I just bought a new 26" Sony Bravia flat screen TV!

I'm still learning how to set it up, but I at least am able to watch DVD's with it and listen to them through the stereo and surround sound system(home theater).

Any week now, Australia is due to take a step towards the 21st century as far as TV goes - TiVo is coming. I'm signed up as a beta tester and (im)patiently awaiting word as to whether I'll be accepted. You can already get other DVR options of course, but from what I've seen of other options, and from seeing TiVo first hand in the USA, it's in a class of its own for usefulness.

I thought that they had this there already.

The set is now hooked up to cable TV throgh an HD receiver box.

I had to buy a DVR yesterday evening in order to be able to record. The HD format has made the VCR obsolete. You can only PLAY BACK VHS tapes now.

Nope - no tivo here yet. I believe there is some method of buying older US boxes and hacking them to work here, with guide data that is maintained by a user group of some kind, but apparently the hackable boxes are very hard to get. Also I got knocked back as a beta tester, so I may be not getting one either for a long time yet. My current SD digital set top box is driving me crazy with dropouts, and I've been wanting to get a HD one for some time, so the tivo they are releasing here with twin HD tuners plus the tivo DVR functions seemed a great option. Much more expensive than other DVRs, but I thought worth it for the convenience of having it do the choosing and organising for you. The cable companies offer a tivo-like set top biox for an extra fee, but only one is available in my area and it doesn't include the free-to-air channels, and their cable channels almost never have anything on I want to watch. Plus I'm a person who would rather spend $500 and own the unit, then pay $5 a month for subscription, than pay $50-$60 a month minimum and not own the unit. For now, I guess I'll keep trying to put up with the dropouts and (im)patiently wait for tivo.

who what where how when?

Sounds like they are way behind in the times. I think they need to wake up and smell the 21st century!

TiVo | The TiVo Homepage

It's being masterminded here by the 7 network and the closest to a firm date they have announced is they have promised to get it released before the Olympics (which is August). The beta testing program is apparently 10 weeks long and starting soon.

It seems that TiVo has been quite selective on which countries they launch into. They launched in the UK a few years ago but it was a flop there. I imagine they might have been hesitant to come to Australia because we have a very small number of free to air TV channels, and not a great percentage of people have Cable or Satellite TV. So they've been waiting for some 3rd party to sponsor the whole venture into Oz.

Now one of our 3 commercial TV networks is doing that, but thats also putting some limitations on the service. It won't be working with cable TV for one, and won't be including the 'automatically remove the ads' feature for another. On the other hand the TiVo box used will be the latest version with twin HD tuners etc.Just how much it will cost remains to be seen, though estimates put it around $500 upfront to buy the box, then $5-$8 a month for the service (maybe a little extra to also get Rhapsody music service thrown in - which sounds very cool too).