Tivo without the service

March 8, 2006 3:03 PM

Can I use my TiVo box without paying for service?

I think it's a series 2 with 40 hours recording time. (It was given to my parents as a gift and they don't want it so they gave it to me.) I don't have cable so it seems silly to pay for $13.00 for 5 channels. But we'd like to record some things and not get all the fancy stuff...just record on a schedule. Can we do this?

posted by aacheson to Technology (6 answers total)

Yes. You won't get schedule data though, so you'll have to use the "Record by Time and Channel" function under "Pick Programs to Record".
posted by jjg at 3:05 PM on March 8, 2006

The first hit for "use tivo without service" on Tivo's Customer Service page is this page which should give you the details you need.
posted by bcwinters at 3:11 PM on March 8, 2006

Prepare to get nagged a ridiculous amount, too.

They're big on the nagging.
posted by disillusioned at 4:26 PM on March 8, 2006

Tivo without the service is just a fancy VCR. With the service you can say "Record the Daily Show every day," without the service you can just say "Record channel 56 M-T 23:00-23:30."
posted by Saucy Intruder at 5:28 PM on March 8, 2006

The only problem I've run into with using Tivo as a VCR is that eventually its clock started to lag, and it's impossible to re-set because it's not calling into the system anymore. So we have to remember to timeshift everything by five minutes.
posted by xo at 6:13 AM on March 9, 2006

Response by poster: Thank you everyone. Very helpful.
posted by aacheson at 8:19 AM on March 11, 2006