Recording OTA w/TIVO?

[mjmsr53]

Let me start by saying I cut the cord and went to OTA without any regrets (but don't ask my wife). I also have the Apple TV-2 and a Roku unit.

Now my questions:

1) Is TIVO my best (least expensive) option for recording OTA? I do not want to spend ALLOT of money, but want something decent - I'll spend it if I have to.

2) Will TIVO or any other allow me to record off of Apple TV or the Roku (legally)?

3) Is the Master Channel really worth the money and does it make recording easyier than TIVO?

4) What kind of set up would you do to best utilize all of my "toys" for the least amount of money?

My HD TV is a few years old 60Hz and 1080i Sony (the "true 1080 without being a true 1080")

Thanks....

 

[mike123abc]

If you want tivo cheap you will have to turn to ebay and see if you can pick up a deal on an HD Tivo/Series 3 with lifetime service. Then you will not have a monthly fee.

It will not record record off apple TV or Roku. But, Tivo will stream things from like netflix, amazon vod, etc.

 

[jayn_j]

TIVO is not terribly cheap. They currently have 3 or 4 fee structures. You can get one for no money down, but it comes with s $20/mo 2 year commitment. You can buy one from TIVO directly for $300 and get no commitment and a $13/mo service fee. Or you can give them an additional $400 and get lifetime service. A number of people over at TIVO community have complained about marginal OTA reception of the latest TIVO Premiere boxes.

TIVO refurbs come up periodically on Woot for low prices with the lower service cost. There actually is one there today for the XL version. However, I wouldn't recommend the XL. It costs $140 more than a regular premiere even in refurb condition. The last time the regular one came up it was $60. You can buy a 2TB disc for $100 and get twice the storage of an XL for $50 less.

Unfortunately, TIVO is about the only OTA solution that provides a nice guide and name based recording. There is the discontinued DISH DTV PAL which was a DVR combined with an OTA tuner. This box is now sold by Channelmaster and available through Amazon: Amazon.com: Channel Master CM-7000PAL Digital Video Recorder, Black: Electronics

No monthly fee, but the recording goes back to the old VCR time based model where you select a channel and time to record.

No, TIVO will not record off the Apple or Roku box, but the latest models have a lot of the connectivity built in as well, like Netflix, Amazon, etc.

The other possibility is to use the ChannelMaster for OTA recording, and get a DVD recorder or Media PC for recording other material.

 

[CowboyDren]

That's the best solution I've found, actually, TiVo+Roku+Atv2. The Roku doesn't really do much that the TiVo doesn't, unless you count the ability to play h.264 encoded MKV files, so my collection of DVD rips will actually work. Personally, I'm just going to do the $0-down, $20/mo lease option; that way I'll get the best TiVo experience available. TiVo doesn't do hardware refreshes often, but when they do, the features are worth the price, so buying a $300 box just to buy another $300 box three years later doesn't make sense to me. Yes, there is residual value in a TiVo box, but not enough for me to want to mess with.

I currently have a TiVo HD, and adding events/timers from the web site is quite easy enough. I can even add video podcast channels from the web site, so I'm not sure what more value can be brought to the table. Using TiVo desktop software on my Windows computer is also handy for archiving OTA content that I want to keep for reference, and it's free.

 

[mike123abc]

There are lots of ways to record OTA programming (pc card, DTV pal, etc) but I vote TiVo as the best way since it has season passes, remote internet programming, ability to download recorded programs to your PC, etc. I bought one of my TiVos on Ebay for quite a discount. One I got from an online merchant via ebay store. The third one was from TiVo when they had a big sale on premiere for existing customers.

Lifetime is 399 the first box 299 the second, but they do specials like they have on premiere where if you have a TiVo account lifetime is 199. I view it as a 4 year device. If it lasts longer than 4 years you are just saving money. There are tools at the TiVo community to backup your TiVo drive, that is the most likely part to fail. On 2 of my 3 TiVos I have replaced the standard drive with a larger one. Yes I know 3 TiVos sounds like a lot, but I have 2 residences. I use one for OTA (with Dish) and 2 for cable (with cablecard). I was not planning on the third TiVo but they had a big sale...

 

[mjmsr53]

Sounds like TIVO is the way to go; at least for now. I will check out ebay....if ya'll here of a deal, send me a message please.

Thanks for the advice,
Mike

 

[Jim5506]

I despise the TiVo Company, but they do make the best OTA DVR.

I picked up an HD TiVo off Ebay and was able to purchase lifetime service for it for $299, making my investment about $400, which is about $60 mor than the CM7000/DTVPAL but again the TiVo runs rings around the DTVPAL and its clones.

Also the HD TiVo can record 2 OTA HD signals at the same time, plus you can transfer recorded HD programming to your PC to do various recording type things with.

 

[mjmsr53]

Just an update, I decided to get the Tivo Premier last week and actually love it. It works great with my OTA set up and appears to work well with my computer set up.

It will take a while to get use to all the possibilities it has, a learning curve for me. It is a great unit - only wish I had a few extra bucks to get a lifetime subscription but with the money I am saving by cutting the cable cord, I am still ahead; way ahead.

Thanks for the opinions...you have made me a happy camper!

Is there a place to find all the Tivo tricks?

Mike

 

[CowboyDren]

TiVo Community - Just like this place, only they don't all hate TiVos.
Zatz Not Funny! - Lots of stuff, but some cool TiVo tricks here and there.