Are You TiVoing?
Two months ago, I ordered a 40-hour TiVo machine. The reason? Well, I hate to catch 60 minutes by cut short of my regular Sunday evening shopping trip. I was happy ever since. I have recorded series from Tripping the Rift, Firefly, Twilizone, Mad Money and 60 mintues. At beginning, it took about 30 minutes for TiVo to download schedule through phone line. Now, it connects to the network via a 108.11g wireless network adapter, which I bought from Tivo.com. TiVo Desktop 2 helps me download recorded programs to my PC so that I could keep as many programs as possible as far as I have enough disk space. Last but not least, TiVo remote control has the ability to control TV sets. It is commanding my SONY TV. 
Underneath the cover, TiVo is just a hundred-dollar Linux box. It takes several minutes for it to reboot. These days, people are talking about quiet computing. However, TiVo machines make annoying noises so that they are NOT suitable for bedrooms. The control panel is not that user friendly, which took me a while to understand. It is hard to set up wireless network, especially because of TiVo’s limitted support of wireless adapters. After try and failure, eventually, I bought the netgear one from Tivo.com to save troubles. TiVo Desktop 2 is still buggy. I have to re-install it twice since TiVo box was not accessable during the first installation.
Would TiVo stock fly? The technology behind TiVo is NOT that advanced. Microsoft Windows Media Center or any PVR could cut into its revenue. As a small company, it could be overtaken by big players once the market is fully developed. Recently, DirectTV starts to offer its own digital video recorder, which caused TiVo stock to sink. Unlike Netflix, Tivo is not profitable yet.
Please check out the blog site for futher Tivo information.
