Posted by
Hemos
on from the electric-bugallo-for-you dept.
Anonymouse writes "I just saw on Linux.com that NewsForge has reviewed the new Linux-based TiVo Series 2 PVR. TiVo now (unofficially) supports broadband via a USB ethernet adapter as well, so it doesn't tie up a phone line." Yes, NF and LC are both owned by OSDN, as is Slashdot.
Re:Log Out
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 4, Insightful
If Tivo isn't all about watching less (crappy) TV and getting out more, I don't know what is. With a Tivo you can watch what you want when you want and go out the rest of the time.
Re:Log Out
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
What fucked logic is this? That you need a Tivo because otherwise you might spend the entire day huddled in front of the tube, just in case something interesting comes up?
Anyway, watching a show at the same time as other people makes the show more interesting as well. It's called "performance", look it up.
Re:Log Out
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
otherwise you might spend the entire day huddled in front of the tube
No, but I've known people that have to go home early to see some show. Also, with Tivo you don't have to watch that crappy show they stick between your two favorites.
Re:Log Out
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Insightful
No, but I've known people that have to go home early to see some show. Also, with Tivo you don't have to watch that crappy show they stick between your two favorites.
Ever hear of a VCR? I know Slashbots think recording video is some amazing new technology that requires a digital computer and a subscription service but come on! I was able to record TV shows while I was not at home 20 years ago. This is nothing new. The only thing Tivo adds to the mix is to make you pay a monthly fee. What a fucking ripoff. There are 2, maybe 3 shows I would bother watching a week. If I miss them, oh well, if not then I sit and watch them if they're interesting. If I really saw a preview of something I wanted to watch I'd just set the good old VCR to tape it for me and I can *gasp* timeshift my viewing until I get home. ROFL.
Re:Log Out
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You, sir, are an ignoramous. If you are going to spout ignorant nonsense, try restricting it to the political forums like Free Republic or Democratic Underground. There's really no excuse for your ignorance here on Slashdot: mentioning a VCR just shows how clueless you are.
While Tivo does work like a VCR in that it records shows, it's quite different from a VCR because you don't tell the Tivo *when* to record, just *what* to record.
It seems the big networks just love to change their schedules every week, or do things like have a show run late, start early, etc. With a VCR, you still have to read the schedule to find out when (or even *IF*) your shows are on and program your VCR accordingly.
With Tivo, you simply tell it to record a show by its title. That's all. It then goes and finds out when that show is on, and adjusts its schedule - not you. You can even tell Tivo to only record new episodes, so you don't end up with reruns.
Does your VCR do that?
Geeze, is this really slashdot? I thought folks here *liked* gadgets...
hi
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
guys:D tivo is pretty cool. here in spain it is priecy though.
Before anyone else says it...
by
qurob
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· Score: 5, Funny
INSERT
Comment about how this could be made for $76.23 with Pricewatch parts, and it would also play MP3's, Quake III, surf the net, cook toast, and send pictures of the kids to Grandma /INSERT
What a great idea. Perhaps I will suggest my mother build her next DVD players instead of buying an all-in-one solution. A penny saved is a penny earned!
Not true. When you buy a Tivo what you get is a decent piece of special purpose hardware designed specifically for the task of recording tv. The second thing you get, and what makes Tivo far superior to everything else on the market, is an excellent UI and set of support software. Third, although not really an advertised feature, is that it is built on an open extensible platform. ie to some extent you can modify and add features that Tivo doesn't have. Fourth, and i suppose this is debatable, you get access (for a fee) to an excellent listing service.
All in all, the Tivo is worth every penny and while you could roll your own, the Tivo solution is much more polished and usable than what you will make at this point in time.
The problem with these all in one gadgets is that they have a far greater tendency to go wrong (or baffle/ confuse the user) than the more simple ones.
how am i meant to watch everything that tivo will record for me, i allready have to much that i want to watch with 4 channles, with hours of recordings backing up behind me it would be a night mare, i'll stick with my attitude of nothing on tv is worth prgramming my video for.
-- Burt
"Out of my mind back in 5 minutes"
US-Centric Device
by
forged
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· Score: 2, Informative
* What formats and standards is TiVo compatible with? o TiVo is only compatible with a Standard Definition NTSC signal.
If this is true, that is sad on the part of the developers. You almost can't buy a television encoder that doesn't handle both formats seemlessly. For 300-400 dollars, I would expect that it should be able to handle either mode, maybe with a switch on the back?
-- Do you have Linux and a DotPal? Click here now!
Yup, you're absolutely right there appears to be a PAL version on the UK market!
I didn't know this URL, and it isn't listed prominently on the main tivo.com site either, unless I missed out something obvious ?
Now what about France, Germany, Belgium etc since I don't live in the UK...
(yes I have tried www.fr.tivo.com, www.de.tivo.com, etc.:)
Re:US-Centric Device
by
dair
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· Score: 4, Informative
The TiVO that's available in the UK is a regular PAL device - there's a UK TiVO FAQ with more info. If you have a sky/cable box, you just plug it into the back of the TiVO and the TiVO into the back of your TV.
It's preconfigured to dial a UK freephone number to pick up listings, and works just like the US version. I don't know if they've launched it anywhere else in Europe, so if you're not in the UK you might have to live without the listings feature (which makes it less useful).
I've had one for about a year now (in the UK), and would never go back...
I see a marketing void!!! why don't you build a PVR for Europe!!! you will be rich. I mean, Europe is the second most importent trading block in the world for god sakes.
Just move to the UK or US then. The Tivo is that good that you wont regret it:-)
Re:US-Centric Device
by
radish
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· Score: 3, Informative
There is no version of Tivo specifically for european countries other than the UK. However the device will work anywhere in mainland europe where the applicable standards (PAL/220v/50hz) are the same. I think france is SECAM, but most other places should be OK. Of course, you won't have local listings, but if you happen to use Sky Digital for your TV (I hear that many non-UKers do so) then you can get it to work. There are several members of the UK tivo forum who are in Italy, Holland etc. Check it out here.
Good luck!
--
----
Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Tivos have been working with PAL and available in the UK for a while. I've had one for about six months. Dixons do the only model available - a Thompson box.
----
Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Ah, to be a single geek...
by
zaren
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· Score: 2, Funny
To be able to actually *use* one of these things; to have the time to sit through a 12 hour marathon of Farscape or B5 without having the kids crawling all over you... I'd really like a Tivo-type thingy, but I have no idea when I'd be able to actually use it. I barely get to use the dvd player we got for Christmas...
Re:Ah, to be a single geek...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Um hello, this is what a Tivo is for! You don't have to sit down for 12 hours straight anymore. You can watch an episode here and there and maximize your quality of TV viewing with minimal time.
Yes but this is one of the key benefits. When the kids start crawling, you use the magic Pause button on the Tivo!:)
Re:Ah, to be a single geek...
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zaren
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· Score: 1
This is true... but we're at the point where it can take three hours to watch a one hour show on tape due to frequent use of the magic pause button:) A Tivo would just be an expensive dust-catcher right now... like the dvd player.
Re:Ah, to be a single geek...
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mccalli
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· Score: 2
...to have the time to sit through a 12 hour marathon of Farscape or B5 without having the kids crawling all over you.
First off, I realise your post wasn't intended very seriously. Purely for the purpose of this reply however, I've decided to have a sense-of-humour bypass.
I'm a geek who finds, much to his surprise, that without seeming to do anything very much he's ended up with a fiancee, a baby daughter and a Tivo.
This is a good combination.
Without the Tivo, nothing would get watched in a comprehensible fashion. My daughter Sarah would see to that. As anyone who's been in my position knows, babies require an awful lot of both comfort and attention. Even when they're asleep, typically they're asleep on you, thus stranding you on the sofa in the sure and certain knowledge that if you try to move they'll wake up and start screaming at you.
So...
The Tivo is great. It allows me to watch programmes that otherwise would be interrupted, and it also builds up a store of things for me to watch during those sofa-as-desert-island moments.
Just make sure you leave the remote somewhere to hand...
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Ah, to be a single geek...
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Not true. It would not gather dust; once you have a TiVo, the VCR, DVD player, and other gadgets gather dust, because you do all your TV watching through the TiVo. You actually have things available that you want to watch, when you want to watch them.
Re:Ah, to be a single geek...
by
Kintanon
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· Score: 2
Aaahhh... Things like this remind me why I had a vasectomy at 21.
I love my series one TiVo, I really do. But now it's keeping me from buying an HDTV. Honestly, I go to the local big-chain electronics store and drool over the big widescreen HDTV's like everyone else, but then I think back to the days before TiVo. I would actually have to keep track of when TV shows are on TV again. Forget it.
And I know I could still use the TiVo with the High Def set, but really, why? The only reason then for high def then is DVDs, and that's maybe 10% of my viewing.
So while this new model has some great features, I'm waiting for the High Def model. This will be the killer app.
Just my $.02
Re:HDTV Tivo
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 3, Insightful
To keep this on-topic, check out the interview with TiVolutionary that is done at the end of the review that was posted. Very interesting. He talks about the new capabilities of their Series|2 platform, and that they've demo'd an HDTiVo, and a partner could easily make one with the Series|2 platform.
I bought an HDTV after my TiVo, and it was a no-brainer.
Once you get used to the quality of the regular analog (and TiVo) programs on the big TV, it's great. (The neat stretching my Toshiba 50H80 does to fill 16:9 with 4:3 is PERFECT!)
I find that most of the HD content I watch is stuff that I would not put on TiVo, for the most part. Sporting events in HD (I usually like watching sports live for some reason). Content on HBO like their HD movies or HD TV shows (Sopranos). There are no commercials on HBO, so TiVo'ing it is not as crucial. The PBS channel has a lot of HD content, and very few commercials.
There are only a couple regular shows that I normally record in TiVo that have HD available (such as CSI).
By the time most shows I watch are really done in HD, I'm sure there is going to be an affordable HD TiVo available, so I don't sweat it.
And then there is DVD, which is fucking awesome on HDTV's.
Ditto. With the amount of programming available now in HD, its more important than ever to be able to timeshift HD content. I WANT HD, but can't imagine having to be there at 8 when the movie starts.
I know, hipix for ota, but no direct hd tivo, yet. Lets but make an HD tivo and add a hipix card and voila, a direct tivo that can grab ota broadcasts as well. Where do I send my money?
Doesn't everyone remember that the MPAA et all are activly lobying congress to make sure that even if there is a HDTivo that it will be worthless because they are adding a "no record" bit to the HDTV spec so that personal timeshifting will be impossible for anything of value. Yeah you can have a HDTivo but the only programming it can legally record is infomercials =(
-- There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
but you wont get it until there is a lot of HD programming... and the channels have to actually start transmitting HD, oh and wait another 5 years for Cable TV to even carry HD. Then you will see a HD Tivo.... if it is legal to own one, the Tivo might be branded as a contraband device only useful for violating the rights of the poor Motion picture studios and Tv stations... and therefore punishable by death.
It sounds far-fetched... but it will happen.
-- Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Re:HDTV Tivo
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
and the channels have to actually start transmitting HD, oh and wait another 5 years for Cable TV to even carry HD.
Done and done in Orlando, FL with TimeWarner Digital cable.
The neat stretching my Toshiba 50H80 does to fill 16:9 with 4:3 is PERFECT!
