Is it really "God's Machine?" - Yes.

"Tivo is God's machine." - Michael Powell, FCC Chairman.

I purchased a Tivo in December, 2002 and am very pleased with it. I opted to get the 40 hour Series 2 machine from Tivo's website, tivo.com. I also purchased the Lifetime Subscription for $249. To use a cliché I would have to say it has changed how I watch TV. I never watch live TV anymore. Even if I am home when the show I want to see is starting I will wait 10-15 minutes after the show has begun so that I can fast forward the commercials and still end at the same time the show is ending in real time.

The Tivo has many features that make it quite worthy of being called “God's machine.” They include:

Season Passes
For those who don't know the Season Pass feature allows you to pick shows which you would like Tivo to record on a recurring basis. The feature is very customizable. You can tell it to record the show for “first runs” only – meaning it will only record the show if that episode is not a re-run. Alternatively you can have it record every showing of the show. You also tell the machine how many episodes of the show it should keep. For example you could say that you only want it to keep 5 episodes of Law and Order. When the Tivo begins to record a 6th episode it will remove the oldest episode so there are only 5. You could also tell it to never delete any episodes.

Season Passes can also be ranked. This is a great feature if you have Season Passes for two shows that are on at the same time. For example, this year Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Gilmore Girls were on at the same day and time. Since I prefer Buffy I told Tivo to only record first-runs of Buffy and placed the Season Pass higher than Gilmore Girls'. As a result I got all my new episodes of Buffy and when Buffy was a rerun I would get an episode of Gilmore Girls instead.

Wish lists
Wish lists allow you to add your favorite actors, directors, genres, types of shows, etc. to a list which you can check regularly for new appearances. For example, if you were a big fan of the actress Alyson Hannigan you could create a wish list for her and Tivo would search for anything that she appears in. You have the option to auto-record anything with Hannigan in it or not. If you don't you can check your wish list with a few remote controller clicks and see all the shows, movies, interviews, etc that she is in for the next two weeks or so. This is a great way for big fans to catch all the obscure appearances of their favorite stars.

Suggestions
Looking for something new to watch? Tired of all your usual shows? Tivo can help. The suggestions feature will choose shows that are similar to the ones that you record and ones that you give a “thumbs up” to and suggest them to you. Suggestions are automatically recorded when there is free space on your Tivo – but they are also deleted before anything that you chose to record so they will not interfere with your shows. There is also a listing of suggestions which you can view and choose shows to record. The auto-recording of suggestions is an optional feature, which you can turn off if you wish.

Tips

Recording Time
When you see that this is a 40 hour unit the first thing you probably think is “Forty hours! That's plenty of room!” I wish to caution you however, that this means 40 hours at the minimum quality. I prefer using “medium” quality which gives you approximately 24 hours of record time. At the best quality it is about 12 hours of record time. Personally, I find that medium quality is just fine for me and my mid to low-end TV. I can't really tell much of a difference. However, I know some people are very particular about their video and may prefer the higher qualities. I'm not sure how the qualities differs on high end TV's and can only guess it may be more noticeable.

Subscriptions
In addition to buying the box you must subscribe to Tivo's service. They offer two plans, monthly payments of $12.95, or a one time lifetime subscription of $299. Both options have their pros and cons. I choose the Lifetime Subscription, which was only $249 at the time I purchased it. One thing to keep in mind though: the subscription is for the life time of the machine, not your lifetime. So if you break your machine or want a bigger one you need a new subscription. You can however do a lot of upgrades to the machine yourself. There are lots of webpages that give step by step instructions on how to upgrade the hard drive giving you a longer record time – probably not something for computer novices to do on their own, but pretty do-able for the tech savvy. This will void your warranty with Tivo, but it doesn't break any of their rules. The advantage to the lifetime subscription is that you're locked into the price. If you opt for monthly payments the rates may go up at anytime.