Questions From A TiVo Newbie
I just received this feedback from Matthew. Matthew is thinking about getting a TiVo however; he has the following questions. Instead of just replying to his email, I thought I would post it on the site so that other people could provide him with some useful feedback.
hey,
i’m new to pvr’s (will probably get a tivo soon), but i have a couple questions/comments:
1-the free tivo thing from jc penny and dockers says that you’ll receive your tivo in 8-12 weeks, a pretty long wait. that’s why i’m not doing that offer
2-how’s the quality on the dvd burner version of the tivo they’re selling on the tivo website? is it a good pvr? is it generally not bought/frowned upon by the community? what do people say about it?
3-how much TV and high quality can you realistically store on the 40-hour tivo? is it worth the jump to the 80-hour tivo?
4-is there anything else about pvr/tivo’s that i should know before buying?
thanks!
matt
September 28th, 2005 at 7:31 pm |
I have to agree! 8-12 weeks is a long time to wait!
To be perfectly honest, I don’t have any experience with this DVR. Hopefully somebody else will provide you with some feedback. Do you have a Windows PC? If yes, you could always use TiVoToGo and transfer the shows to your computer and then burn them to DVD using MyDVD or another solution out there.
I owned a 60hr TiVo at one point and I often found myself having to clean things up because I was running out of disc space. I ended up giving this TiVo to my Mom. My Mom is extremely happy with it so I guess it just depends on what you are going to do with it. Also, remember that you can upgrade a TiVo by buying an upgrade kit from Weaknees or a similar site.
One of my most favorite features of TiVo is that you can stream your MP3s and Pictures through your TiVo to your TV. Go here for more information….
Good luck and let me know I can help you in any way. I truly believe that TiVo is a great product and that you will be happy if you get one.
September 28th, 2005 at 10:24 pm |
Yeah, 8 or more weeks is a while to wait, but hey, it’s a FREE TiVo.
I recently got the Humax DVD recorder with TiVo, and I’m VERY impressed with it. If you record the programs in high quality on the TiVo, the video that lands on the DVD is exceptional. It’s quite viewable if you record in medium quality, too. You can’t do any editing, such as lopping off the extra 30 seconds at beginning or end to just get your program, or taking out commercial breaks. But for just taking programs from your TiVo and putting them on DVD, it can’t be beat. It’s VERY fast. Burning four one-hour programs to disc takes about 20-30 minutes.
The 40-hour TiVo can probably realistically hold 12-16 hours at high quality, depending on the type of material being recorded. That’s plenty if you’re going to pretty much watch everything within a day or two, and not save anything long-term. That doesn’t work for my schedule; I’m glad I have more space.
September 28th, 2005 at 11:03 pm |
1. Yeah, that is a bit of a wait.
2. Well, I’ve had a Pioneer DVR-810H since they came out and that’s my primary DVR. I just sold two of my old Series2 boxes, and now my secondary DVR is a Toshiba RS-TX20. So I’d have to say I like them. I record everything in ‘High’, which looks good to me on my 32″ set. It also means 2 hours on a DVD, which is about right. I will say that Basic on a DVD unit looks worse than Basic on a standard unit to me - the different MPEG settings to be DVD compliant and the low bitrate to get 6 hours on a DVD-R.
3. A 40 hour TiVo is about 42 hours at Basic, and 11 at Best. On my DVR-810H, which is 80GB, I get 16 hours Best, 30 hours High, 62 houts Medium, and 93 hours Basic. I addition to the ability to upgrade units in a number of ways - Weaknees.com, PTVUpgrade.com, do it yourself, etc - with the current units you can move shows to and from a PC. So you can archive things off the TiVo onto a PC to free space up.
4. A TiVo is more than just a DVR. Home Media Engine applications like Galleon are a whole new area of features. Networking a TiVo gives it a lot more abilities.
September 29th, 2005 at 4:14 am |
One thing to know: you’ll need a standard landline phone (usually) to complete the initial setup. After that point, you can use your broadband internet LAN to download the guide data either with a wireless or ethernet to USB adapter (see TiVo’s site for recommended adapters).
It is possible to use a wired ethernet adapter to do the initial setup (I had success on ONE of my TiVos, but not the other), but it’s not always successful (see this site: http://everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=1746837 ).
The other option, if you don’t have a standard phone line, is to take it to a friend’s place that does. Once it’s set up, and makes an hour or two worth of guide downloads, it’s ready to take a USB networking device and be set back up at your home.
September 29th, 2005 at 7:35 am |
I’m not sure if this is clear or what #2’s question was but the DVD-burner versions have the exact same PVR functions (if you don’t use the free TiVo Basic) as all other TiVo’s. So as far as their PVR quality and if they’re frowned upon, they’re considered the same as a regular TiVo.
September 29th, 2005 at 12:53 pm |
Actually, owning both, I can say that the DVD-R TiVos and the non-DVD TiVos are not the same as regular TiVos as far as recording quality goes. They’re grossly similar, but the DVD’s ‘Best’ Mode is better than a SA’s best mode. It has a higher resolution, a much higher bitrate (9.5Mbps vs about 5.5Mbps), and other MPEG2 tweaks. But that means it also eats a lot more drive space and fits only 1 hour on DVD.