Doesn't it bother you that everything is too wide? I hate when the aspect ratio is incorrect. I'd rather there were horizontal black bars down the sides of the screen...
A TiVo-like device for HDTV is years off, if ever. First, there's a distinct lack of interface standardization between set-top box makers. Sure, there's been standards agreed to, even for the cable industry. They've been summarily ignored, and the FCC is too balless to actually step in and impose a standard that they've been asking for since 1998.
On top of that, Hollywood stepped in a few years ago and started the standard whining on how evil it is for peons, er, I mean, consumers to be able to record shows and then do something as absurd as watch them when they want instead of when the broadcast studio wants. Ridiculous concept. So part of the agreement includes requirements so that shows can be flagged for record, record-once (e.g. - no copies), or no-record. This has been agreed to by everyone involved - the studios, the broadcasters, and the equipment manufacturers.
Think we're done yet? Nope. Because while Hollywood whined until they got the above, they then decided about a year later that this was utterly insufficient. Why? Because they still didn't have the control they wanted. No, they set about to make a standard that not only allowed them to control what you recorded, but also how long you recorded it for and how many times you could watch it! That's right, they wanted equipment manufacturers to build into their systems the ability for an outside source to delete recordings after an arbitrary amount of time, or make it so you could only watch something once (gee, hope everyone in the household was around to watch it).
Both the cable industry and the studios were all for this. The equipment manufacturers collectively told them to stick it up their ass.
But, all told, the hope for a digital VCR or PVR that will do direct digital recording is slim right now. There's no way to stop someone from building a TiVo-like device that re-encodes the stream, but you have the inherent problems of quality degradation and increased silicon requirements.
IIRC, the Toshiba stretches the edges of the picture but leaves the center (which is normally the focus of the frame) in the correct aspect ratio. I've yet to see this done in person, but the couple of people I know that use the capability say that it works great with almost no noticeable difference in picture quality.
All allow hard disk recording, however I have no idea how well any of them work. Looking around the various hometheater groups the HiPix seems to be the most popular. These only work for OTA HD, so you won't be able to record DirecTV/Dish HD stuff.
Do you know how it is in Europe?
Is it in USA only or in others countrys also?
I will want to buy the TIVO but if that
will be like this you say it will sucks.:-(
-- - Vlad.
Re:HDTV Tivo
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
fucking retard moderator, rather than rating me down as a troll on a 100% true post that is on topic why don't you mod someone up that deserves it, hope someone gets you in meta-mod.
HDTV Over your cable? or are you just buying their hype about "digital" cable?
digital cable has the same resolution as a SVCD which is slightly greater than that of a VHS recording. True HDTV would require a real digital video output from your DCT and none of the motorola units have that support yet. (The DCT5000 just now introduces Svideo and Digital Audio.. nither of which are Digital Video or HDTV) let alone the problem that Marantz,Sharp and Phillips HDTV's all have different Digital Video Protocols (Why doesn't anyone use a standard 4:2:2 digital video stream??) to further screw the public.
what is the DCT's make and model? it must be a special pilot test program with beta hardware.
A HDTV-TiVo may be a ways off, but there is a HDTV-resolution VCR available now- Mitsubishi makes it, the HS-HD2000U(I saw it and got a demo when I was poking around my local Tweeter). It's godawful expensive ($600+) and has to use digital tape (which is also likely not cheap), but it is probably the only non-computer way you're going to be able to record HD signals at the moment, and it looked pretty damn good.
Yeah, but realize that when the 5C stuff gets added to the stream (presuming it goes over broadcast as well), then all of the devices will immediately be in violation of the DMCA... fun fun fun.
And yes, the HiPix is the most popular. WinTV-D is so crippled as to be nearly useless. I'm not very familiar with the AccessDTV card yet.
Orlando does have HDTV over the cable system, since most of the local channels have started HDTV (or at least OTA digital) broadcasts. Not that I personally use it, since I purchased a HDTV DirecTV receiver (HDNet rocks!) and it picks up the OTA broadcasts with a simple set of rabbit ears. I end up getting the neat HDTV satellite channels and HDTV locals.
That all being said, I still watch my Tivo 99.9% of the time, because there is so little HD content. The local stations are usually upconverting the standard definition broadcast sent by the network. My HTPC with Dscaler makes a nicer looking picture with standard definition content coming off the Tivo than the local stations with their upconverts can provide.
Don't let the lack of an HDTV Tivo keep you from buying the HDTV set. There's not enough HD content to matter yet. Plus, DVDs and standard content processed by DScaler looks incredible!
Re:HDTV Tivo
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
1998?
Try 1988.
Re:HDTV Tivo
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Yeah, but realize that when the 5C stuff gets added to the stream (presuming it goes over broadcast as well), then all of the devices will immediately be in violation of the DMCA...
It won't go over broadcast. The whole point of broadcast is that anyone is free to receive it.
Hollywood stepped in a few years ago and started the standard whining on how evil it is for peons, er, I mean, consumers to be able to record shows and then do something as absurd as watch them when they want instead of when the broadcast studio wants.
That's the basic problem, broadcasters want to tightly control when people can watch, both by time and geography. Viewers want to be able to watch to suit their timetable.
No. 1998. The inception of the HDTV quest has nothing to do with this. Once the Grand Alliance had finally set the standard someone over at the FCC realized that there was absolutely no buy-in from the cable companies, which is how 60% of the US receives TV now.
So in 1998, after a couple years of the cable companies doing jack about HD, the FCC finally threatened to impose a standard if the cable companies didn't choose a standardized HD interface. The cable companies swore that they'd get right to it.
Four years later, we have an alleged standard, but nobody's decided on licensing royalties yet. That usually takes another 2-5 years to figure out. Until then, nobody can realistically use it because they'll get gouged by one or more of the patent holders.
You can head over to AVSForum and get all the information you could want about HDTV cards in PC (especially the HiPix, for which software/driver development is being done by some of the members of the forum) in their "Home Theater Computers (HTPC)" area. Very worthwhile for learning about what components work best in a truly multimedia PC.
-Aaron
Is Linux relevant here?
by
FurryFeet
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· Score: 1, Insightful
Not flaming/trolling. That out of the way, I can see why this review for a very cool toy/gadget is here. But it kinda bugs me that the description includes "Linux-based". Now, I know Slashdot is Linuxcentric (no, really?), but still I think that was kinda irrelevant to the review. Does it make the device cheaper or more stable? Then say it is cheaper or more stable. It's like that story about Best Buy having a customer arrested, where in the first paragraph it was mentioned that he was an American Indian. Some people took exception to that, and I see the point. Now, I can just see the moderation: -1, Antilinux. Oh, well, it's just Karma:S
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Yes, in this case it's relevant that the device is linux-based as an explaination of why Linux.com linked to a review. Otherwise, no it wouldn't be.
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 5, Insightful
Regardless of if/. is Linux-Centric - I think this review is here because there is really a lot of exciting work being done on the "Hacking TiVo" front. There are a lot of really *really* nifty (and promising) projects that're being actively worked on: tivo-web (tcl), ExtractStream, etc...
Beyond the exciting projects, the hacking of the TiVo itself is really a great experience. The folks at TiVo have been really positive (relatively speaking) in response to the hacking efforts. There is a rule that the hacking community has agreed to follow: don't fsck with the service code. There are no projects trying to steal service. Because of that, the TiVo folks have been really forthcoming with leaked information regarding system upgrades of the software (hints as to what devices will be supported and what-not) as well as some tools for manipulating the TiVo once it's r00t3|).
And from a purely hacking standpoint - the DTiVo was the most illuminating hack I've done. They really have some security built into that thing to prevent the casual passer by from hooking up the disk to a PC and typing "mount". Hats off to all the TiVo Community for all the tremendous efforts they've put into hacking that box...
-- Do it for da shorties
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
Erasmus+Darwin
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· Score: 5, Insightful
"But it kinda bugs me that the description includes
"Linux-based". Now, I know Slashdot is Linuxcentric (no, really?), but
still I think that was kinda irrelevant to the review."
It's relevant in a couple ways: The review is intended for an audience
that's interested in the commercial viability of Linux. The
Linux-based nature of Tivos has helped people who have hacked their
machines (in a good way). Also, there's an entire interview in the
article which has a substational discussion of Tivo's involvement with
Linux.
"It's like that story about Best Buy having a customer arrested,
where in the first paragraph it was mentioned that he was an American
Indian."
Actually, he was an Indian American (implying someone whose ancestors
were originally from the country of India), not an American Indian
(implying someone whose ancestors lived in North America before the
arrival of the Mayflower). And it was relevant in that there were
allegations further on in the article that the incident may have been
racially motivated.
"Now, I can just see the moderation: -1, Antilinux."
How about "(-1, Fails to read entire article)" and "(-1, Shamelessly
tries to be a moderation martyr)"?
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
rrs
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· Score: 2, Informative
>Does it make the device cheaper or more stable?
Possibly. It definately makes it more hackable. Using a linux-based bootable CD tool I was able to add a 120G second hard drive to my AT&T branded series 2 TiVo.
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
ch-chuck
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· Score: 1
Does it make the device cheaper or more stable?
Yes. Also runs more effeciently on less hardware. We're technocrats and want to know these thinkgs, just like gearheads want to know all about the engine in their automobile - a lot of folks couldn't care less whether you have 1.6 or 2.4 liters, but some do.
Re:Is Linux relevant here?
by
Gautama
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· Score: 1
We're technocrats and want to know these thinkgs
This'll probably get mod'ed down as OT, but I think the word you're looking for is technophiles.
Your use of technocrats implies that we actually control something other than our own limited sphere of influence. And while I don't deny there's a certain ammount of techno-muscle flexing going on, let's be honest: it's reach is rather limited in scope. The real power lies with those that have the real money.
Because it's based on Linux, the Tivo is eminently hackable. Following some pretty straightforward directions, I was able to add a second hard-drive to my Tivo, turning my 30 hour Tivo into a 180 hour Tivo. Cost of upgrade: ~$200. Try finding a 180 hour Tivo at the store:-)
Adding that much capacity really changes how you use Tivo. I can go weeks without watching TV without worrying about shows being deleted before I get a chance to watch them. With the 30 hour version, you have to manage your capacity a bit. With 180 hours, you can really just forget about it for weeks at a time.
Granted, the article here doesn't go into that aspect, but the fact that the Tivo is based on Linux is definitely relevant to this audience.
-- ** The opinions expressed here are my own, and do not reflect those of my employers - past, present, or future**
All the more reason...
by
crow
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· Score: 3, Insightful
That's all the more reason for getting a PVR. You can save 25% of the time by skipping commercials. With my ReplayTV, I just use the 30-second skip button and I'm past the commercials almost instantly (I use the 8-second instant replay button if I go too far).
And that doesn't begin to touch how nice it is not having to manage your life around being there to watch your favorite show. Or how you always have something interesting to watch instead of channel surfing. Or how skipping the commercials avoids breaking the tension in a show like 24. Or how watching several episodes of a continuing story back to back can make a TV show feel like a movie. Or how totally pissed off you get when someone spoils the X-Files for you when you're three weeks behind.
Re:All the more reason...
by
burts_here
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· Score: 1
I just don't worry about it, thier is nothing on tv that makes me stay in, or drop what i'm doing to watch, I'm just not as dependant as i used to be.
Oh and save 25% in commericall times, i live in the uk and only have terrestrial TV, so we only have adds on 2 of the channels and they are only once every 15mins.
