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A PVR For Two Straight Weeks Of Video
Rob G. writes: "Story from Variety on Y! News this morning about a monster PVR that can store 320 hours of tv; price is $1999. You could tape full seasons of a dozen shows and watch 'em in the summer instead of BB2." There are some other cool features promised here, including free programming service for broadband users. Watch the hard-drive wars heat up on PVRs and smile at what that means for your time-shifting habits.
Coming up with a dozen shows good enough to be worth taping a whole season's worth!
Why is it that as TV viewing technology gets better, TV seems to be getting worse?
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
Sure, you can build a device to record shows. But the great thing about these PVRs (I own 2 TiVos) is the integration they provide. It's not like having a seperate box to do these things. It fits in very nicely with an existing AV setup and soon you forget it's even there. The interface is great. It will be a while before you can build something as seamless and nice.
About a month ago, I upgraded my ReplayTV to have 100 hours of record time. (I did the fast-n-easy swap out the old drive for a 100GB drive.) It's overkill, and there are some problems.
First of all, the interface wasn't designed to cope with that much TV. To get down to the Simpsons (alphabetized by "The") I have to page through like 12 pages of other junk. Yuck.
Second, that's a hell of a lot of TV; I don't want to let the thing fill up, because when will I possibly find the 100 hours to watch everything it records?
Third, it does encourage you to watch more TV. There are shows I used to watch only when the opportunity arose, but now, since I'm recording EVERYTHING I might ever possibly watch, I end up watching all of them.
The real problem I have now is not the amount of record time, but the fact that it only has one tuner.
P.S. Do you know how long it takes to low-level format a 5400 rpm 100GB drive? About 15 hours!
Watch the hard-drive wars heat up on PVRs and smile at what that means for your time-shifting habits.
...also watch copyright content control features go into you hard drive and feel your stomach turn as the MPAA and RIAA reach into your computer.
246 hours with 200GB on mine as of last Friday. Did it myself too - very easy given even less than a rudimentary level of Linux knowledge and the ability to read FAQs.
Given the ability to connect Tivo to ethernet (www.9thtee.com) and a bit more Linux knowledge someone could probably build a script to archive and restore shows at will, effectively making the storage infinite -