I have realised mine hasn't been powered up for more than 12 weeks. I hated the fact that it kept recording dross on both tuners 24/7 regardless of whether there was anything to watch, so I only powered it up when I wanted to use it, and then sort of stopped using it entirely. My DVD recorder was doing what I wanted, so I used that instead. Also, with it withdrawn from the NZ market and the continued EPG support into the future far from assured, my original plan of buying further units and buying the network package to link them looks like throwing good money after bad.
So, the Tivo will be offered to some friends first and, if they don't want it, going on Trademe. It was a nice concept and nice hardware, but some strange design choices and the complete hash made of the whole thing by TVNZ/Hybrid mean that it's a semi-useless orphaned product. If I can get rid of it for $100+ I won't be too worried, as I only paid $199.
To replace it, I have picked up a Panny XW390 on sale, which I will connect up this weekend, and which will also replace my older DVD recorder - which will be pensioned-off to the spare room. I've decided it does all I wanted the Tivo to do, does it better, and offers more as well:
- no 24/7 endless recording
- bigger hard drive
- ability to record from external (so from Sky decoder as well as twin tuners)
- DLNA server to watch recorded material (incl Sky) over network
- FV EPG that I'm confident will be supported long-term
- Ability to burn disks
No real downside compared to Tivo as far as I can see. Only downside is that compared to my older, non-Freeview, DVD recorder it has had the 60-second skip function removed to comply with the cursed FV spec.
Tivo will go onto the long list of "things that might have been". Nice concept, nice hardware, shame about the mess Hybrid made of the marketing & support.