-- Burt
"Out of my mind back in 5 minutes"
Re:All the more reason...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
"And that doesn't begin to touch how nice it is not having to manage your life around being there to watch your favorite show. "
Ok, so I shouldn't be surprised to read this on here (as I have many friends that say similar things) but do most people really live their lives this way? I love my Tivo too. It has allowed me to watch shows that I didn't have time to watch before. Before Tivo, though, I did not let television rule my life. If I miss a show, oh well. How many times do they rerun shows?
Not trying to flame anybody here, just want to know if people really do live their lives this way.
Tie up Phone Line
by
billnapier
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· Score: 5, Informative
The new Tivo's also support getting channel information in-band from the Television Signal (played on the Discovery Channel late night) so you can keep your phone line open for important things, like ordering pizzas.
For those of you techincally minded folks, they have encrypted and encoded the guide data into the video stream, which you Tivo will record and decode. It will then call up (still need the phone line, just not as long) and (After confirming your account status) download the encryption key.
Re:Tie up Phone Line
by
joldc
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· Score: 2, Informative
As will Series 1 Tivo's once they are upgraded to v3.0, slowly rolling out now. And it still needs the phone (or a net connection) to download local-specific channel information.
This reminds me of the way that old fashioned VCR's read the time and date code embedded into the video signal of (most) public broadcasting systems.
--
CoyboyNeal is God
DirecTiVo vs Standalone TiVo
by
SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 1
I own two DTiVo's and 1 standalone TiVo. Both r00t3|) with ethernet. Hacking the DTiVo is a couple of order of magnitudes more difficult than hacking the standalone...
-- Do it for da shorties
Re:DirecTiVo vs Standalone TiVo
by
pknoll
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· Score: 1
How about using a firewall? If I hung my TiVo right on the 'net I'd expect it to be rooted, too.
Re:DirecTiVo vs Standalone TiVo
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SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 1
ya course not... you definitely should hang it behind a firewall and portforward only from privileged hosts (ie: my work PC)
-- Do it for da shorties
When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
falser
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· Score: 2, Interesting
One of the main obstacles that is preventing me from getting a TiVo thus far is the inability to save shows externally through a network. With a VCR I can record a show, movie, concert etc. for an unlimited amount of time - why can't TiVo do this? With the much more expensive ReplayTV you can download shows off the machine through a network connection. I find this feature extremely valuable as it would essentially extend the storage capacity to an unlimited amount.
Sure you could buy two 120GB drives for a TiVo, but then a growing amount of that space will be filled with shows stored for the long term. So unfortunately until I can download shows off a TiVo I'm gonna be sitting on the sidelines, or I'll eventually break down and go for the ReplayTV regardless if it's inferior to TiVo in other ways.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 1
You can do this... Search on www.dealdatabase.com for ExtractStream. Definitely possible, although very difficult under the DTiVo's
-- Do it for da shorties
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
NoahsMyBro
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· Score: 1, Informative
I'm mildly interested in Replay or TiVO, but have held off because I don't want to risk investing in the product as long as good use of it depends on an external company that may or may not be around long-term. It's the same reason I never got a network/internet digital picture frame.
So, being ignorant of any Tivo details, I've assumed you can always run the output of the Tivo into a standard VCR and archive any recorded shows that way. Is that an incorrect assumption?
I realize you lose picture quality that way, but it's still possible, right?
And, why is Replay any different in this regard?
Steve
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
jeff4747
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· Score: 1
Couldn't you insert a VCR between TiVo and the TV? Set up something like: Wallplate->TiVo->VCR->TV
Tune the VCR to the channel the TiVo is playing on and hit "Record".
Don't have a TiVo myself so I don't know if there's something in the TiVo to stop this from working, but it should.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
Yes. Tivo even has a feature under each recoreded program called "Save to VCR" where you can move the program to VCR.
What it really needs is a "Batch Save to VCR" so I can select all the shows and just fill an 8-hour tape with them. Oh well..
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
Keith+Mickunas
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· Score: 2
Yes, you can archive shows to VCR without any trouble. It even has a little timer and instructions to make it easier.
As for people wanting a way to network and send shows, anybody who does this is asking for a smacking from the DMCA. I think ReplayTV is gutsy for doing this, but I think they stand a good chance of losing. Either way its going to cost them lots of money, and small companies like Tivo shouldn't be wasting their money on lawsuits until they're better established. It maybe a noble cause, but frankly I want my Tivo to continue to work for years to come, and not become obselete because Tivo went bankrupt attempting to fight the TV studios.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
tmhsiao
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· Score: 1
And, why is Replay any different in this regard?
The newest Replay units have a sort of peer-to-peer filesharing system built in to their software.
And while that sounds well and good, I think it's a marketing gimmick, especially since not everyone who owns a Replay unit has a T3 going into their home to share shows.
Not to mention that someone with a peering Replay would have recorded the show they want in the first place...
-- "My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
mac123
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· Score: 1
Its actually a lot easier than that.
My Tivo has a "Save to VCR" feature which will
Turn on my (Sony only) VCR Record the show in question Shut off my (Sony only) VCR
No muss, no fuss.
Did I mention it only works with Sony VCR's?
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
save to VCR !? The option may as well be save to stone tablet. Why aren't they burning onto CD's or DVD's. If Tivo included a burner/player built in it would be a complete replacement for a number of components, not just another accessory.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
falser
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· Score: 1
I don't believe the TV Studio's had a problem specifically with the ability to download recorded shows off the box. Rather they were irked by the built-in functionality of sharing those shows with other ReplayTV users. Saving the shows for your own purposes shouldn't be illegal because we have all had this ability with VCR's since they were introduced. You can stick in a tape, record a show, remove the tape and store it away. If this was illegal then no VCR's sold would have the ability to record anything. And if VCR's are allowed do it, so should DVR's.
I bet the only reason TiVo hasn't gone with full network interface is due to the legal problems ReplayTV is in. But I think if TiVo left out the auto-sharing features they would be in the clear.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
Bryan+Ischo
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· Score: 2
Adding a DVD burner would add hundreds of dollars to the cost of the box for a feature that not that many people really want.
CDs don't have enough capacity to be seriously considered for archiving/storing shows.
That's why.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
True about DVD, but not so for CD's. Using an MPEG4 codex most shows could fit on a disk or so if you take the quality down to that of the VCR tape.
Re:When will TiVo get ReplayTV network features?
by
xercist
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· Score: 2
I'm sure if they tried to let you do this, someone with a lot of extra money and lawyers would complain and quickly put that to a stop.
So is anyone aware of a way to hack a tivo/directivo to get the video stream?
--
--
grep "xercist"/dev/random...you'll find me in there someday
I just bought one of these last week.
by
jht
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· Score: 5, Interesting
And it rocks. I got it figuring my wife could get good use out of it (we have a child coming in a couple of months, and she'll be staying home with him), and so far it's been well worth it. It's already making TV easier for both of us, and grabbing all her favorites. I'll switch it over to use Ethernet as soon as I get 3.0 updated (from what I'm reading, it should update itself within a month or so), and I may add a second hard drive as well so we can do more long-term archiving.
Do I have a few quibbles with it so far? Yes. But not too many. Dual tuners would be ideal, so we could avoid recording conflicts (She wants Friends, I want Smackdown - she wins!), and S-Video out would be cool, too. It's too bad only DirecTiVo offers dual tuners. It's also prone to artifacting in any mode lower-quality than Best, and even then sometimes it'll do it. I also wish I could set Season Pass Manager to automatically grab the episode that's rebroadcast at the odd hour - Food TV shows (like Iron Chef) are the best example of this. When there's an episode being shown at 10 PM and then being rebroadcast at 2 AM, I wish it'd default to grabbing the 2AM show. Things like that would minimize conflicts.
The only other thing that I dislike about it is that I had to give money to Best Buy to get it - between their copy-protection support and the way they've mishandled the GeForce 4 pricing issue I really hate them.
But the ultimate purpose in buying this was to make my wife's life a little easier when she's home with the baby, and it's definitely going to do that. This way, she can watch all the things she wants to, and do it when the baby gives her some free time.
--
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
RinkRat
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· Score: 2, Funny
Dude, I was in just your situation a few months ago and that (@*#@(%* thing worked so well that I finally had to get rid of it.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
Ereth
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· Score: 2
Use your Season Pass Manager to lower the priority of that Food Show. TiVo will pick up the other show at 10 PM and automagically get the Food Show at 2 AM.
If you got a Series 2, they came with the 2.0 software which didn't do a lot of the neat stuff in this area we've taken for granted since 2.5. When you get 3.0 you'll be very pleased with the control (in fact, I did exactly what you described for Witchblade last year with 2.5. It conflicted during it's 8 PM run so I got the 2 am repeat. Worked great).
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
sysadmn
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· Score: 1
But the ultimate purpose in buying this was to make my wife's life a little easier when she's home with the baby, and it's definitely going to do that. This way, she can watch all the things she wants to, and do it when the baby gives her some free time.
First child, right? Babies are seriously incompatible with free time. Several orders of magnitude worse than spouses. Sorry to break the bad news, dude.
-- Envy my 5 digit Slashdot User ID!
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
tmhsiao
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· Score: 1
The Series2 doesn't have S-Video out?? According to tivo.com it should...
With regard to the Season Passes, make sure to go into the manager and lower the priority on the FoodTV shows (Tivo button then 1 will get you there quickly)--highlight the show, go right with the directional pad, then move the show up and down to set the priority.
All of my FoodTV and MTV shows are way down on my season pass manager, because they tend to replay these shows incessantly throughout the week...
-- "My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
Dual Tuners on a standalone unit is just too hard to for normal people to hook up. Think about it. In the simples case (where the Tivo uses its own tuner/s to pick the channels), its pretty easy. Run the cable into the back, and inside the signal is split. What about if you have a cable box? Now you need a connection from the cable box, where's your other tuner going to get its input? Another cable box? Internal tuner? It gets pretty complicated pretty quickly. Not to mention the fact that they would then have to put another MPEG encoder chip in there and tuner hardware to raise your price.
Really, what they need to do is the same kind of deal as with the DirecTivo boxes. Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo. Then you could have easy hook up (only one cable in) and still get the increased quality and dual tuners pretty easily!
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
Series 2 Tivo's don't have SVIDEO out? My old HRD112 has S-VIDEO out. Of course, it didn't have a S-VIDEO connection from the digital cable box to it, so it didn't really matter (Why have a high quality output if you can't have the high quality input?).
Frankly, I sucked it up and switch to DirecTv with a DirecTivo. Dual Tuners, High quality. Everything about it rocks.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
tmhsiao
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· Score: 1
One of the things I first did when I got the Tivo was to turn off the suggestions. I knew that any additional shows I got addicted to would tax my schedule tremendously.
It didn't really help...
I even made t-shirts that describe how I feel about the infernal machine...
-- "My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
Zathrus
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· Score: 2
Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo
I would love this. Unfortunately the cable industry is convinced that any form of standardization is inherently evil, so TiVo would have to negotiate with each fiefdom separately.
Of course, the cable companies aren't entirely stupid. They're looking at this as well. Of course, they are sufficiently stupid that instead of talking to TiVo, SonicBlue, or even MS, they're working on it on their own. Each of them (c.f. standardization above).
