- Oh, I'm just old enough
to remember how amazing it was
to get a new VCR that could be programmed
to record a specific channel at a specific time.
That was a magical age.
I wasn't the biggest fan of TiVo, though.
I was enough of a nerd to build my own PC
with a monster-sized hard drive and a capture card
to record TV instead.
Nowadays, so much content is arriving
on streaming and on-demand style services,
we have to ask our audience,
"Do you still need a DVR?"
(upbeat instrumental music)
And while you're clearing out old seasons of "24"
to free up some space on your TiVo,
we hope (laughing)
you'll make some time to catch up
with all the work here on reviews.org.
You don't need
to record anything. (mouse clicking)
Just hit those subscribe options down below.
Give us a follow around the socials.
We've got a really great team
of people making you some really fun stuff.
Okay. Chatting out this idea.
I was kind of shocked to see that TiVo was still a thing.
Now, a DVR for some of you younger folks out there
in our audience is basically an appliance computer.
It was the size of a small receiver or a game console,
and all it did was give you a channel lineup
and record shows, kinda like an iPod
for recording live TV.
You could get a name brand like TiVo or you could get a box
from your cable or satellite provider.
And like an iPod, we would make a big deal out of,
well, how many shows can it hold?
It was just a really easy way
for companies to kind of hide different tiers
of storage, so you could get charged ridiculous amounts
of money for a slightly larger hard drive.
And you weren't allowed to pop open the case
and install a new hard drive yourself.
On top of that, you didn't just own the box.
You also likely had to pay a subscription
to get up-to-date channel information,
which was freely available back then.
But I don't know, convenience or something.
You might be able to tell from my tone
how I feel about DVRs. (chuckling)
I wasn't a huge fan.
I ran a custom computer back in the day,
which did the same thing
with no subscription costs.
I was able to control the size of the hard drive,
and it wasn't very expensive putting
in a much larger drive.
My parents had a DVD burning box
that was roughly the same
as a super premium VCR.
Also no subscription costs.
I just never really saw the benefit.
Nowadays streaming and on-demand have made
cord-cutting an attractive proposition
to traditional cable and DVR solutions.
In our home, we're back on the YouTube TV.
And I guess that means we have a cloud DVR.
Even that's not always perfect.
YouTube bort the last episode of, "Better Call Saul."
The last 15 minutes were just gone.
But at the time of broadcast,
there was already an on-demand version available to stream.
I didn't really need to record the episode
in real time when it broadcast in my time zone.
So back to my shock at TiVo still being around,
the business model makes increasingly less sense to me
as we make media more portable.
We have better tools in our phones
and streaming sticks and computers
to time and location shift live TV.
You can still buy an appliance that sits
under your TV and has its own silly remote
with a ton of buttons on it.
A TiVo for cable will cost between $200 and $400
for the basic box with a storage drive,
and then you pay either 15 a month,
150 a year, or $550
for a lifetime license
to use the TiVo service and channel guide.
Now I get it YouTube TV,
not as cheap a deal as it used to be.
And if you buy this whole TiVo set-up outright
with a lifetime subscription,
that's kind of like 15 months of YouTube DVR,
but YouTube TV is both the broadcast and the DVR
where with the TiVo, you still need to pay
for cable TV on top of the TiVo service.
I'm just saying the pricing can get a little messy
for your pocketbook.
So it should be no surprise that the newest product
from TiVo is a 4K dongle,
which is basically a Chromecast
with Google TV built in for $40.
And it still comes with the more complicated remote
for all you fans of additional buttons.
But no additional subscription costs
because it's designed to work
with streaming apps and YouTube TV.
It's honestly not a bad price for a 4K streaming dongle.
About the only nice thing I can say about a DVR.
It could be useful in the rare situation where
you find yourself without a home data connection,
but you still have power in your home.
So I guess my wife could still watch old episodes
of "Love It or List It" while we wait
for Spectrum to restore our internet connection.
That's such a specific use case.
I don't usually like saying no
on a product category like this,
but I genuinely feel the old model
of the DVR has outlived its usefulness.
Making your own video recording solution can be
a fun geeky project or web services can often
replicate the experience if not improve
on the experience.
So, yeah, I think it's time.
I think it's time to let the DVR go,
but that's where we need to hear
from you because maybe I have this all wrong.
Maybe I've overlooked something critical
in this whole video is off the mark.
I look forward to the spiciest of hot takes down
in the comments below.
As always thanks so much for watching,
for sharing these videos,
and subscribing to the channel for reviews.org.
I'm Juan Carlos Bagnell,
AKA Some Gadget Guy,
and I will catch you all on the next video.