How many here uses TiVo? What are your recommendations
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From: Dry Branch
Originally posted by mingster
This is the second time I'm posting a question about TiVo - I've heard that much advancement has come lately to this awesome gadget and was wondering what you would recommend? I travel a lot so I need to record quite a bit of F1, 5th Gear (when it starts on Speed TV), Star Trek, and any other shows I might miss in the 2 weeks I'm usually gone. So figure about 40 hours of programming total for 2 weeks or so. I'm also wondering if it's possible to burn what I have on the TiVo onto my DVD burner?
This is the second time I'm posting a question about TiVo - I've heard that much advancement has come lately to this awesome gadget and was wondering what you would recommend? I travel a lot so I need to record quite a bit of F1, 5th Gear (when it starts on Speed TV), Star Trek, and any other shows I might miss in the 2 weeks I'm usually gone. So figure about 40 hours of programming total for 2 weeks or so. I'm also wondering if it's possible to burn what I have on the TiVo onto my DVD burner?
Recording to a DVD or tape is possible, but involves going through a conversion to analog, then the analog has to be re-sampled and digitized, compressed, etc. It is all straightforward, but the quality of the results will be lower than the TiVo recordings, which have lower quality than is actually delivered to the TiVo. I actually had a hard time giving up C-band quality for the over-compressed but more flexible TiVo video, but it has proven to be a good tradeoff.
TiVo is not the only option, and you should check then all out, to see what will best fit your needs. I advise AGAINST buying a "life time subscription" to the TiVo service, because the subscriptions are for the "lifetime" of the TiVo unit, not the users lifetime. If you upgrade the unit, and sell the old one, you have to sell the subscription along with the unit, because it goes with the unit, and you don't actually own it. This is a major irritant if not realized, and one wants to upgrade, only to learn that their "lifetime subscription" can't be transferred to the new unit. If you go with a TiVo, just pay by the year or month.
RED
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From: Greenville, SC
Joined: Oct 2000
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From: Tulsa, OK
Red MX5, lifetime is usually the best way to go. If you look on ebay, used Tivos with lifetime draw quite a bit more than tivos without it. You can usually get most of your money back if you do decide to sell it. In the mean time, you end up spending a lot less if you do decide to keep it longer than two or three years. I've had my tivo for about 45 months so my $200 lifetime subscription (it's $300 now) has more than paid for itself over the $500 I would have spent if I was paying monthly. To me, monthly is for people that either can't afford or don't want to spend the money to buy a lifetime subscription.
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From: Ellicott City
Originally posted by Morris
I have one TIVO receiver in the living room but I watch news etc on a small set in the kitchen. I have to walk back & forth to change the channel etc, but I heard that Radio Shack has a remote (infared) that can save me the trip. Has anybody used on of these? What is the range? Does it see through walls? (I think infared means it must be line-of-sight, right?). What's the experience out there? And Mingster, where are you?
I have one TIVO receiver in the living room but I watch news etc on a small set in the kitchen. I have to walk back & forth to change the channel etc, but I heard that Radio Shack has a remote (infared) that can save me the trip. Has anybody used on of these? What is the range? Does it see through walls? (I think infared means it must be line-of-sight, right?). What's the experience out there? And Mingster, where are you?
What I did is split the coax output out of my Direct TV TIVO and run two TV's off it in different rooms. The Leapfrog allows me to change channels when I am watching the TV in the other room. Really slick and it doesn't require any programming.
DirecTV with TIVO Rocks. I can't wait till the HD DirecTV TIVO comes down in price!
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From: Rocklin
Originally posted by Elistan
Programs to record to TiVo:
Good Eats
Programs to record to TiVo:
Good Eats
I bought a DirecTivo last Christmas (Philips 40 hour model) from Best Buy for $100 and have upgraded it to a 120gig drive (about 120 hours).
My highest priority recording has been Good Eats (start a minute early, end a minute late). Except for the holiday (Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas) themed episodes, I've now Tivo'd all the episodes (take that back -- "Yogurt: Good Milk Gone Bad" ended up being "Tuna: The Other Red Meat").
My "end a minute late" has caused me to miss a bunch of programs though, cause Tivo saw a time conflict.
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From: Rocklin
A good website for more Tivo info is
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/index.php
You won't find it mentioned on the tivocommunity site, as references to it get (or at least used to) censored due to its more hacking (mainly digital extraction) focus.
I've extracted directly from my DirecTivo's HDD (see message above re: Good Eats), though haven't gotten around to installing the images to do it over the network.
http://www.dealdatabase.com/forum/index.php
You won't find it mentioned on the tivocommunity site, as references to it get (or at least used to) censored due to its more hacking (mainly digital extraction) focus.
I've extracted directly from my DirecTivo's HDD (see message above re: Good Eats), though haven't gotten around to installing the images to do it over the network.