TiVo Community Forums Archives - TiVo is too complicated, all you need is a DVD recorder.

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TiVo is too complicated, all you need is a DVD recorder.
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Posted by: MighTiVo

Overheard from a BestBuy employee while shopping yesterday.
TiVo is too complicated, all you need is a DVD recorder.

He went on to explain that a TiVo is a computer with a hard drive and if all the woman wanted to do was record shows like she did with her VCR then what she really needs is a DVD recorder.

Gees!!!

I had my family with me and the kids were getting rowdy so unfortunately I didn't take the opportunity to correct this misinformation.

Posted by: Combat Medic

How long would it have taken to hit him on the back of the head?

-Mike

Posted by: ufo4sale

or kicked him in the ass for that matter.

Posted by: bidger

I'm on the verge of buying a DVD recorder, but I still NEED TiVo. I don't want to archive EVERYTHING I record.

Posted by: samo

quote:
if all the woman wanted to do was record shows like she did with her VCR then what she really needs is a DVD recorder.

Technically speaking salesman was correct. TiVo manual recording capabilities are lousy compare to cheapest VCR and require monthly or lifetime subscription. Of course archiving is out of the question and if woman didn't care about trick play or season passes she didn't need TiVo. At $350 or so DVD recorders are selling now they are better deal for somebody who just wants to upgrade from VCR.

Posted by: Smeg

If all the woman wanted was to record shows like she did with her VCR then all she needs is a VCR

Posted by: HDTiVo

Salesman is right if all she needs is a glorified VCR. ;)

Posted by: TiVotion

If all you want to do is pay way too much for consumer electronics at a store with horrendous return and price match policies, then all you need is Best Buy .

Posted by: dgh

For most VCR owners, if they want to "record shows just like they do with a VCR", then they can save even more money by getting a DVD PLAYER.

Since most VCR owners don't actually record. ;)

Posted by: HDTiVo

>DVD PLAYER

I heard Best Buy has one of those for $19. And it does not need TiVo's service to work.

Posted by: jamesbobo

I disagree that TiVo is too complicated.
If I were the salesman, I'd ask what does she want to do with the shows once they are recorded. Save them or just watch them and get rid of them.
If she didn't want to save them I'd try and talk her into the TiVo. If she wanted to keep them, I'd try to sell her the DVD recorder with built in TiVo.

Posted by: jwjody

I hate stupid salespeople in general, not just this one from Best Buy. I was at CompUSA in Atlanta once and this woman needed a new modem. The salesguy was asking her if she needed ISA or PCI. Of course the woman didn't know the difference and didn't know which she needed. So the salesguy told her to bring in her computer and the tech's would open it up and let her know for only $50.

A few minutes later the woman was alone so I walked up to her and told her I overheard what she was told, and she could open the computer herself and look at what slot the modem was plugged into then she could tell if it was PCI or ISA by the color of the slot.

She wrote down what I told her and I hope she skipped paying someone to tell her which it was.

EIther the salesguy didn't know the difference or he was preying on the woman's ignorance. Either isn't good.

J

Posted by: ufo4sale

I would rather have sales people who don't know anything then if they lie about knowing something.

Posted by: rseligman

quote:
Originally posted by ufo4sale
I would rather have sales people who don't know anything then if they lie about knowing something.

Oh, for the love of all things digital, YES! YES!

Posted by: NPBeacher

quote:
Originally posted by bidger
I'm on the verge of buying a DVD recorder, but I still NEED TiVo. I don't want to archive EVERYTHING I record.

Ditto here, I can find value with my TiVo even though there are certain things I want to archive.

Tony

Posted by: dmdeane

quote:
Originally posted by samo
Technically speaking salesman was correct. TiVo manual recording capabilities are lousy compare to cheapest VCR and require monthly or lifetime subscription. Of course archiving is out of the question and if woman didn't care about trick play or season passes she didn't need TiVo. At $350 or so DVD recorders are selling now they are better deal for somebody who just wants to upgrade from VCR.

Why would anyone use a TiVo for manual recording? Good lord, that's like buying a sports car, and then hitching a pair of horses in front of it, and trying to convert it into a chariot.

But I'd still rather manual record with a TiVo than a VCR. VCRs are infuriating and feel as though they were intentionally designed to be annoying and difficult to use. I almost never recorded with my VCR before I got a TiVo. But Season Passes and Wishlists, the To Do list, and the TiVo search functions blow everything else in the time-shifting marketplace out of the water.

I've got a hunch that I alot of people who buy these new DVD recorder units still won't use them that often to record TV, but mostly to watch DVD movies and maybe to save home movies from their camcorders to DVD. As long as manual recording on a VCR or DVD recorder are nonintuitive, frustrating, difficult, or any kind of hassle - such that one can never remember how to set the clock on the VCR or DVD recorder, for instance, or remember to change tapes/discs or not record over old material, or remember to reset a recording that has shifted time slots - then the DVD recorder will remain as unused for timeshifting TV as the VCR before it.

You really do need a hard drive and some kind of intelligent software to make time shifting your TV watching an effortless pleasure rather than a burdensome chore.

Posted by: dmdeane

I wonder if this salesman was on commission to sell certain DVD recorders. Certainly wasn't on commission to sell TiVos.

TiVo is only "more complicated" from the designer's standpoint or the software engineer's standpoint. From the point of view of the user, TiVo is simpler and easier to use, and it is the DVD recorders, like the VCR, that are complex and difficult to use.

