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Tivo's made for single men
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Posted by: lloydgm

I believe the following statement to be true for 90% of us:

You purchased your TiVo as a single male.

I say this because I've started to find that as a newlywed, sharing a TiVo is NOT a simple thing. The problem is impacted by having a 10-year old step-son who likes nothing but Japanese Anime (another rant for another time). The TiVo has turned into a point of frustration for the family - primarily my wife.

"What ever happened to watching 'normal' TV".
"I never get to watch what I want".
"We keep watching the same things over and over".
"TiVo cut off the end of my reality TV show - AGAIN!".

All of these arguments are valid frustations, but I believe it's because TiVo was made primarily for one person and that ONE persons tastes.

I've tried with some success to find out what she and our son like and have the TiVo record them. But, the TiVo is always failing them in some way.

"TiVo didn't record my show!"
"Oh NO! My show didn't get recorded because his show had a higher priority!"
"Who stopped my recording - it says partial 0:17!"

So, I've come to the following conclusions:

The majority of people who buy TiVo's are men
TiVo is easier to use when your the only person that watches that TiVo enabled TV

I know this sounds sexist, but still the majority of people who post on this forum are male. The majority of people who use computers for hobby purposes are male. The majority of people who are into home electronics are male. Throw in the fact that young men are normally inept when it comes to meeting the wants of a woman and changing the TiVo to meet someone else's needs other than his own does not come natuarlly!

With this in mind, I'm requesting that TiVo be made with multiple users in mind. This isn't to say that TiVo isn't already designed with multiple viewers in mind, but I had such a better single-user experience from TiVo that I feel something must change for families. Perhaps a family mode which asks each user their preferences, as opposed to the preferences of whomever set it up. Granted this requires multiple tuners and I've read the threads from TivoPony noting how difficult this can be, but in a family household this sure would be nice.

HMO provides aid to this problem, but buying another TiVo, or DirecTiVo, is not in the budget - especially when theres so much animosity over what the TiVo records, or better yet does not record.

This is less a rant and more an observation that I find amusing and interesting. My TiVo experience has become more a chore than fun. Does anyone have a similar situation and could perhaps suggest what they did to make life easier with a new family and only one SA TiVo?

Greg

Posted by: disco

I think you're gonna find skewed results. Mainly because TiVo is still a fairly new peice of technology and MEN tend to buy technology more. And even more, SINGLE men buy more technology than married men.

Posted by: daperlman

You left out, I am single because of TiVo

Posted by: lloydgm

[Disco904 said . . .]
"I think you're gonna find skewed results. Mainly because TiVo is still a fairly new peice of technology and MEN tend to buy technology more. And even more, SINGLE men buy more technology than married men."

I agree, but that's partially my point. TiVo is made more for the taste of single men. I'm having a difficult time using my TiVo because I believe it's not aimed at families. Now, could they do something for the interface to make it more female friendly, or more family friendly - not really. I love the TiVo interface and I don't think it's getting in the way of the experience. For God's sake I don't want a pink TiVo or one with Hello Kitty on it - BUT I would like to see it's options geared to multiple people, in this case a family.

Posted by: old7

What about "I'm married and have more than one TiVo to compensate."

-Old7

Posted by: allan

I'm still a single man, but I strongly suspect that if my GF and I had to share a Tivo, we'd have 2 Tivos within a few months. To make ONE SA Tivo work for both of us would require multiple tuners, a HUGE HD, and major software changes.

Posted by: ronbo

I think it's great for a married couple that doesn't have the same taste in TV or that is on different schedules.
Great where one of the couple is an insomniac, too. Less annoying to have her fire up the TiVo in the other room instead of the reading lamp on the other side of the bed.

Posted by: Dajad

Yupp, if I ever find Miss Right I fully intend on having a his & hers matching set of TiVos!

You can mention to your wife that she is free to watch TV the old way any time she likes. Suggest she sit down and watch live TV from now on and I suspect she'll give a little more respect where respect is due.

