I have been away for the last week and am just catching up on my Tech News. I have just learned that Tivo will now be officially available in Canada! Starting December 10th you will be able to pick up a Tivo Series 2 box at Best Buy, London Drugs or Future Shop for 199.99.
Tivo is a DVR service that allows you to record 2 basic cable shows, or 1 digital and 1 basic cable show at the same price. There is a 12.95 USD monthly subscription fee (129.95 USD for annual yearly until February 08). The box connects to your home network via Ethernet (or optional wireless) to update it’s guide and offer more features.
While Tivo has been available in Canada for a couple of years now it was not really an official service, and if you had problems your box had to be shipped back to the US.
A couple of things to note here. The Series 3 boxes which can record HD TV are not being made available in Canada yet so you are limited to recording basic or digital (if you have a cable box) channels.
You can however transfer recorded TV over to other devices with Tivo to go software, such as to an Ipod or laptop/desktop which is very difficult to do with a Shaw PVR.
I for one will continue to use my Media Center PC as it does the same thing and more and there is no subscription fee.
