Why no Satellite TiVo?

[yourbeliefs]

And you have how many HR20s, both purchased and given to you by D*?

They must not be too awfully bad, especially the FREE ones.

As soon as I move to my new place I'm making sure they add the extra wire from the dish to provide HD-DVR capabilities.

If there's one thing that Comcast does better than D* (at least in my area), is that it just requires one line input as opposed to 2 for the dual recording DVR.

 

[Larry]

As soon as I move to my new place I'm making sure they add the extra wire from the dish to provide HD-DVR capabilities.

If there's one thing that Comcast does better than D* (at least in my area), is that it just requires one line input as opposed to 2 for the dual recording DVR.

Check out posts on "SWM" (single wire multiswitch). Availability as of now is not good, but it should be more widely available soon.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Check out posts on "SWM" (single wire multiswitch). Availability as of now is not good, but it should be more widely available soon.

Your ideas are intriguing.. something to keep in mind when the new setup comes.

 

[jmrife]

Funny---

My HR20s work just great. At least the equal of the HR10 and in some ways better. Those of you who complain about it "not being a TiVo" may not have given it a chance, I bet.

Don't know what you might be missing.

I remember the first HR10s also had their problems. I know because I had #29 with the certificate to prove it.

Ah, but I remember the good old days, when I had the real DVR made by Replay........

Nostalgia isn't what it used to me, let me tell you.

 

[bidger`]

My HR20s work just great. At least the equal of the HR10 and in some ways better.

Ditto. I don't need lauded features like TiVo Suggestions, what I need is a Free Space Indicator and the ability to access menus/Program Guides while watching recordings. The HR20 gives me that.

 

[daddywags]

For what it is worth ,the dish hd dvr is as close to tivo as you can get without stealing tivo technology. Oh yeah, tivo is suing dish for that very reason.

 

[tds4182]

Don't be so sure, I had a free HR20 and I sent mine back. It was barely passable as a receiver alone, much less a DVR. Missed recordings, incomplete guide data, slow as a brick, no switching between tuners, I knew it was not for my household when my WIFE said it had to go, and she doesn't know jack about electronics.

All that being said, I don't really care if it says TIVO on the front panel, I want it to work. We TIVO lovers get accused of being TIVO lovers exclusively, when, in my experience, if we had a DVR that WORKED as good as a TIVO did for us we'd be happy. The HR20 is NOT that solution. The HR20 is what D* chose to use, and if you have to have D*, the HR20/HR21 is what you will get, so you might as well like it, because you have no other choice. That's my problem. No choice. Given a choice between a MPEG4 TIVO and a HR20 the HR20 would be left in the dust in short order, IMO. . . l


I've had both, an HR10-250 (one of the first adopters) and now an HR20-700.

Both were good units, but I'd give the edge on performance to the HR20-700 in terms of no crashes, tuners firing on time, reboots, etc, etc..

Others may disagree (that's your right) but that's my experience over several years with both units.

 

[cebbigh]

If I'm reading this correctly the TIVO software should be compatible with any DVR.

We're All Getting a TiVo!

 

[smoking_rubber]

I pray daily for the tivo / Dir* relationship to get worked out. Some people may not miss the extra features . . . but I certainly do! The Directv box falls WAY short IMHO. This is not a thread debating the merits of tivo vs the other guys, but tivo is better and I hope they get it worked out soon. When the HR20 allows you to pause one tuner and switch to the other tuner at will, I'll be glad to give up on tivo. As far as facts though, I see nothing on the horizon worth holding back on the HR20 for.

 

[Matt9876]

For what it is worth ,the dish hd dvr is as close to tivo as you can get without stealing tivo technology. Oh yeah, tivo is suing dish for that very reason.

TiVo might be suing DirecTv right now if it were not for the business agreement they have with them, it has been used to keep them at bay instead of providing us with the next gen mpeg4 TiVo units.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Tivo should pull a Sega and quit selling hardware and market their software, thats all anyone seems to care about.

Im glad Dish and D* are doing there own thing, Ive been pretty happy so far. Tivo is behind the curve and over priced.

 

[charper1]

Thats exactly what ReplayTV has done and your points are dead on.

 

[yourbeliefs]

Tivo should pull a Sega and quit selling hardware and market their software, thats all anyone seems to care about.

Im glad Dish and D* are doing there own thing, Ive been pretty happy so far. Tivo is behind the curve and over priced.

