Spiky, since as you say, you are a bit behind, let me catch you up. TIVO is basically a computer hard drive that is used as a VCR. They have through marketting only, managed to obtain a sizable share of the VCR market. They provide no real advantages over a real VCR and have several drawbacks.

Drawback 1- You have to pay a subscription to use a home theater product you own. What other VCR system requires or required this?

Drawback 2- The material recorded cannot be removed from the VCR to use on another unit. This is akin to having a VHS unit with the tape permanently stuck in the deck. Some people would counter that you can back-up the information to tape, but you are making a copy and as such suffer from degredation inevitable in any copy process. Why not just start with a recording on tape?

Drawback 3- Sharing recorded movies is a heck of alot harder. If you have a recording that a friend wants to watch, you need to either make a back-up copy, lend out the whole unit, or have them watch it at your place. A tape based system allows you to share recordings alot easier.

Drawback 4- If the unit requires servicing, it must be done by TIVO themselves. Every city has one or two repair places that can work on VCRs and have you up and running prety fast, most of these places cannot work on the TIVO recorders.

Basically TIVO has gotten where they are today by marketting only. They have not provided a product with any new features or advantages that were not present with the S-VHS recording system. Basically TIVO is alot like Monster Cable, Sony, and BOSE, all the money is spent on marketting so that the customer can think they have a great product.