Our cable provider moved to digital cable awhile back. And I can't get sattelite because of some 60' trees blocking my SW view (no, they're not on my property, so cutting them down isn't an option). So I have the wonderful IR blasters controlling my cable box. And they occasionally don't change the channel, which leads to odd things getting recorded. Yeah, it sucks. Big time.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
mccalli
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· Score: 1
Congratulations on the forthcoming baby. You might want to have a look at my earlier comment about the whole Tivo/new baby thing. I now have a three-month old daughter, and both my partner and I find the Tivo invaluable.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
derek_i
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· Score: 1
Beware. I bought one of the first TiVo's with the (what I thought was) lifetime service subscription. I just called TiVo and was told the subscription was tied to the recorder and can not be transferred to a new one, only repair models allow transfer. To upgrade, I would need to purchase a new subscription. If I have to purchase a "lifetime" subscription every couple years, then TiVo is going to lose some customers.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
The whole purpose of this is when you move to a different cable provider, you can use the same box and just get a different POD to decode the signal
According to the FCC, the Cable Industry had to have a working example by 2001, and they did (well, close enough to count). Hopefully we'll start seeing this make it to the consumer before the mandated 2005 date...
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
Zathrus
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· Score: 2
Heh.
Go read my other post on this... Open Cable Labs is the same "company" that has made the HDTV cable box standard. And yes, there is a standard agreed upon. There's no licensing rules yet though, so until that occurs forget any cable company using it.
Much the same is true with the standard cable box. The cable companies are inntentionally dragging their feet here. It's really not in their best interest to have standards, because it opens them up to competition and piracy. They know this.
Plus, if you look at the recent FCC mandates, decisions, and so forth you'll see that the FCC cares very little for the public (who it is supposed to represent) and has been siding more and more with big business (particularly the distribution side such as studios). Which is why long standing rules regarding station ownership have been ignored or changed (Rupert Murdoch owning 2 stations in NYC, ClearChannel owning 49% of god-knows-how-many stations nationwide, etc.). Also why the FCC decided "must carry" doesn't apply to HDTV. And why they've failed to impose any reasonable standards on the industry, instead letting the various manufacturers, broadcasters, etc. fight it out for a decade or so.
That said, it may actually happen. Eventually. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
Oztun
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· Score: 2
Well since the subscription is for the lifetime of the box can it be transferred if you sell it? It seems your ver 1 box would get you more money with the subscription. Otherwise if you buy a new one your old one still has the subscription. I think your old one will continue working so you don't "have to" buy a new one.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
derek_i
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· Score: 1
That is a good point. I guess I could sell my current one with subscription and the TiVo service doesn't need to know. Only problem is that I installed tivonet so it needs to be reconfigured everytime there is a software update. It seems too bad that it is a hassle to upgrade, especially from a company that has been very cool to its users.
It is a matter of perspective. When I purchased the lifetime subscription, I believed I was buying it for me, not my TiVo. I was wrong. Very similar to buying an operating system from a certain vendor (MS), you are not buying it for you, but for your computer. Unfortunately, I don't believe in that. Maybe when my computer buys me something, I'll rethink.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
elfkicker
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· Score: 1
It has S-video out, just not in. I personally think it matters little since I record on basic quality and everything gets mpeged to hell, but I guess it might do something for the quality at highest level.
Then again, the docs for my Series 2 recommend NOT using coax input due to some static problems. I just use the RCA in and it works just fine.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The proper solution is to have a formal method for networking these things. You then park one box at each TV that already has a cable connection, and link them all over your network. If you need "dual tuner" effects, you just have ANOTHER box do the recording for you.
I've been using a standalone unit since late 1999, and I've been waiting for something like that for awhile.
Just imagine the possibilities if everyone in a dorm collaborated - everything that's aired recently would be available from someone, somewhere.
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
abischof
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· Score: 2
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
gleffler
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· Score: 1
It's called a "Product Lifetime" subscription for a reason. You get service for the lifetime of the recorder - not the lifetime of you. You can sell the recorder, and the service goes with it. You can add hard drives, and the service stays with your unit. You can basically do anything to the unit, and the service stays with the unit. If you really did buy one of the very first TiVos (before 1/1/2000), you can transfer the lifetime service once because they weren't so crystal clear that it's a product lifetime. Since 1/1/2000, TiVo has been very forthright about the fact that you are purchasing a product lifetime service, not a customer lifetime service. /gleffler
Re:I just bought one of these last week.
by
GregGardner
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· Score: 1
Really, what they need to do is the same kind of deal as with the DirecTivo boxes. Combine the Digital Cable set-top-box with the Tivo.
They have this. The AT&Tivo. Of couse it only works with AT&T Broadband.
Out of curiosity, why does anyone care that the site that did a TiVo Series 2 review is owned by the same company that owns Slashdot? Are the/. guys feeling guilty about posting this story? If so, why? It's no more or less relevant than most of the other stories posted here.
I love my Tivo, and the review was very good, but I'm having a problem with one feature that the reviewer really liked. I find that when I'm fast forwarding over commercials and then stop I end up seeing most of the commercial before the show returns. I've been using my Tivo for a couple of years, so I may have just gotten too fast. I wish they would add the slider that Richard referred to in the interview. Then I could tune it to my speed.
Re:Fast forward correction
by
tmhsiao
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· Score: 1
Single fast forward (3x, I think it is) has no jumpback correction. I think there's a way to change the jumpback level, but you'll want to check it at tivocommunity.com
-- "My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Re:OSDN? Who cares?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
It's simply to notify people that the parties involved have entanglement and/or financial interest in the story.
All this is great but....
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
until they put a cd burner in the thing it's just not worth it. I want a DVR that can also play DVD's and burn and play what I record maybe in VCD or MPEG4 or something.
electric bugallo dept.?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You mean "Electric Boogaloo?"
Please don't discrace the cinematic masterpiece that is Breakin' 2 by mispelling its name.
I recommend sending a fromal apology to the producer.
Re:electric bugallo dept.?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Why, the producer never apolgized to anyone for making it.
Re:OSDN? Who cares?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
They call it "full disclosure". This way they get people to attack them for artificially boosting hits on the OSDN network, instead of making the more poignant observation that OSDN sites now feel the need to recycle eachothers news -- just one more indication of the open source economy's failure to grow itself (up).
More than likely they're just trying to avoid the "Awww, sure they're gonna say it rocks, that site is owned by/." or "it must be nice to generate ad traffic for your bosses at OSDN by/.'ing your own site" comments. Reptitive commentary and inside jokes are making this site a shadow of it's former self.
But could you imagine how sweet a Beowulf cluster of these would be!?!?!
-- There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
TiVO 3.0 is really cool
by
ElCagado
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· Score: 0, Redundant
TiVo is currently beginning the process of rolling out TiVo's 3.0 software to customers. My TiVo has 3.0, and I have to say TiVo kept its word -- the purpose of this release was mainly to synchronize the versions of the various stand-alone TiVos. Some features that were changed from the Series|2's original 2.0.3 version are improved wish list functionality, better TiVo suggestions, and other small features here and there, as well as the unsupported broadband feature and broadcast data download. Get 3.0!
Re:TiVO 3.0 is really cool
by
SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 1
Can you be more specific as to what features are new in 3.0? I'm anxiously (and nervously) awaiting my upgrade. I'm afraid it'll wipe out my TurboNet installs and the IP info in my boxen...
-- Do it for da shorties
Re:TiVO 3.0 is really cool
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
Here's a USENET Thread discussing the new features. There are also a few threads in TheTivo Community Forums discussing the same things.
Re:Why does Slashdot support Tivo?
by
SurfTheWorld
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· Score: 1
To me it's one of those things where TiVo just "sucks less" than any alternative (having my TV on my desk near my PC; using a VCR)...
Sure stuff'll get better in the future. But for now - TiVo takes the cake imo.
-- Do it for da shorties
when will RCA release a TIVO/ DVD combo?
by
the_2nd_coming
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· Score: 2
I mean we need a VCR replacement some time. I think a TIVO/DVD combo would be the ideal television accessory.
--
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Re:when will RCA release a TIVO/ DVD combo?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
RCA? I dunno. Pioneer, well, maybe by Christmas. (Word froma a TiVo employee.)
explaining TiVo...
by
klund
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Many people, when trying to explain TiVo, end up calling it a "digital VCR" or a "VCR on steroids." After using TiVo for a month, it is clear that these methods of explaining TiVo's function are unfair...
TiVo's biggest problem is that there is no good way to explain it... Have you ever tried explaining it to your friends, geek or non-geek? All you get is blank stares. But if you *show* it to them, they seem to understand. And if they acutally get one, they quickly become converts.
When people ask me if I like it, I tell them that I would rather give up color than TiVo. I would rather watch TiVo on a B&W set than to have the nicest color HDTV set available.
And the funny thing is, people think I'm kidding...
--
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
I have to fully aggree. I got my TiVo back in August of 01. Recently (2-3 weeks ago ish) it developed a problem with its modem. (Couldnt attach to the line enough to send/get sounds, but could tell if the line was in use by its voltage) and i suspect it had to do with a storm hitting the line itself.
So had to send it back in to tivo for replacement.
In the past two weeks, ive had the TV on twice, maybe for 30 minutes each.
I simply can not watch TV without TiVo anymore. Nothing is on when i can watch tv, and everything i want to see is on when im not home.
Im the type that gets maybe 3-4 hrs once a week to devote to TV, and sometimes on the weekends depending. I like having the weeks worth of shows sitting there for when i have time to watch.
Without tivo i simply cant stand 'channel flipping' and settling on something simply because its the best on at the moment.
The plus side is i am a tad more constructive with those few free hours a week now i suppose:}
I got my replacement tivo however it had a dead HD on arrival.. so now have to send it back and wait even longer *groan*
Best part was while on the phone about the 2nd tivo, they not only appologized up and down (and i wasnt even mad or upset or anything, let alone sounded that way.. Its not like they have control over how UPS kicks packages around, and i dont fault them for it) they also offered a free month of service for the problems, without me even asking. Now thats customer support!
What is TiVo? TiVo is a lifestyle, almost. It completely changes the way you watch TV. I watch what I want, when I want. To me, this _IS_ video-on-demand.
I keep trying to buy my parents one, but they keep saying no.. Everyone that's said, "Naah, I don't need one" to me, I make them use mine for a few hours, and they completely change their mind. Unfortunately this trick won't work on people that live 1000+ miles away.:)
At this point, I almost want to be buried with my TiVo when I die (Well, not really, but you get my point)
TiVo is great for the non-technical end user. TiVo is even better for geeks who want to hack it.
What I think an ad campaign that would be persuasive would be a series of commercials where people talk about what they do with their TiVos that other people might connect with. Examples from things I've heard my friends say:
My ad would be: I like going out on Thursdays but I also like Survivor. I used to record it on my VCR but I hated that if I got home at 8:20, I'd have to wait until it finished at 9 to watch it. Now, I can start watching it from the beginning whenever I get home AND I don't have to worry about accidentally seeing who got voted off while rewinding.
Joe's: I love watching Julia Roberts when she's on Letterman. I set up my TiVo to record any time Julia's on a talk show so that I'll never miss it.
Mark's: I'm a big movie fan. I set my TiVo up to record any movie that won an Oscar for Best Picture.
And, of course, someone watching a basketball game who pauses the TV before the "big point" so he can pay the pizza guy.
