Best setup for 942 + Tivo?

[juangomez]

Hi all,

I'm still trying to design my whole setup before ordering anything and I'd really appreciate any suggestion. Having my standalone tivo hooked to a 942 would save me a dish DVR that I could use in another room.

So what would be the best setup to have a 942 hooked up with a standalone tivo so a Tivo recording doesn't get interrupted by a 942 recording (changing the channel)?

is it possible?

I've been thinking about it and got this idea but I'm not sure if it'll work:

(Something to take into account is that Tivo does not work with UHF but IR so Tivo can only manage TV1 tuner.)

If you have Tivo hooked to TV1, is it posible to setup the 942 to only record through the TV2 tuner?
This way, tivo would take care of recordings on TV1 and 942 on TV2.
HD recordings in TV2 tuner still can be played in TV1, right?

Any answers/suggestions very welcome.
Thank you all in advance.
= J =

 

[JPointerWI]

If you activate the 942 you pay the DVR fee. Also isnt the TiVo fee like $10/month, making it more expensive ???

 

[nsafreak]

I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with this at all. Hooking up a Tivo to a standalone 942 isn't going to give you any more available tuners than you would with a 942 by itself. With a 942 you can watch one program while recording another. Heck you can watch one program while recording two others as long as one of the other two is coming off OTA. Just what are you trying to accomplish because it isn't clear in this post.

 

[juangomez]

I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with this at all. Hooking up a Tivo to a standalone 942 isn't going to give you any more available tuners than you would with a 942 by itself. With a 942 you can watch one program while recording another. Heck you can watch one program while recording two others as long as one of the other two is coming off OTA. Just what are you trying to accomplish because it isn't clear in this post.

I'm trying to get more recording hours.

I want to dedicate the 942 to HD recordings and the tivo for SD recording. I added a hard drive to my tivo so my recording time is much longer, I wish I could do the same for the 942.

I was thinking of having a dedicated dish DVR for that matter but it's better if I can avoid it.

= J =

 

[JPointerWI]

Why not get another 301/311, that would work with the tivo much easier.

I'm not sure that you could record HD content using the TV2 tuner, since that tuner isnt ment to output HD. In theory it should work since you can force the 942 to record timers on the 2nd tuner, but I'm not sure how that applies to HD channels.

One question I still have, is WHY ??? Do you like to archive entire seasons of many shows, or are you never home to watch that many shows that you need 100's of hours of DVR time to record everything you want to watch. When do you have time to watch all this stuff you plan on recording ?? Instead of saving recording for months on a DVR ahve you considered a DVD recorder ?

 

[SimpleSimon]

I'm not sure that you could record HD content using the TV2 tuner, since that tuner isnt ment to output HD.

Tuners and outputs are two different and unrelated devices. Anyone thinking about a E* multi-tuner DVR needs to understand that concept right up front. THEN, the rest of it's operation will become clear.

 

[juangomez]

I'm not sure that you could record HD content using the TV2 tuner, since that tuner isnt ment to output HD.

As SimpleSimon mentioned, tuners and outputs are different. The two dish tuners in 942 are able to record HD but TV2 doesn't have component output and therefore you cannot watch HD content (only downconverted) in TV2.
So my two questions are:

1.- Once a HD program is recorded using the tuner assigned to TV2 in dual mode, can you watch it in HD in TV1? I think so but not sure.

2.- can you setup the 942 so it records only with 2nd tuner, I mean the one assigned to TV2 in dual mode. Is that the way it works when it's set to dual mode??

One question I still have, is WHY ??? Do you like to archive entire seasons of many shows, or are you never home to watch that many shows that you need 100's of hours of DVR time to record everything you want to watch. When do you have time to watch all this stuff you plan on recording ?? Instead of saving recording for months on a DVR ahve you considered a DVD recorder ?

I don't watch almost any program live so I have everything recorded. I may not fill up a dvr with 100 hours but I feel like 25 hours is not enough.
An option could be a DVD recorder as you said, (tivo included of course ), but I don't want to spend the money in one right now if I don't have to.

Thanks.
= J =

 

[DVDDAD]

I don't understand what you're trying to accomplish with this at all. Hooking up a Tivo to a standalone 942 isn't going to give you any more available tuners than you would with a 942 by itself. With a 942 you can watch one program while recording another. Heck you can watch one program while recording two others as long as one of the other two is coming off OTA. Just what are you trying to accomplish because it isn't clear in this post.

I agree. I don't see the need for the Tivo with a 942. The only thing you can gain is extra harddrive space, but it's SD not HD and the 942 can handle, what, 250 hours of SD? Hooking up the Tivo will also degrade picture quality compared to the recordings off of the 942. Sell your Tivo on eBay or put it to other uses.