TiVo Question

[pointdablame]

The benefit to Tivo specifically is the Tivo software.  It is the best out there, most user friendly, most robust, and they're not going to get sued out of existance like the other DVR makers tend to... a couple of them are long gone, a couple more will go soon.

yeah, I will say my girlfriend's Tivo looks much more user friendly than my Replay.  And it has a number of other search options.

I love my Replay tho.

[ChadTower]

The one thing I would kill to have on my Tivo is the ability to share content between units... and I believe Replay has that, yes?

[Goz]

The one thing I would kill to have on my Tivo is the ability to share content between units... and I believe Replay has that, yes?

Pretty sure thats what multi room viewing is all about. Here's the tivo support page on how to do it

[ChadTower]

Doesn't apply to DirecTivo.  We don't get all those high fallutin' features.

[Goz]

Doesn't apply to DirecTivo.  We don't get all those high fallutin' features.

Hmm bummer I had heard it was part of their basic subscription now. Obviously doesn't apply to direct tv... that sucks...

[ChadTower]

DirecTV stopped adding Tivo features a couple of years ago... now they're doing away with new DirecTivos completely.  They will still support existing ones, but if you want to get a new DVR now, you have to use their DirecTV DVR.

[Chickadee]

Tivo's are amazing ;x

I bought one about two years ago [Toshiba SDH400]  and on top of everything electronic i own, id have to say its the best thing ive ever purchased.  I never actually thought I'd make use of it when I got it, but now its like my best friend! can't imagine life without one. [It also has a built in DVD player, which comes in handy.]

My boyfriend owns a replay [which is what made me want one in the first place], and I just don't think it's as good. 

Because I don't have a digital cable box in my room, I like with my tivo that I can record one show, while watching another.

It records everything I want, and it makes suggestions.  It first suggested for me to watch Prison Break cause it thought id like it what a smart tivo, for it turned out to be my favorite show!

The only complaint I would've ever had about tivo was that you couldnt record two shows if timing was off.  For instance, ER runs from 9:59-11.  So If I wanted to record ER, i couldnt record anything that fit into the 9:30-10 time slot.  However just about two weeks ago, they came up with a fix for that So i officially have no issues with the tivo.

As people said,Its very user friendly, and I couldn't agree more.

IIRC, you can just buy a tivo and you automatically get the basic service with it.  Meaning you have to manually record everything. No season passes or nething. And you can only get information for up to 3 days [where as the upgraded one has 2wks + season passes]. 

If you're going to put out the money for a tivo, I'd suggest, if you could, getting the lifetime tivo. If you don't like it or eventually swap to something else, they end up having high resell values.

Like i said, I bought mine *counts* it'll be two years ago in January, and I still occasionally check on ebay and see it going for just about the same price.

I forgot to mention: You can also make use of TivoToGo. Im not sure if its just with the upgraded tivo, or basic too? But it lets you transfer anything on your tivo to your computer so if you wanted to put it on a DVD or something for later you can.  It doesnt take entirely long either [usually about 3/4th's the length of a show ..1hr show takes about 45 minutes to transfer]

[ChadTower]

Lifetime Tivo, it should be mentioned, applies TO THE BOX and not TO THE USER.

If your Tivo dies, so does your lifetime subscription.  It is not transferrable from unit to unit but does follow the unit from owner to owner.

It is up to you to decide if the $300 or so is worth the cost given that the lifespan of most electronics is way lower than $300 / cost per month for the service.

[duffjr]

does anyone use timewarner's box?  are there mods for scientific atlanta?  i think it gets 30 hours of recording.  it also has a firewire port.

[Ed_McCarron]

"It is up to you to decide if the $300 or so is worth the cost given that the lifespan of most electronics is way lower than $300 / cost per month for the service."

That was my logic with my Tivo Series I.  5 years later, at ~13.00/month, I'm out $780, give or take...  When I bought it, the lifetime was only $249 or so, IIRC.

I gambled, and lost.

My second Tivo has the lifetime sub... How much you wanna bet it dies in 3 days?

[AlanS17]

I will read this thread thoroughly no matter the length, if it means a free HD Tivo.

I don't even care about HD, but I seem to remember that one having FOUR tuners.

Though it has 2 HD tuners and 2 DTV tuners, only 2 of any type can be used for recording at once.

[AlanS17]

The one thing I would kill to have on my Tivo is the ability to share content between units... and I believe Replay has that, yes?

Standalone units offer it. DirecTV units don't. Regular DirecTV units can be hacked to offer it, but HD DirecTV units can't.

[ChadTower]

Standalone units offer it. DirecTV units don't. Regular DirecTV units can be hacked to offer it, but HD DirecTV units can't.

