Tivo HD!

I'm a HUGE TiVo fan. I've owned two of the Series 1's, two Series 2's and now have a Series 3 box that arrived today.

It took awhile to pick up the Series 3 box simply because I'm not a fan of subscription services. TiVo requires a service contract in order to download television programming information and they've been a bit reticent about offering lifetime subscriptions lately. I'm not sure why, but I much prefer handing TiVo $300 in one shot rather than the $9-12/month that their normal subscription requires. Considering we tend to keep the boxes around for quite awhile, it somehow works out in the end.

The original Series 1 that we purchased had it's modem fried by lightning. At the time, there weren't any other options available to download the guide data, so we called TiVo. They offered to transfer the lifetime subscription to a second box, so we bought one. Shortly after that, the hacking community came up with network cards that could be installed into the boxes to allow them to download their guide data over the Internet. At least one of the Series 1 boxes is still in use, garnering a new TiVo addict in the process (seriously, it's damn addictive being able to pause/rewind live TV!).

The Series 2 boxes are still with us. One is sitting unused in a closet of the computer room, soon to be pressed into service. The other is connected to the TV in the bedroom. It's got a DVD burner on it, so Lynn can record shows and burn 'em to disk for people at work.

The new Series 3 box is connected to the big flat panel in the entertainment room, just waiting for the cards to be installed.

TiVo, as a company, hasn't ever really done as well as it should (especially for all the money I've given them!). Setting up the new box tonight reminds me why -- there's very little functional difference between the original box and the new one. The only thing that got me to buy a new one is the ability to watch and record HD... Too bad, really, because it could do lots more. The PS3 that sits next to it can stream movies from the disk server, play games, and browse the web. TiVo only records TV.