Posted by: drew2k

TiVo is a lifesaver if you watch or archive a lot of shows. You know what the biggest problem I had with manual recording to a VCR was in my pre-TiVo days? I would always forget to label the tapes, and would end up 10 tapes next to the VCR and absolutely no idea what was on them. To me, the simple act of having my TiVo present shows I recorded in a list (with TITLES!) is worth the miniscule effort it took to turn the thing on and say "record this!"

Posted by: mtmra70

quote:
Originally posted by drew2k
TiVo is a lifesaver if you watch or archive a lot of shows. You know what the biggest problem I had with manual recording to a VCR was in my pre-TiVo days? I would always forget to label the tapes, and would end up 10 tapes next to the VCR and absolutely no idea what was on them. To me, the simple act of having my TiVo present shows I recorded in a list (with TITLES!) is worth the miniscule effort it took to turn the thing on and say "record this!"

well a DVD TiVo will do the same thing if you dont lable the DVDs you make ;)

Posted by: HDTiVo

We need the underground to figure out how to attach a 200 disk changer to a Pioneer unit, and keep all the program data in Now Playing.

:)

Posted by: Smeg

I disagree about Best Buy. That is where I bought my TiVo. With their weekly 10% off coupons you can usually get good prices. And I have never had a problem returning anything there. They will take almost anything back. Now getting them to Price match is always a pain in the ass. If I want to Price Match +10% I go to CC. They price Match without asking questions...

Posted by: timckelley

quote:
Originally posted by drew2k
TiVo is a lifesaver if you watch or archive a lot of shows. You know what the biggest problem I had with manual recording to a VCR was in my pre-TiVo days? I would always forget to label the tapes, and would end up 10 tapes next to the VCR and absolutely no idea what was on them. To me, the simple act of having my TiVo present shows I recorded in a list (with TITLES!) is worth the miniscule effort it took to turn the thing on and say "record this!"

Yes, I understand. Before TiVo, we timeshifted like crazy with our VCRs, (unlike the supposed majority of VCR owners who don't use it to record.) Our problem would sometimes be that we had the wrong tape in their at the wrong time, causing mislabling. Or positioned wrongly, causing an overwrite of a show. (Our version of an SP was to have a tape labled 'Friends' and always make sure that tape was loaded just before Friends airs.) Plus, we really had to stay on top of the TV schedule to make sure that right tapes were loaded at the right times. Thanks, TiVo, for liberating us from that! Also, if I watched a show, but my wife hasn't, I needed to make sure I positioned the tape at the correct point when I finished watching it. Or if we both had watched shows on a tape, we had to coordinate whether it was time to restart the tapes from their beginning (use them over again). With TiVO, we usually just tell each other what we've watched and then delete when we've both watched. Or, I've heard some husband/wives use this system: The first one who watches a show positions it at exactly the five minute mark. This is a signal to the second person that the first has already watched it, and that the show is free to be deleted.

Good Lord - things are so much easier now with TiVo than before.

Posted by: HDTiVo

I like the 5 min. mark signal idea.

Posted by: JJJB

I would of asked her,"would she get upset and aggravated if SOME of the things she recorded flickered ?" if so then just get a DVD recorder.:rolleyes:

Posted by: drewba

We've got both a DVD recorder and a stand-alone TiVo and the DVD is a PITA compared to TiVo. You always have to remember to keep a disk in place for recording and can't be playing anything at the time you want to record. We don't have a model with a built-in hard drive, which would eliminate my main complaints, but then you've driven the price up past that of another TiVo with lifetime.

Posted by: mattack

quote:
Originally posted by drewba
We've got both a DVD recorder and a stand-alone TiVo and the DVD is a PITA compared to TiVo. You always have to remember to keep a disk in place for recording and can't be playing anything at the time you want to record. We don't have a model with a built-in hard drive, which would eliminate my main complaints, but then you've driven the price up past that of another TiVo with lifetime.

I don't know which model you're talking about. I guess if you're talking about a refurbished S1, it's about the same as "another Tivo with lifetime". otherwise, it's much more. The DVD recorders with hard drives are about $500.

Posted by: buffalo66

In my opinion Tivo Basic is easier to use for manual recording than a VCR. Especially considering the fact that all your shows are listed by title in "Now Playing" afterwards.

Posted by: drewba

quote:
Originally posted by mattack
I don't know which model you're talking about. I guess if you're talking about a refurbished S1, it's about the same as "another Tivo with lifetime". otherwise, it's much more. The DVD recorders with hard drives are about $500.

You're right, the price of DVD recorders with hard drives has actually come done quite a bit since I last looked. J&R is selling the Panasonic model for $540. A 40 hour TiVo with lifetime would be $550 (80 hour $650).

Thus for approximately the same money, you can either have DVD recording capability and an extra 40 hours or TiVo service.

I still think my DVD recorder is a PITA though! :D

Posted by: geoman47

This is not an excuse for ignorance, but I think that sometimes people like to get their arms around the whole machine. So, from that perspective, TiVo more complicated than a DVD recorder. When some people get overwhelmed, they simply cannot comprehend.

Sure, we know TiVo is easier to use. But to understand everything TiVo does is a much greater learning curve than for a DVD recorder, because people already know how to use a VCR even if they don’t use it.

Just something to keep in mind when TiVangelizing with the non-converted. I’ve learned that the hard way… I’m so excited to tell someone how great TiVo is and I start going too far on all of the great features.

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