BTW, with regard to the audioholics specific article, there is something I feel I should clear up, as I have tons of experience in the DVR arena:
If we look at the table above we can see that the cable company leases the box at a monthly rate. Normally, you'd think some may be better off buying a piece of electronics outright rather than leasing it for a monthly fee. Over time the product would be paid off, correct? Well, not necessarily. For one, I have gone through no less than 3 HD-DVR boxes in the past 5 years due to hard drive failure. Each time the cable company replaced the box for free (since it is leased). Had they been TiVos and had they been out of warranty (as at least two of them would have been) I'd be out well over $1200.
Tivo is a ripoff. There is no doubting that whatsoever, even myself as a long time tivo owner do not doubt this at all, and under normal circumstances I wouldn't pay what they charge. You can however, replace the hard disk with *any* PC hard disk of your choosing. How hard or easy this is depends entirely upon your experience with computers in general. If you have ever built your own computer before (and many people have) then it is really quite simple.
Head over to
www.dealdatabase.com/forum for more info. FWIW you'll notice that I am somewhat well known there.
But I digress...
In addition, TiVo charges users for the privilege of using its program guide. My cable company's, though it lacks some of the bells and whistles, doesn't charge extra for this once I have the box. Oh, we're not done yet... Remeber, the TiVo requires a cablecard to work with those digital channels you like so much. That's an extra $3.95/mo fee from the cable company for leasing the card (you can't buy it either). The grand total is $19.95/mo for HD-DVR (over the price of analogue cable) with no box fees, and $30.90/mo plus up to $599 for a TiVo-based HD-DVR.
True, if you are going to go with a tivo. But, tivo isn't the only DVR game in town. Many more will surface as time progresses. Especially given that DVR's with digital tuners will be cheaper to make than DVRs with *any* kind of analog hardware. Tivo only charges more for the HD units just because of the fact that they are HD. But technically speaking, it is much cheaper to make strictly digital DVR's than analog ones. The reason why is because you don't have any need for an NTSC decoder, an analog to digital converter, or any mpeg-2 encoding hardware.
Yowsa - I'm sure there are some deals out there, but the bottom line is consumers are (at least currently) paying a premium for TiVo-based entertainment if they want access to digital channels from cable. We won't even bring up satellite, which stretched incredulity as owners actually pay a flat (typically steep) fee for HD-DVR boxes that they technically have to surrender should they ever cancel their services (and no there is no refund).
Not true!!! This is a common misconception! - at least, not true for directv anyways (I don't know about dishnet.) I am an owner of two HR10-250's. These are the very first high definition tivo units to ever come out. The total monthly cost for these is $5 a month. And that $5 a month is good for *all* of the TV's in your house, even if they are tivo brand.
My cost for TWO HD-DVR's is $5 a month over the regular satellite bill. Thats it, I am dead serious about this.
If you had this *same* setup for cable, you'd be paying $40 a month over your regular cable bill.
With directv tivos, you don't do any business with tivo themselves. You only pay directv that $5 a month, and it doesn't matter how many tivos you have, its still only $5 a month. The non tivo brand DVR's are the same.
Also, with directv I own my HR10-250's. If I ever cancel the service, I keep them. Granted they only work with directv, I still get to keep them. Now, new directv customers won't experience this on the other hand, namely because directv puts new customers on a lease program, and they will have to return the equipment, which is gay, and for this reason alone I personally wouldn't ever *pay* for any new directv hardware. On the plus side, you only pay $5 a month for the lease fee, which is exactly the same as what you pay for the regular mirror fee as if you owned a second unit.
We know there are those of you who have experiences with TiVo and CableCARDs and we'd like to hear about them. Be sure to post in our forums to let us know what you think and how this might affect how you use cableTV in your home.
But as I have said in the past, tivo isn't going to be the only option in town. For the time being, it more or less is. Once cablecard 2.0 comes around, you'll have even less fees to worry about as the unit won't ever have to phone home to acquire guide data. Eventually you'll see DVR's with no monthly fees attached to them at all.