Back in business

We have finally, officially become "Cord Cutters" and are only 3 weeks behind schedule!  Woohoo!  I think this speaks to the true procrastinator in me.  I must say we were very close to nixing this whole project all together, but we persevered through way more mishaps than we deserved and I think – with one day behind us – that we made the right decision. 

As you may remember, my beloved TiVo and first technology crush had broken along with a piece of my heart. After spending two days chatting online with TiVo customer service, we both decided that is was time to let her rest in peace. So after a few days of mourning, (read convincing Erin that I needed to buy a new one), I decided to just go buy a new one and take the verbal beating from Erin when she got home.  (Which didn't happen, I think she secretly wanted it too!) 

So off I went to the internet to find the cheapest price, which was $84.99 at Tiger Direct.  I then took that to Best Buy and picked up my new TiVo (Best Buy is actually great at price matching). Upon getting my new toy, I raced home and tore into my home theater closet. What is nice about this TiVo is that it immediately reduced the number of boxes in my closet from 6 to 3.  I got to get rid of my cable box, my Roku, and my digital to analog converter box, making for a far less cluttered and much cooler closet. 

And now for my review:

Out of the box, the TiVo is definitely their sleekest most attractive unit to date.  It almost makes me regret putting it in a closet!  In the box is a sleek remote in the traditional TiVo peanut-shaped style and an array of cords, including an HDMI cable, power cable and RCA style video cables.  Setup is a breeze, especially if you are going over the air.  If you are using cable you need to have someone come out and install a cable card into the TiVo.  After allowing the TiVo to power up for about 10 minutes, I began the guided setup, which is about a 30 minute procedure with about 5 minutes of which actually involved any effort on my part. After that I was introduced to the new HD user interface, which is vastly superior to the old one, and from the ones I’ve seen, it's light years better than Cable DVRs. 

This unit’s DVR functions all work very well, but where this unit really shines is in its bells and whistles. The unit comes out of the box with access to Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon VOD, YouTube, and BLOCKBUSTER on demand, which means I have access to over 100,000 movies and TV shows as well as a wealth of video podcasts at the touch of a button.  Take that, Xfinity on demand! There is also access to Pandora, Rhapsody, Music Choice and Live365 for a plethora of free music and music videos. 

What makes this product revolutionary is the integration of all of its video sources into one search feature. Searching for a show using TiVo search yields results not only from channels you may receive but also from all of the internet video sources listed above.  For example, a search for one of my favorite shows ,“Scrubs”, yielded the options to record an upcoming episode on WCIU, buy episodes from Amazon VOD, or stream every episode using Netflix.  All of these services were offered from just one search!

For cord cutters like Erin and I, this is the most elegant option I have found to incorporate free over-the-air TV and internet streaming into one device.  The integrated search works perfectly and easily.  The user interface is so easy that even my parents could figure it out and the integration of online scheduling and iPhone app make this an excellent buy, and perfect for our situation. 


Thanks for reading,
Michael