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TiVo

Our video recorder didn't work properly, and anyway trying to record from digital TV was a pain because you had to program the set-top box and the video... so we never recorded anything and cursed when we missed stuff that looked interesting. Time to let TiVo take over.

In November 2000 we purchased a TiVo. TiVo records TV programmes on to a hard disk, rather than to VHS tapes, which gives it a number of advantages: the ability to pause live TV (TiVo always records what you're watching into a 30 minute "buffer" which you can pause to rewind); and because you don't have to insert tapes, TiVo can use spare space to record programmes it thinks you might like.

Other features: TiVo makes an 0800 (toll free) call each night to pick up messages, software upgrades and two weeks of TV guide — the latter giving you a good electronic programme guide. This makes scheduling a recording a matter of selecting the programme name from the screen. You can also schedule "season passes" -- telling TiVo to record all episodes of some programme. You can also watch something TiVo has recorded while it is recording something else.

TiVo is the best "living room" piece of electronics I have ever bought. It sits there and just works. The manufacturers have thought hard about the issues involved and they've come up with a system that makes good decisions. (For example, if TiVo speculatively records something you might like, that uses up disk space. If space is required for something you have explicitly asked TiVo to record, your request takes higher priority over TiVo's guesses, so your programme will get recorded and Tivo's is deleted.) Sure, I've got lots of ideas for making it better :-) , but for a piece of high-street consumer electronics doing complicated stuff, it does a very good job.

We use TiVo with OnDigital (digital TV through a terrestrial TV aerial), and we really do use it. I almost never watch live TV now -- I always go to the list of what TiVo has recorded and pick from that. In fact, even if there is something live on TV I want to watch, I'd rather miss the first 15 minutes so that I can skip the commercials using TiVo's 30 minute buffer.

TiVo learns what you like by hints you give it. When watching a programme you can rate the programme by pressing a thumbs up or thumbs down button on the remote control. It mostly works, but you have to remember to keep using it to guide TiVo's choices. At first it throws up some very strange suggestions, but over time it does a good job of finding shows you like. Well, it has for me.

An example: one night I was chatting away to Jane about something or other, and Jane pointed out "you do realise that we've missed the football match?" (which we wanted to watch). Dang. But we looked up and TiVo's recording light was on and it was recorded the game for us. Woohoo. I love it when that happens.

A note about disk space. There's enough disk space for something like 20 or 30 hours of good quality recordings. That space has been fine for us, but there are two options for getting more space. The first is to use TiVo's built-in ability to back up it's recordings to your video. The other option is to take TiVo to pieces: it's a PowerPC running Linux, so you can upgrade the disk or add a network card. I'm looking forward to doing this one day, but it's not something I need to do right now.

Downsides. First, the size of unit we purchased (Thompson Scenium). It's big (but at least it's not ugly). Another complaint, but not specific to TiVo, is the way the box talks to our set top box. It seems there's no standard for TiVo to use to change the channels on the set top box. In has to mimic a remote control, and use infrared. We have it set up to blast infrared around the room to change the channel on the set top box. I'd say it's about 75% successful. The other option is to run a cable from the back of TiVo to sit just in front of the IR receiver of the set top box. That may be more reliable, and I'll give it a go one day.

I'm told there's going to be a software fix for this soon: sometimes TiVo misses the end of a programme, because channels may not run to schedule or even run to the same clock. Seems there will be the option to add a few minutes to the end of a recording to reduce this problem.

We've found that if we go away for a few weeks, or if the disk does fill for a while, TiVo stops making suggestions and automatically recording programmes. We've sort of come to rely on TiVo recording stuff for us, so we miss it when we have to manually tell TiVo to record programmes. We've fixed this by rebooting TiVo and it starts making suggestions again.

Tivo works, and it would be painful having to go back to using a normal video recorder again. But it is expensive: the unit itself is the price of a top of the range video recorder, and then there's an on-going £10 a month charge for updates (alternatively you can pay £200 for a lifetime subscription — this is the lifetime of the box, not your lifetime). I guess we're being punished for being early-ish adopters. It may be that in the future all set top boxes have hard disk recorders in them, but for now TiVo's the only one and it means that I get to watch SO many more Simpson's episodes...

Update June 2002: We've been living with TiVo for over a year and a half, it seems like it's time to update this article on how we're getting on.

We've switched from the IR blaster to using the IR cables, and that's improved TiVo's ability to change channel. It's more reliable for us now. We've also had a number of software upgrades from TiVo (this just happens, you don't have to do anything), and there's more functionality: we can add running time to a recording to avoid missing the end of a program; we can now specify actors/directors that we like; and generally the user interface has become better.

A few months ago we were able to test out TiVo customer support. I've complained about the cost of TiVo, but the customer support goes some way to justify that cost. I called up because TiVo was having a problem with changing channels, and TiVo support identified the problem as actually being with our set-top box. But they went that step further and gave me the right sequence of actions to update my set-top box (made by a different manufacturer).

In summary: it still works, and we'd still never go back.

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TiVo recorder from Thompson
TiVo recorder from Thompson

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