Why TiVo Is Better

You’ve heard of TiVo – Everyone’s heard of TiVo.  The problem is, most average people haven’t actually seen a TiVo in action and don’t really understand what makes a TiVo better than their cable or satellite DVR.  I think TiVo’s got a PR issue – people use the word DVR and TiVo interchangeably – and while a TiVo is a DVR, that doesn’t make a DVR a TiVo – there are a whole host of features that put the TiVo miles ahead of the other DVRs on the market.

I don’t work for TiVo, and they haven’t paid me for this or anything (although that would be nice in this economy ).  I’m just a long-time TiVo user who’s maybe a little too obsessed with the box… but if you actually own a TiVo, you’d understand.

And here’s another disclaimer: I am not a professional reviewer, there are DVRs out there that I’ve never seen, and there are probably newer software versions for some of the DVRs I have seen.  These are just my personal thoughts on TiVo, and while there are good competitors out there that may excel in some areas, there are few that can match TiVo in terms of the sheer breadth of featuers it offers.

I’m going to avoid discussing the features that are common to all DVRs have and focus on what makes TiVo the best DVR available.

Recording Shows

Everything on the TiVo is easy to use and logically arranged.  To access all of the TiVo functionality, simply press the the “TiVo” button on the remote, and you will be presented with the “Tivo Central” screen.  This is the hub of the entire UI.  From here, you can access your “Now Playing List” (recorded shows), Find Shows to Record, Video on Demand, Settings, and other options. Other DVRs that I have seen tend to either have a more cluttered and less intuitive user interface, or it’s more ugly and difficult to understand.

The Now Playing List is pretty simple – it’s a list of everything you’ve recorded.  It’s pretty basic, but it is customizable – it can be sorted by date recorded, or by the title of the show.  It can also group shows into “folders,” so if you have multiple episodes of the same show, you’ll just see one entry for that group.  It also has very easily identifiable icons next to your shows – a green dot if you asked TiVo to keep the program until you manually delete it, a yellow dot if the program is getting old, a yellow dot with an exclamation point if the program is going to be deleted soon, and a red dot indicating that the show is currently recording.

Now Playing List Showing Two Programs Recording Simultaneously

It’s really easy to find programs, too.  The TiVo will automatically download program guide data for the next 14 days.  You can search for programs by Title, Keyword, Actor, or Director.   That’s not unusual, I’m sure that most DVRs at least have the ability to search by the title of the show.

Once you’ve found the show, you can set up a Season Pass – you can either just click “get a season pass,” which will automatically set up a season pass with the default settings – and you’re all finished.  Or, you can delve deeper and set several options for recording – how many episodes to keep, how long to keep them, and which episodes to record – First run, first run and reruns, or “all episodes (with repeats).”

The coolest type of “search” on TiVo is called a Wish List search.  Rather than setting up a program the traditional way (for example, “record all new episodes of Lost on ABC”), you can set more generic parameters.  I’ll give you a couple of examples of Wish Lists I have set up.  The first one, because I’m a geek, is a simple “keyword wish list” – anything with with the phrase “STAR TREK” in the title or description of the show will record – no matter what time or channel.  I’m also a big fan of Steve Carrell, so naturally I have an actor wish list set up for him. You can set up a wish list to match any criteria you can search for.

Get a Season Pass to a show with just one click

TiVo’s guide is very nice as well.  You actually have two options for how the program guide is displayed.  The first option is the traditional grid-style guide, with your channels on the left side and the times on the top.  TiVo’s also got another kind of guide, called the TiVo Live Guide, which displays a list of your channels down the left half.  When you highlight a channel, it shows the upcoming programs on the right side.  The Live Guide is my preferred display mode, it seems more logical than the traditional guide style.

The best part is that TiVo gives you the option of either style of guide.

The TiVo Live Guide

Home Media on Your TV

TiVo provides a free application called “TiVo Desktop” that can be installed on a PC or Mac.  This allows you to share media from your computer – such as photos, videos, or music – so they can be viewed on your TV.

View Photos and Other Media On Your TV

Copy Shows to Your Computer

Speaking of the TiVo Desktop software, it also allows you to see a list of all of the recordings on your TiVo and copy them to your PC.  There are some limitations with this – if your cable company or the content provider has marked the shows as “copy protected,” you can’t copy them to your computer.

Multi-Room Viewing

Let’s say you have a TiVo in the living room and one in the bedroom.  You want to watch the latest episode of the Office in the bedroom, but it’s recorded in the living room.  No problem – you can share programs over the network between TiVos.  Note that the same copy protection rules apply here.

Schedule Recordings From Anywhere

With TiVo, you can search or browse for recordings and then schedule them right from the TiVo web site, and it’s really simple.  The new scheduled recording or season pass will automatically be downloaded to your TiVo, and you can even request a confirmation e-mail when the TiVo receives it.

Oh, and by the way, you can also schedule recordings from your cell phone.  That’s right – your cell phone!

Broadband Features

The TiVo needs to connect to the TiVo service, for things like software updates and program guide information.  The TiVo has a built-in ethernet adapter if you have broadband, and a modem in case you don’t have broadband.  You can also purchase a wireless adapter to connect to your home network.

If you do have the TiVo connected to a broadband connection, you get a bunch of cool features that – as far as I’m aware – other DVRs do not have:

NetFlix – if you have a NetFlix account, you can view any of your “Watch Instantly” programs on your TiVo.

Play NetFlix "Watch Instantly" Movies On TiVo

YouTube - you can search for and view YouTube videos – again, right on your TV.

