Good deal on an HD Tivo [and now a 50" Plasma TV!!]

[Ghoulish Delight]

Okay, sellout.woot.com got us. Half price on an HD TiVo. 3 hours left.

http://sellout.woot.com/

[Kevy Baby]

Since I can't see the original sale, was it this unit (https://www3.tivo.com/store/boxdetails.do?boxName=180hourtivohd&boxsku=R65216#top)?

And if anyone else wants to get an HD TiVo at a better price, TiVo is offering "factory-renewed" units at $180 (https://www3.tivo.com/store/webspecials.do?WT.ac=tivohome_save120special_save1 20specialdet_lnk) (plus service of course).

[Chernabog]

Cheese Man might be interested in the factory-renewed units.

Our DVR is SO HORRIBLE. Fracking Time Warner-supplied piece of dog shyte. It takes 1-2 seconds to respond to button pushes (if it responds at all), it deletes stuff we want to save, saves stuff we want to delete, doesn't turn itself on to record programs, doesn't do a "quick rewind" when you press play while you're fast forwarding through commercials (i.e. to get it to the actual start of the program), doesn't like to record "non-rerun" shows, and if we push fast forward once sometimes it will completely spaz out and "forward" the show to the beginning when you press play again (which is REALLY annoying when you're watching a long program like the Olympic Opening Ceremony).

I hate you Time Warner, a company who "upgraded" our box to this piece of crap and then had the audacity to make us purchase a cable to actually plug it into the television. (Not to mention how they told us it was $10 extra for HD.... which is a lie. It is $10 for them to SEND HD. But it's an EXTRA $10 for us to RECEIVE the HD signal. I am not kidding you.)

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yes, Kevy, that's the one. And yesterday's deal was a refurb one for $165 w/shipping.

For the Olympics we switched out our regular Time Warner HD cable box for their HD DVR for the month. Only cost us $10 and was perfect for recording the Olympics, but yeah, the interface is HORRIBLE (just as it was 2 years ago when we first tried even their non-HD DVR). It was worth dealing with for 2 weeks, but no way in hell would I have continued to pay $10/month for that piece of crap. My list of complaints about the UI is long.

Nor were we going to pay $300 when we've already got a TiVo and don't watch a whole lot of HD content anyway. But $165? Oh yeah, totally worth it, especially since we'll make some of that back by selling our SD series 2 box (anyone want a good deal on an SD TiVo?).

Now we get to see how much of a pain it is to get Time Warner to give us a CableCard.

[mousepod]

When I got my HD-TIVO, Time Warner had to send out an installer to put in the cable cards. I was originally annoyed - I figured I could just go and pick them up myself - but in the end I was happy that the friendly technician was there to troubleshoot the installation with me.

[Chernabog]

When we move, I'm going with satellite :)

[Betty]

We've got the same crappy Time Warner HD cable box after our Tivo SD box died. On the one hand, I love having an HD DVR. That's really cool. But I hate hate hate everything else about the box. Same complaints. Slow to respond...we are forever fast forwarding then rewinding then fast forwarding again only to sit through 1/2 a commercial anyway. We'd probably be better off just sitting through them... perhaps I'm on to something with that statment (it's all part of their evil plan?)

I had a hard time trying to justify buying another tivo when TW was basically giving us an HD box. okay - yeah it's a few bucks a month but not several hundred. I called tivo and they said they'd replace it for $75 and I told them no thanks... then they offered one with a bigger hard drive and I was going to go for it... but we got hooked on the HD DVR and tivo isn't going to send us one of those for free.

oh well.

At least I'm not the only one with hate for the TW box.

[Gn2Dlnd]

When we move, I'm going with satellite :)

Moving van might be more practical, but, you know, go with what feels right.

I saw the woot! deal, but after looking at the Tivo site, decided to save my pennies and go for a larger drive with service. Tivo is such a superior product. I still have my non-hd tivo for my non-hd TV that I don't watch anymore. :rolleyes:

[Kevy Baby]

When I got my HD-TIVO, Time Warner had to send out an installer to put in the cable cards. I was originally annoyed - I figured I could just go and pick them up myself - but in the end I was happy that the friendly technician was there to troubleshoot the installation with me.I had the same reaction. But when I saw the challenges the TW installer had with getting through to tech support (I had to stifle my laugh), I am glad I had them do it.When we move, I'm going with satellite :)You can't (without some serious hacking) use TiVo with satellite. I like my TiVo enough that this is important to me.

