Word: tivos
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...just a gigolo when it comes to gadget love. I get all excited about cool devices, then dump them in a flash for younger, slimmer, faster models. But I've never fallen so hard as I did last month when I bought a Sony TiVo, the tapeless video machine that stores up to 30 hours' worth of TV on its internal hard drive. TiVo delighted me with its ease of use and uncanny intelligence (smart enough to recommend shows it knows I'll like). I was sure I'd found a lasting relationship. So when a friend mentioned that Microsoft...
DVRs are fairly expensive, however, and as I have discovered, they are still a few bloopers short of a director's cut. There are two leading technologies competing for the market: TiVo, which is cheaper but charges a monthly fee, and ReplayTV, which is the one I've been living with for the past three weeks...
...souped-up model combining satellite TV, digital recording and Net access for $449. Monthly fees range from $10 to $75. AOLTV, on the other hand, will launch with no digital-recording features (although it promises them later in the year as part of the deal it announced with TiVo last week). And everyone who buys AOLTV will have to pay $250 for the box plus a monthly fee of $14.95 (for existing AOL members) or $24.95 (for new users...
...homes with high-speed data connections, similar to today's cable in capacity except--a big except--that they allow two-way communication and, above all (this being America), commerce. Meanwhile, our more adventurous neighbors are starting to install digital TV "set-top" peripherals, from WebTV to ReplayTV and TiVo, that allow them to surf the Web onscreen, interact with programming, store TV shows on hard discs or even--horrifying to broadcasters--skip all those commercials...
...networks and easily zap ads, traditional commercials will become less and less profitable. This means you'll have to pay for TV with either money or information. Pay-per-view--for movies and sports--will become more common, as will subscriptions. (Blockbuster has already made a deal with TiVo to beam movies to set-top boxes.) When your TV becomes a massive video archive, you'll even pay for reruns...