This reminds me about a thread that was here about a year ago when an older gentleman was having similar frustrations with his wife who refused to used the TiVo. He was turned into a virtual slave trying to record all her shows for her on multiple TiVos. It was so sad that it was almost funny. The thread degenerated into almost more marriage advice than TiVo advice ... to the point where the original poster became furious at many of us (me included) ... I sure hope you solve your problems in a more satisfying way than he did!

...Dale

Posted by: lloydgm

quote:
Originally posted by allan
I'm still a single man, but I strongly suspect that if my GF and I had to share a Tivo, we'd have 2 Tivos within a few months. To make ONE SA Tivo work for both of us would require multiple tuners, a HUGE HD, and major software changes.

Purchasing a second TiVo is not an option until some debt is taken care of. This is the reason I believe a lot of people don't yet have TiVos - they can't justify the expense RIGHT NOW. I'm also willing to bet the majority of TiVo owners are between 23 - 35. New couples often have some debt to take care of and don't want to spend money on something like a TiVo.

This compacted with so much animosity over the TiVo purchasing a second is a sensitive subject.

But I do agree - purchase a second TiVo would fix this problem.

But my question is how can this be solved with one TiVo? Perhaps I'm asking for too much?

Posted by: lloydgm

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
You can mention to your wife that she is free to watch TV the old way any time she likes. Suggest she sit down and watch live TV from now on and I suspect she'll give a little more respect where respect is due.

This reminds me about a thread that was here about a year ago when an older gentleman was having similar frustrations with his wife who refused to used the TiVo. He was turned into a virtual slave trying to record all her shows for her on multiple TiVos. It was so sad that it was almost funny. The thread degenerated into almost more marriage advice than TiVo advice ... to the point where the original poster became furious at many of us (me included) ... I sure hope you solve your problems in a more satisfying way than he did!

Great advice - I have had her watch live TV and more often than not it is found that NOTHING is on and we go back to what's in Now Playing. She's even made the comment that now with TiVo, she tells our son to stop watching TV and come to dinner and he does it because he know he can watch his show after dinner, or bed, or homework, etc. There's some good in there, too.

My post was partially an amusing observation. But you are right, it is a bit of work between two people to use the TiVo fairly and could affect the marriage.

Posted by: stevel

I'm married, bought the TiVo, and my wife promptly took it over (and tries to get all her friends to buy one...) She says it's "the best toy [I] ever brought home".

Posted by: nhaigh

I was married when I bought my first TiVo in the UK back in 2000.

When we moved to the USA my wife was the prime reason we bought one for use here. My wife is now the main force behind us upgrading to Direct TV with TiVo.

I use TiVo to capture the key programs I want to watch and most of these my wife wants to watch too. My wife also uses it to capture everything she may ever consider watching and everything my daughter may want to watch as well. We NEVER watch TV live.

In my household the women watch 90% of the TiVo playback and I watch maybe 30% of the playback.

As for the original buying decision that was mine - a new toy that had only been on the market two days and I had to drive 150 miles to the nearest shop that still had one in stock. My wife thought I was mad and that it was a waste of 499 pounds ($750) without a lifetime sub. She/We just paid $99 for a new DTiVo that wont need any subscription at all.

Posted by: DPF

I'd been wanting one for a while, she had absolutely no interest. As a result I was unable to get one since it was an unnecessary expense when saving for the wedding and stuff. My best man got us (read:me) one for a wedding gift (a couple months ago). For the first couple weeks, she was not interested at all. As far as she was concerned, it was just another damn computer gadget just thrown on the pile. Too complex to learn (read: didn't want to learn) to use, etc.

Then came the Sex and the City episode.:rolleyes:

Of course, now it's the coolest thing ever and all her friends have to get one and she is taking it upon herself to learn how to use it.

She's already started asking what we would need to do to get another one. I'm sure when the free HMO trial comes online and she sees the MP3 stuff we'll be getting that too. She hates the clutter of CD's around - problem solved.

Anyway, as far as marketing to women goes, the SATC was probably the most effective marketing TiVo could have asked for.