I tried to look into adding it to my DirecTV units... the software wasn't mature enough at that point to risk my Tivos.  Is it now?

[pointdablame]

FWIW, I've heard numerous stories about how Tivo transferred over a lifetime subscription to a new box if it died in an untimely way or as an obvious hardware fault.  It is NOT the norm, and NOT officially announced in anyway by Tivo, but I know it has happened numerous times.  Just something to think about.. but yeah, if the Tivo dies a death of old age, you're out the service... but you'd probably have saved money in the long run.

And yeah Chad... Replay has sharing of videos.  You can also use the Poopli service and actually download whatever shows you want on other people's Replay's.  You can search for the newest Simpsons, for instance, and anyone on the Poopli service that has that episode can send the episode to you when the two Replay's aren't doing anything else. It's very neat.. like a DVD P2P service.  I'm not sure if Tivo has a similar program??

Either way... everyone should have a DVR, no matter what one lol

[ChadTower]

I'm not sure if Tivo has a similar program??

No, Tivo would send the autodestruct codes out if they thought people had figured out how to do that.  They are WAY too corporate DMCA minded.

[pointdablame]

I'm not sure if Tivo has a similar program??

No, Tivo would send the autodestruct codes out if they thought people had figured out how to do that.  They are WAY too corporate DMCA minded.

True, true.  I didn't even think of the broadcast flag fiasco.  I guess Replay is the slightly more "underground" DVR lol.

[Stingray]

I'm not sure if Tivo has a similar program??

No, Tivo would send the autodestruct codes out if they thought people had figured out how to do that.  They are WAY too corporate DMCA minded.

True, true.  I didn't even think of the broadcast flag fiasco.  I guess Replay is the slightly more "underground" DVR lol.

Does it work with DTV?

-S

[pointdablame]

I'm not sure if Tivo has a similar program??

No, Tivo would send the autodestruct codes out if they thought people had figured out how to do that.  They are WAY too corporate DMCA minded.

True, true.  I didn't even think of the broadcast flag fiasco.  I guess Replay is the slightly more "underground" DVR lol.

Does it work with DTV?

-S

Honestly, I have no idea, but my first instinct would be a big ol' NO. 

[Stingray]

Yeah, I assumed as much. I'm totally at a loss as to which unit to get now. I guess the official DTV unit is probably the best bet, but if I switch to Dish Network, I'm screwed.

-S

[ChadTower]

That's not true.  The DirecTV DVR is integrated into the satellite receiver, which you have to swap out if you change to Dish no matter what.  The receivers are proprietary for both systems.

For that matter, so is the dish angle.  If you switch to Dish you'd have to go and adjust your satellite dish too, and while the dishes themselves are compatible, they are not optimally so. Each one uses a slightly different curvature.  While each will pick up a signal from the other, neither will get as good a signal as the original.

[rampy]

Standalone Tivos do not work on DirecTV because there is no mpeg encoder in a DirecTivo... doesn't need it.

A DirecTivo expects a slightly altered mpeg signal from DirecTV and thus does no real encoding when recording to disc.

A standalone Tivo has an mpeg encoder since it is expecting an analog signal that is output from the cable box or somesuch.

The two are not compatible.

That's not exactly true/accurate. 

You *can* use a regular standalone tivo with directv (or dishnetwork, or bellvue express, or star choice, yadda yadda) .. it works in the same manner as you do for digital cable.  Which, admittadly is less than ideal analog loophole, re-encoding the output of the satellite STB/receiver.

You're right that the direcTV "native" dvr's just stream the mpeg2 (or mpeg4 soon?) bits to the disk.  It's much more convenient that way, but for some reason they don't let pc users at the raw bits

*Shrug*  It's probably not economical and is slightly more painful but you can do it.   You'd do the same thing conceptually on the byopvr front, except replace the standalone tivo with the PC PVR.   

rampy

[rampy]

According to the Tivo site the series 2 works with DTV.

http://www.tivo.com/1.3.2.asp

-S

It's slow as crap changing channels.  Don't do it if you channel surf at all.  At least my series 2 with DTV D10 box is.

Are you using the IR blaster or serial cable...  depending on the revision of D10 box (100, 200, or 300) you can use a serial cable to control/slave the direcTV box to the series 2 Tivo.  It's a little more reliable and quicker than IR blasting.

rampy

[duffjr]

does anyone have digital cable?  what dvr setup do you have?  i saved 20 bucks switching over from directv to tw, so it was worth it.

[ChadTower]

That's not exactly true/accurate. 

Technically you can use a Tivo with anything that ouputs 15khz analog video... but his question, basically, was "does it work the same?"