YouTube on TiVo

Amazon Video on Demand – This is really cool.  You can set up your TiVo with your Amazon.com account.  Once you’ve done that, you can purchase or rent movies and TV show episodes from them – just click a button on their site, and the movie will be downloaded directly to your TiVo. You can also purchase or rent movies directly from the TiVo, with your remote.

Amazon Video On Demand

Order a Pizza – That’s right, you can order Domino’s Pizza on TiVo with your remote.

Thumb Ratings and TiVo Suggestions

The TiVo remote has a “thumbs up” and a “thumbs down” button, and you can use those buttons to rate any program with up to three thumbs up or down.  Using this information, TiVo will find and (optionally) record programs it thinks you might like.  This feature has helped me discover shows that I might have never heard of otherwise.

Expandability

Are you recording too many shows?  Is the Tivo deleting programs too soon because it’s running out of space?  No problem! Just add more space.  Older models are expandable, but it involves opening the TiVo up and voiding your warranty.  But the newest models of TiVo (TiVo Series 3, TiVo HD and TiVo HD XL) can be expanded very easily.  Western Digital makes a product called My DVR Expander, which is an external hard drive that adds up to 65 additional hours of high def or 600 hours (!) of standard def recording capacity.  I don’t own one, but from what I understand, you just plug it into the back of the TiVo and it’s ready to go.

Network Remote Control

Have a TiVo? Have an iPhone? If you connect your iPhone to your home WiFi network, you can get a TiVo remote control application from the App Store.

Works With Your Digital Cable System

No matter what your cable company tells you, the TiVo should work with your cable system.  The FCC requires that cable companies allow 3rd-party devices to connect.  All you need to do is connect the TiVo to the cable, and have your cable company provide you with a CableCARD.  It may also require a device called a tuning adapter, which your cable company should also provide to you.

Customer Service and Support

TiVo has great customer service – you can call or e-mail them and they’re generally very helpful.  There’s also a great community of enthusiasts over at the Tivo Community Forums, who can answer just about any question you might have.  TiVo Community isn’t run by TiVo, but it’s regularly visited by people who work for TiVo and people who work for the various cable companies.

The Little Things

There are also some “little” things that TiVo does that make things more convenient, here’s a list of my favorites:

• 30-second skip: Must be enabled by entering a code on your remote (SELECT-PLAY-SELECT-3-0-SELECT).  You can fast forward 30 seconds at a time.
• Fast Forward/Rewind Compensation: When you are fast forwarding or rewinding, TiVo can do it at up to 60x – which is way too fast for human perception, so you’re likely to accidentally fast-forward too far. Fortunately, TiVo compensates for that.  When you are fast forwarding and press the “play” button when you get to where you want to be, the TiVo will jump back several seconds.
• Padding: Sometimes various channels don’t stick to their time slots – so a program may start a little too early or a little too late.  Don’t worry – when you’re setting up your recording or Season Pass, you can tell the TiVo how many minutes early you’d like to start the recording, or how many extra minutes you’d like to pad to the end of the recording.

Caveats

TiVo isn’t perfect, nothing is.  There are a few disadvantages to TiVo.  The first, and in my mind the greatest disadvantage is the initial cost.  It’s expensive.  The least expensive TiVo is $150 retail.  If you want HD recording capabilities, you’re looking at a cool $300.  TiVo also charges a monthly service fee of $12.95 (although it’s cheaper if you pay for multiple months).  You can also get a lifetime service (for the box) for a one-time fee of $399.  For comparison: In my area, a DVR from Time Warner is a rental, so nothing to purchase, and it’s just an additional $8.95/month.

CableCARDs and Switched Digital Video

This was the most difficult part of my initial TiVo installation.  The TiVo Series3 and HD units can record over-the-air digital channels and unencrypted digital cable channels (usually only your local channels) right out of the box.  If you want to receive cable channels, you’ll need to install a CableCARD into the front of the TiVo.

The problem with CableCARDs stems from the fact that not they’re not very widely deployed, and therefore there’s not a lot of knowledge out there about them – including on the side of the cable company.  Cable companies are required by the FCC to provide you with a CableCARD… but the first time I contacted Time Warner about this, the customer service representative told me that she didn’t even know what a CableCARD is.  It took 2-3 calls to finally get someone who did.  2 weeks, 5 technician appointments and 3 CableCARDs later, I finally was up and running.  Note that all of the issues I had were NOT TiVo’s fault, it was the general incompetence of Time Warner Cable that made it such a hassle.

Don’t get me wrong, it was totally worth it, but somewhat frustrating.  The nice thing is that TiVo knows that this can be difficult – so they’ve got you covered.  They provide a flier in the box that you can give to the CableCARD tech, a section of their website dedicated to CableCARD installation, and a dedicated tech support phone number that you or the technician can call when doing the install.

If you think that’s bad, another wrench is being thrown in the gears.  Cable companies are beginning to roll out a new system called “switched digital video” or SDV.  It’s a measure to save bandwidth so they can provide additional services like more HD channels and faster internet service.

I won’t go into the gory technical details of SDV, but without a device called a tuning adapter, it can cause the TiVo to not be able to receive many of the channels that you pay for.  The problem here is that SDV has been rolled out in some areas but the tuning adapters aren’t always made available at the same time, sometimes they lag behind.  Again, if you have SDV in your area, you’ll have full functionality of the TiVo with the tuning adapter.

Don’t let this all scare you though – it’s really not that bad!  Once the CableCARD (and if needed, tuning adapter) are installed and set up properly with the cable company, it’s smooth sailing, and problems are very rare.  I’ve had my CableCARD in since September of 2008 and have not had a single problem.

Final Thoughts

You can probably see why most DVRs just don’t compare to a TiVo.  Hopefully this article will help you make a more informed decision on whether or not TiVo is for you.