Anyone know if you can have Tivo and not have a contract with a cable or satellite company?

Like say if my friend has standard cable but doesnt pay for it because the contractors forgot to unhook it? Can/will the Tivo people report it? I know when you go thru setup you have to select your cable/satellite company....

12/2/2007 9:09:53 PM

IF you get a regular Tivo (non-DirecTV) and pay for their monthly service, Tivo will not report you to the cable company.

When you go through the setup, you will choose your cable company and enter your zip code, but that's only to get the channel listings.

12/2/2007 9:15:35 PM

what if this friend has free dirctTV? same deal?

And how do you know?

12/2/2007 9:16:38 PM

I've had a regular Tivo since 1999 (the original one), and have had a DirecTV Tivo ever since they came out and until DirecTV released their own DVRs.

For DirecTV, it depends on what kind of Tivo it is.

1) DirecTV used to have their own brand of Tivo, which had the satellite receiver built in, so it was an all-in-one unit. For that unit, you would have to call DirecTV to activate the receiver, at which point they would charge you the $5 or $10/mo for the DVR service.

2) If your friend has just a regular DirecTV receiver, you can get one of the regular Tivos, and hook the output of the DirecTV receiver into the input of the Tivo. Then, you would configure it to work the same as if you were to configure it with your cable company. If you do this configuration, you would have to use the little infrared adapter that comes with Tivo to let it remotely control the satellite receiver, to change the channels and stuff.

For years, my family used configuration #2 until configuration #1 became available.

12/2/2007 9:21:11 PM