You probably bought your TiVo so that you would never have to miss another baseball game, soap opera or Thursday night sitcom again. It's great at what it does and is much friendlier than your VCR. But did you know that your TiVo is capable of so much more than recording your favorite programs? That is why Leo Laporte, a top voice in consumer technology, and Gareth Branwyn, ofWiredmagazine, got together to bring youLeo Laporte's Guide to TiVo, a fun, light-hearted and in-depth look at TiVo and all that it is capable of. In this easy-to-follow guide, you will learn remote control trickery, how to upgrade your TiVo hardware, how to add a CallerID display to your television and how to add web capabilities. Take control of your television destiny withLeo Laporte's Guide to TiVo.

Leo Laporte is the former host of two shows on TechTV -The Screen Savers and Call for Help. Leo is a weekend radio host on Los Angeles radio KFI AM 640 Gareth Branwyn is a well-known technology journalist and self-proclaimed "reluctant geek"

Introduction What in Sam Hell Is a "TiVo"? If you're new to TiVo--and the whole concept of digital video recorders (DVR)--we'd like to take a few minutes to enthuse over how much media-manipulating fun you're in for. If you already have a TiVo, you'll likely smile at the very question of "what is TiVo?" 'cause you know the discoveries that await the asker. You also know how challenging it can be to explain all facets of TiVo to the newcomer. The unenlightened description of TiVo is that it's a digital answer to the VCR. With a few presses of a remote control while scanning an onscreen programming guide, you can set your TiVo to record your favorite TV shows and movies. No more entering in times, dates, or channels, and no more resetting that damn clock every time the power goes out (or watching it blink "12:00" for days 'til you get around to resetting it). Once programmed, TiVo will record desired programs to a hard drive (or drives) inside the TiVo unit. There are no more VHS tapes to buy, insert, eject, lose, or to pile up like plastic stalagmites in the corners of your family room. But TiVo is far more than a tapeless video recorder. At its core, it is a dedicated audio/video computer, and that means it's much smarter and more versatile than a VCR. Using the onscreen menus, you can ask your TiVo to record as many episodes of a program as you like (from one to five, or all episodes, subject to your hard drive capacity) and tell it how long you'd like to hang on to these episodes before deletion. You can also create program-recording requests (called "WishLists") that will tirelessly hunt down shows in the program guide based on titles, actors, directors, and keywords that you've entered. This ability of TiVo to lie in wait for something good to capture is an eternal delight. You can see a trailer for the theatrical release of a film on TV, create a WishList item for it immediately, and then many months later, regardless of what channel it shows up on for its television premier (and whether you happen to catch it in the program guide or not), TiVo will remember and dutifully record it for you. Note -TiVo has become popular enough that most people know it by name and basically what it's for. But even the most evangelical user can struggle to explainallof TiVo's wonders in a casual conversation. TiVo, Inc. has answered the call with its "What is TiVo?" e-brochure for your Palm handheld. Okay, so whipping out your Palm and handing it to a friend across from you at Starbucks may seem silly, but how positively Star Trekkian: "I have the information you requested right here on my dataslate!" Make it so at http://www.tivo.com/4.3.7.2.asp . Then there's the ability to pause, rewind, and fast-forward through "live" TV. You can't imagine how spiffy this is! You know the drill: You're just sitting down to an episode ofJeopardyto impress your kids with your frightening intellect (who cares if they're still in diapers?), when the phone rings. Or you're about to marvel at the surrealist splendor of the so-not-funny-it's-almost-funny "Will it Float?" segment onLetterman,when baby wakes up wailing. Pre-TiVo? You missed out on the entirePotent Potablescategory onJeopardyand you never found out that a 10-pound box of dog biscuits does, in fact, float. Post-TiVo? You just hit the Pause button, answer your phone, your baby, the call of nature, the siren song of the fridge, etc. and pick up right where you left off. The incoming TV signal is constantly being temporarily stored (