Ping: TiVo Owners

[Dr. Sak]

New TiVo service feature!
Included as part of your regular service.

Use TiVoToGo transfers to bring a cooking show to the kitchen or your favorite film on a road trip! TiVoToGo™ transfers pull shows from your networked Series2 TiVo DVR onto your PC* so you can take them anywhere.

hxxp://www.tivo.com/4.9.19.asp

[CentralMassHokie]

I love my TiVo, but the way TiVo has handled this rollout is beyond ridiculous. They announced the feature over a year ago, for fall of 2004.

In November, they said it would still hit in fall.

Then in December they said it would be out before the end of the year.

As they start getting nailed with vaporware articles (Wired, for instance) they announce the big release. Awesome.

Except that even if you signed up for the priority release, you're probably not going to get it for anywhere from 3 weeks to a couple of months. They don't want to send it out to everyone yet, since they're worried about the support load. Why have a priority list then -- why not have that list be people signing up saying "they know that it won't be supported for X months". Let the early adopters play with it if they want to risk it.

Bleh. I'm just annoyed. I love my TiVo but I just don't see them surviving. The big announcement at CES was a CableCard TiVo, which will have dual tuners, record HDTV, have an actual ethernet port. Awesome.

Except they say it's at least a year away and will be lucky to retail for under $1k. By then, I'll have moved to the Comcast HD DVR and have relegated the TiVo to the bedroom TV.

[Tekneek]

Except they say it's at least a year away and will be lucky to retail for under $1k. By then, I'll have moved to the Comcast HD DVR and have relegated the TiVo to the bedroom TV.

This is because they are waiting for the standard to shake out completely. Some of this delay is not really TiVo's fault, it's an industry thing.

[Easy Mac]

This made Wired's vaporware list.

I just use my computer and burn it on DVD's. $110 for TV card, DVD burner and 50 DVD-r's.

[Tekneek]

I just use my computer and burn it on DVD's. $110 for TV card, DVD burner and 50 DVD-r's.

What are the specs for the card and dvd burner?

[CentralMassHokie]

This is because they are waiting for the standard to shake out completely. Some of this delay is not really TiVo's fault, it's an industry thing.

I know -- but they have to know they're going to lose subscribers due to the HD DVD being anywhere from $5-10 in most places. A $1k HD DVR + $5-12 a month for a subscription to TiVo's guide service simply is a near impossible sell.

They needed to be ahead of this and have a CableCard 1.0 DVR out there with some sort of upgrade plan when the CableCard 2.0 standard is set and approved. But I think they really underestimated the uptake of HD sets (thank you NFL) and how rapidly cable companies would get into the game with not great, but at least competent DVRs.

The Comcast DVR is supposed to be pretty swell, minus Suggestions and Wishlists. I've turned off Suggestions on my TiVO (nothing against them, I just don't think TiVo's ever really nailed the collaborative filtering algorithm the way Netflix and Amazon have), and I can live without Wishlists.

I just want to be able to record shows in HD and I would love dual tuners so I don't have to BitTorrent the handful of shows that conflict with other shows I watch.

I do have to hand it to TiVo on the implementation of TivoToGo though -- apparently it's just a webserver that runs on your Tivo, that if you're smart enough, you can browse to and download files without using the Tivo Desktop software. Run the encrypted file through an application and you've got something you can burn to DVD.

As soon as I can put video back on the Tivo, that'd be even better.

[Easy Mac]

The TV card is a general conexant Blackbird card ($25) with hardware encoding (refurbished but works well), I got it from compgeeks. Quality is pretty good, but I also have general cable, so I'm not getting digital cable-TiVo quality... but I also have free HBO :). DVD burner is an NEC 16x DL DVD writer with latest firmware ($65). It works well. I'll probably have to get upgrades to the tuner card if I ever get digital cable, but that ain't happening anytime soon (it also has an S-video in port, along with stereo RCA ports, so I should be ok.)

I'm also using gb-pvr for my dvr purposes. Its freeware and a pretty good program. I'm sure if I paid the money, BeyondTV or SageTV would be better (or XP MCE), but I'm cheap. Free program guide too.

edit to say: I can only record/watch 1 show at a time. thankfully I have another TV in the room. If I bought another card I could do multiple records. The good thing is, it still works flawlessly while playing FM.

[Tekneek]

TiVo really is the best, but people will take a cheaper option with less features. It will be a case where the best DVR dies off due to, I suppose, company management issues and not because their product was inferior. Sorta like Beta vs. VHS, I suppose...the higher quality product did not hit critical mass with consumers.

[gstelmack]

TIVO's big problem is that a large chunk of their subscribers come from DirecTV, and DirecTV is about to introduce their own line of DVRs without TIVO.

[temley06]

TIVO's big problem is that a large chunk of their subscribers come from DirecTV, and DirecTV is about to introduce their own line of DVRs without TIVO.

So does that mean you can record DirecTV to DVD?