She hasn't quite figured out that if you go to change the channel and it tells you it's recording, not to tell it to stop recording. But she'll get there someday.... I hope :(

-DPF

Posted by: lloydgm

Okay, as of right now the poll's making a liar of me - 10 single-males to 16 married-males. Although still no women.

Maybe there's hope for me yet! :)

Posted by: Crrink

The only thing I could suggest is going through the work of resolving as many scheduling conflicts as possible with your family - that should lessen the complaints of TiVo not recording the right (or more important) thing.
You can do this by using the SP manager, or if the family is really complex, you might have to sit down and do it with a spreadsheet (ick).

Since you're in charge of time shifting, it would probably be easier to shift your conflicts to the VCR (I know, it stinks, but it's probably worth some familial peace).

If space is an issue, you can record on a lower quality setting, and/or get a bigger hard drive - that costs a lot less than a new TiVo.

My wife and I don't really have any problems with the TiVo, but our TV viewing tastes are fairly similar. She watches Trading Spaces without me, and I wath Justice League without her :)

Posted by: allan

If my GF lived with me, we'd have to resolve her Soap Opera's vs my Star Trek marathon (or whatever else was on at that time). With only one Tivo, I figure we'd have to discuss it and make some sort of compromise, perhaps manually juggling things so I'd get SOME of my stuff and she'd get SOME of hers. We'd probably need a bigger HD with 2 sets of shows on. I'd probably leave the room while she watched her (un)reality TV, and she'd leave the room while Arnold was shooting/blowing up everything in sight.

Posted by: JustAllie

Please, some other females must vote so my vote won't look so lonely. :(

This isn't really a male/female issue, based on the original poster's arguments. My TiVo was perfectly happy to learn my viewing eccentricities.

I shared a TiVo with a (female) roommate once. When she moved out, I had to retrain the TiVo not to record every Discovery Channel special and golf tournament that airs. For the most part, I solved issues about differing tastes for primetime TV by getting her addicted to The West Wing and CSI too.

Posted by: JustAllie

Whew, another female voter, thank goodness.

Posted by: MediaLivingRoom

yes, the funny thing is that guys would buy it. But girls really love how TiVo makes thier lives great.

Posted by: ScubaCat

I'm a single female and I have two TiVos. Can I vote twice?

Actually my TiVo1 is in the closet just in case my TiVo2 fails. After spending a week without TiVo while replacing a hard drive, I need a backup just in case!

Posted by: Poogie

Another single female with a TiVo! Let's hear it for the sisterhood of TiVo! :D

Posted by: Connie

Also a single female with two TiVos! The second was officially to resolve schedule conflicts, but also to accommodate needs of female roommate with a Law & Order obsession. :-)

Posted by: JustAllie

Oh no, my upstairs TiVo got it into its head that I liked one of the Law & Order shows. There are so many reruns of the various iterations of the series that my suggestions quickly filled up with Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order: We Ran Out of Names For Our Spinoffs.....

Posted by: maggie2101

I am a single (widowed) female over 40 and purchased my Tivo after becoming suddenly single. I spend almost all of my disposable income on techie toys--not clothes or cosmetics or any girly stuff.

Posted by: MighTiVo

Strange, I thought TiVo was made for families. Save shows for the kids instead of buying gobs of stupid videos, save the prime time shows to watch after they go to bed.

"What ever happened to watching 'normal' TV".
I have NEVER heard that in my house, more like "how can anybody stand to watch normal TV" or my 4 year old "Why doesn't gran have a TiVo?"

"I never get to watch what I want".
Weird, at best I get "Why are all the shows on TiVo programs for you?"
To which I respond "Because we always watch yours and mine are just waiting for me to get around to watching"

"We keep watching the same things over and over".
Huh? First run only here! We no longer get stuck watching reruns because we set aside time to watch a program only to find out it is a rerun!

"TiVo cut off the end of my reality TV show - AGAIN!".
Reality shows don't make it to our house, but try padding...

"TiVo didn't record my show!"
That is a real pain, when the IR channel changing doesn't work. Always seems to happen for a cliffhanger program.
However now that I have a Replay too I just find someone to send it to me...

