is TiVo worth it?

[SmooveDeac]

I moved to a condo in Chicago a couple of months ago, and I had to give up my beloved DirecTV. Now I'm stuck with a crappy DVR from Comcast that fills up with just a couple of football games and a handful of shows.

Thinking about making the switch to TiVo. Is it worth dropping $250 or $400 for the box, plus $15/month? And how much other hidden crap will I need to buy?

 

[DeacHead]

I've been an avid devotee for TiVo for about 12 years now. My answer to "is it worth it?" is "hell yeah". On the other hand, I'm going to confess I haven't been doing my due diligence to see what other options are out there, like with Apple tv for example. That's in no small part due to how satisfied I've been that I've just let inertia take over. I'm considering upgrading to the TiVo 4 now, looks sweet, but before I do I intend to dig into what options there are.

There is no other "hidden crap" save for a wireless adaptor (or ethernet cable) and eventually replacement parts, like the remote.

 

[wake]

I have a Media Center computer that I use as my DVR. The Windows Media Center DVR interface is a million times better than the cable company crap and you have as much storage as you want since you can put as many hard drives as you want. A computer to run it may run you $500 and the tuner card you need is about $200 but you don't have to pay a monthly service fee, just like $3 a month for a cablecard. Might be worth looking into. It is not as ridiculously user friendly as a TiVo but it is certainly better than the cable companies offering and very manageable for anyone who is even slightly technically savvy. The Tivo is nice but gets really expensive by the time you buy the equipment and add in its monthly charge in addition to the already ridiculous cable costs.