These are all things that I think the average TV viewer could relate to and I think all of them are things that wouldn't anger the TV networks. (Like "I fast-forward through commercials" would.)
-- When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
Re:explaining TiVo...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Jesus... it's Fucking TV! GIVE IT A REST! There are better things to spend your damn money on, spend your time with, and entertain yourself with! While I applaud the ability to take out commercials, I would never pay for cable (paying for commercials) Satellite, (unsightly tacky device on side of house,) and especially silly devices that timeshift!
Stop praising it like it's a good thing. TV DAMAGES SOCIETY LONG TERM!
Re:explaining TiVo...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Beware - I bought one for my inlaws and my mother-in-law still hasn't forgiven me. She's pissed that I messed with her very simple sit down and press channel up/channel down viewing system. I bought my father one - he's an addict.
I basically bought them so when we go to visit with the kids for a week or a weekend I can actually bear to still watch TV. I just have to grind my teeth silently while my mother-in-law watches 'Who Wants To Be a Millionaire' LIVE, because it is 'better that way.' She obviously doesn't realize that if you have to watch that show you can do it eleven minutes with Tivo. She even gets angry and confused if I show her how she can pause a show when the phone rings.
Tivo rules beyond belief - I've had one since the first month they brought it out. Unfortunately it has shaken (destroyed?) my belief in the power of the 'build a better mousetrap' business model. I mean - there is no better solution for watching TV today and after 4 years and hundreds of millions in advertising they still can't get this wunder-box to catch on? What is up with THAT?! Disheartening....
Re:explaining TiVo...
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 0
There definately is an issue with trying to explain TiVo to a non-geek. I tried explaining it to my mom in comparison to VCR time-shifting. She is even familar with VCR+ but still finding a comparison was difficult that could be comprehensive. She did not see a need for yet another gadget around the house. But after I got her one anyway, she will kill anyone who might try to take it away.
Re:explaining TiVo...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
TiVo's biggest problem is...
...that it costs $500+ for the hardware and service. Hmm, TiVo or a DVD rental a week for three years? I think I'll take the DVDs.
Standard journalistic practice. The Economist for example, always mentions if it's reviewing (say) a book written by a former employee, or published by it's parent company, or somesuch.
How many people think the TiVo to be a useless device for themselves? I mean I miss my Fresh Gear and other favourite TV shows.. but there are other forms of entertainment that are just as good. Is it really worth paying for the device and service? I say read a book, but hey, that's just me.
For people who exceedingly enjoy television, the TiVo is invaluable. For people who enjoy television, but can get by missing an episode of Law and Order, the TiVo is still a great product. For people who couldn't care less about television, don't spend the money...
-- "My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
Re:I'm curious...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Do you own a TV at all? You paid for that didn't you? Do you have cable? If you answered no to all these questions, good for you. If you answered yes, you're ALREADY paying for that form of entertainment and your argument is not valid.
Re:I'm curious...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
How many people think the TiVo to be a useless device for themselves? I mean I miss my Fresh Gear and other favourite TV shows.. but there are other forms of entertainment that are just as good. Is it really worth paying for the device and service? I say read a book, but hey, that's just me.
How would you like it if, whenever you wanted to read a particular book, you had to wait for a certain time of day to read it, otherwise you were forced to read only a certain number of books that we "available" at that time, as determined by some corporate network or other?
You'd be amazed what good things there are on TV, but which you did not know existed or could not watch because of the time and day it is broadcasted on.
If you bought a TV, pay for TV service (either broadcast, satellite, or cable) or buy products whose price is increased due to TV advertising, you are already paying. TiVo just makes sure you actually get something good to watch, rather than the same old crap.
We used to have horses and carriages -- now we have cars and airplanes and moon rockets.
We used to have VCRs -- now we have TiVo.
Well, at least *y'all* have TiVo. I can't afford it. But maybe they'll send me one for plugging it. God, I wish it was 1999 again and/or I was Harry Knowles...
Full Disclosure
by
FooBarney
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· Score: 3, Informative
It's called full disclosure, and it's a bedrock principle of responsible journalism. A reporter or news outlet is responsible to acknowledge any financial interest in the subjects on which they report.
Read a few issues of any AOL Time/Warner magazine (Time, Entertainment Weekly) and you'll find one. They have their fingers in EVERYTHING.:)
But wouldn't "full disclosure" only matter if any of the parties involved (Newsforge, Linux.com, OSDN, or Slashdot) be involved with TiVo? Just because Slashdot has a sister news site doesn't mean to me that they should feel obligated to mention that that news site posted a news story and they linked to it.
What I'd consider good examples of "full disclosure" would be:
a) A 3rd party reviewed Newsforge and talked about how cool they were. Then, when Slashdot linked to that story, I'd hope they'd say, "Oh yeah, we're a sister of Newsforge, take this post to mean whatever you want."
b) Newsforge or Linux.com had a financial stake in TiVo. Then, yeah, if either of them link to a story extolling the coolness of TiVo, a mention of "BTW, we own part of this company, take the review to mean what you will," would be nice.
Just linking to a news story at another site doesn't seem like it matters much. It's not like the Newsforge people make x amount of money per hit, and they're conspiring with Slashdot to scam OSDN or something.
I guess I understand the idea of "full disclosure," but don't really see its relevance in this particular situation.
By linking to its review, the editors of Slashdot are implicitly endorsing NewsForge as a source of valuable information, quality reviews, etc., etc., etc. They might not get paid "per click", but OSDN certainly does have a stake in driving up NewsForge's traffic (that is, after all, the business they're in).
Is this a big deal? Of course not. There's no conspiracy afoot here, but keeping the business side of things separate from the editorial side is a cardinal rule of journalism. As a rule, you disclose ANY possible conflict of interests, no matter how small. It keeps editors from having to make tough (and sometimes dangerous) decisions.
As long as we're on the issue, I'm curious about how Slashdot's readers and editors would respond to a few questions:
This review started with a third party (Anonymouse). What if Slashdot's editors themselves had started the story? What if Slashdot had posted a link to a third-party review of NewsForge itself? What if Slashdot's editors wrote and posted a review of NewsForge? Would a disclosure statement be enough in that case?
I understand what you're saying, and I guess I agree with it. I just don't understand why Slashdot chose something as insignificant as this to decide to start adhering to these "cardinal rules of journalism." There are plenty of other places where these guys have dropped the ball when it comes to responsible journalism. I'm not criticizing them, just saying that I think either do it across the board or don't, but every once in a while, especially when it doesn't matter, seems cheap and fake.
And yeah, I guess we did get off topic, didn't we.:)
Yes, NF and LC are both owned by OSDN, as is Slashdot Are we forgetting that CowboyNeal and JonKatz are also owned by OSDN, two 'assets' that should be liquidated as soon as possible!?!
Re:Why does Slashdot support Tivo?
by
larryj
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Because it's a great product. Also, I'm just not that paranoid. TiVo collects data at the zip code level. TiVo knows that at least one person in my zip code likes 'Greg the Bunny'? Works for me. Keep the shows I like coming.
-- What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Re:Why does Slashdot support Tivo?
by
billnapier
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· Score: 1
Troll, Troll, Troll, Troll...
#include
Anyone know if TiVo works in Canada w Starchoice?
by
Mantrid
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· Score: 1
I've been wanting TIVO or some such for quite awhile, but I haven't been able to determine if it works with Starchoice satellite dishes or whether its available in Canada.
I'm talking full functionability here- like being able to schedule, pause TV, etc. from the TIVO unit without a whole lot of manual programming to get the Starchoice channels.
Id the CDBTPA passes, service to TiVo will stop.. ESPECIALLY because of it's USB hookup.
(And, really, you can't say you've defeated it when it hasn't come to a vote... You may be surprised.)
Linux is relevant here
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
One good reason for this story is to illustrate
the versatility of Linux.
Whether it's on an IBM
mainframe, a wristwatch, a PDA, or powering NASA
experiments, Linux is there. Your ISP uses Linux.
So does your university. The US Air Force absolutely loves Linux and plans on investing
heavily in Linux technology in the coming year.
Linux is once again the darling of Wall Street,
as more and more investment firms convert their
computer infrastructure to Linux. Oh, and that great new movie with the awesome special effects--yup--you guessed it, Linux doing it job again.
There's no getting around it: We are living in the Linux millennium.
Why get this when...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
All i have to do is go to an irc chan on dal.net and download any tv episode i want. All for the cost of broadband. And the great thing with irc is that i dont have to wait for The Cartoon Network to show all the episodes of ExoSquad. I just download em and whatch em'. And for those of you who dont like to watch on a computer screen: Use something like HomeDVR anyway thats just my two cents.
I have a DirecTiVo unit. I record shows on it, and save them until I delete. At night, I offload the shows that I want to keep onto my DV camera via the TiVo's analog RCA outs. Then I dump the DV onto my G4 and burn a DVD. Like I said, it's not an ideal solution (i.e., analog, too many steps, real time recording, etc.), but it works really well. Since DirecTV does most of the compression, the signal looks plenty good. Do you really need digital quality for backing up World Rally Championship broadcasts?
Um. Its trivial to make it work with PAL...
by
tgd
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· Score: 4, Informative
A ten second Google search would have told you that.
Its one of the first hacks that were available for the Tivo. In fact, an awful lot of the Tivo hacking is done by folks in Australia (including the guy who wrote Samba), and they all run them PAL.
Tip: try searching "tivo PAL hack" on Google.
Re:Um. Its trivial to make it work with PAL...
by
costas
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· Score: 2
I was worried about the same thing and found the hack you refer to. However, what I didn't find, and it's a show-stopper for me, it's a way to pipe your own schedules into TiVo. I would be glad to pay TiVo money for the service, but I want to use it in a country they don't cover, so I'd have to hack my own. Is it doable? I am guessing so, from your Australia comment, but how?
Re:Why does Slashdot support Tivo?
by
tube013
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· Score: 1
Tivo Is also a very open company, they are up front about their data collection, and everyone has the choicd of opting out.
That being said, I think its a great product.
Because Tivo is made up of people that "get it".
by
Otto
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Slashdot readers, overall smart people who respect the freedom for the individual but also never lose sight of the importance of community efforts (e.g. open source, space exploration), should reject technology that phones home to report on your viewing behavior and just maks it easier for people to grow dumb scumsucking the televion spoonfeed.
It's not like that, or at least it only looks like that from a superficial point of view.
a) Tivo groks privacy. They have a truly comprehensive privacy policy (unlike anything I've ever seen by a company) that details exactly what the unit does/doesn't do. And they really do stick to it (as Tivo hackers like myself have actually discovered by reading the source). So it records my preferences anonymously, only by zip code. That's okay with me. If it wasn't, then they offer an opt-out that really does work (they set a variable on your box so the data doesn't get sent at all). Cool.
b) PVR tech. actually doesn't make you watch more TV, but more in less time. It frees you from the scheduling of TV. I don't have to watch network drivel at night, instead I can enjoy stuff that it recorded during the day that I'd normally miss (okay, mostly anime type cheesy stuff, but that's just me). And since I *know* that my box will grab my shows, I can turn the tube off and read a book without worrying about missing anything I want to see. I no longer am glued to the tube, instead I go out and do other things, and still watch my shows (in half the time too, since I skip the fluff and the ads).
-- - Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
I archive shows (legally) with my TiVo.
by
SlashChick
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· Score: 4, Informative
First of all:
"With a VCR I can record a show, movie, concert etc. for an unlimited amount of time - why can't TiVo do this?"
I'm not sure what you mean. I have a Sony DirecTiVo. A few months ago, a friend archived a 6-hour concert onto the TiVo just by hitting "Record" while it was on. It records until your available space is used up, just like a VCR.
I've also set up my TiVo to (legally) archive shows to my computer. How? I have an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 with video capture tools. I hooked up the S-video input on my video card to the S-video out on my TiVo, and I use ATI's TV software to archive shows. I've archived to DivX, VCD, and WMV with varying results. Sure, it's not as cool as "extracting" all of the shows off the TiVo would be, but it's incredibly easy and there is no question of the legality (as long as you're not distributing the movies, it's the same thing as backing up to a VCR would be.)
By the time this season of Six Feet Under is over, I will have every episode safely archived on my computer. The best part is that I can then take any of this with me on a plane with my laptop without the hassle of carrying around a DVD player.
Before I bought the AIW Radeon, I wasn't sure if archiving to the computer would work, but I can assure you it does. The results (a nice movie/TV episode library) are well worth it, too.
So, if this is the reason you're not buying a TiVo, go to tivo.com and buy one! I love it. I even set up a TiVo for my computer-illiterate parents. The interface is so simple that they picked it up in a couple of days and now they can't live without it. It will change the way you look at TV.
Re:I archive shows (legally) with my TiVo.
by
damiangerous
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· Score: 2
A few months ago, a friend archived a 6-hour concert onto the TiVo just by hitting "Record" while it was on. It records until your available space is used up, just like a VCR.
No, it does not. It records the program that's on in the block you hit "record." You recorded all of a 6 hour concert because it was scheduled to be on for 6 hours, not because TiVo kept going. TiVo will stop recording at the time the program is scheduled to end. If you want to, say, record a news channel all day long until you run out of space, you can't do it. TiVo records programs, not time periods, with the exception of an explicitly set up manual recording.
Cool... I'l just run out
by
Vinson+Massif
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· Score: 1
and buy one.
Just as soon as TiVO decides to offer them in CANADA!!
grumble
-- "Remember, any tool can be the right tool." -- Red Green
Re:Cool... I'l just run out
by
damiangerous
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· Score: 2
Just as soon as TiVO decides to offer them in CANADA!!
I'm sure you'll see that just as soon as Canada dumps its inane language laws and TiVo can offer their existing product. It's apparently not worth it to them to undertake the necessary work required to sell there for what they'd make off it right now.
In the meantime, buy a DirecTiVo, buy a lifetime TiVo sub and hack it to get the DirecTV programming. It's perfectly legal there (as long as you pay for the TiVo part).
Seriosuly: it's about improving the quality of your TV viewing/consumption. This is the first geek product I've ever seen or used that is truly practical.
Last weekend I installed a DirecTV dish on the roof of my building, and a Philips DirecTiVo receiver to my ancient RCA TV.. four days later, I can't live without it. Greg The Bunny? Didn't miss it! Enterprise? Didn't miss it! Simpsons? Got, like 18 episodes saved already.. and all of them, I can skip commercials.
This thing is smart enough that when you are fast-forwarding at 2x or 3x, then press Play again, it actually backtracks (can't say rewind anymore) to compensate for your reaction time, and you don't have to rewind back to what you wanted to hit. That kind of attention tod etail is something that far too many other consumer electronics lack these days.
but can't justify buying one because I detest television..
FWIW, Tivo makes television less detestable. Mainly, this is due to the fact that with a Tivo, you end up watching just the shows that you like rather than whatever happens to be on at the time. The only way you can lose is if there's really nothing you want to watch.
-- As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
YOU CAN OPT OUT ON VIEWING BEHAVIOR REPORTS.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
How many monkeys does it take to turn on a Tivo. sheesus.
I find it kind of ironic that Tivo fans keep touting the Linux connection. And sad. Linux's main claim to fame is stability. Yeah, it's free, but the cost of Windows wouldn't be nearly so irritating if it bought you a little reliability.
It's ironic, because Tivo seems to be doing its very best to destroy Linux's reputation as a stable platform. More and more people are getting bit by the broken upgrade bug. This problem will continue to grow, as long as Tivo refuses to admit that bug exists and blames the problem on "hardware glitches" and "weak video signals".
Now, if you get bitten by this bug (and if Tivo remains in denial, you will get bitten eventually), you will spend a fair amount of time talking to Tivo tech support. And eventually they will say, "Look, all computers crash occasionally. Doesn't your home computer crash?" When I was fed that line, I laughed out loud. See, I work on a cross-platform Windows/Linux product, so I have two machines on my desk, one for each platform. The Linux box goes months without a crash or a problem that can only be fixed by a reboot. The Windows box has never lasted more than a couple weeks, and often needs to be rebooted several times a day, depending on what stresses I'm placing on it. I mentioned it to the call-center drone. He didn't have a response. Obviously not on the flowchart.
Right now I'm manually rebooting my Tivo at least once a day. I have "record suggestions" disabled and I record everything at basic quality. That keeps the machine working most of the time. I should probably call them again and bully them into doing a fresh install.
But even if they fix this problem, I've had it with their "our shit doesn't smell" attitude. I don't care how slick their products get. I don't care if they figure out a way to filter out the clichés from JAG, or record the lost episodes of Brimstone. I will never, ever, consider buying another Tivo product.
Re:Linux Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
You know it's funny - I got the stopples, pulled the drive out and tested it with the manufacturer's diagnostics and what do you know? It was bad!
Is it even POSSIBLE to physically damage a hard drive using software?
Have you checked the TiVo Community Forum lately for the status of these complaints? Wouldn't there be MORE of them, since the number of TiVo subscribers has increased greatly since May 2001?
I go months without having to reboot my TiVo. If you're getting stopples, do yourself a favor and take the drive out of the TiVo and run manufacturer diagnostics against it. It's probably bad, in which case you're just posting FUD.
Re:Linux Irony
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I've had my TiVo running nonstop, day and night, without interruption, for over two years now. Except for two or three power outages, it has never been turned off or rebooted.
If that isn't stable, I don't know what is. Your problem is that you have your head permanently stuffed up your @sshole.
Well, good for you. Posting a year old article on TiVos using software 2 versions old really helps prove your 'point'.
:rolleyes:: /gleffler
Hit "Play" button instead of "Pause".
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Just get used to seeing 2 seconds or so of the show returning and then hit "Play" and it'll just you right to the end of the commercial. If you hit pause, you either stop too short, or too far into the show. Use the Play button when fastforwarding.
Why in the world would you want to be Harry Knowles? Sure you'd get to have your (huge) ass pampered by movie studios so you'd continue to give flattering reviews of the most formulaic Hollywood product seen on screen.
But do you really want to pay the cost of being Harry Knowles? For starters, you've got a very short expected lifespan. You live with your dad even through your twenties, but you smell like a homeless man. You walk with a cane and can't climb stairs. After you die, you'll quickly be forgotten by the public consciousness-- you're no Gene Siskel.
You're really willing to accept this arrangement so you can get flown around to see movie premieres?
This is already a solved problem!
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The problem was solved with 2.5. Video glitches went away for nearly all consumers. If you still have the video problem, [i]you have faulty hardware[/i].
Note the date on that article: Monday 14th May 2001
It's a solved problem.
Totally disagree.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Tivo made me LIKE TV. I totally *hated* everything on TV before I owned a Tivo. Commercials that rotted my brain constantly, trying to shuffle my schedule around just so I can see some 2 hour special some night, or even sitcoms that run an entire season with continuity. I would catch the first two weeks and then give up. I would either forget to watch, or id find myself in a bar drinking and thinking "aww crap, i missed days of our lives". I just didnt watch TV. I only had basic cable I watched it so rarely. Now with Tivo I have expanded, and watch maybe 12 hrs a week of TV *when I want to*. If I want to read a book instead i'll do it, it wont interrupt my view habits! TV is GREAT now, I can skip past everything that I loathe so much, and watch all the good stuff.
How well does it integrate with Dishnetwork?
by
Matey-O
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· Score: 2
Dishnetwork is my only source for programming, raw data format storage aside, will the tivo control and get programming information for this? Or am I better off waiting for the DishPVR701?
-- "Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Re:How well does it integrate with Dishnetwork?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
TiVo works fine with Dish network.
Re:How well does it integrate with Dishnetwork?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Tivo works fine with the dish network. The Dish Network's PVR 501 has hard drive noise levels that keeps it out of a bedroom or places that one might want quiet. I've complained about the noise level to Dish and they've replaced the unit BUT the new unit has the same noise issues as the previous one! If you remove power from the unit to shut it offto have peace and quiet when you are not using it for [say a month like I've done more than once - its on our second TV] you run the risk of loosing the units authorization and end up spending hours on line working your way up to advanced tech support ! What a pain.
Tivo is much quieter and the recording options much more user friendly.
Long live TIVO !
Re:How well does it integrate with Dishnetwork?
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
The Dish PVR's are very basic hard disc recorders: they do not have most of the nice features TiVo has. However, you don't have to pay extra for them.
You can get a standalone TiVo and hook it up to your Dish connection. You will have to pay for the TiVo box and service, however.
It's all up to what you are willing to pay for. TiVo really is worth the extra money, but it's hard to convince people of this until they actually get a chance to use TiVo for a few weeks.
Re:How well does it integrate with Dishnetwork?
by
Stealth+Dave
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· Score: 2
One of the more brilliant features of Tivo is the ability to nearly seamlessly use any (or almost any) cable box or satelite receiver almost as if it was an internal tuner. It does this by transmitting ir remote control to the cable box you are using through a small IR LED attached to the cable box and connected to the back of the Tivo. I have used my Tivo both with a Motorola cable box and my Dish Network system. As for the programming information, the nightly schedule downloads are just as complete for Dish as they are for local cable.
The upside of a DishPVR is the cost (DishPVR is significantly cheaper than Tivo), and that you're recording the digital video stream directly as opposed to recording the analog signal, but I've found that the Tivo's suggestion and other features far outweigh the minute quality difference you get from a direct stream (Tivo comes with very high quality A/V cables). I have several friends who went with DishPVR who now say that they would rather have a Tivo.
Just the opinion of a satisfied customer.
- Stealth Dave
-- Evil is as eval("does");
Tivo will make you LIKE Television again.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Informative
Honestly, you can start to watch the shows you like WHEN you want to. Everything you detest about TV you can skip past.. Literally. I used to never watch TV till I bought my Tivo because it was just commercialized crud. Ads being stuffed down my throats for stuff id never buy. Now I watch everything that *I* want to see, and skip everything else I dont. It's really a life altering device in the sense that you have control over the companies you hate so much. Not only that, but if you let them send in your viewing habits you're telling the companies directly their commercials SUCK because you fast forwarded through them. Maybe they'll make them better!
When hell freezes over
by
Cid+Highwind
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· Score: 2, Insightful
What will RCA tell consumers when they ask why they can't record DVD to the hard drive even though they're in the same box?
What will they tell the DVD cartel when some Norwegian hacker enables DVD->TiVo copying and posts the code online?
Anyone who tried to market such a device would get screwed over by both consumers and the MPAA.
