Back at eGroups, everyone on the Onelist-eGroups integration team received a Tivo, complete with life-time subscription. The Tivo is the most amazing device ever created, at least in terms of TV. But its not without its downsides, as this article points out. Before, I'd get home, flip through the channels for 15 minutes or so before giving up and doing something else. Instead, now I have 30 hours worth of TV waiting for me when I get home. (Yes, only 30 hours, I have an old Tivo, and I didn't even upgrade it!). Well, less since I'm now sharing it with someone, but the point is, there is almost always something to watch. Oh, the horror!

Btw, I bought a ReplyTV more recently, and the Tivo is much better.

• More stable
• Easier to schedule programming
• Season Pass makes it easier to record episodes of a show
• The remote is much better

Though, the DVArchive tool for ReplayTV is pretty damn cool (I guess you can do something like this if you pay the extra $99 and have a Tivo2).

Other things I like better... the "fast forward" over the commercial skip. The commercial skip in the Replay isn't all that good (and often skips part of the actual show), and using the 30s skip is also difficult. The fast forward on the replay isn't as good as the Tivo's, and besides, the fast forward allows you to see the commercials that might be interesting (and skip the ones you've seen constantly or just suck almost as fast as the 30s skip). I've really come to love the "green progress bar" on the Tivo, to let you know where you are in the show (and its somewhat sick to be able to tell exactly when a commercial is going to come on when they schedule them always at the same time in a show). I really like the guide on the Tivo, even though its not in the standard block layout (other Tivos do have the block layout, and I don't think its as good). And you can actually remove channels from the guide that you never watch, as opposed to the stupid Comcast digital cable box. The built-in tuner of the Replay is nice, so you can still channel surf on it, you can't really channel surf on the non-DirectTV Tivos. Of course, you can't really channel surf on the Comcast digital cable box either since its so slow to switch channels (especially the digital ones).

And when I'm somewhere else, say in a hotel room on vacation, and I'm without a Tivo... it sucks. You can't just pause or rewind the TV. And when I'm listening to the radio in the car, I wish I could rewind what I'm listening to if I miss something. Everything should work like a Tivo.