"Oh NO! My show didn't get recorded because his show had a higher priority!"
Happened a couple times, made adjustment in the season pass manager and explained that if it is important make sure it is in the todo list. I wish the guide had dots to show planned recordings like Replay...

"Who stopped my recording - it says partial 0:17!"
If you were watching TV when the power went out you would have missed it as well.

Posted by: jsmeeker

Single male. I was that way too when I bought TiVo... Sadly, it's not the babe magnet I was hoping for.

Posted by: Dajad

Jeff ... my calculations indicate that you posting record on this board averages out as follows:

12,606 posts /28 months = 450 posts per month
450 per month / 4 weeks = 112 posts per week
112 posts per week / 7 days = 16 posts per day - EVERY DAY!!!

Perhaps it's not TiVo that's keeping the women away ... perhaps you are spending too much time here with us!

:) ... Dale

P.S. Any single women registering on this thread living in the Dallas or L.A. areas? P.M. Jeff ... I'm sure he'd like to make your acquaintance! You'd definately have something in common! How about you Poogie?! :)

Posted by: Poogie

quote:
How about you Poogie?

I'm an old biddy. Though, oddly enough, a boytoy does sound rather appealing. Just a long as he keeps his hands off of my TiVo. :p

Posted by: Rcrew

My GF was living with me when I bought my DTiVos. I think that has to count as married for the purposes of this poll. The one in the bedroom is 'technically' hers, although she now has wish lists on the 'common' one. That's the one with 105 hours.

Lately the problems been my kids are home for the summer, and we're getting tons of suggestions based on their daily viewing habits, and their SPs. Since they are with me a week at a time, it drives her crazy to have to page through their stuff when they aren't around to watch and delete it.

3.1 and sorting the NP list would solve that, IF I ever get it.

Shortly, I can see the day when I'm going to have to have the 3rd DTiVo for the 'game' room where the PC, Xbox, GC, and PS2 live. That would then be the 'Kids' DTiVo. I guess the ONLY reason I don't have that right now is that my 2x4 muilti-switch is maxed out...

Posted by: MighTiVo

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
Jeff ... my calculations indicate that you posting record on this board averages out as follows:

12,606 posts /28 months = 450 posts per month
450 per month / 4 weeks = 112 posts per week
112 posts per week / 7 days = 16 posts per day - EVERY DAY!!!

Perhaps it's not TiVo that's keeping the women away ... perhaps you are spending too much time here with us!

Yikes! 12,606 posts and 16/day, wow!!

Posted by: Hunter Green

I guess I'm one of the lucky ones -- my wife and I share one TiVo without any problems. How else could we do it -- we also share one TV!

Our tastes aren't even identical. But it's almost true that hers are a superset of mine -- there are very few things I like she doesn't, and there aren't even that many things that I like that she doesn't like about the same amount. She just also likes a bunch of crap in addition to the good stuff. ;)

We even have his-and-hers remotes and rarely if ever run into any conflicts.

The only conflict we run into, in fact, is how much time we spend with music (not enough) vs. with TV (too much). :D

Posted by: stevel

quote:
Originally posted by MighTiVo
Yikes! 12,606 posts and 16/day, wow!!

Yeah - Jeff's posting rate is double that of #2 and #3 of active members (Dan203 and myself). I think we should all chip in and get Jeff a life... :D

Posted by: Dan203

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
12,606 posts /28 months = 450 posts per month
450 per month / 4 weeks = 112 posts per week
112 posts per week / 7 days = 16 posts per day - EVERY DAY!!!

Actually based on this thread...

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-v...=&postid=611335

he only had 5000 posts a year ago. So he has actually managed to rack up almost 8000 posts in the last year. Trim off weekends, since most of the regulars rarely post on the weekends, and that amounts to an average of 30 posts per day. :eek:

Dan

Posted by: Dennis Wilkinson

The wife & I share one standalone TiVo at the moment -- and when there's a conflict, it's my show that gets bumped to our more-crotchety-by-the-minute VCR! Of course, she thought it was a silly purchase -- for about the first day and a half. When I had it disconnected for an afternoon to upgrade the drives, she got a little antsy... ;)

I'm stashing pennies in the big geek piggy bank for when the HD-capable units ship...

Posted by: trainman

quote:
Originally posted by jsmeeker
Sadly, it's not the babe magnet I was hoping for.

What, not getting enough action from the Britney wishlist? :D

(Not that I'm one to talk, because I have a lot of wishlists that I probably wouldn't have if I had a girlfriend.)

Posted by: Pam

Another female Tivo-holic checking in. I'm married, and talked my DH into one Tivo, then another, then we switched from the 2 standalones to two DirecTivos and I sold the standalones - one to a single girlfriend. I am personally responsible for at least 15 tivo purchases in the world.

Call me an oddity. I love my Tivos. DH just plays along.

Posted by: geoman47

"What ever happened to watching 'normal' TV".
Nothing has to happen to it. If they don't like TiVo, let them watch normal TV. TiVo just provides options the networks don't at that moment.

"I never get to watch what I want".
TiVo or not this can be an issue when more than 1 person is sitting to watch a show (or movie or listen to music, etc.)

"We keep watching the same things over and over".
Why? We record old Seinfeld episodes, but nobody has to rewatch shows.

"TiVo cut off the end of my reality TV show - AGAIN!".
Watch it live if its that important! Or start watching the show 15 minutes after it starts and by 55 minutes after the hour you'll be 'caught up' with live TV so you won't miss the end.

I could go on and on, but I think you get the point. I do share a TiVo with my wife, but could see where a child would make it more difficult. But really, even when my wife and I disagree on what to watch, having TiVo is way better than just normal TV.

I'm also like other posters where my wife actually uses TiVo more than me, even though I bought it.

I would suggest simple rules for the son, and some kind sharing of what shows to watch for the wife and son. And tell them if TiVo makes them mad or unhappy or whatever, just watch normal TV! Chances are they don't hate it that bad.

Posted by: samo

Finally I can claim to be a member of majority here. :) Took my wife 15 minutes with remote control to steal my TiVo as if it never was my toy. I got my TiVo Sep'99, well before it was possible to expand HD. 14 Hrs doesn't go far if your wife puts 3 exercise tapes on it on SUID the first week you got your TiVo :) We still have these exercise tapes on original TiVo (probably a record on longest kept recording), but by now we have 4 DishPVRs to supplement it.

Posted by: jennifer

I'm married and *I* purchased my TIVO in May of 2000. Then I purchased another for the children. Not long after, I sold those, upgraded to DTivo's and upgraded their hard drive capacity, thanks to Otto. :up:

My husband and I share the one in our bedroom, and our 3 children share the one in the great room. Did I say 'share'? I meant 'fight over'. :p

Posted by: phone1

I guess I'm lucky that my wife and I pretty much like the same things. If she's reading, I might watch a suggestion that she might not find interesting. She also records some programming that is work related for her.

Despite the sig, we watch the DTiVo almost 100% of the time. The upgraded Series 2 is still sitting next to it because it has some things I keep promising myself we'll watch. Eventually it will go the basement and replace the Series 1 which is connected to a receiver, but I can't do that until I watch the things that are saved on it.

Our biggest disagreements are what to watch on the To Do list, which is kind of silly, because almost all the stuff we have SP's for all gets watched eventually. Although she thinks all of us on this board are fanatics, she admits that she would be unable to watch TV without TiVo again.

Posted by: JoeltheTiVoFan

Good golly. What does this have to do with TiVo, specifically?

If you had only ONE TV in the house, before VCRs and TiVo existed, you'd have the same arguments if people in the house had conflicting views on what to watch at a given time. You'd be fighting over the ONE TV. Solution that almost everyone does now: There's more than one TV in the house.

The issue isn't TiVo is for single guys - the issue is that TiVo by itself doesn't solve the problem of conflicting desires - if they exist, buy more than one TiVo.

