My dad has a TIVO many many years ago, and I ended up getting one not long after. It just had the best interface of any cable provider, and the ability to schedule shows online was so amazing.

My first Tivo has a DVD burner built in, and then I moved to an HD Tivo, which lasted quite a few years, before moving to my Tivo Premiere about 2 years ago.

Previously I had also replaced a failing hard drive, in my Tivo 3 to extend it’s lfie

The latest Tivo interface was annoying in that it added adds into the channel lineup, but the interface was still great, and I still love the ability to set recordings from my phone whenever I hear about a new show.

The problem is, just before the 2 year mark my Tivo Premiere bit the bullet, and it looks to be a known hardware fault where the motherboard fails. Tivo would have let me purchase a refurb for $150 to replace my TIVO, but it turns out they didn’t save my Recording To Do List anywhere but on my TIVO.

And honestly it is the To Do List that is the most important thing, as it all your upcoming recordings. And that is something you can’t record at once, because so many shows only show up near when they are able to record. So losing this list is a huge thing. And knowing that the Tivo Premiere’s have motherboard issues, why program it again, when it will likely only last another couple of years.

And honestly we were paying too much for cable, to have hbo and all the channels, so we just gave up on Cable.

First we got a digital antennae, but first off some channels don’t work well (though the ones that do, look better than they ever did on cable), and the interface on the tv is so slow, and awful, and I have lived too long with a DVR to start trying to watch tv when it is on.

Frontier offered a deal on YouTubeTV, which is a basic cable with a DVR, and we got $10 a month off from them. So we did that and it works well enough, though some channels don’t look great, and I hate the recordings interface, which I can’t figure out the interface. Why aren’t the newest shows first? What order is it in exactly?

Still it works and less than were paying for cable and all the channels, and I can still watch the news.