do you have to sign up with Tivo to use for cable channels? null

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Accepted Answer

Hello, yes for channel guide support. You can either pay monthly or buy a life time subscription. I was a satellite subscriber for about 30 years, it was hard for me to move to cable and I was very disappointed in their DVR. The Tivo DVR addressed all those issues, pausing one channel to watch another (the 1 gig model gives you 6 tuners), record a show from the beginning, and there are others. 

For cable you will need to contact your cable provider and get a cable card, the major vendor in my area gives you the first cable card free assuming you don't have other cable equipment. Check with them for pricing info. 

IMO, the Tivo Vox Bolt makes cable worth watching! Hope that helps.

Norcalexpat · Answer

Yes.

JMadill · Answer

You don’t have to, but you won’t get channel and guide info. That would render the box pretty useless. If that’s what you want to doz, you’d be better off using your cable’s DVR. If you’re thinking of the ‘Over-the-air’ (OTA) TiVo for non cable access, without TiVo service, you would have to record based on manually entered date & time, ie no guide.

Answered by JMadill 6 years ago

Verified Purchase

dumb · Answer

Yes TiVo requires subscription

FloridaWen · Answer

TiVo is a "unique and special" cable box replacement which uses a "multistream cable card" supplied by your local cable provider to allow the user to receive all the subscribed cable channels. A TiVo subscription is required and cost around $15 monthly or $149 a year.
As an alternative to purchasing cable TV you can use an antenna instead (NO cablecard required) but this TiVo device still requires the purchase of the TiVo subscription service.
TiVo is much, much more than a simple "recording" DVR cable box, much more !! TiVo has the BEST commercial skip ever. Many broadcast TV stations have a "trigger" that alerts the TiVo box to the start and end of commercials and it just goes quickly right past these.

“do you have to sign up with Tivo to use for cable channels?”

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