Some of you might be wondering why I’m writing about TiVo. After all, it’s old hat right? Well, not everybody has had direct experience with TiVo or PVR technology. Some folks haven’t decided whether or not they even need one. But if you spend any time watching TV and don’t have TiVo yet, the time has come to free yourself from the prison of prime time and take control of your TV.

A friend of mine has been touting the virtues of TiVo for ages now, raving ad nauseam about how great it was and how it changed her TV experience. For a while, I kind of tuned her out — her unabashed advocacy was like the worst Linux/Windows/Mac pitch times ten. One day I finally saw the TiVo system in action at her house and I had to admit to myself it was very intriguing. I still wasn’t convinced I wanted to buy one but the seed had been planted.

Well the seed germinated recently and I finally took the TiVo plunge at Best Buy. I had considered building my own Personal Video Recorder (based on ExtremeTech’s PVR Build-It feature) but I wanted it easy and fast, so TiVo it was. I bought the broadband-ready Series 2 TiVo with the 80GB drive for $350 (with a $50 rebate) and a lifetime TiVo subscription that set me back an additional $300. Altogether, my setup cost about $600 plus tax — certainly not a small sum, but definitely worth every penny.

Read more @ ExtremeTech