That's what my wife and I did - we have more than one TiVo - just like we purchased more than one VCR before TiVo, and had more than one TV before VCRs.

-Joel

Posted by: RoughRider

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Hunter Green
[B]I guess I'm one of the lucky ones -- my wife and I share one TiVo without any problems. How else could we do it -- we also share one TV!

Our tastes aren't even identical. But it's almost true that hers are a superset of mine -- there are very few things I like she doesn't, and there aren't even that many things that I like that she doesn't like about the same amount. She just also likes a bunch of crap in addition to the good stuff. ;)

Same here. Just one DTivo and one TV, with some similar and some totally different tastes. I was the initiator in purchasing the DTivo, but my wife loves it and has taught herself how to use it. As I see it, the addition of Tivo has made TV watching so much nicer because it's a win-win situation. We don't have to "fight" over what we are going to watch. I no longer have to suffer through Dr. Phil or Oprah and she no longer has to endure SportsCenter. We just watch our individually tailored shows when the other is busy. I think Tivo is more for couples/families!

However, saying that I will probably need to get an additional Tivo someday. We've only had ours for a few weeks. Not enough time to develop any conflicts yet!

Posted by: Zathrus

I'm declining to vote on the poll because I can't accurately reflect the two TiVos we have. Yes, I bought the first one when I was single, but within a month of my wife (then GF) moving in she went out and bought one.

Yes, it was primarily for conflict resolution :)

She uses the TiVo even more than I do though, and having two TiVos is great. And I disagree that TiVo is "single male" anymore than any other piece of electronics. It certainly wasn't designed that way. When I was on family vacation a few weeks ago my nephew asked his mom (my sister) to rewind Scooby-Doo -- they have a TiVo (at my recommendation) and are used to it. Works just fine for their family.

Frankly, it sounds like you need to do a better job on sharing the TiVo. Work out scheduling conflicts ahead of time, and actually let them thumbs up/down some shows so they'll get suggestions too. As for the complaints about TiVo cutting off shows, not taping shows, etc... that's humorous, because it shows just how reliant they are on the TiVo in the first place.

Posted by: dgh

About a year ago I suggested to a couple that they get a DirecTiVo. They bought 4 of them (8 tuners!) and hooked them to the same TV. I believe they have no TiVo conflicts whatsoever ;)

Posted by: JoeltheTiVoFan

quote:
Originally posted by dgh
About a year ago I suggested to a couple that they get a DirecTiVo. They bought 4 of them (8 tuners!) and hooked them to the same TV. I believe they have no TiVo conflicts whatsoever ;)

EIGHT!?! :eek: I can't even get eight shows at the same time, without including some count of shopping, info-mercials, reality or old-time reruns...

Speaking of reruns, at this point in time, after about 5 years of History Channel and its programming, World War II is getting to feel like a rerun!!

-Joel

Posted by: amtsuchida

I am married woman with a TiVo. I use it more than my husband, because he doesn't watch much tv. However, he likes that it can record the few things he finds and he can catch them later.

I think the TiVo was made for people with kids. I love that I can put my kids to bed in the evenings and not worry about missing the beginning of a show. I can read that extra story. I can also pause the TV to check on the crying baby.

In addition, my son can watch his shows when our schedule permits. He watches Bob the Builder when he wakes up from his nap, no matter what time it is.

Posted by: pagefault

quote:
Originally posted by Connie
Also a single female with two TiVos! The second was officially to resolve schedule conflicts, but also to accommodate needs of female roommate with a Law & Order obsession. :-)

You need two Tivos just for Law and Order, these days...

Ken

Posted by: Dajad

Back to my daydreaming about life with my future Miss Right ... in addition to a his & hers matching set of TiVos I also envision a his & hers matching set of HDTVs side by side - each with their own TiVo of course.

My plan is to have a nice comfy couch sitting out in front of the two HDTVs ... so we can sit side by side and snuggle (**bonus points**) and then she can watch what she wants on her HDTV and I can watch what I want on mine - simultaneously. I'll volunteer to wear the headset for sound.

