Anyone Here Use TIVo?

cuddlesmama · ‎03-11-2010

I would like to cut down on the cost of my Comast bill over $200.00 for practically basic plan and would like to know if TIVo would be worth it to replace my DVR with. What you be your honest opinions. TIA

glb613 · ‎03-09-2010

How do you think TiVo is going to help cut down on your cable bill? It's a recorder and requires a cable signal to work. If you want to stream video using the internet, you need a device like Roku, Apple TV, smart TV or smart Blu-ray player. Post back with more details.

chickadee · ‎10-29-2010

It's not going to help you cut very much off your Comcast bill unless you cut your cable package drastically as well. You would have to look at your bill and see what you are being charged for the DVR, and whether or not that is part of any "triple play" package deal thing you have going on your service. Because if you remove any part of your service, then all your other service prices will go up, and you defeat the purpose of removing one thing. Been there, done that.

I have a Tivo, and I love it. BUT, I also totally cut my cable TV from Comcast. I just couldn't afford my bill anymore and could not justify paying so much for TV. But when I cancelled the TV and phone from them, they DOUBLED my internet rate. Why? Because I wasn't buying a "package" from them. So i'm paying almost the same now for internet alone as they are advertising for "new customers" to sign up for triple play. ${#emotions_dlg.angry}$ Of course, those new customers will be slammed with the high bills after the two year promo time is up...

ANYWAY, specific to your question - even if all you did was switch your Cable DVR to Tivo, you would be buying the Tivo box out of pocket, and then you have to pay $14.99 a month service fee to use it. If you use it with your cable TV, you will need a Cable Card to go with it, and your cable company may or may not have an additional fee for that (not sure). Your cable DVR fee might just be cheaper. Personally, I don't think Tivo would be the way to go if you are staying with cable TV (if you are looking to save money).

If you are going to cancel cable TV like I did, then yes, I do recommend it. The Tivo does NOT replace all the cable TV channels, and I still miss having those. But it's totally worth it to have a way to pull in a channel guide and be able to pause and record live TV for all the programming over the HD Antenna. I get over 20 channels free over the air on my Antenna, so cutting cable wasn't TOO painful. I'm just learning to wait a little longer to see my favorite (cable) shows when they come out on Netflix.

chickenbutt · ‎03-09-2010

Not knowing how much of that $200 Comcast charges you for that particular service, I don't know if it would save money to replace it with Tivo. But I've had Tivos (I always have two of them) for ten years now and I would highly recommend them.

But you have some upfront costs because you need to buy the unit/s. It's not that much and even less if you get factory refurb from the Tivo website. One of my first Tivos was a refurb and I used it for 8 years. It's actually still not dead but I upgraded my initial two with two of more current technology.

Then you either buy lifetime service for each unit, or pay the $12-15 a month for the service. If you have more than one, the service for subsequent ones is cheaper by quite a bit (for example, I used to pay $12 a month for the first one and $6 for the second one). I bought Lifetime for both of my current ones, but that was $300 each. So, no monthly fees and the units and service is all paid. I've had my current ones for two years now.

Tivo has superior software to generic DVRs, so I would not even consider getting that service from my cable co. But, it depends on how much money you have to lay out, to get started. The Tivos themselves are pretty inexpensive.