Son is pestering me for this.

I've no idea if it's a good thing. Does anyone have this, if so any advice?

What channels does it provide and what's the cost?

I have a digital tv with harddrive.

TIVO has not been released in Australia yet. It's planned for Q4 yet in time for Christmas.

http://www.tivo.com.au/

We live in Australia and we've had a Tivo for five years.

Had to import it from the US, the program guide is maintained by volunteers but it's been the best gadget we've ever owned. We view all our TV channels though it (even Foxtel) so we have a stop, rewind, fastforward facility for live TV (without having to pay an ongoing fee for Foxtel IQ) plus the excellent recording capabilities. I've been seriously impressed with it.

I have no idea how the Channel 7/Tivo link-up will affect existing Tivo owners, or what new Tivo users will get for their money so can't help there.

We may lose the online program guide but even so, it'll still be worth its weight in gold.

Well spank me and call me Susan, I had no idea anyone was doing this.

I guess the Australian TIVO will have specific firmware ? Apart from that it's the Series 3 HD unit from the US sponsored (only) by Seven and a few other players and with will retail for ~AUD$700.

It will have a full TIVO specific 14 day EPG, the first in Australia. There is also a 14 day FTA EPG planned as a partnership by several major broadcasting players. As a consultant in broadcast operations systems development I can tell you know that they will have to work on their schedule deltas like mad because from what I have seen in the past 18 months the FTA broadcasters couldn't schedule their way out of a paper bag (event overruns are pandemic here)

No shit. I have to pad recordings by 15 minutes either side - and even then I often lose the end of a show ...

LOL!

No idea how long it's been going - it seemed to be well underway when we got wind of it. Know what you mean about scheduling problems. I routinely start all my recordings five minutes early and let them run for 15 minutes after they're scheduled to end - and I still get caught out sometimes..

OzTivo website is here - http://www.oztivo.net/twiki/bin/view.

Thanks for the replies - I really should read up more on this. Do you still need to subscribe to Foxtel to get their channels though or what channels do you get on the TIVO box?

Sorry for being a numbskull but before today I'd never heard of this thing.

If you don't have Foxtel/Austar then you need to subscribe to get their channels - otherwise you can only access the free-to-air channels through a Tivo.

Tivo is similar to Foxtel IQ which Foxtel charge an extra monthly fee for (on top of the normal monthly subsription). We've never paid any monthly fee for our Tivo service as it's currently provided by volunteers in Australia.

I can't comment on the new Tivos that are coming out later in the year - I've no idea how (or if) they're going to charge for the Tivo service. It's unclear at the moment how the Channel 7/Tivo official tie-in will affect the old Tivos (like ours) that are already out there.

Are you intentionally being vague?

Who are these mysterious "volunteers"? Are they an offshoot of the Salvos?

Do they have a website?

JTL

I use a media centre pc, (or any pc with vista and a tuner card) so just to add to the confusion.

http://www.icetv.com.au/features.shtml

Post #6 has the address for the Oztivo website. All the info is there.

Quote: "Be warned -- it is not a consumer item. To get your Tivo functional you'll need to know how to open computers and connect hard disks, configure serial/ethernet connections, use command-line functions and cope with difficulties."

Which is probably why it has a relatively low profile here.