Now if either of us becomes interested in what the other is watching we can watch it together ... if not, I'll be able to watch my Star Trek in high definition while Oprah drones on about another boring subject on the other HDTV!

Sounds perfect in theory ... I wonder if anyone else in the world had done this.

...Dale

Posted by: TivoDaddy

I just voted, results so far:
Male/single - 65 (39%)
Male/married - 80 (48%)
Female/single - 13 (8%)
Female/married - 9 (5%)

Guess Tivo was made for everybody. That's the reason I bought it. Kids love it (reason for my nick :)). Wife loves it. We bought a second one just for the bedroom. Thinking of buying the Series 2 and place the older one in the kid's bedroom and put the new one in the Family Room.

Posted by: Hunter Green

quote:
Originally posted by JoeltheTiVoFan
Good golly. What does this have to do with TiVo, specifically? If you had only ONE TV in the house, before VCRs and TiVo existed, you'd have the same arguments if people in the house had conflicting views on what to watch at a given time.

TiVo doesn't create the problem, but because of the role of Thumbs on Suggestions, TiVo adds a whole 'nother dimension to it.

Posted by: phone1

quote:
Originally posted by amtsuchida
I am married woman with a TiVo. I use it more than my husband...

What exactly are you and TiVo up to? Is your husband OK with it? :eek: :D

Posted by: jodell

I just voted as a single man who bought TiVo. That doesn't really paint the proper picture. I had a live in girlfriend at the time. I am a "typical guy" in her words (gadget happy) who wanted a TiVo. She said it was a waste of time.

We both happened to get a job at a PVR start up company (now failed). Within a week, she was interested but still thought it was a waste of money-- "We don't watch TV", she said.

I went ahead and bought a SA TiVo in November 1999. Within a week, it was recording more of her gardening and cooking shows than my sporting events and action movies. :')

Now, we have 3 Tivi. The TiVo in the living room is "hers" with all of her stuff and a couple shows for me. The TiVo in the second room is for my shows. The third is there simply for me to have two TiVo's to test the hacks I get from the Underground without breaking "her" TiVo. :')

We don't have scheduling conflicts because of careful use of the SP and thumbs. If she wants to watch something I am not interested in, I go to the other room.

It is amazing what a change TiVo caused. We both get really antsy when we are forced to watch live TV.

Like a couple other posters, I am looking forward to the day when we can have two HDTV's connected to two HD-Tivo's. Nirvana....

Jeff

Posted by: JustAllie

quote:
Originally posted by Dajad
Back to my daydreaming about life with my future Miss Right ... in addition to a his & hers matching set of TiVos I also envision a his & hers matching set of HDTVs side by side - each with their own TiVo of course.
[snip]
Now if either of us becomes interested in what the other is watching we can watch it together ... if not, I'll be able to watch my Star Trek in high definition while Oprah drones on about another boring subject on the other HDTV!

Your life would be much simpler if you went to Las Vegas for "Star Trek: The Experience" and hung around at Quark's bar & restaurant. The perfect place to meet that cool female Trek fan!

;)
JustAllie

P.S. Star Trek wasn't filmed in HDTV -- will it make a difference to watch it in HDTV? Or are you talking about Enterprise?

Posted by: lloydgm

Is anyone surprised by the number of single women who have purchased TiVo over the married women?

I must say, I was dead wrong!

Posted by: GrepTar

I don't think I would have bought one while single. Heck, I didn't even have TV for a year. When I finally did, I didn't watch live TV. I had 2 VCRs taping MST3K for me in the middle of the night. I got one after getting married and having a child. The TiVo allows my wife to watch things despite the continuous interruptions a mother gets.

So, in my mind, TiVo's are made for parents of young children too. Actually, I think they would be happy if everyone bought one :)

Posted by: Dajad

GrepTar makes an excellent point! Given the poll results, clearly the TiVo needs to work on marketing to female parents - a huge market segment that TiVo is clearly not making inroads with. Perhaps, an advertisment featuring a mom pausing TiVo each time her child starts to cry, needs help with homework, while she's tucking the child in bed, with the exhausted single mom returning to her favorite show to watch at her convenience when the rest of the household is dealt with.

