Of possible interest to my TiVoLess friends

[prog]

TiVo is having a sale, only for the next couple of days, where they will buy you a low-end box if you prepay for a year's worth of service from them.

Comments

[queue.livejournal.com]

I've never completely understood this (probably since I don't have a TiVo, or even cable), but is it true that the service you're paying for is basically just scheduling? If you knew what was playing when, you could just plug your cable into your own computer and pull together some software to record whatever at whatever times, right? Is the scheduling why you pay for TiVo? Is there any other reason not to use something like Freevo?

[prog.livejournal.com]

My reasons for using commercial TiVo and not Freevo/MythTV/whatever are sung to the same tune as to why I prefer using Mac OS X over Linux.

[dougo.livejournal.com]

Yes, pretty much, and yes, it is annoyingly overpriced. There are also "showcases" of upcoming stuff (including trailers for movies coming to theaters) that's probably only included with paid subscriptions, but that's mostly not that worthwhile.