What DVR to buy...
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I am getting our satellite subscribed again and I want to get a digital video recorder to go with it. It would be nice if it could record while I watch another channel. It would be really awesome if it could record 2 channels at the same time. 80 hours of good quality recording space also. What brand/model should I go with (monthly fees ie: tivo, i want to avoid).
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
I have stayed away from them for two reasons. One the systems are not (cheaply) upgradeable. A 120GB drive is $100US and they will sell it to you for several hundread... I know their are sites that show you how to open the case and replace the hd but thats a pain... Also those monthlty services... Why can't the box download the program info directly from direcTV like my program guide it does go several days in advance?? John
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I have stayed away from them for two reasons. One the systems are not (cheaply) upgradeable. A 120GB drive is $100US and they will sell it to you for several hundread... I know their are sites that show you how to open the case and replace the hd but thats a pain... Also those monthlty services... Why can't the box download the program info directly from direcTV like my program guide it does go several days in advance?? John
So are you suggesting a homemade unit? Sounds like fun:cool:
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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So are you suggesting a homemade unit? Sounds like fun:cool:
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
ATI's TV Capture cards come with a nifty GuidePlus+ tv guide system. It is really nice if it has your local providers lineup, if it doesn't then your kind of out of luck Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong Bad -
So are you suggesting a homemade unit? Sounds like fun:cool:
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
I have been playing around with the idea for awhile. There is freevo (linux) and other software packages that are on the market for this. I bought a couple of XTASY Geforce2 cards for less than $100 over year ago... John
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ATI's TV Capture cards come with a nifty GuidePlus+ tv guide system. It is really nice if it has your local providers lineup, if it doesn't then your kind of out of luck Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong BadI do have the ATI 9700 All In Wonder Pro card... I don't really want to leave it out in the leaving room though...
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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I am getting our satellite subscribed again and I want to get a digital video recorder to go with it. It would be nice if it could record while I watch another channel. It would be really awesome if it could record 2 channels at the same time. 80 hours of good quality recording space also. What brand/model should I go with (monthly fees ie: tivo, i want to avoid).
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
Since you have satellite, go with a DirecTV Tivo, or sometimes referred to as DirecTivo! I've got the HDVR2 model (Satellite Tivo Series 2), which can record 2 channels at once, while you watch a 3rd show that has already been recorded. It doesn’t have the same “Series 2 features” that the stand-alone Tivo units have, like HMO, but I don’t need it. I thought about going the do-it-yourself route, but I am glad I didn't. I like to build PCs as much as the next geek, but having this work right out of the box is nice. I didn't like the delay of changing channels that a friend had with his stand-along Tivo with his digital cable box. A home-made DVR would have the same delay with digital cable boxes & satellite receivers. When you want to change the channel (or the Tivo wants to change it in order to record a show), it makes use of a little IR blaster to send the appropriate infra-red code to the digital cable box. And sometimes the digital cable box will miss one of the commands, and either switch to the wrong channel, or not switch at all. One other thing that is nice about the Tivo is it fills the whole screen. A few months back, when I hooked up my computer to my TV, it didn’t fill the whole TV. There was about an inch of unused space around the boarder (36 inch TV reduced to about 33). I believe this is solved by using a video card that can “overscan” (I’m not entirely sure if that is the right term for it). As for the 80 hours… you will need to upgrade a HDVR2 to be able to do that. www.weakness.com[^] sells a hard drive pre-loaded with the Tivo software, so it’s just a matter of swapping the drives. Cost: under $200. I thought 35 hours wouldn’t be enough, but it suits me fine. Check out the Tivo forums at www.tivocommunity.com [^]for more info.
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Since you have satellite, go with a DirecTV Tivo, or sometimes referred to as DirecTivo! I've got the HDVR2 model (Satellite Tivo Series 2), which can record 2 channels at once, while you watch a 3rd show that has already been recorded. It doesn’t have the same “Series 2 features” that the stand-alone Tivo units have, like HMO, but I don’t need it. I thought about going the do-it-yourself route, but I am glad I didn't. I like to build PCs as much as the next geek, but having this work right out of the box is nice. I didn't like the delay of changing channels that a friend had with his stand-along Tivo with his digital cable box. A home-made DVR would have the same delay with digital cable boxes & satellite receivers. When you want to change the channel (or the Tivo wants to change it in order to record a show), it makes use of a little IR blaster to send the appropriate infra-red code to the digital cable box. And sometimes the digital cable box will miss one of the commands, and either switch to the wrong channel, or not switch at all. One other thing that is nice about the Tivo is it fills the whole screen. A few months back, when I hooked up my computer to my TV, it didn’t fill the whole TV. There was about an inch of unused space around the boarder (36 inch TV reduced to about 33). I believe this is solved by using a video card that can “overscan” (I’m not entirely sure if that is the right term for it). As for the 80 hours… you will need to upgrade a HDVR2 to be able to do that. www.weakness.com[^] sells a hard drive pre-loaded with the Tivo software, so it’s just a matter of swapping the drives. Cost: under $200. I thought 35 hours wouldn’t be enough, but it suits me fine. Check out the Tivo forums at www.tivocommunity.com [^]for more info.
Excellent information mgama. Thanks!
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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I have been playing around with the idea for awhile. There is freevo (linux) and other software packages that are on the market for this. I bought a couple of XTASY Geforce2 cards for less than $100 over year ago... John
I have been watching these with interest also. Here's another one I found: www.mythtv.org[^].
Jason Jystad
"Real programmers can write assembly code in any language."
--Larry Wall -
Excellent information mgama. Thanks!
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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I reread your original message, and saw the Tivo fees that you wanted to avoid. Through DirecTV, the Tivo fees are $5 a month (or $4.95... I forget). Much better than the $13 a month that stand-alone Tivo users pay.
Looks like I don't have anyway around it. The model you mentioned is cool enough to warrant the fee;)
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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So are you suggesting a homemade unit? Sounds like fun:cool:
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
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Looks like I don't have anyway around it. The model you mentioned is cool enough to warrant the fee;)
// Steve McLenithan
Family Guy: Season 2 - Episode 8
There are free services available with free modules to pull schedules in XML. If someone could figure out how to pipe that data into the Tivo database I imagine you could make it work. Either way, TIVO is really fantastic and worth the price.
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ATI's TV Capture cards come with a nifty GuidePlus+ tv guide system. It is really nice if it has your local providers lineup, if it doesn't then your kind of out of luck Matt Newman
Sonork: 100:11179 "Whoa, that ruled! What function key do I gotta press to get that to happen again?" - Strong BadYes, it's annoying that the 1 channel I want info on is not listed. (now known as Spike). Of course TV Guide also has it F.. messed up.