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Which DVR - Tivo or ReplayTV?
lkd7 asks: "I have recently decided to buy a DVR, but I'm not sure whether to go with Tivo or ReplayTV. I know that it is a shaky market right now, but my VCR is just not cutting it anymore. I have tested out both Tivo and ReplayTV, and would be happy with either one (I do not have satellite service and so UltimateTV is not an option for me). The Tivo stocks and SonicBlue/ReplayTV stocks are not the most reassuring. I know that going with either one is taking a risk, but I would like to go with the less risky bet. I'd rather not invest in a $300 paperweight. Does anyone have a recommendation?"
I bought a Tivo almost a year ago now. Never regretted it. I can't speak highly enough about my Tivo.
I reccommend you check out the AVS forums at http://www.tivocommunity.com/
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You're question is vague in a sense that when you say ReplayTV, are you talking about the old generation, or the new generation that is coming up?
You're probably not going to find many people on Slashdot who will be able to intelligently compare the risks to both companies. I guestimate the chances are roughly equal for both. But keep in mind that the TiVo is much more 'hackable' than ReplayTV.
Yes, they've found ways to load television guide data into the box. If the company goes titsup.com, and the product is completely abandoned, you'll still be able to use it and still be funny functional, just self-serve. But you'd probably have to invest in a network card to do well.
Also keep in mind that you're probably going to be paying less than $300, certainly for the TiVo models. It is too bad that you aren't on DirecTV. Circuit City is selling a Philips DSR-6000 for only $99. And that includes the dual-feed antenna for only $0.01. But if you are very careful in your looking around, you could get a 20 hour TiVo as low as $150 or so. Retail stores are clearing them out.
My bottom-line opinion is to take risk out of the equasion, and choose the one that will give you the best price and features for your money.
Several co-workers who purchased them almost a year ago love them.
I've had the priviledge to do some development work "under the hood" and can attest to some of the finest engineering and craftsmanship I've ever seen in a consumer device.
A very sharp, reputable outfit, IMO.
The lesson here is this: You get the smallest TiVo you can find (14 hour, 20 hour - Walmart supposedly had the 14 hours on sale for $109 or something), and then read this.
I had a 20 hour TiVo, and after a trip to pricewatch to grab a 5400rpm drive, and 9thtee.com to get the mounting bracket for the new drive, my cheapy TiVo unit now holds 130 hours.
I have the direcTivo model, and I cannot deal to watch normal cable or satellite TV without it. It is another of those tools that you dont appreciate until you have it, or have to go without. Just think of your TV without the remote, and how much of a pain that was (if you are old enough, or your TV was).
I cant say enough good things about TiVo.. they must have some kind of subliminal ads/messages in their menus- but that is ok with me as long as I am still happy with it. Dual tuner is pretty sweet as well.. watch one thing while recording the other... I think they are making cable dual tuner boxes now.
im rambling, have a good one.
You can archive mpeg files from a ReplayTV unit. The only problem is that you have to pull out the drive.
If you get a pair of 100GB drives, you could swap them every time one gets about full (probably once a month) and archive the shows you want to save.
Or just get one 100GB drive, and put the original back in for while you're archiving--less convenient, but cheaper.
Here are a bunch of resources for ReplayTV:
The AVS discussion forum. This is the leading site for discussion of ReplayTV. They also have a TiVo forum.
The ReplayTV Hacking Project at SourceForge.
A site for hacking the ReplayTV Remote Control
extract_rtv, a tool for extracting the MPEG files from the ReplayTV
I have a ReplayTV 2020 (which I intend to soon upgrade with a larger hard drive). When I bought it, I didn't realize how much it would change my TV viewing experience. I've programmed it to record all the shows I'm interested in watching, so when I feel like watching TV, instead of channel surfing, I watch something off the disk. And I never watch commercials.
I think ReplayTV has several advantages to consider carefully:
* There is no monthly fee. I've heard of people buying units for as little as $199 (with a $100 rebate!) on closeout, so you don't always pay more than you would with TiVo for the base hardware.
* There is a 30-second skip button and 8-second instant replay button on the remote. This didn't seem like a big deal when I bought it, but it is incredibly useful. It is thanks to these buttons that I never watch commercials. I remember back when I used fast forward with a VCR on recorded shows, and this is just so much better.
* My.ReplayTV.com lets you access your box over the Internet. If I'm on a trip but have Internet access, I can log in and delete unwanted shows to make space, set new shows to record, and see what I have. This is especially important if you are running low on disk space.
I'm sure TiVo has its own advantages, but I'll leave them to a TiVo owner.
- PVR - record TV to hard drive, pause live TV etc.
