08-10-2014, 02:55 PM
I dipped into the TiVo "thing", and this is what i found.
Yes, the TiVo service fees are rather steep. I have the third generation box with two tuners, and the premier (4 tuners), both with lifetime subscription. I found that TiVo gave me a discount (about $100 or so) on the second lifetime subscription since I already had one of their products.
I bought the first one about some five years go or more and found that two tuners quickly enough filled the drive. It is possible to add an external drive to the system to get more space; however, the way the software deals with this is the "marry" the two drives into one and if the external gets disconnected and the TiVo loses it, it is quite possible to lose everything that was on the drive. When the drive is reconnected and the TiVo recognizes a drive is there, it wants to re-marry the drive, and in the process you will lose all data previously stored with no way to get it back. How could this happen? A storm comes through, and you lose power. The external shuts down, and doesn't reboot before the TiVo comes back online after the power is restored--instant "divorce". A UPS is recommended for the whole system to prevent this from occurring.
I could just watch and then delete the shows (now that's an idea), but there are some shows that I would like to keep. Content protected shows, such as your cable channels with the exception of local network content, cannot be transferred using iTiVo or cTiVo (and probably pyTivo as well) since the copy-protected flag is set at the time the show is recorded. This used to be a software flag, but in the Series 3 and above (these are the ones that record HD) it is hardware (a chip on the motherboard). A Hauppauge HD PVR will encode video streamed through it, so there is a way around the copy-protection flag, but it only can do this as the video is streamed (in real time), and it requires a capture device (a computer to store the file) on the other end. I use the Eye-TV app to do it.
I got the second TiVo about a year ago. The software is less clunky, and the internal drive is bigger. It is faster than the old one. The old one would buffer about an hour of video on whatever channels the tuners were set for; if you change the channel, it dumps that buffered video. The new one only gives me 30 minutes of buffered video per tuner. This is convenient as if you are into a show and suddenly something comes up that requires your attention, you can record the show from the beginning (as long as it is within the buffered time-frame).
It goes by the cable channel line-up as it is received from the mothership (either through the cable company or whatever). If the line-up of shows changes, as sometimes happens with live sporting events, the TiVo may not be able to keep up, especially if something gets postponed. If it goes long, you can set the TiVo to record longer at the time you setup to record the show. Supposedly you can change this one the fly, but I found that I could not add more time to the end after the show had started without going to the schedule and telling it to record the next however many shows on that channel. During playback, you would have to remember which shows you told it to record and in what order to be able to see your recording in some kind of sequential manner. I wish it would refresh the show schedules more often to prevent this, but it is possible to miss something simply because it was not listed properly in the show schedule. This is a problem often-times originating with the cable company, and not TiVo. TiVo updates (I think) about once a week. Shutting it down and restarting does NOT make it go find the updated channel line-up; you will end with the same wrong one as before. It would help if TiVo would update the line-up more frequently, though.
There is an active hacker community around the TiVo. Check out dealdatabase.com/forum for more information. I have been considering sending in my Series 3 for modification, but first I need to get the shows off. Once that flag is set, there is no way to un-set it.
All-in-all, I'm happy with the TiVo. I'm able to stream media through it (think upload a file to the box) though I haven't done that yet. It's stable and I've had remarkably few problems with it. Netflix, Hulu, You-tube? stream through the TiVo.
Any other questions you think I may be able to answer, let me know.
Diana
Yes, the TiVo service fees are rather steep. I have the third generation box with two tuners, and the premier (4 tuners), both with lifetime subscription. I found that TiVo gave me a discount (about $100 or so) on the second lifetime subscription since I already had one of their products.
I bought the first one about some five years go or more and found that two tuners quickly enough filled the drive. It is possible to add an external drive to the system to get more space; however, the way the software deals with this is the "marry" the two drives into one and if the external gets disconnected and the TiVo loses it, it is quite possible to lose everything that was on the drive. When the drive is reconnected and the TiVo recognizes a drive is there, it wants to re-marry the drive, and in the process you will lose all data previously stored with no way to get it back. How could this happen? A storm comes through, and you lose power. The external shuts down, and doesn't reboot before the TiVo comes back online after the power is restored--instant "divorce". A UPS is recommended for the whole system to prevent this from occurring.
I could just watch and then delete the shows (now that's an idea), but there are some shows that I would like to keep. Content protected shows, such as your cable channels with the exception of local network content, cannot be transferred using iTiVo or cTiVo (and probably pyTivo as well) since the copy-protected flag is set at the time the show is recorded. This used to be a software flag, but in the Series 3 and above (these are the ones that record HD) it is hardware (a chip on the motherboard). A Hauppauge HD PVR will encode video streamed through it, so there is a way around the copy-protection flag, but it only can do this as the video is streamed (in real time), and it requires a capture device (a computer to store the file) on the other end. I use the Eye-TV app to do it.
I got the second TiVo about a year ago. The software is less clunky, and the internal drive is bigger. It is faster than the old one. The old one would buffer about an hour of video on whatever channels the tuners were set for; if you change the channel, it dumps that buffered video. The new one only gives me 30 minutes of buffered video per tuner. This is convenient as if you are into a show and suddenly something comes up that requires your attention, you can record the show from the beginning (as long as it is within the buffered time-frame).
It goes by the cable channel line-up as it is received from the mothership (either through the cable company or whatever). If the line-up of shows changes, as sometimes happens with live sporting events, the TiVo may not be able to keep up, especially if something gets postponed. If it goes long, you can set the TiVo to record longer at the time you setup to record the show. Supposedly you can change this one the fly, but I found that I could not add more time to the end after the show had started without going to the schedule and telling it to record the next however many shows on that channel. During playback, you would have to remember which shows you told it to record and in what order to be able to see your recording in some kind of sequential manner. I wish it would refresh the show schedules more often to prevent this, but it is possible to miss something simply because it was not listed properly in the show schedule. This is a problem often-times originating with the cable company, and not TiVo. TiVo updates (I think) about once a week. Shutting it down and restarting does NOT make it go find the updated channel line-up; you will end with the same wrong one as before. It would help if TiVo would update the line-up more frequently, though.
There is an active hacker community around the TiVo. Check out dealdatabase.com/forum for more information. I have been considering sending in my Series 3 for modification, but first I need to get the shows off. Once that flag is set, there is no way to un-set it.
All-in-all, I'm happy with the TiVo. I'm able to stream media through it (think upload a file to the box) though I haven't done that yet. It's stable and I've had remarkably few problems with it. Netflix, Hulu, You-tube? stream through the TiVo.
Any other questions you think I may be able to answer, let me know.
Diana