To my eyes ‘High’ on a DVD is close to ‘Best’ on a non-DVD unit. They’re about the same bitrate, but the DVD unit has a higher resolution so it has to compress more data into the same space.
So the units have slightly different behavior and what might case compression artifacts on one, doesn’t on the other, etc.
At the lower end, Medium and Basic, I think the non-DVD unit is better, especially at Basic. But overall they’re both good units - and I always used ‘Best’ on non-DVD and ‘High’ on DVD anyway.
September 29th, 2005 at 2:21 pm |
MegaZone,
Weren’t there issues with TiVo not providing some updates for the DVD based TiVos? I could have sworn this was an issue at one point.
September 29th, 2005 at 2:33 pm |
Regarding AquaX’s comment, the latest release of the TiVo software does NOT require a phone line to do the initial setup. But, it’ll be a crapshoot for a while as to which version of the OS you’ll get on any new box. You can’t upgrade to the latest software without doing the initial setup, which on older software will indeed require a phone line.
September 29th, 2005 at 4:00 pm |
Alex,
When the non-DVD units got 7.1 with TiVoToGo, the DVD units didn’t get it. The software needed more work for the DVD units. They got TTG with the 7.2 release.
September 30th, 2005 at 10:12 pm |
thanks for the replys guys…i’ll probalby be getting one pretty soon once work cools off, but i got another question(s):
1. so while using the highest quality on the DVD recorder version, you can only burn 1 hour of video onto a DVD??
2. I’m thinking of getting the 80 hr box just to be safe becuase I’ll be recording in high quality. Am i over-reacting??
matt
September 30th, 2005 at 11:40 pm |
1. Correct. The four modes provide 1, 2, 4, and 6 hours per DVD.
2. Not necessarily - you know your habits and plans, so get the capacity that works for you.
October 1st, 2005 at 12:27 pm |
Matthew,
Regarding #2, I know a couple of people have mentioned this already, but you can upgrade your TiVo hard drive pretty easily yourself. It took me about an hour for a friend and I to figure out how to do it by following the instructions online, it would have been much quicker if either one of us had any experience opening up a PC before.
I mention that because I have a Tivo DVD recorder 80 hour unit (Humax DRT800) and I’ve noticed recently that even this is not really enough space. In the next couple of weeks I plan on putting a 300 GB drive into my Tivo, which should give me more room then I ever need. If you think you might want to add more space it might be smarter to buy a 40 hour box, and put the extra $100 you save to buying a really big hard drive.
Dylan
October 2nd, 2005 at 6:42 pm |
thanks for the help!
I just got the “80-hour” recorder and I am in the process of setting it up…another question (if i haven’t already exceeeded my limit):
What’s a good, cheap wireless adaptor? I use a mac and have a apple airport express wireless basestation downstairs. Does that complicate things? what should i get?
also, isn’t there a way to get the recorded programs from the tivo to my mac??
thanks!
matt
October 2nd, 2005 at 7:14 pm |
Matthew,
I’m glad to see that you did end up getting a TiVo. I am sure you will be very happy.
If I were you, I would stick with one of TiVo’s recommended network adapters (http://customersupport.tivo.com/knowbase/root/public/tv2006.htm). I’ve used the Linksys WUSB12 before. I never had a problem with this adapter. As far as the Mac question is concerned, I don’t own a Mac so I can’t really help you with this one. Maybe somebody else can?
Enjoy your TiVo!
October 2nd, 2005 at 7:42 pm |
Mac support is limited to say the least. There are ways to transfer the .tivo files to your Mac, but unfortunately TiVo has not made the codec available to play those files.
TiVo Desktop which allows you to use your iTunes and iPhoto libraries on the TiVo, is available, however they have not been updated for OS X 10.4 (Tiger), but they can be manually installed by using Pacifist.
October 2nd, 2005 at 8:34 pm |
Matthew - see http://www.tivo.com/adapters
As for moving files to the Mac - the official TiVo desktop doesn’t support that on Mac yet, but the 3rd party application Galleon does. You won’t be able to watch the videos on Mac yet, TiVo is still developing Mac support.
October 5th, 2005 at 7:55 am |
so i had to return my tivo because there was a hard drive failure…hopefully i’ll get it back the middle of next week…how often do hard drive failure occur? how long should the new one last?
October 5th, 2005 at 12:59 pm |
They’re fairly rare, though they are the most common mode of failure for a TiVo, being one of only two moving parts. The fan is the other, and fans don’t have the same stresses as a drive, nor do they have head crashes.
Hard drives tend to either die right away - infant mortality - do to manufacturing defects, shipping damage, etc, or they last for years. It is kind of an inverse bell curve.
November 18th, 2005 at 9:33 pm |
I have a Humax DRT800.
What is the Hard Drive upgrade limit on this unit?
Can I install two Married Drives?
Does any other Tivo allow more HD upgrade than others. Which Tivo will upgrade the most?
November 18th, 2005 at 9:37 pm |
The DVD-RW units don’t have as much space inside since they have the DVD drive in there. Most people just put in one big drive. I know people use 300GB drives, and I’m pretty sure I’ve seen 400GB upgrades talked about.
It is possible to put a second drive in there too, but you have to find some way to fit it in - and make sure it doesn’t block cooling and cause the unit to overheat. Electrically it is just fine, and people *have* done this. It just isn’t as simple as sticking to one drive.