[pointdablame]

does anyone have digital cable?  what dvr setup do you have?  i saved 20 bucks switching over from directv to tw, so it was worth it.

My ReplayTV is set up through my digital cable with zero problems.  I have a Replay with lifetime service though.. it has nothing to do with my cable provider.

[shmokes]

Chad, does your directTivo have a USB port?  I remember that when I bought my ReplayTV that one deciding factor was the integrated ethernet port on the replay, whereas TIVO was just getting around to home networking and it required a $100 USB network module.

My Xbox networks seamlessly with my ReplayTV, BTW.  Since my digital cable box has a built in DVR I put my replay box on my office TV.  For my home theater my cable box handles time shifting functions, while my Xbox streams my ReplayTV content from the other room (as well as all my music and ripped DVD's from my PC).



Anyway, my real purpose for posting was to ask if anyone's used Tivo's new transfering features for video ipod and PSP?  My father-in-law is getting his wife a video ipod for Christmas and he's apparently getting a TIVO.  Has anyone here used the service?  Does it work well?  How long does the encoding process take?  Does it tranfer the video over the network to the PC and then to the iPod from there or does the iPod connect directly to the TIVO?

[ChadTower]

Chad, does your directTivo have a USB port?

[Samstag]

Series 2 DTivos have USB but it doesn't work unless you hack the software.  Then you can use [I think] any USB ethernet adaptor supported by linux.

[ChadTower]

Series 2 DTivos have USB but it doesn't work unless you hack the software.

[shmokes]

I think someone already mentioned this, but the linux stuff is actually really easy.  I had to do that to upgrade the hard drive on my ReplayTV, but it was just a matter of burning all the linux stuff I needed onto a disc and booting to it.  I didn't have to actually install/configure linux anywhere.  And all the work is already done for you.  Someone has everything set up so you just hook the hard drive to your PC and you boot to the Linux disc.  So you've got a Linux box as long as you boot to the disc, but back to Windows after that.  It never even loaded into a desktop environment.  Just gave me a simple menu and did all the work for me.

[ChadTower]

Nice, the tools sound a LOT friendlier now than when I hacked my DirectTivo a few years ago.

[Stingray]

Yeah, I think I could even manage to pull that off. The more I read up on this DVR stuff, the less certain I am as to what to buy.

-S

[shmokes]

It was so easy that I forgot I had done it.  My wife was out of town for the weekend and while she was gone I thought I would surprise her by pulling the 40 GB drive and putting in a 160 GB drive (cos it's really hers, I watch almost no tv).  But I also replaced our CRT with a nice LCD monitor while she was gone. 

So when she got home she got all excited about the LCD TV and I completely forgot that I had upgraded her ReplayTV until like two or three days later when she was like, "um....Jake.....What's wrong with my ReplayTV?"  So I went and looked and she was like, "Why does it say I have 144 hours of free space?  I should only have like 24 hours."  And I was like, "Oh yeah!!! I did that for you.  Forgot all about that."

I hadn't even researched it beforehand.  I just googled and found exactly what I needed immediately and made the change.  Whole thing was under an hour, I think.

[duffjr]

scientific atlanta 8300 has a sata ide port, that's disabled or enabled depending on your cable provider.  2gb is about 1 hour of recording.  i don't see the point of saving shows anyhow.  i watch them, and then they're gone unless a friend wants to see it.

[ChadTower]

Yeah, but you may not want to watch it today.  You may want to watch it tomorrow.  Or maybe you're not home when it is on.

[duffjr]

i can record 50 hours.  i honestly only need 10.  i make sure not to go through every channel and record every show that interests me.  i look at a movie, show, or special, so that i'm only recording an hour or so a day.  i bet you have shows from months ago that you haven't watched.  just delete them.

[ChadTower]

Oh man, my family records everything.  Tons of stuff.  I bet there is 75g of turnover every day.

A lot of it doesn't get watched.

But, on Sunday's, I'll be recording four football games at once, both 1pm and 4pm, then the sunday night game, then the monday night game.  And yes, I do watch almost all of them.

[duffjr]

do you have the large box that records all the shows that you send to the smaller box when you want to watch?  how else would you watch them all on one tivo?  i can't sit through every play of a football game.  i only watch 3rd downs or 4th and inches and red zone plays.  if i'm really lazy, i'll watch the last 5 minutes.  i can't watch a prerecorded game.  i'm always tempted to push live or fastforward to the end.

[ChadTower]

do you have the large box that records all the shows that you send to the smaller box when you want to watch?

[duffjr]

yea, if by tv, you are abbreviating tivo.  so you can send shows between tivos when one tv and tivo is occupied, yet you want to watch off that tivo?