What is a Tivo?

**Tuckerisgreat** · 4th August 2003

ok im a complete "n00b" when it comes to this but what is one? does it just record of the telly? or is there more to it

please educate me

**wizer** · 4th August 2003

A tivo is basicaly as Hard Disk Drive Recorder for your TV. It has a 40gb hdd and runs a form of linux. It will record things you select but it gets clever when it records what it 'Thinks' you might want to record.

Oh and its hackable... You can upgrade the HDD and put in a network card so you can transfer the video to your PC for editing and burning.

**EvilBoB** · 4th August 2003

TiVo's are basically PVRs (Personal Video Recorder) and in it's most basic incarnation record video to a hard drive.

The TiVo extends that functionality by having features such as EPG (Electronic Program Guide) data like Sky use and Thumbs Data (Where you rate the show you are watching using up to three thumbs up (For show you like such as Buffy, 24 etc) and three thumbs down for the useless rubbish like Big Brother)

The Tivo then cross references all the shows that are on and suggests other shows you may like that may share actors, genres, directors etc. This can be set to auto record too.

You can fast forward, rewind and even pause live tv too.

All of this can be expanded with hacks such as tivoweb that allows you to set recordings, view listings etc via a web browser from anywhere on the net.

There are loads of other features which is well beyond the scope of a single post here. Just do a quick search in google for +tivo +hacking

**wizer** · 4th August 2003

http://www.tivo.co.uk

They used to be sold in Dixons/Comet/Curry's etc

But Tivo lost the contract with Thomson to make them. So currently you can only buy them on eBay

**beansontoast** · 4th August 2003

They're expensive on ebay, but look at tivo's for sale in the US they're dirt cheap in comparison. Is there a way to convert them to pal & 240/50Hz? They have hard-drive-less ones for about �40!

**EvilBoB** · 4th August 2003

Nope. US TiVos do not work in the UK and it's not just the NTSC/PAL thing apparantly.

Even though the setup asks you which country you are in!!

I imaging there is a way but everyone is keeping quiet about it. Shame as there are some REALLY nice ones FS in the US

**Tuckerisgreat** · 4th August 2003

Originally posted by EvilBoB

You can fast forward, rewind and even pause live tv too.

how can ya fast forward live tv it aint happend yet

basicully this tivo does the same as a Sky+ set top box correct/ think ill stick to that

**EvilBoB** · 4th August 2003

Sky+ is a poor mans TiVo - TiVo is more expandable and has a few features Sky+ doesn't but in essence yes it is the same

**Tuckerisgreat** · 4th August 2003

thanks for the elpanation guys i know wot 1 is now

**Black Hawk** · 8th August 2003

In Australia they do not have TiVo and have had to source their boxes from the UK and US. They seem to manage to get them working (see http://minnie.tuhs.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/WebHome). The main issues appear to be PAL/NTSC, soldering replacement tuners and IR codes.