Do Tivo owners....

[AJ Bertelson]

Really pay a monthly fee for each box they own?

[fasttech]

Yep, I pay $13 a month I'm sad to say. As soon as Sage supports the FFW/REW and the cool OnScreen display like Tivo (hopefully with SageTV2 ?) then I will get rid of it.

[turak]

I payed for a lifetime (the life of the tivo that I own) subscription. I think it was around $200.

[dgage]

I have a Series 2 with a lifetime subscription. I was thinking about getting a second one but balked at the $300 lifetime fee for GUIDE data or $13 a month. Plus it would have been another $150 to buy the Home Media Option so the two Tivos could exchange shows. That is on top of the $250 for a new Tivo. So let's see.
$500 for 2 Series2 Tivos (and that is generous)
$600 for 2 lifetime subscriptions
$150 for Home Media Option for both Tivos

$1250 total for two Tivos to be able to share shows

I am now using SageTV and am very happily recording shows with 2 PVR-250s. For comparison, the PC I am running on with both PVR-250s was under $1000 plus I can do a hell of a lot more with it. It is a pretty powerful system with many hard drives. The quality is great and I love the flexibility I have over what I record. For playback, I have a MediaMVP and am looking at trying out Xbox Media Center. The playback isn't quite up to the Tivo experience but I am over the Tivo. I think it is too expensive for what you get.

I also tried a ReplayTV and I really liked the ability to share programs but I thought it too was too expensive. Also, the ReplayTV interface is seriously lagging the Tivo. And the remote sucks. The Tivo is so user friendly. I looked at the ReplayTV remote for about 30 seconds trying to figure out how to get to the appropriate place I wanted to go.

David

[cmalinowski]

Originally posted by fasttech
Yep, I pay $13 a month I'm sad to say. As soon as Sage supports the FFW/REW and the cool OnScreen display like Tivo (hopefully with SageTV2 ?) then I will get rid of it.

Me too. I got tivo years ago when it first came out. I added a larger HD and I really do like it. But the quality is less than Sage, and Sage lets me share everything among computers, and sage has no additional monthly fees.

I went monthly when I first got tivo because I thought that something better would come along before I got to the $200 mark it was for lifetime. Well, nothing better came along until now, and I've way surpassed the $200 mark in monthly fees.

But I still do love my tivo. It's stable as all get out, easy to use, and has everything I want. Sage is great, but I too am looking for the FF/RW like tivo and the OSD to the 350 card.

I think that will do it for getting rid of my tivo service.

Chris

[Fluffdaddy]

Big ReplayTV guy here. I had two Lifetime units and one $9.95 a month unit. I sold one lifetime unit to help pay for my store bought HTPC. I had Tivo for a few weeks but after being a RPTV guy for 3 years I just did not like Tivo with all the beeping sound and the lil Tivo guy jumping all around. and no networking of unit. They have it now , but it's not free like RPTV. I got into HTPC with Sage be cause it works with my Big C-band dish "thanks to http://www.tapeitall.com/index1.html.

SageTv really really needs to spice up the OnScreen display, just a bit. But not over the top like Tivo has.

[Myth2Sage]

I would like to see SageTV have User-Modifiable "skins".

[mlbdude]

I would like to see SageTV have User-Modifiable "skins".

That is pretty much the whole purpose for Sage 2.0 so I guess wait a few more weeks and start modding!

[jcato]

I pay it, too. Also got mine when they first came out. CC had 2 $100 rebates plus pricematched BB at 200. The Tivo ended up costing my about $3.43! I didn't get a lifetime since it was a new thing and I wasn't sure it would last or be that great.

I've now spent well over $400 on the service! I'm going to drop it when I have enough confidence in Sage (very close to that point, just want to see 2.0 first). I'm going to try to get them to switch me to a lifetime since I've paid more than double what I could've bought it for originally. I don't think they will go for it, but I don't have anything to lose. If not, at least I'll be able to reclaim the 2nd hdd and use it for DVDs.

[Fluffdaddy]

You are right, I don't think they will go for it either. What do they have to gain by giving you lifetime ? They give you lifetime no more $13 month from you. They don't give you lifetime, You drop the service......either way they lose nothing. Sell your Tivo and make some of your money back.

I luck out. I bought a Replaytv 3020 when the lifetime service was built in. I don't use it an more now that I have a HTPC with Sage

[cmoney]

i had a tivo back when they measured number of users in the tens of thousands! it's great as an appliance. but i quit a month after the price went up to $13/month.

i didn't see the point in a lifetime subscription since it's only for the lifetime of the unit. and if your unit dies, so does your lifetime sub. hard drives are usually the first thing to fail in a computer, and the tivo hard drive runs 24x7x365. not only that, as tivo releases new hardware and new features, i was sure i'd eventually be tempted to upgrade to a new tivo unit, having to get another lifetime sub.

no thanks. i'm in a holding pattern right now until i find a silent pvr case that fits my needs (had a shuttle, but that was loud as heck).

[dgage]

Originally posted by Fluffdaddy
I luck out. I bought a Replaytv 3020 when the lifetime service was built in. I don't use it an more now that I have a HTPC with Sage

Can't you use the ReplayTV as a front-end for playing normal MPEG files that Sage records? I thought ReplayTV could do that or at least there was other software available to allow the ReplayTV to play videos from your computer that weren't necessarily recorded by ReplayTV.

I actually bought a couple of ReplayTVs around Christmas when they were $150 wtih 3 years built-in but ReplayTV changed that. I took the units back and then ReplayTV changed their minds later saying they would honor the 3 years built-in for those that only paid $150 since the retailers messed up. It doesn't bother me too much though since I think ReplayTV wasn't up to the level it should have been after 5 revisions to the software. Some cool features to be sure but the general interface stunk. One of the things that I disliked most was there wasn't a progress bar to tell you where you were in the video. With the automatic commercial skip feature enabled, it skipped more than just one set of commercials and it took me a long time to find the right place to start viewing again. The automatic commercial skip was nice and worked pretty well but when it messed up, it was difficult getting back to the right spot.

David