Also, HD satellite can be a bit of a pain to install at an apartment or condo. For us, it was effectively impossible as they needed two lines coming into our unit and only one was installed when the place was built. I posted it about it previously.

I saw the woot! deal, but after looking at the Tivo site, decided to save my pennies and go for a larger drive with service. Tivo is such a superior product.Which larger drive? To the best of my knowledge, they have only offered one size drive on the HD TiVo.

I have installed the My DVR Expander to get the extra room. Since that drive is only 500 GB, I was tempted to build my own 1TB unit. But I decided to stay with the smaller drive that TiVo supported.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Moving van might be more practical, but, you know, go with what feels right.

I saw the woot! deal, but after looking at the Tivo site, decided to save my pennies and go for a larger drive with service. Tivo is such a superior product. I still have my non-hd tivo for my non-hd TV that I don't watch anymore. :rolleyes:FYI, you can replace the installed hard drive with drive that's twice as big as even the one that comes in the fancy Series 3 box (which only buys you 25-30 hrs of HD space instead of the 20 hrs. on the regular HD unit), for around $70-$100 instead of the extra $300 the Series 3 costs. It's not a simple drop-in upgrade, but I think you might know someone who could do it for you...(we're going to see if 20 hrs of HD is enough for us, if not I'll likely install a larger drive myself and get 50-60 hrs.).

[Ghoulish Delight]

Which larger drive? To the best of my knowledge, they have only offered one size drive on the HD TiVo.

I have installed the My DVR Expander to get the extra room. Since that drive is only 500 GB, I was tempted to build my own 1TB unit. But I decided to stay with the smaller drive that TiVo supported.
There's a high end HD TiVo (Series 3) with a 250GB drive instead of the 160GB. It also has other features like surround sound. And it costs double the price of the standard HD ($600 vs. $300).

There's a 500GB, power saving, quiet running Hard drive for $70 at Newegg.com. It requires a little bit of semi-advanced computer gymnastics to get it recognized by the TiVo, but it's a much better option unless you REALLY want surround sound from your TiVo.

[Gn2Dlnd]

It's not a simple drop-in upgrade, but I think you might know someone who could do it for you...

:D Noted and smilied.

20 hours is so not enough recording time

[Kevy Baby]

There's a high end HD TiVo (Series 3) with a 250GB drive instead of the 160GB. It also has other features like surround sound. And it costs double the price of the standard HD ($600 vs. $300).

There's a 500GB, power saving, quiet running Hard drive for $70 at Newegg.com. It requires a little bit of semi-advanced computer gymnastics to get it recognized by the TiVo, but it's a much better option unless you REALLY want surround sound from your TiVo.Here is the site (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?t=370784) that convinced me that I did not want to do my own eSATA DVR expansion. You would probably be better capable to do a lot of this than I. But for me, a part of it was the TiVo support issue.

[Ghoulish Delight]

Support shmaport. And the expansion I'm looking at is internal. None of this namby pamby external stuff.

[Gn2Dlnd]

And the expansion I'm looking at is internal.

Sadly, all the expansion I'm looking at is external. Wait, what?

[Alex]

I don't know if it is relevant (I'm perfectly happy with the crappy 20-hour DVR I now have) but Andrew Rich recently did a big expansion of his DVR to allow him to record pretty much all of the Olympics (all I remember of the details is mentions of terabytes).

He detailed it here (http://www.project-insomnia.com/2008/08/olympic-size-dvr-storage.shtml).

[Ghoulish Delight]

We've spent the last 4 or 5 year using ReplayTV and TiVo. Between those two it's a tossup (I love them both), but for anyone who is used to the functionality and responsiveness of either of those, the Scientific Atlanta Explorer that Time Warner provides is like something from the stone ages. Even discounting the flat-out bugs (like the audio dropping out every so often, requiring either changing channels or power cycle to restore) it's abismal. From painfully slow response time to arcane menu structure to seriously sub-par search and subscription options.