...Dale

Posted by: TreborPugly

Maybe we could come up with a Tivo meter for marriage compatibility. I'm married, we have one Tivo, and we both get what we need out of our 60 hours,with maybe 15 hrs of kid shows. So we are compatible with 45 hours.

Negotiating the Season pass hierarchy and one-time recordings is tricky, but we compromise and we're both happy with what we get.

We probably couldn't stay happy (with the TV) with only 30 hours. So we are Tivo-45-hours compatible. (one tuner!)

What about you other married folks? How many hours/tuners does it take to keep you happy?

Treb.

Posted by: HTH

Until TiVo provides support for multiple profile support (gotta be good for the data to get a breakdown per user in a home), multiple TiVos are the answer. Except be careful with the HMO option or you may find your other half transferring shows onto your unit to make room on the not-your unit.

I'm a single male.

Posted by: murgatroyd

Getting the TiVo was my idea. And getting the 2nd TiVo was my idea. All the TiVos are my toys. I set up the SPs for the shows my husband wants. He doesn't mess with the VCRs either.

He enjoys having the TiVos, but I'm the one that takes care of them.

To his credit, he was an awfully good sport about doing the upgrade for me when the hard drive on the 1st TiVo died. One of these days, maybe we'll get around to upgrading TiVo #2....

Jan

Posted by: Pam

Your situation sounds just like mine, murgatroyd.

Getting Tivo1 was my idea. Getting Tivo2 was my idea. Hacking both Tivos was my thing (small difference). Selling both SA Tivos and buying 2 DirecTivos was my idea. Hacking directivo's, again mine. I would mostly likely have gone down this same path, married or single. Basically, the TV's, VCR's, and TiVo's are my domain. He has 2 season passes for car shows, and I do tolerate his need for channel surfing live tv, although I don't understand it.

To answer TreborPugly's query, we have two directivos, 4 tuners, and 214 hours total to play with. Hubby's season passes take up 1.5 hours a week (2 car shows). My season passes are many. One Tivo is full of movies (our own video-on-demand) and the other is full of my season passes. And there's always a tuner available for live tv, so that makes hubby happy.

Just one little happy family, we are.

Posted by: murgatroyd

Our tastes do overlap a lot. But I made sure when I first started putting SPs on the TiVo to get some of his stuff in as well as mine, so he could see the value of having it.

We both channel-surf Live TV from time to time, as it's a good way to find new shows, which you can then set up WLs or SPs for. ;)

I think it's a mistake to get too hung up on this gender thing. Whether you have a TiVo or not depends on three things. 1) how much you care about catching shows if you aren't there to see them when they air 2) the geek factor and 3) the budget.

I suspect that the group of people who have favorite shows they like to watch is probably about half and half. Sure, there will be some people who will not get TiVo because they are intimidated, but I bet there are a great many people who don't have it because they can't afford it, not because it scares them off.

Jan

Posted by: Pam

quote:
Originally posted by murgatroyd
I think it's a mistake to get too hung up on this gender thing. Whether you have a TiVo or not depends on three things. 1) how much you care about catching shows if you aren't there to see them when they air 2) the geek factor and 3) the budget.

You are so right. Before TiVo came along I was doing what TiVo does with multiple VCRs - timeshifting, always watching something taped rather than live. I have a lot of shows I like to watch. Hubby just doesn't care about TV much, with or without TiVo. He agrees TiVos are nice to have, but he could live without it. And he accepts that I don't ever want to live without it.

Posted by: BosTV

Latest results:
male/single 139 46.80%
male/married 129 43.43%
female/single 19 6.40%
female/married 10 3.37%

I hate to rain on the parade here, but this polling sample is highly skewed, probably telling us a lot more about TiVo Forum users then about TiVo users in general, since Forum users hardly constitute a random sampling of all users.

Anyone from TiVo care to chime in with actual user data?