PocketMatrix

its a nice idea but to be honest i like the way i can just shove a tape in the vcr and get taping. i dont have to worry about hard drive space or anything.

having said that its still pretty cool, the qualitys good and it does it all for you.

of course, in the uk at least, it costs a lot. not only do you have to buy the machine butyou have to pay a subscription too. i wanna know why.

You don't HAVE to pay a subscription to use it (in US anyway). You can record anything you want with it free of charge. The subscription fee is for their service that allows the Tivo to search out the programs you like to watch and automatically record them for you so you will always have your favorite shows to watch whenever you want.

are you sure? seems to me everyone would have one if you only had to pay the price of a good vcr...

i think you have to pay it over here. i'll check though.

I think the deal with Microsoft's is that you can record two shows at once.

Can anybody please explain what is Tivo?

Tivo is basically a box with a hard disk inside, designed for use as a video recorder in conjunction with your tv. The system can be used exactly like a normal vcr, i.e timers, etc but also offers some innovative features through the software. One major feature is the ability to 'time-shift' i.e You could be watching a show, but need to go to the bathroom. You could 'pause' the show, and Tivo will start recording. When you return, you press 'play' and it'll continue where u left off, while still recording the rest of the program. Quite useful.
It can also record regular weekly/monthly shows, while differentiating between repeats. Also, it uses a system of 'Thumbs UP/DOWN" system which it uses to help suggest programs you may like, based on your ratings of shows. There are plenty more features like full listings for tv channels, etc. However many of the clever features are paid for by a subscription, in addition to the box. There are some limitations of Tivo like it having only 1 tuner, so you cannot watch a channel while recording another.

Although Tivo started the idea, MANY companies are now developing similar systems for release soon/now. They are being built into tv's, vcr's and i've even seen a dvd player with it in an issue of T3 magazine. As TechMage pointed out, you could just hook up a tv card to your pc and use that, although your pc would need to be constantly on and be connected to your living room telly, for the best effect. There is also software available for the time-shift, etc features. Tivo may be over-priced, but its ideas will probably be used in every house soon, even if we don't actually own the Tivo.

My grandma has 2 tivos. They are really cool, the lifetime subsription is for...life time. You might want to look into ReplayTV which came out the same time as Tivo and is nice too.