-- 0 1 - just my two bits
Re:When hell freezes over
by
the_2nd_coming
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· Score: 2
well then don't allow communication between the 2 devices. simple as that.
take a TIVO, throw a DVD-ROM with on board IO chip in there and run it to an IO replicating board on the back.
you can do it, it is not that hard.
--
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Is it smart enough to know about schedule changes?
by
weave
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· Score: 2
If I want it to record the show "60 Minutes" and a football game goes into overtime, will it record it when 60 minutes starts, or at the scheduled 19:00 time?
If I want it to record Jeremiah on Showtime and they are two minutes behind (it happens), will it cut off the last two minutes of the show on the far end?
Re:Anyone know if TiVo works in Canada w Starchoic
by
falser
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· Score: 1
Nope, it's not even available for regular cable TV in Canada.
early tivo adopters not adopting HDTV early
by
raygundan
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I hadn't really thought about it that way, but lack of easy recordability is my biggest reason for not getting digital cable or an HDTV. My series 1 tivo is fantastic. I watch more shows I like but spend less total time doing it (TV is around 1/3 commercials, and I no longer watch "filler" shows between shows I like).
Without a Tivo-like device, I won't move to HDTV.
Since the early-adopter market is the same type folks who have Tivos, I wonder how this is hurting HDTV adoption? I suspect more than a few early tivo purchasers who would otherwise have gone on to become early HDTV purchasers are now too happy with their tivos to give up their power just yet.
Re:early tivo adopters not adopting HDTV early
by
dachshund
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· Score: 1
I hadn't really thought about it that way, but lack of easy recordability is my biggest reason for not getting digital cable or an HDTV.
Digital cable is perfectly recordable. Sure, there's no direct digital input to Tivo, but the quality loss isn't too bad-- particularly if, as in my case, your analog channels are none too clear.
If that's not good enough, the DirectTivos record MPEG directly off of the satellite feed (no D/A-A/D conversion). That would, of course, require that you buy a dish.
Re:early tivo adopters not adopting HDTV early
by
raygundan
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· Score: 1
DirectTivo would be great, but my apartment points the wrong way for a dish. If I didn't have to move to implement it, that would certainly be an easy solution.
As to digital cable, it's perfectly recordable but getting the tivo to control your cable box reliably via an IR dongle which can't be moved (and you have cats) is a near impossibility. Also, the tivo can't turn the cable box on, so if you lose power, the box stays off and you're stuck. Plus, the tivo sends three digits for every channel change, making channel up/down pretty stinking slow. I'm not saying it can't be done-- just that it sure isn't easy. I got the Tivo to save me time-- not to provide a thought-provoking installation puzzle.
Re:early tivo adopters not adopting HDTV early
by
dachshund
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· Score: 1
All good points. In fact, my cable box's power went out this morning, so I know what you're talking about. On the other hand, that's the first time it's happened in months. But I live in NYC-- I suppose if I still lived in the country, power outages'd play a bigger role in my life.
The 3-digit thing is a pain. On the other hand, digital cable boxes in general are slow to tune. The answer is to use the Program Guide to channel surf. I was surprised at how quick I got used to that.
The IR dongles also have good sticky-stuff on them. Mine are latched pretty solidly onto the cable box, so I don't worry about my dogs knocking them off. If that doesn't work, there's always duct tape. A little bit inconvenient, but only a couple of minutes worth of work.
Time-Warner is coming next wednesday to install an HDTV cable box. Now that's going to be an installation hassle.
For regurgitating the Tivo party line. Unfortunately it's pure bullshit. The problem is still very widespread.
Re:Thank you...
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I suggested you are the one covered in bullshit. I simply have never had this problem and do not know anyone who does, and that includes thousands of online people I talk to. Maybe you should try, with tact and humility, searching some of the online tivo forums for solutions to your problem. Maybe you are not getting results (unlike 99% of Tivo users) because you are an asshole. Think about it.
Re:Is it smart enough to know about schedule chang
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Informative
TiVo does a daily call to get the schedule. Regular season football games are scheduled for 3 hours, which means if there is a game on at 4:00 PM and 60 Minutes is on at 7:00 PM, your TiVo will ask you to change the channel a few minutes before 7:00 PM. If you aren't home or don't respond, it will change the channel at 7:00 PM to record 60 Minutes. At this point, there is no way that TiVo could know when a football game goes into overtime.
The solution to this problem is 'padding'. This means that when you schedule your recording, you can tell TiVo to start or stop the recording a certain amount of time early or late.
For example, when you record a single game, or have a Season Pass (all NFL football games) or Wishlist, (all NFL Football games with a keyword like '49ers') you can tell TiVo to stop recording from a few minutes to at least an hour late. (Don't remember the exact number).
So let's say you told TiVo you wanted to record the 49ers game on Sunday at 4:00 PM, which is scheduled for three hours. However, you don't want to miss the end, so you tell TiVo to stop recording 30 minutes late. You already have 60 Minutes scheduled for Sunday at 7:00 PM. TiVo will immediately tell you that there is a recording conflict, and at that point you can decide which show you want to see more. TiVo will not record a partial program (e.g. half of '60 Minutes').
By the same token, if Showtime schedules a show to start two minutes early, you can tell TiVo to start your recording two minutes early so that you make sure you get the beginning of the show. Again, if there is a conflict with an already scheduled program, TiVo will tell you.
Kids are the reason we bought our Tivo. Getting up after their bedtime and interrupting the sopranos was not good. They almost saw some things they are not at all ready for. Now when the kids get up for the third time it doesn't matter.
Tivo is the first expensive gadget that my wife apologized to me for bitching me out about buying. It's now her Tivo.
You know it's funny - I got the stopples, pulled the drive out and tested it with the manufacturer's diagnostics and what do you know? It was bad!
OK, suppose I'm wrong, and it is a disk glitch. Implications:
Tivo shipped a lot of PVRs with bad disks. A lot more than any computer manufacturer would consider acceptable.
Tivo didn't anticipate that any PVRs would have bad disks. Would have been nice if there were a way to perform diagnostics without opening up the PVR or sending it in. Kind of a basic feature, don't you think?
<sarcasm>Hey, that really makes me feel better about the problem!</sarcasm>
Anway, I don't believe it. Some of the symptoms are not consistent with a hardware bug. The big one is the tendency of the PVR to insist that it's not getting a video signal when it really is. Problem goes away (temporarily) if you reboot.
Oh, and I just found a new bug. Don't know if its a separate issue, but I think not. I turned on "standby" so I could watch on one channel while recording on another. Forgot to turn it off again. Came back the next day, and the Tivo had turned itself off. Did the unplug/plugin thing, got a reboot. (Was still in Standby mode!) Here's where it gets amusing: I watched a live show (which I had half-missed because of the glitch). When I was done, the Tivo played the startup animation and wouldn't let me interrupt it! God I hate that stupid mascot.
Re:Bad Drive! Bad!
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Tivo shipped a lot of PVRs with bad disks. A lot more than any computer manufacturer would consider acceptable.
They shipped Quantum disks. Are you saying that they purposefully bought bad disks from Quantum? How do you know what the failure rate is for either other manufacturers or for TiVo? I think that the problem is the 90 day warranty. Other manufacturers typically give a one year warranty, so there is a lot less complaining when things go bad.
Re:Bad Drive! Bad!
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
God I hate that stupid mascot.
See, there's your problem right there. You are a bad tempered asshole and there's nothing TiVo could do to satisfy you. Bitch, bitch, bitch, bitch.
I'm bad-tempered? Which one of us is the compulsive stalker/flamer with a preference for fecal metaphors?
Wow
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!!
What Tivo doesn't get
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
I don't want ANOTHER monthly service with the monthly service fee. I want a hardware device. Someone is going to come along and offer a true stand-alone digital VCR with many of Tivo's and Replay TV's features. Then Tivo and Replay TV will be ancient history.
Re:Because Tivo is made up of people that "get it"
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dachshund
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· Score: 1
Don't forget one other important point:
I don't mind people seeing what I watch (aggregated by zip code or age group, at least), if it means I can tell the networks which shows I like and which ones I hate. In fact, I sort of wish that the thumbs up/down information was wired directly back to the networks' headquarters.
It might not put an end to bad TV, but it'd certainly make better targetted bad TV.
(Incidentally, I doubt that current Tivo statistics are of much use to anyone who isn't specifically targeting the early-adopter techy-geek market. That doesn't mean the information is totally useless, or will always remain so.)
See Dish network.
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
They have a new system that evidently does record HDTV
I still don't understand ...
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Perren
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· Score: 1
You know, I get some over the more obscure science discussions here, but how a TiVo works still escapes me.
The literature I read claims that it works with anything... even my digital cable. How does that work, though? Does it have a comcast digital cable box built in? I doubt it. Do I feed it the coax from my TV Out on the box? Then how does it change to the right channel to record my show?
So confused.
Re:I still don't understand ...
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Steve72
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· Score: 2, Informative
It has a wire with a IR port on the end. There's an adhesive to stick the IR port 'sender' to the cable boxes IR 'receiver'. You program the Tivo to issue commands to your particular type of cable box. When the Tivo wants to change the channel, it issues the command through it's IR port, and the channel changes.
-Steve
Re:I still don't understand ...
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Steve72
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· Score: 1
Forgot to mention the cable hookup. If you have Digital Cable, your best option would to be to use the S-Video out on the cable box and plug it in to your Tivo's S-video in. Then use the Tivo's S-video out to connect to your TV. The Tivo is connected inline between your cable source (box or wall) and the TV.
TiVo will work with anything. You put the TiVo in between your cable box (or whatever) and your TV. The TiVo has an IR Blaster (basically a remote control for other devices) that the TiVo can control. After the initial set up, when you tell the TiVo to change channels, it repeats the signal through the IR Blaster to the cable box
It also does this on its own to change channels for recording. You just have to make sure you leave your cable box turned on. Simple.
Re:I still don't understand ...
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Perren
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· Score: 1
Spiffy, thanks. I swear I never saw that anywhere.
Re:I still don't understand ...
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nytmare
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· Score: 1
The IR control is dreadfully slow though -- combine that with the delay for video decompression, and you can forget about channel surfing with a TiVo. 3-5 seconds to go to the next channel.
Re:I still don't understand ...
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phillymjs
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· Score: 2
Yeah, that bugged me too when I first got my TiVo. But then I realized that it's dumb to just keep flipping channels looking for something interesting, when I can merely hit a button and summon an onscreen program guide that lets me see what shows are on and read encapsulated episode descriptions. When they say TiVo will change the way you watch TV, they don't just mean by timeshifting shows. The thing really gets its hooks into ya-- A few weeks ago I was watching a movie in a theater, didn't quite catch a bit of dialogue, and found myself reflexively reaching for the TiVo remote to hit the 'instant replay' button.:-)
VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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abischof
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· Score: 2
Currently, I have two VCRs and I use them to record every show I watch. Of course, I do this because I can avoid commercials, and because I can watch what-I-want-when-I-want:).
Each VCR has the standard 8 program-slots. So, between the two, I can record 16 programs (or, slightly more than that, as some programs can record two shows if they happen to air consecutively).
I've read the TiVO reviews, and they sure do look nice. But, to be honest, my primary reason for getting one would be for the ability to record more than 16 programs per week.
Having said that, though, TiVOs are kinda expensive (especially if I were to get one of the pre-upgraded ones). So, I may just buy myself a third VCR. Though this may be off-topic, can anyone recommend a highly-programmable VCR? That is, I'm sick of having only 8 programs -- surely someone makes a VCR that can store 16 or <wishful thinking>256</wishful thinking> programs, right?