[Tekneek]

TIVO's big problem is that a large chunk of their subscribers come from DirecTV, and DirecTV is about to introduce their own line of DVRs without TIVO.

NDS, who is playing a hand in the Home Media Center, and doing the new DirecTV DVRs by themselves, has a bit of a bad reputation right now. Besides that, none of that will be ready for customers before Q4/2005. In the meantime, DirecTV is still marketing TiVo DVRs. They aren't abandoning it completely. If the NDS DVRs suck, they will find a way to keep TiVo onboard.

[Tekneek]

So does that mean you can record DirecTV to DVD?

You could do that by a number of methods. The TiVo/DVD-burner combined units do not have built-in DirecTV receivers...

EDIT:I had to fix my terribly structured sentence.

[temley06]

You could do that by a number of methods. There is no TiVo/DVD-burner combined units do not have built-in DirecTV receivers...

Thanks

[finkenst]

I love my TiVo...

If TiVo ever offers the "Buy a new Tivo Series 2 and transfer your service from TiVo1" I'm so there... If I had a broadband TiVo, i'd get rid of my home phone line.

[CentralMassHokie]

I love my TiVo...

If TiVo ever offers the "Buy a new Tivo Series 2 and transfer your service from TiVo1" I'm so there... If I had a broadband TiVo, i'd get rid of my home phone line.

They offered that very early on. I don't think that's going to come back again.

I kinda wish I had a series 1 Tivo. Easier to hack and I could end up with more features than my Series 2 has -- including putting video on the TiVo.

[gottimd]

Have any Tivo owners here received the Tivo 2 Go feature yet? If so when did you sign up on that priority list, if you did? I bought the USB router and I am all set to go, but it seems like it isn't being rolled out fast enough.

[jbmagic]

Have any Tivo owners here received the Tivo 2 Go feature yet? If so when did you sign up on that priority list, if you did? I bought the USB router and I am all set to go, but it seems like it isn't being rolled out fast enough.


Directtivo we dont get this feature.

i think just standalone tivo does.

[gottimd]

I have Stand alone series 2, its just the damn rollout is taking eons. I was wondering if any other TiVo owners got it yet.

[CentralMassHokie]

I got TTG about a week ago, after signing up on day 1 of the priority list.

It works well enough, which allowed me to get a couple of things off of my TiVo and burn them to DVD for archiving. If you hunt around, you can find a way of removing the TiVo wrapper in about 5 minutes. I'm not saying that to promote piracy, I'm saying that so you don't have to pay extra money if you want to burn the stuff to DVD.

TiVo also released the developer's preview of their new SDK. It does some interesting stuff, but nothing that will sell TiVos (at least as far as I can tell). For me, the sweet spot for TTG and the SDK would be if it could act like a second tuner. I point it at some shows that conflict with other shows I watch, subscribe to the RSS feed of some torrent sites that offer TV, download the show, and push it onto my TiVo. Sure, it might take an extra 6-12 hours, but the next day, I've got the shows on my TiVo.

Doesn't sound like the SDK will be able to do that for some time, which means I'm going to have to go ahead and get the Comcast HD DVR and retire my TiVo to the bedroom.

[cartman]

I can do this already with my Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005. Granted, it's not a default setup, but I've opened up my firewall to allow Remote Desktop connections to my MCE. From there, I can connect from anywhere with a broadband connection, and I can watch live TV or recorded shows. Not too shabby.

[CentralMassHokie]

I can do this already with my Microsoft Media Center Edition 2005. Granted, it's not a default setup, but I've opened up my firewall to allow Remote Desktop connections to my MCE. From there, I can connect from anywhere with a broadband connection, and I can watch live TV or recorded shows. Not too shabby.

How well does that work over the Remote Desktop connection?

I've got a TV Tuner in my box and I've been thinking about setting up a VPN connection to Remote Desktop in and try it out during March Madness.

I know VNC doesn't update quickly enough, but wasn't sure about Remote Desktop.

My other option is to VPN in and simply have the video get encoded into WMV format and then connect using Media Player. It'll always be a few seconds behind real time, but it might work better.

[cartman]

How well does that work over the Remote Desktop connection?

I've got a TV Tuner in my box and I've been thinking about setting up a VPN connection to Remote Desktop in and try it out during March Madness.

I know VNC doesn't update quickly enough, but wasn't sure about Remote Desktop.

My other option is to VPN in and simply have the video get encoded into WMV format and then connect using Media Player. It'll always be a few seconds behind real time, but it might work better.

It works pretty well. Obvously the sound isn't great, but it works well enough. I haven't had a problem with the video, it seems to be in sync with the audio.

[gottimd]

Sweet, I bumped this thread wondering about the scheduling of Tivo2Go, I get home, and it downloaded it today. I signed up Jan 20th on the priority list.

[gottimd]

Has anyone used Nero instead of Sonic MyDvD 6.1 to burn a DVD?

[Dr. Sak]

Has anyone used Nero instead of Sonic MyDvD 6.1 to burn a DVD?

I use Sony Vegas DVD Architect to render the movie and Nero to burn