- basic local programming guide
- advanced local programming guide (recommendations, sophisticated
search etc.)
- modular component fits well into home AV system
Anti-Features of TiVo:- monthly fee
- some tracking of user activity
A point about computers - we all have different experiences and setups - I have a Mac as my main desktop, and a low-end PC as a multimedia machine that sits next to my television. So I never have to worry about running a PVR on my desktop computer.So what I look for in a PVR is features 1 and 2. I don't care about 3 and 4 and I don't want antifeatures 1 and 2.
For PVR, basically, again to my way of thinking, you need a PC with reasonable monitor, moderate CPU and memory requirements, because the sound card and video card will do all the compute intensive stuff (e.g. MPEG-2 encode/decode) in dedicated hardware. Then just pick a suitable sized hard drive and then "all" you need is:
There are many options for PVR software on Windows. There are also lots of ongoing project related to television listings and PVR functionality, particularly of course for Linux.
On the subject of standardized TV listing formats, the one I know of is XMLTV
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/xmltv/
there are lots of TV guides to scrape information from e.g.
UK TV guide http://www.tvtv.co.uk/ German TV guide http://www.tvtv.de/
As for PVR and related projects, here is a list from my bookmarks
Mac TV Reminder http://members.home.nl/vissering/Shareware.html#T
Mac BTV http://www.btv.org.uk/
WinVCR http://www.cinax.com/Products/winvcr.html
LinuxVCR http://hyvatti.iki.fi/~jaakko/linuxvcr.html
LinuxTV http://linuxtv.org/
LinuxVDR (video disk recorder) http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/download.htm
Kvdr http://www.s.netic.de/gfiala/
Hauppage WinTV-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr_datasheet.
ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/pc/aiw_radeo
preview article about Bell Expressvu Canada's PVR service http://www.cedmagazine.com/ced/2001/0401/04e.htm
I can assemble a web page on these topics, if there is interest.
If you've been following the press, you'll see a distinct difference in attitude between TiVo and ReplayTV corporate marketing. TiVo seems to be working carefully to avoid upsetting the TV networks. When ReplayTV came out with a 30-second skip button for avoiding commercials and TV networks complained, TiVo said they would never include such a feature. Now the new generation of Replay boxes goes even further and will automatically skip commercials on playback. And taking it a step further, Replay 4000 units will even let you send shows to other boxes over the Internet (granted, they limit the number of copies you can make to keep from getting sued, and they probably also encrypt the MPEG files for the same reasons).
So while TiVo got a big boost from the open source world because they used Linux instead of a proprietary OS, I think ReplayTV is more in touch with the attitude of the community.
The only thing to be aware of with the AVS Forum is that they have some relatively strict rules on posts. Whereas with Slashdot, the worst that happens to most posts is that they get moderated down, with AVS Forums, many posts are deleted or edited. I haven't looked carefully at the rules, but my general impression is that anything related to a stock discussion or flamewar between products is squashed.
On the other hand, I agree that for discussions of features and technical aspects, AVS Forum is a great site.
It comes with an nVidia remote, which is such a cool feature. Unfortunately, according to this TV Tuner Video Card Roundup from AnandTech, the PVR software included with the ATI All In Wonder board is a lot better than nVidia's.
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What's more, the service is emminently hackable so if they really did go down it wouldn't be hard to build a listings service that kept the unit functionality going in spite of a company closure. Several people have claimed to hack this already, though code is not readily available last I checked (for obvious reasons). Either way, I've got my daily calls going over my ethernet network, so it wouldn't be hard to sniff out the necessary bits or put some work into documenting the MFS partition formats and inserting it directly from a source like XMLTV.
So, for a fun project and damn useful toy, grab yourself a 20 hour Tivo cheap (see AVS TiVo Forums for pointers to cheap deals at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), a big harddrive (most any 5400 rpm will do), and a hard drive bracket and ethernet adapter (here's a good tutorial). Then have fun with a device that's both well suited to the task (stable, nice tv based user interface, very sharp picture) and gives you a chance to sink your teeth into some fun hacks.
FWIW, I've been spending a lot of time hacking up my own media-box project of late and I really think that it isn't yet a viable option. Dual booting Debian/WinME with a AIW Radeon and SB Live Platinum 5.1 gives you the ability to do everything a TiVo can and more, but the interface, stability, and interoperability leave a lot to be desired. On the up side, its great to be able to play DivX, MP3, Emulators, etc. in the living room A/V system. Wonderful as a system oriented towards archived playback, music, and games, but don't buy one thinking its going to be nearly as useful in place of a TiVo.
... rjs
Well then, I guess someone else had better luck. It was slightly confusingly titled, as I recall.
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