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
My Tivo "season pass" list (shows that are automatically recorded w/out any manual interaction) has about 50 shows, (although a number (e.g. "Norm", "Futurama", etc) of them aren't on anymore. There's no practical limit to the number of shows per week. However, there are other limits that you may run into, such as number of tuners and disk space.
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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gleffler
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· Score: 1
It's not worth $299 plus service fees for you to completely ditch the tape shuffle and program remembrance? I mean, think about this; your TIME has got to be worth more than that over the long run. Not to mention all the other cool TiVo features (Suggestions, Actor/Director/Title/Keyword wishlists, Smart episode scheduling, etc. etc. etc.)? To me, buying yet another VCR just seems like it'd be silly. /gleffler
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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abischof
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· Score: 2
You know what? You're right. Over the past several hours, I've thought it over. My time is valuable. And, even if I have to pay $400 + $250, maybe it's worth it.
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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gleffler
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· Score: 1
Ah, yes, the "dirty little secret" of the TiVo World--go here and order the AT&T Broadband unit. $299 for 40 hours - it's a series 2, so it's the latest & greatest from TiVo, and it's a great entry-level box. Oh, it doesn't require AT&T Broadband cable service or anything like that - it's the same as any other Series 2 unit except for the AT&T Branding and the only 40 hours of space. /gleffler
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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abischof
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· Score: 2
order the AT&T Broadband unit. $299 for 40 hours
Not that I don't believe you;), but where on the site does it say that it's a 40-hour unit? (I just want to confirm that it's 40 hours, and also that it has USB).
For what it's worth, the "white market" TiVO (with 60 hours) is actually cheaper than the AT&T Broadband-branded one on a per-hour basis. Proportionally, if the TiVO-branded TiVO were available in a 40-hour version, it'd cost just $267:-/.
Re:VCRs with high number-of-programs?
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gleffler
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· Score: 1
Click on "What is TiVo?" then "FAQ" to get this blurb: What makes TiVo from AT&T Broadband different from other TiVo recorders?
This TiVo product is brought to you through a partnership between AT&T Broadband and TiVo. It will deliver the same TiVo Service as you would receive on any other TiVo-powered recorder; however, there are some differences:
The recorder can store up to 40 hours of programming.
The chassis reflects TiVo's latest design, including a front navigation cluster, and is slightly smaller than other TiVo-powered recorders.
There is a new 34-button remote control [new buttons include the TV input button, which changes the inputs on your TV, a separate Guide button and a Standby button].
/gleffler
Give out content for free?
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danielobvt
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· Score: 1
Haven't we learned that this concept fails. TV networks would feel no need to support this, because it would cut into add revenue. The actual VCR replacement piece of Tivo is not the piece that I find most interesting about these devices. I wouldn't hold your breath awaiting the demise of this concept. Its more like they have opened up the doorway for this concept.
Nothing new as I see it. I've had a PVR (ReplayTV) for quite some time and I get a bit upset how Tivo claims to be revolutionary with their product. So it runs Linux. So do I. Big deal. And my dead aunt is still using Microsoft and is still waiting for customer support.
Re:blah blah blah
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
And my dead aunt is still using Microsoft and is still waiting for customer support.
Did she write letters on their behalf saying the antitrust case was wrong, too?
Re:Is it smart enough to know about schedule chang
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cat_jesus
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· Score: 1
Yes, you can tell the Tivo to pad the beginning or ending time of certain shows.
List of things you can't dis on Slashdot:
by
fm6
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· Score: 2
Santa Claus
Bad science fiction
Sealand
Tivo
Hi My name is Richard Bullwinkle
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PD
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· Score: 2
The partners who hold Tivo back
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Sloppy
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· Score: 2
We do have to spend some engineering dollars keeping slightly ahead of the hacker community, or our partners begin to wonder if our technology isn't going to cost them lots of money.
Digital Media copyright is certainly a hotbed right now.
Many of our partners are trying to draw a line in the sand, and in that light we have to be a bit more strict with what kinds of hacks we allow, and which we make very difficult.
Who specifically do they really mean when they say "partners" in this context? Are the partners the channels that are advertised under "Showcases"? Or is it the manufacturers (Sony, Philips, as mentioned elsewhere in the article)? Someone else?
-- As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Re:The partners who hold Tivo back
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sfgoth
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· Score: 2
Who specifically do they really mean when they say "partners" in this context? Are the partners the channels that are advertised under "Showcases"? Or is it the manufacturers (Sony, Philips, as mentioned elsewhere in the article)? Someone else?
Well, NBC owns more than 10% of TiVo. Something about "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em"...
-pmb
Re:The partners who hold Tivo back
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
No, it's something like "you keep your friends close, but you keep your enemies closer."
Since I don't own one, I'll probably make a grievous error, but my ego compells me to try to see if I understand what a TiVo is.
A TiVo disconnects you from any time dependency in your viewing habits.
As such, the closest analogy would be a CD player or mp3 player -> FM radio, assuming you owned all the CDs or MP3s the radio ever broadcast.
Another analogy might be a hand delivered newspaper at your doorstep, as opposed to going to get one yourself, and as opposed to waiting for a 7 o'clock or 11 o'clock broadcast, excepting that print medium is actually a couple days delayed for the convenience of 'read on demand' as opposed to 'read on broadcast'
A better analogy would be CNN.com -> CNN on broadcast, in that rather than being forced to wait through meaningless news you hear/see meaningful news, you can pick and choose, search, and read on demand, as opposed to view on broadcast. It breaks, of course, in the fact that CNN.com doesn't 'cache' locally, unlike TiVo.
Server side PVR in UK.
by
Martin+Spamer
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· Score: 2
Server side PVR built using VOD technology is another option that is emerging in the UK. We are already doing a limited form of this with our iDTV system. I'm aware that at least two others are also developing this technology.
Server side offers a number of cost & QOS advantages. Since each piece of contents needs to be stored only once, when server side the total hardware cost is reduced, even when considering high level of redundancy. Server side also has advantage of eliminating the requirement for in-field or return-to-base repairs. The cost advantage to the SP, and consequently the consumer is considerable. The unit cost of this system is currently around £60 (~100USD/EURO) and this tend towards zero as the customer base increases.
The issue with server side is licencing (as ever:) though we have found the BBC very cooperative, indeed enthusiastic; about this technology. Hopefuly this will force commercial content providers to be more flexible.
Re:Server side PVR in UK.
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gleffler
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· Score: 1
...And you'll be able to pay everytime you want to watch a program. Bye-bye timeshifting; hello being crapped on by paying to re-watch content you've already purchased once.
Of course content providers and the BBC love VOD - it's practically a licence to print money with very little benefit to the consumer. TiVo basically gives you VOD without the overbearing corporate greed associated with current attempts at it. /gleffler
Anyone else had problems?
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rant-mode-on
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· Score: 2
I bought a series 2 a couple of months ago, and by gollly is it the dogs bollocks or what? Thanks to that fastforward, I can now watch a 1 hour program in 40 minutes without the ads, which actually makes previously mediocre stuff watchable.
That said, I have had a problem - every now and then, at the beginning of a program the picture freezes, and control is lost. The only way is to switch to standby, and turn it back on. Its a pain, but there's no way back to non-tivo world.
Also, how bad is the indemnity clause in the series 1? This one borders on threatening death if you modify it.
*Which* USB ethernet devices are supported?
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Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 0
There are a number of USB ethernet devices supports by the Linux 2.4.x kernel, but which drivers actually ship with TiVo v3.0?
As I recall (a friend of mine who worked at Linuxcare with Andrew Tridgell has a couple of hacked TiVos) Tridge and co reverse engineered the TiVo's guide data format and generate their own data for Australia by screen-scraping various tv guides hosted on the web. I think the guide data (you can find some on the tivo.samba.org ftp site IIRC) is then rsynced onto the TiVo via an ethernet connection. I think they have intentionally not published the guide data format because they don't want to endanger TiVo's revenue model.
But it is doable, I've seen it.
-- Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Re:Is it smart enough to know about schedule chang
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gfreeman
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· Score: 1
Maybe that's how it works now, but it's not how it should work. The way TiVo life should run, is that when you ask it to record, say, City v United - you get exactly that, because in a perfect world, broadcasters should throw out PDC-like codes at the start of their programs.
Having a code that's readable by TiVo-like boxes, which says "This program has ended, you can stop recording now" only benefits the consumer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H user, and we all know that aint enough to get into production. [The advertisers will complain]. So have a code that goes out saying "This program is starting", so that the boxes recording the previous prog will stop, having recorded more ads, keeping the corporate machine running.
I have a VCR with PDC, but I always turn it off, as there have been instances that PDC codes go out during breaks - screwing my preferences. Maybe if more people used TiVo-like boxes, there'd be a demand for better broadcast codes, and we'd all win. [Though the advertisers would win less than the great unwashed].
Oh, hang on - that would require corporate co-operation...
Gr ----------
-- Ceci n'est pas un sig.
ReplayTV is coming out with this very item.
by
Quadrature
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· Score: 1
...And you'll be able to pay everytime you want to watch a program.
Wrong. The PVR Content is delivered freely as part of the basic service subscription, Essentially an ADSL line rental that starts at 6UKP (~10USD/EURO)pcm.
Bye-bye timeshifting;
Wrong. This is time shifted DTV, though currently we don't support pausing a live-stream, this a not-yet-implemented restriction.
hello being c*****d by paying to re-watch content you've already purchased once.
Wrong, the BBC is a public service broadcaster and this is free content, delivered at point of use for free. The consumer pays nothing for the content.
The nature of our platform mean this can even be enhanced, it is truely interactive and enhanced using web content. Essentially the following styled for DTV Browser.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/
Of course content providers and the BBC love VOD - it's practically a licence to print money with very little benefit to the consumer.
Wrong, The BBC is funded through public licence, the probably excercises the highest standards and produces the best serious (Educational/Documentaries/Current Affairs/News) content in world.
TiVo basically gives you VOD without the overbearing corporate greed associated with current attempts at it.
Wrong, the BBC is a not-for profit, is TIVO ?
Could you be more wrong
That's what the Lifetime Subscription really is.
by
morven2
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· Score: 1
Problem is, TiVos wouldn't sell at the full price they need to be to make a profit. So they have a subscription plan; most people seem to be more willing to pay $20 a month than an extra $200 up front.
If you want to buy a piece of hardware and not have a monthly subscription, buy the lifetime sub. Just think of it as paying the full cost of the unit up front.
Who said the link was "proof"? It just saves me the trouble of describing the bug. Though it is rather disturbing that people are still reporting this bug long after it was "fixed".
Slashdot Mirror
This looks ok, but really, get out of the house sometime.
guys :D tivo is pretty cool. here in spain it is priecy though.
INSERT
Comment about how this could be made for $76.23 with Pricewatch parts, and it would also play MP3's, Quake III, surf the net, cook toast, and send pictures of the kids to Grandma
/INSERT
how am i meant to watch everything that tivo will record for me, i allready have to much that i want to watch with 4 channles, with hours of recordings backing up behind me it would be a night mare, i'll stick with my attitude of nothing on tv is worth prgramming my video for.
Burt "Out of my mind back in 5 minutes"
D'oh :(
Don't get me wrong here, I would love to get one of these. