What's the difference between tivo and a DVR?

What's the difference between Direct TV plus DVR and TiVo?

• We are About to order Direct TV for the basement but we don' t know what the difference is.........PLEASE HELP US!

• Answer:

  OK, first, let's define a few terms. DVR is short for Digital Video Recorder. It's similar to a VCR in that it can stop, rewind, fast forward, play, etc, but with live TV. DirecTV is specifically a satellite television provider that offers DVR services in addition to their other programming. TiVo is also a provider of DVR service that offers it under their brand name. People often call all DVRs TiVo even though they aren't made or marketed by the company the same way they call all tissues Kleenex. Now, for some business history. DirecTV used to have an agreement with TiVo that they would market their products together. It worked well for a while until DirecTV asked TiVo to provide their product exclusively. TiVo did not want to do that (there's a wide market of DVR users who aren't DirecTV subscribers that they wanted to market to as well) so the two companies went their separate ways. TiVo no longer manufactures DVR units for DirecTV, however DirecTV will still provide service and support for the TiVo units in existance. In addition, with the DVR market becoming more widespread, DirecTV started manufacturing and marketing their own brand of DVRs that provide most of the same functions as the TiVo units. There are a few differences, but most people (not all) don't mind the difference. Does that all make more sense to you? When you order a new receiver from DirecTV it will be one of their branded units (remember, they don't sell TiVo anymore). If you wanted to get a TiVo unit specifically and were to get one on a third party site (like Ebay) you could still activate it and get DVR service just fine, too. Good luck =)