NA - TIVO or equivalent....

Skip Miller

Skip Miller

Final Approach
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Skip Miller
My office buddy is one of the few holdouts for broadcast TV. He has upgraded to digital but claims all the programs he wants are available over the air and he has no need for cable.

He is searching for a Tivo or Tivo like machine. He wants to be able to record two channels simultaneously (the need for this is his wife's addiction to the soaps! :vomit: - but who am I to judge...) He could just go get a Tivo but he emphatically will not pay a monthly fee. Is there such a beast?

I'm Tivo-ignorant. Pardon if this seems like a newbie request: it is!

-Skip
 
Yeah, a $249 TiVo HD + $3nn for lifetime service. No monthly fees.
 
mikea said:
Yeah, a $249 TiVo HD + $3nn for lifetime service. No monthly fees.
Click to expand...

BTW. lest you think laying out $550 is out of line, a TiVo HD XL is an amazing $589 at Costco with the $40 Wifi adapter but with only 3 months service. The XL has you paying $300 for a $107 1TB hard drive and if you added your own, you'd still have the original 250GB drive.
 
Is it possible to buy the unit with no service at all?

He wants to use it like a VCR. He knows what he needs to copy and when.

-Skip
 
There are a ton of projects that let him record over the air (OTA) content with free/inexpensive software and not pay montly fees, but he'll likely have to build a HTPC (home theater PC) to do it. I built my own from scratch using free software and have used it happily for years. I'm a different breed (a geek by trade) so the "work" of setting it up and maintaining it is fun for me. I wouldn't suggest my solution for everybody, but there are packages that would work well for this.

I've previously written of my setup here. Since then I've added a bunch of HD tuners (using HD Homerun tuners). You could easily use these for OTA HD.

Read this thread for more...

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10023#post122515
 
FlyNE said:
There are a ton of projects that let him record over the air (OTA) content with free/inexpensive software and not pay montly fees, but he'll likely have to build a HTPC (home theater PC) to do it. I built my own from scratch using free software and have used it happily for years. I'm a different breed (a geek by trade) so the "work" of setting it up and maintaining it is fun for me. I wouldn't suggest my solution for everybody, but there are packages that would work well for this.

I've previously written of my setup here. Since then I've added a bunch of HD tuners (using HD Homerun tuners). You could easily use these for OTA HD.

Read this thread for more...

http://www.pilotsofamerica.com/forum/showthread.php?t=10023#post122515
Click to expand...

You're looking at spending a lot more money for the hardware alone. An HTPC platform is easily near $1000 and then you still won't be able to get premium content from cable.

I'd be tempted myself but only 'cause like Jason I'd get some entertainment out of tinkering with it. I'd be concerned with having so many PCs running 7x24 sucking power but I guess that's not as big a bill as it looks.

A TIVo is designed for the purpose to do the job with customer chips like the MPEG encoders so it runs on a measly 65 watt power supply. With PC it's a general purpose machine where usually you need the CPU to do the work and it takes a fairly fast CPU to work in real time.
 
mikea said:
You're looking at spending a lot more money for the hardware alone. An HTPC platform is easily near $1000 and then you still won't be able to get premium content from cable.

I'd be tempted myself but only 'cause like Jason I'd get some entertainment out of tinkering with it. I'd be concerned with having so many PCs running 7x24 sucking power but I guess that's not as big a bill as it looks.

A TIVo is designed for the purpose to do the job with customer chips like the MPEG encoders so it runs on a measly 65 watt power supply. With PC it's a general purpose machine where usually you need the CPU to do the work and it takes a fairly fast CPU to work in real time.
Click to expand...

You can do it for less. I didn't. But for the money I have no montly fees. Plus I have 8 tuners (4 SD and 4 HD) and 1000 times the flexibility. You can't compare the two, really.
 
when I got Tivo, they had an offer of a FREE tivo machine(a rebuilt one) just the monthly. I love it. Your non-cable freind is missing a lot. 'Wings over Canada ' s is one example, an aviation show about flying a cessna float plane.DaveR
 
I have an old TiVo, with no service....and a tiny hard drive (its a Series 1).

Are there any decent guides for converting it to a HTPC of some sort? It has a built in tuner, and its a normal IDE hard drive, which I have about 30 lying around. lol. It does not have the network card, but it has a slot, which means I have to buy the special proprietary card for it (the pins are backward compared to a normal PCI card).

Skip - you can use a TiVo as a fancy VCR without service, but it really lacks much power that way, and its probably better to just buy a generic DVR in that case, since most of the price of TiVo comes from the features in the service (which seems silly to have to pay for twice).
 
SkyHog said:
Skip - you can use a TiVo as a fancy VCR without service, but it really lacks much power that way, and its probably better to just buy a generic DVR in that case, since most of the price of TiVo comes from the features in the service (which seems silly to have to pay for twice).
Click to expand...
This is probably the winning comment. Thanks, Nick!

-Skip
 
SkyHog said:
I have an old TiVo, with no service....and a tiny hard drive (its a Series 1).

Are there any decent guides for converting it to a HTPC of some sort? It has a built in tuner, and its a normal IDE hard drive, which I have about 30 lying around. lol. It does not have the network card, but it has a slot, which means I have to buy the special proprietary card for it (the pins are backward compared to a normal PCI card).

Skip - you can use a TiVo as a fancy VCR without service, but it really lacks much power that way, and its probably better to just buy a generic DVR in that case, since most of the price of TiVo comes from the features in the service (which seems silly to have to pay for twice).
Click to expand...

I just verified with one of the new-to-me Series 2 TiVos that it works for manual recordings if the last user happened to have it set up in a way where the inputs are usable. In other words you can't run guided setup where it has to call home lest you get the "Account Closed" status, although you might get a 30(?) day trial period with 'New" status while it nags you to call TiVo. Not to say it won't refuse to record anything after some other period of time.

I'm using the S2 TiVo unsubbed while I decide what to do about subscribing.

Check your PM.
 
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