$50+$6 a month for Satellite DVR (tivo like) okay deal?

[scottmandue]

In my rabid lust to watch F1 at my leisure I agreed with my satellite provider (Dish network) to upgrade my receiver to a DVR unit for $50 down and $6 a month. Just looking for some warm fuzzies, did I get a good deal? What does Tivo cost?

I am rationalizing that the initial plus annual cost of the upgrade is less than a ticket to a F1 race.

Apparently it is a smart box that you can tell it to record all the episodes of "Bonasa" and it will catch them all for you and even know which episodes it has already recorded and not re-record (is that a word?) them.

[TerryBPP]

I pay $85 a month for every channel (HBO, Cin, Show, etc.) plus dvr in three rooms. I think my installation was $100 because I had them run two seperate lines to my dvr so I could watch one channel and record that one plus 2 others for a total of 3 at one time.

[arcsine]

I did a two-room, two-line Direct TV install with Tivo in one room for $50 total after rebates. That gives me the dish and the two receivers. It costs $5 a month for the Tivo service on top of the $50 a month for my package (no premium channels but just about everything else).

Yes, you can tell Tivo to record any given show and it will track what has been recorded and what has not. You can setup recording "to-do" lists based on titles, subject, keywords, etc. For example I have anything with "Porsche" in the title or subject matter recorded and I cull through them at my leisure. When you factor in on-the-fly recording of anything you are watching and the pause/rw/ff you can do with live TV it is a no brainer.

[azasadny]

We just had DirecTV installed with 1 HD receiver and 2 "regular" TV connections. My boss gave me a DirecTV TiVO and a SlingBox so he can access the TiVO from his new home in Sweden. Seems he and his wife want to watch Pistons and Red Wings games and they are in Sweden for 3 years. The SlingBox works well over the trans-Atlantiv WAN link and it was relatively easy to setup. We like the satellite but there are two many channels! We pay about $65 a month (included DVR and sports package) and we were paying $40 a month for pathetic cable.

[Joeaksa]

Art,

Have you used the SlingBox very much? I have been interested in this unit to be able to watch shows while I am overseas and wondered how well it works.

Have Tivo and love it but not been able to get it to allow me to download programs over the internet yet.

Joe A

[azasadny]

Joe,

My boss just tested it over the connection to Sweden and he said it works great, no problems at all. I have 1.5M DSL on my end and I believe he has the same on his end. He's only been using it for a week, so we'll have to see about long-term reliability...