Subj : Re: Rome
To   : alt.tv.farscape
From : Trouble
Date : Wed Sep 14 2005 12:05:59

From Newsgroup: alt.tv.farscape

Nick wrote:

> Trouble wrote:
>> Tyler Trafford wrote:
>>> Nick wrote:
>>>> Trouble wrote:
>>>>> Nick wrote:
  
>>>>>> I have to admit.  I really don't get the excitement about paying
>>>>>> for Tivo when I could get the same thing for free with a vcr.
>>>>>> How much does tivo cost anyway?
  
>>>>> TiVo costs $12.95 a month for the service, you can get a 40 hour
>>>>> unit right now for $49 with a one year agreement. Its $199 with a
>>>>> $150 mainl in rebate. My second TiVo only costs $6.95 a month for
>>>>> the service, and any more TiVos after that would be the same. 
 
>>>> That seems like a lot.  How much is lifetime?
  
>>> It's the same as 2 years worth of payments.
 
>> I would have gone lifetime but I get the sneaking suspicion that I
>> won't be keeping one or both of these units when they come out with a
>> Multi- tuner HD unit with Cablecard. 

> I can't help thinking that something offering lifetime service really 
> doesn't expect to be around that long.
 
Well there are lifetime Monroe shocks that they will replace as long as 
you own the car. They believe that people will continue to use their 
brand on their next car and so on and so on.

With a TiVo its really one mainboard, some chips, a TV tuner, drive 
controller, hard drive and cooling fan. The hard drive and fan are the 
only moving parts but most of these things will outlive the warranty, and 
probably outlive the 2 years it would take for the lifetime subscription 
to pay for itself. Beyond that, its commercial electronics, they don't 
last forever.

However once you get used to watching TiVo, having something aggregate 
programming intelligently for you, its hard to go back to regular TV. All 
the people I have seen who left TiVo went to another DVR from Comcast or 
DirecTV, they didn't go back to a VCR.  

The guy I bought my second Series 2 unit from missed his TiVo but didn't 
want to mess with putting in a new Hard Drive and Ghosting the software, 
whereas I don't mind at all.

-- 
"Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the wise.
Seek what they sought."
--Basho

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