I think the only reason they are still in business is because of a patent judgment.

Oh right, I'd forgotten that.

I think they need to rethink their pricing model and start partnering with cable companies.

good enough that people won't just give up and use bittorrent

Do you think that torrenting could eat a significant part of their profits? I mean, most people are never going to torrent ever. And one of the reasons TiVo is attractive is because it lets you do less work. And it ends up on your TV. Again, for most people, getting a file that's on their computer to display on their TV is a fuss I can't see them bothering with.

I speak as someone who doesn't see one as a replacement for the other--I do both, each for different shows for different reasons.

I just need them to not go away. But if I need to pay $400 to get a lifetime service on a new TiVo, barring a windfall I'm not getting a new one until this one breaks, no matter the bells and whistles.

I was half joking about the bittorrent. But getting CableCards installed is a hassle that the cable companies make as difficult as possible, so most people give up and use the cable company's DVR instead.

Time Warner was irritatingly clueless when it came to the installation--they clearly had people who knew what they were doing, and others who were reading the installation steps for the first time in my apartment. You can imagine who I got the first time.

But, to their credit, they never suggested I get one of their DVRs. And I just kept asking for techs until the right guy showed up.

Given one of the main reasons I left the other apartment was that both Time Warner and the rental company disavowed responsibility for how weak the signal was, I am not messing around with TV. I want that how I want it.

But, good lord--Time Warner's training program is random as fuck. I make sure to ask each person who comes out what they did and why that was supposed to fix the problem, just to keep track. The *last* guy to come out disconnected the split that ran to a wall where I'd never had any device connected. And he said that should have been disconnected on day 1, since I was never going to have anything there, and just the split was going to compromise my signal.

I don't know if that's right--I just know it hadn't occurred to the four or five guys that had been there before him. A little consistency would be nice.

But for all the problems I've had, they've never been with the TiVo. But TiVo support has walked me through fixing some Time Warner stuff (yay, tuning adapter?). So I may dislike their sales model, but their support guys are okay by me.

I am frustrated by the interface and the scheduling algorithms, but I still want it forever and ever.

But getting CableCards installed is a hassle that the cable companies make as difficult as possible, so most people give up and use the cable company's DVR instead.

I know you're right, but my experiences with the Cablevision DVR were so terrible that they could have told me the CableCards had to be picked by hand out of a bowl of spiders and I still would have done it to be able to switch back to Tivo.

I had no problem getting cable cards (though they may have contributed to a couple of service fuckups later on) but apparently can't get things like on-demand with them? When I had Comcast that was more of an issue--they had good on demand. But my off-brand ghetto cable these days not so much, I think.

I do wish it were easier to get things off the TiVo and onto my iPad or something--that would be nice.

The company I'm surprised at is slingbox--talk about niche.

Apparently TiVo loses money on the hardware so not only is there no incentive to help lifetime subscribers like us, there is actually a disincentive.

I can believe it. My HDMI slot crapped out, and they were not helpful (aside from offering me a $50 discount on a refurbished Tivo, which was NOT HELPFUL) I said "hey, I'm willing to buy a new machine, but not pay for a new lifetime subscription. While I know that you don't transfer them, the only reason that I have an issue is because of a hardware failure. Now, all you've done is make me want to get Comcast's DVR" (which was a lie, of course). I wanted to escalate, but I had to call a different number, etc. I just decided that I didn't care that much about the HDMI. Even with the cables, it's better, so I'm fine with it. Aside from a general annoyance, though.

What do you think they need to do in order to stay in business (I never want to let them go)?

What they are doing, move more of their customer base to the monthly charges. I'm on a lifetime sub that I've transferred between Tivos since 1999 when I got my first box. We added a second lifetime box around 6 years ago.

The first tivo was something like $300+$99 for lifetime. If I was paying monthly at $15/mo that would have been $2000+ at this point. Even allowing that I've upgraded the box twice when they did their deals allowing swapping a lifetime sub, each of those boxes cost about $250. That's still over $1000 in revenue they are losing. Factor in that they actually lose money on the hardware, and it makes even less sense.

One of the things that made my initial installation take forever was that the technician said that if you incorrectly configure a CableCard, you break the hardware. Or at least make it useless enough that you have to travel with 4, not just the 2 that go into the device. And he was travelling with 2.

If that has anything to do with the standard TiVo wants to change, I'll sign the petition.

I do wish it were easier to get things off the TiVo and onto my iPad or something--that would be nice

I'd been thinking that just about everything has that "boo! Can't copy!" disclaimer which made me want to buy a VCR (MOTHERFUCKERS), but I actually fired up TiVo Desktop on my PC and...every single Supernatural episode is on there.

Thanks, guys! Supernatural which I have: on Blu Ray, on DVD, torrented, and screencapped. I'm so glad that it and America's Kitchen are the only fucking shows not copyrighted tighter than a redacted expletive.

If you have the new TiVo and the TiVo app, you can download directly to the app. If not,mypu need to download to your pc with the TiVo desktop, conver to mpeg, and drag into iTunes.