I can't imagine ever needing to record anything, much less actually watch it.

tanstaafl.

One big advantage of recording things, especially with a fast-seeking PVR (as opposed to tape), is that one can skim through uninteresting bits, and skip the adverts entirely.

This suddenly makes some TV content bearable again, though here we mostly watch documentaries and the like from PBS, BBC, and CBC. Plus hockey, of course.

Cheers

That was going to be my response to Doug, but then, we only get hockey OTA from NBC, whose coverage stinks.

I know I've said this before, but I quit television cold turkey when I moved to Mexico. Keep in mind that before I moved, I was a 40+ hour a week TiVo addict. I have a cable TV subscription with 70 or 80 channels, but the only reason I have it is for the 7 mbps cable modem internet connection, the fastest it is possible to have here. Service is good, I only lose connectivity two or three times a week, frequently the outages last less than an hour. Oddly enough, it is possible to have just the cable modem without the TV subscription, but that costs about 40% more than the TV + modem package.

No doubt your tired of hearing me say this, but it is such a relief not to be tied to the idiot box, the sense of freedom is exalting.

tanstaafl.

It's a cheap high, and I know it, but it's a habit I just can't shake. Is there TV methadone?

Meh, I don't want to kick the habit! I can tell you, after working a couple 15 hour days last week, all I wanted to do was lean back in the stressless rocker and watch Veronica Mars for the second time through...

I'm with you if I didn't have cable I would go nuts from the silence. I am mostly just surfing the net but have the TV on in the background.

The most number of games that I've been interested in that were on at the same time has been two, so my point still stands

Yes!

There's one issue I hadn't thought of, though, and it isn't made clear in the Engadget article (and I'm not reading the press release - I'm sleepy enough already and I don't have 30 minutes here). Naturally, the Previews can't act as DVRs, and I understand that, but does this mean that they also can't timeshift?

I don't know what I thought would happen. I guess I thought the Preview might use whatever buffer you'd get from the Q, so you'd be able to pause or rewind/replay, but if I can't do any of that then unless the Preview box costs $50-100 and creates no increase in the Tivo service fee, there's no chance I'm picking one up.

A Tivo without timeshifting would be a sad sight indeed!

Do you not own a radio? Maybe even an MP3 player?

Is not the content completely different?

Not significantly, but does it really matter if the goal is just to break the silence?

There's a little news about the Tivo Elite and Preview boxes here. There's a link at the end of that article with a little info and the first picture I've seen of the Preview box. Now I just really hope Tivo brings the Preview box to market.

I do hope the Preview box can stream from a Premiere and not just an Elite. And hopefully it can also stream Netflix etc like a regular Tivo.

Oh, and I'd like a pony.

Apparently there's even more to the Elites than previously thought. In addition to the dual-core support and 1GB of RAM, it seems the software is seeing an update, but I haven't seen word on what that means...

The Elite on its own is not enough of an incentive to get me to upgrade from my Series 3, despite the far greater capabilities. I'm waiting for them to release the Preview, at which point I'll be buying one of each, and I suspect my mother would buy an Elite and three previews

I have a Google Alert set up for news on the Preview boxes...

Too funny.

Engadget is reporting on the Gizmo Lover's article which is a summary of this thread in the Tivo Community forums.

If a Preview can stream from a Premiere I'm in for one, and a second TV. The in-laws are all on cable or satellite co DVRs and I don't see them changing their habits anytime soon, at least not with that type of up front costs. It doesn't help that they think I'm nuts for going OTA + streaming...

Well, the Preview units are finally going to some people's houses. Too bad RCN is awful (at least from everything I've heard from their customers).

The worrying thing is that the Preview units cannot pause, FF, and REW live TV. That's an issue for me. I guess I can understand why this is the case, but I was under the impression that these things were using the Elite to handle the tuners, so why can't it just pause, FF, and REW on the Elite and send that to the Preview? I guess I need more info on what's going on in the Preview/Elite relationship.

Besides, there's probably a price point at which I won't care about that issue anymore. I'd probably place that point at around $99 or less, though frankly I can't see why the Preview would be any more than that. They seem to have less smarts than most other set top boxes like the Apple TV or Roku, and certainly less than the Boxee Box.

I guess we'll find out more when Tivo finally offers this up to everyone else. I hope they don't have some sort of long-term exclusivity deal with RCN. That would just be stupid, considering how few people can even get RCN.

TiVo used to be the sort of company that wowed you with its products. Now... not so much.

I suppose that used to be the case 8-10 years ago, but they've simply done the bare minimum since first launching, and they've essentially only updated their software once in the last decade.

I still love Tivo and maintain that there's no better way to experience TV if you watch a lot of it, but the experience could be so much better.

It really irritated me when their press announcement for the Tivo Premiere was preceded by teasers claiming "Inventing the DVR was just a warm-up." Regardless of whether that's true or not, it was a huge let-down when they announced such a minor iteration on their product. I think the Preview box is far more impressive.