It's definitely a case of "yuppie angst" as my dad would call it, but having been spoiled for so many years by the best in the business, it would pain me to pay for something so decidedly inferior.

[Stan4dSteph]

I have Time Warner here, and I suppose I will be complaining too when I eventually get HD. Right now I just bitch about how there's no way to get what you record from the DVR to other digital storage. I lost a bunch of stuff when I moved and turned in my old one. I even tried the record to VHS last-ditch option and it didn't work.

In France, I paid slightly over 30 Euro a month for internet, cable and phone, including free long distance to the US and New Zealand. They also have the option of a la carte channel selection, which I so wish we had here. Oh, and the cable box had a hard drive that allowed you to upload the recording to a PC if you wanted.

[Kevy Baby]

I have Time Warner here, and I suppose I will be complaining too when I eventually get HD.FWIW, we have TW as our HD service provider and on that alone I have no complaints.

Actually, I have a complaint against one of the two satellite companies: on the Thursday before the middle weekend of the Olympics, one of our neighbors had satellite installed (we live in a condo). Their installer started randomly unplugging lines until he found the one he needed. TW service technician had to some out to discover that (the boxes are locked - I can't access them).

[Ghoulish Delight]

Fvcking bastards.

So we tried to call and schedule them to come out and install the cable cards. But they had no weekend slots available and their only weekday openings are during business hours. CP gets every other Friday off and they don't have a time available for next Friday, which means we get to wait until 3 weeks from now! We're earch taking off nearly two weeks of vacation time in the next month already, so we can't do it any other time.

And they won't even let me do it myself if I wanted to.

[Kevy Baby]

How about the new 1 TB HD TiVo (https://www3.tivo.com/store/boxdetails.do?boxName=tivohdxl&boxsku=R65800)?

[Ghoulish Delight]

Yeah, saw that. Eh, $450 above what I paid? Unless you're looking for surround sound it's still a far better deal to get the regular HD TiVo and add storage.

I am intrigued by the YouTube browsing feature they're adding. I might use that.

[Kevy Baby]

I am intrigued by the YouTube browsing feature they're adding. I might use that.A friend of mine, who long did battle with DirecTV and their elimination of the TiVo and recently was forced to surrender his DirecTV TiVo is going to pissed about the recent announcement (http://www.tivo.com/abouttivo/pressroom/pressreleases/2008/pr2008-09-03.html?WT.ac=tivohome_directv_directvdet_lnk) of them getting back in bed together.

[Ghoulish Delight]

ETA: D'oh!!!! Gone within 2 minutes. Nevermind.


It won't last because it's a "Woot off" and will likely sell out within 30 minutes or so, but holy crap there's a 50" Plasma tv including 5 speakers (2 fronts, 2 rears, and sub) for $1000 right now! CNET has a review that says this model, while annoying having only rear inputs, is a good deal for size and features...and that was when it cost $1800. :eek:

Just sayin....

www.woot.com (http://www.woot.com)

http://reviews.cnet.com/flat-panel-tvs/vizio-jv50p/1805-6482_7-32574850.html (http://www.hdtvsolutions.com/VIZIO_JV50P_Plasma_HDTV_Review.htm)

[BarTopDancer]

It's long gone.

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's long gone.
Yes, thus my "ETA" note at the top.

[Kevy Baby]

But you CAN get a Speck SeeThru iPhone Case - 4 Pack for just $0.49 (plus $5.00 shipping)!

http://enstxzrnsprxt.6hops.net/Speck_SeeThru_iPhone_Case_-_4_Pack1rkStandard.jpg

[BarTopDancer]

Yes, thus my "ETA" note at the top.

Hehe. Must have crossed paths from reply to edit.

[cirquelover]

I've never seen Woot before. Is it just one special item at a time or a daily thing? The tv sounded like a great deal though, good thing the husband isn't home!

[Ghoulish Delight]

It's one item per day, usually. It's up there for 24 hours (10PM-10PM Pacific time) or until it sells out, whichever comes first. Then occasionally, like today (and it looks like it's going to last through tomorrow) they do a "Woot off" in which they put stuff up for an hour, or until it sells out, whichever comes first. Looks like they are trying to empty their shelves this time around because everything's been selling out very quickly, I don't think anything lasted an hour all day.