[QUOTE]Originally posted by RED MX5

 

Am I the only poor bastard that went with the Ultimate TV?

 

No, Microsoft suckered in a lot of people.

 

Have been gone over the long weekend, but wanted to add that I went to Radio Shack and got the remote that reuxp67 recommended and it works great. Thanks.
I think I got more out of this thread than Mingster did.

 

I've got the standalone tivo (with digital cable) and it's been great. I watch what I want to watch when I want to watch it. I think you can't go wrong with tivo.

btw, did anyone get the hd tivo yet?

 

I've been wanting to switch the Direct TV w/ Tivo, but I only have one question:

If I did switch over, does that mean I have to buy a box for every single room in my home in order to watch different channels at the same time? Which means I would have to pay a rental fee for each box monthly?

 

Yep, it's like digital cable - you need a box to descramble the signal. So you'd need one box for each unique TV you'd like to watch at the same time. They're $5 or $6 extra per month.

 

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Elistan
Yep, it's like digital cable - you need a box to descramble the signal.

 

You need to have a reciever for every TV. There is a "mirror fee" for each additional box. It is not a rental, you actually own the reciever. So if you have three TVs you would need three reciever boxes and you would be charged $10/mo in mirror fees. (The first box is free, then $5 for each after that.) If one of the recievers is a Tivo, you get two tuners, but you are only charged as if it is one reciever. The Tivo monthly fee is a flat $5/mo. That would be in addition to any applicable Mirror fees.

I have two TVs and EACH has a tivo. I have 4 tuners so I can record up to 4 shows at the exact same time. I pay $5/mo in a mirror fee for the second reciever and I pay $5/mo for the tivo service (which covers both units.)

 

The only way around the mirror fee would be to "distribute" the descrambled signal. Let's say you have 10 TVs in your house, but only two people living there. You could get two recievers, and put them in the basement. You would wire the dish to the recievers, then setup the recieves to send out their signal over your house's coax connections. Then use the remote control extender linked above to send the "change channel" signals to the recievers. That way the two people in the house can watch whatever they want, on any tv they want.

It requries some creative wiring, and remote control sending, but it can be done.