On Mon, 28 Mar 2005, Sam MacDonald wrote: > My wife won a Tivo that can record 40 hours of TV, my first reaction was "So > who wants to watch TV". > I like books, researching, and learning, without cable there is not much of > anything worth staring at. > > I also found that I would have to sign up for a service that would cost $13 > every month or $300 for a life time. > LOLROF I can't imagine why I would pay either price! Considering $10/month to rent a cable DVR that you don't own and doesn't even come close to matching TiVo's features, $13/month isn't bad. When I didn't have cable, TiVo would've been a really cheap way to make broadcast TV worth watching for me. Since the few times I could sit down and watch, with only a handful of channels, there was almost nothing on. At least with Tivo I could've recorded the few things I watched on broadcast TV, like Nova and and Sesame Street (Big Bird is SOOO cool!) It would've saved me the $50/month I'm now paying for cable - until I decided that I absolutely HAVE to get ESPN2 so I can watch women's billiards (mmm...Jeanette Lee) Then I bought the TiVo because most billiards is on during the day when I can't watch. (I just bought my first TiVo a month ago...) > Question: > Has anyone been able to use this thing without the service? See below > Can I sign up and quit the service but still use the device? A series 2 Tivo is a boatanchor without the service. > Can the device be hacked so it can be used like a VCR for recording (wife > likes 24)? I think the series 1 units could operate in VCR mode w/o a subscription, but from what I've read, the series 2 will not even do that. An s2 without a sub can do live TV (incl. rewind/fast forward, 30 second skip), but that's about it. Hardly worthwhile. For the discounts and rebates their giving on the units, they are taking a huge loss to get the product out the door, and need to make that money back on the service. That's why it's useless w/o the service - they are taking a loss unless you sign up. > or > Do I put it up for sale? If you can't justify the cost, you're better off doing this. Keep in mind that they are now offering an 80-hour unit for $99 after rebate, so a used (open-box) 40-hour unit won't fetch much. I might be interested in taking it off your hands for the right price - adding a 2nd unit to my service is only $6.95/month. That, or my brother has been talking about buying one. Also remember that the $300 "lifetime" subscription is only good for the life of the unit. For this reason, I am currently on the $12.95/month plan until I figure out what I want to do long-term. Now, on to using it w/o service: This would violate the terms of service for using the TiVo software on the unit. If you look around in alt.video.ptv.tivo, you'll see that this argument has been beaten to death a number of times. And discussion about how to do what you're talking about is taboo among the community. That said, it has been done. That was my last reason for holding off buying one until recently - if TiVo went out of business, and for some reason no one bought the subscriber base, I wanted to make sure I wasn't sitting on a $200 boat anchor. The only group I know of that's done this was some guys in Canada (since they can't get Tivo service), and they have stated they will not release their code to residents in areas that can get Tivo service. Maybe try the service for a month or two and see how you like it. It really did make TV better for me. I have very limited times when I can sit down and watch. Even with ~70 channel cable, there was always crap on when I actually had time. Now when I have those precious few hours each week to watch, I sit down and get to pick from a list of things that I actually like. And the 30-second skip means I can watch a 30-minute program in under 20 minutes. And instant replay means I can watch Lee's jump shot in the 2004 WPBA finals against Fisher over and over again. But if you are interested in selling it, or have more questions from a new Tivo owner, ping me off-list and we can talk.