TiVo Community Forums Archives - Do I have to buy the service if i only want to record stuff?

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Do I have to buy the service if i only want to record stuff?
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Posted by: filmphilosopher

I am thinking about buying TiVo, but don't want to pay for any service... The people at best buy say I can't record anything without the service... Is this true? I don't see why i couldn't have the thing work like vcr but with the convienience of not having to use tape.

Posted by: Robert S

But TiVo want you to pay for the subscription (they don't get any money from the hardware purchase), so the software won't let you record unless you've made a phonecall in the last week or so to get some current Guide data.

Posted by: filmphilosopher

thanx

Posted by: captain_video

Are you talking about the standalone Tivo or the new series 2 DirecTivo? The price of the service is different for each type. The standalone Tivo requires a monthly fee of (I believe) $12.95/month. I haven't owned a standalone Tivo for several years so I'm not entirely sure if you have to pay the monthly fee for each Tivo you own or if you can add more Tivos under a single monthly fee. The DirecTivos only require a monthly fee of $4.99 for as many DirecTivos you want to add to your DTV account. The service fee structure should be provided on the Tivo website.

By the way, don't take anything a Best Buy salesperson says as gospel. I was in my local BB the other day looking for some good deals on open box items as I frequently do. I spotted the new ReplayTV 5040 that looked interesting, mainly because I was surprised to see BB carry the Replay brand units. Right next to the display model was a rack of brochures about DirecTV with Tivo service. The salesperson came over and asked if I had any questions and I inquired as to when the new DirecTivos were due in. He said that they'd be in by the end of the month but that they weren't called Tivos anymore - they are now called UltimateTVs! I had to wait for the disbelief to subside and proceeded to inform him that Tivo and UTV were different devices entirely. He insisted that they were all gonna be called UTVs and he wasn't budging from that opinion, no matter what I tried to explain to him. I guess that it didn't matter to him that the brochures clearly stated that they were called Tivos and not UTVs.

Posted by: steuert

The Series 2 SA's and all DTiVos require subscriptions to do just about anything. TiVo subsidizes these units and loses money on every sale; the only way they can make a profit is through the service.

Series 1 SA's which originally came with software version 1.3 can be used to record by time and channel like a VCR; however they have been out of production for some time and can only be purchased used or refurbished, and are hard to find.

TiVo service for SA's costs $13/mo. for each unit; the service for DTiVo's costs $5, with no additional TiVo charge for extra receivers, although you do have to pay DTV a $5/mo. "mirroring" fee for programing.

Most people find the service well worth the $ after they have used it for a while. It greatly increases the capabilities of your TV. The TiVo store offers a 30 day free trial on SA's; you might consider trying this and see for yourself how it works.