Picture 1 of 14
Picture 1 of 14
Off-Site Media
Featured Topics
TiVo made its name by popularizing the digital video recorder (DVR), but now that set-tops distributed by Verizon and every other TV provider perform similar tasks, TiVo has to reinvent its core product in order to survive. Why go through the trouble of paying $299 for the TiVo HD plus whatever costs there are for getting the required pair of CableCARDs from your cable or FiOS provider? Well, not for the media moving capabilities. Instead, do it for the media-collecting features.
The TiVo HD almost treats your PC’s media as an afterthought. It’s not what’s already in your possession that matters to TiVo, but the video you can pull in from the outside world. If you thought D-Link’s extender was cool for linking in Flickr, wait until you see the slew of online sources TiVo builds into its box: everything from Yahoo! Traffic to Fandango to Live365 to the godfather of online video, YouTube. Simply having links for these wouldn’t be enough. The beauty of TiVo has always been its interface. But while these sites are very different in content, TiVo makes navigating them blissfully easy. And, yes, you can also move your own media around your house with TiVo HD.
I had and loved my original TiVo for several years. As the author mentions, there are a lot of good features and the online ability has come a long way since the original v1 and v2 TiVo added the networking features.
The two most annoying things to me: (1) there's no way to control or even pass-through DVD or BluRay playback through the device. If I want to watch movies, I better have 2 HDMI inputs on my TV and I'll need to dig out the TV remote again to switch it (and a third remote from the BluRay player.) (2) you can't play your own media on a TiVo... it only plays something that a TiVo records or something you've downloaded from one of their partners.
Moving to a low-profile Vista Media Center fixed both issues for me (as well as giving me the two CableCards that an upgraded TiVo HD would have given me.)