one is purchasing a dvr without expecting the service. they go hand in hand complimenting each other.

We'll simply wait until the day you start using a Tivo/PVR.

I am going to actually laugh out loud when you make your first 'Tivo is godlike' post.

I am not going to get a Tivo or a stand alone PVR. I would get a PSX or a PS3 with PVR functionality or build a Frevo from an old PC but I think a stand along PVR is a stop gap technology sort of like set top-box Web TV. I never had to get a subscription to a VCR and the built in DRM is a big turn off to me.

I got my Direct tv with Tivo for 100 dollars, and the subscription is only 4.99 dollars.
It only holds 35 hours but that enough for me.

According to various reports I've read, the PVR functionality in the PSX is sub-par at best, and feels tacked on.

You can either get a standalone device that excels at PVR, or get a device that attempts to do a million things and fails in half of them.

TiVo is *not* just another WebTV. It's far more popular than WebTV ever was, it's actually useful (unlike WebTV) and people who have used it will never go back to life without it.

Freevo sucks. Replay is clunky. TiVo is life.

Tivo has a slick menu though :-)

No really: the movie quality is better and you have all the features to record your favorite tv shows automatically.

Nontheless I'll wait for the next version of the Dreambox -> which is a linux-based dvr and it has much slicker menus than Tivo :-)

Wait, I don't understand your argument Jake. You knock the Tivo and say your VCR is way better, but then you say that maybe the PVR on the PS3 will change your mind? If you have a problem with Tivo, there are lots of alternatives. To say that VCR technology is better than PVR technology just because you have a problem with Tivo is pretty shortsided.

PVRs are far and away a much better way of recordning. It's digital, man. Better quality, better options, no degredation of data over time. I don't understand how you can compare a bunch of VCR tapes to digital recording and keep a straight face.

The PS3 won't offer anything groundbreaking, they'll just package PVR into something you would already have purchased anyway. They probably won't do it any better, it will just be more appealing to you. That's fine, but it won't be anything new.

Ha. Stupid news aggregator, telling me this post was new. I'm a little late to this post.

My biggest problems with Tivo is that I can not transfer the files easily to my PC or burn them to an optical disc and the monthly subscription costs. I just do not want to have to cut yet another monthly check.

I am going to predict that there will be different models of PS3. There will be a normal barebones one and a more expensive PVR model like the PSX.

I'm with you on the monthly fee. There is no reason to have to pay a monthly fee for what is essentially hardware. They have to be making a ton of money on suckers that way. I get the same functionality as Tivo with my ATI All-in-Wonder card. I can easily program it to digitally record on my PC in whatever format I want, and then edit or convert it directly.

I doubt the PS3 will have any options to move the recorded shows onto your PC. Someone will probably come up with a way to do it, but someone's already done that with Tivo, too. I know a few people who record on their Tivo, copy the files to their PC, and then burn them to DVD. A consumer shouldn't have to hack their PVR for this functionality though. That's why I prefer to do PVR directly on my PC. It has the additional advantage of flexibility with software. I didn't like the interface for my All-in-Wonder card, so I'm using third party software to do all the scheduling.

I'm not a big Tivo fan either, but if I didn't have PVR capability on my computer, I'd take a Tivo over a VCR in a heartbeat. Fortunately we'll have even more options in the next couple of years.

If the PS3 has DVD burning capabilities than being about to move shows to a PC becomes much less important.

I can't really justify spending 13 a month on a glorified TV listing.

I'm happy with the VCR for now. Lots of people say how bad the quality is, but it looks practically the same as it did when it originally aired in my opinion. I have a normal 19" TV, not a fancy HDTV widescreen or anything, so maybe that's why the difference isn't noticable.

And what's with all this crap about VHS tapes only lasting a year? Whoever started that rumor was an idiot. I have tapes from many years ago, and the quality has degraded very little, if at all.

Why Tivo because it is easy to use, and here are just a few good reason to get one.

1.Oh Video Quality is very very good on TVIO it is Digital recorders.(No little lines like you get with VHS Tapes are speckles are grainy effect.)
2.One Button on screen Timer Recording just high light the show and click on it.(No Setting up dates and times to record like you would with a VCR’s)
3.Skip Commercials, with a click of a button (very quickly)
4.Large hard Drive (Don’t miss the end of a show because the tape ran out after just 4 shows.)
5.Hard Drive (No VCR Eating VHS tapes any more)
6.No need for trying to find your TV shows on VHS tapes any more, just click on the shows name and just start watching it a time saver.
7.Large hard Drive (Set up weekly recording and never miss a episode)
8.Record one show, and watch another show you have already recorded(that would take 2 VCR’s to do this and you could not time shift either)
9.Time Shifting (Buffing (you get home and a show is already recording you can just push the back arrow button and go back to the beginning of the show while it is still being recorded nice.
10.Pause Live TV, (can answer the phone, eat, use the bathroom and more.)
11.Addictive after you get use to using a TVIO you get in to thinking you cant live with out it.

Why Get a DVD player well DUH, DUH, here’s a few reason on that to, They just dont Rent VHS Tapes any more at block buster video or moovies rentals just DVD LOL i am not making fun of you just having fun but it was a good question.