TiVo is now “spamming” its subscribers by downloading programs they don’t want, but which sponsors would like to have seen. The programs cannot be erased for a week, and appear on the main menu.
Protests by the company that it doesn’t use up any user space (it goes onto reserved tracks on the hard drive), that it’s preempted if you’re watching or recording something at the time, or that it can just be ignored are falling on deaf ears.
Okay, I admit it. I still want a TiVo. But a little bit less than I did before.
Pickup a TV Tuner card ($40) and SnapStream ($40 SnapStream.com) and you’ve got Tivo for much less than an actual unit, no spam crap, and you can schedule recordings remotely via the built in webserver. You can even stream your recordings and watch them anywhere you’ve got a internet connection. I may just have been watching the final Rosie show at work the other day….but I wn’t confirm that. hehe
Only catch, if you want to watch these on your TV, you’ll need a video card with TV out or convert the files to mpg and burn them to a VCD you can watch in your DVD player.
Y’know, it’s not the cost, or inconvenience, that’s standing in the way of my getting a TiVo … 😉
let me say, i love tivo. i have tivo. ahh.
and those videos it downloads? never even notice them. unless i go looking for them. i know the commands so well, i pretty much never see that main menu.
still a love affair with my tivo 🙂