Well... I'm someone who's big on customizations. Seems to me that overall, you can do alot more with a TiVo than you can a Cable/Sat issued DVR. Last I checked (and I may be wrong.. if so please correct me) you can "hack" TiVos to be more versatile, install bigger HDs, media sharing, its own onDemand service with that Amazon OneBox or whatever its called, all media to be on your laptop from your TiVo (course you could argue that Slingbox now does that same thing.) That's all I can think of so far. My point is that I prefer TiVo's approach to let you play around with their stuff and also have more things than JUST a DVR. Course I'm going by perception mostly here. I have never owned a TiVo. My experience is with the DirecTV Plus DVR (not HD) and the Comcast Motorola HD DVRs. THey seem to JUST Record and nothing else. No Customizing, no upgrading, no hardware mods, etc.
If there's something I'm missing here, please let me know, or am I just suffering from the long standing hype of TiVo here?

 

[harshness]

Is there anything resembling a logical reason as to why TiVo doesn't work for D* and Dish?

SD Tivos work as well as can be expected with DIRECTV and DISH Network.

What happened to cause us Satellite customers to lose access to this?

The satellite companies came out with their own DVRs that were:

1. Cheaper
2. Less trouble to set up
3. Substantially lower monthly fees

Is it just a matter of time before us customers can get a new TiVo or should we not even bother holding our breath?

It isn't going to happen.

 

[Happy Camper]

I am one of those few left here firmly in the TiVo software camp. While our HR-20s work o.k., I really prefer our last HR10-250 with its dual buffer and TiVo interface. I do not now, nor have I ever, liked D*'s proprietary software. I have given up trying to get the wife to use it or learn it.

I think one of the problems TiVo would also have in trying to market a stand alone box, is acquiring and downloading all the programming info-I'd think that without D*'s cooperation, that would be hard to do, even if people were willing to buy one.

 

[gadgtfreek]

Well... I'm someone who's big on customizations. Seems to me that overall, you can do alot more with a TiVo than you can a Cable/Sat issued DVR. Last I checked (and I may be wrong.. if so please correct me) you can "hack" TiVos to be more versatile, install bigger HDs, media sharing, its own onDemand service with that Amazon OneBox or whatever its called, all media to be on your laptop from your TiVo (course you could argue that Slingbox now does that same thing.) That's all I can think of so far. My point is that I prefer TiVo's approach to let you play around with their stuff and also have more things than JUST a DVR. Course I'm going by perception mostly here. I have never owned a TiVo. My experience is with the DirecTV Plus DVR (not HD) and the Comcast Motorola HD DVRs. THey seem to JUST Record and nothing else. No Customizing, no upgrading, no hardware mods, etc.
If there's something I'm missing here, please let me know, or am I just suffering from the long standing hype of TiVo here?

I understand the hackable point, BUT the HR20 allows large external storage that works very well and it allows media sharing.

 

[charper1]

I am one of those few left here firmly in the TiVo software camp. While our HR-20s work o.k., I really prefer our last HR10-250 with its dual buffer and TiVo interface. I do not now, nor have I ever, liked D*'s proprietary software. I have given up trying to get the wife to use it or learn it.

I think one of the problems TiVo would also have in trying to market a stand alone box, is acquiring and downloading all the programming info-I'd think that without D*'s cooperation, that would be hard to do, even if people were willing to buy one.

DirecTV also receives the guide info from another party; Tribune.

 

[yourbeliefs]

I understand the hackable point, BUT the HR20 allows large external storage that works very well and it allows media sharing.

You mean like it would require a USB hard drive or something? Do you need a special type to hook up to it? Also, would it be portable? Could I remove it with all my recorded stuff and hook it up to another persons' HR20 to watch there? Or does it have a quasi-DRM thing where it'll only work on its original box?

 

[agregjones]

I understand the hackable point, BUT the HR20 allows large external storage that works very well and it allows media sharing.

I'm a huge HR20 fan, but I have to disagree with this. If it worked very well, it would add to the internal storage instead of replace it.

It is unreasonable to expect someone to expand their storage by losing all of their recorded shows. The point of extra storage is to not have to get rid of shows, after all.

 

[agregjones]

Though I will get flamed for it, the problem is simple. There wasn't a critical mass of customers that created a demand for a TiVo-specific interface.

If DirecTV truly felt that they could not put out an HD DVR without TiVo software, we would have MPEG4 DirecTV TiVos today. TiVo software is great. I miss it occasionally. But I would not justify the additional expense of that software over the current solution. The market has agreed, leading TiVo to struggle recently.

I know they are struggling because of the volume of promotional material I receive from TiVo. They are marketing to survive and have been for some time. Without wide integration in some market, they are going to have a hard time staying afloat.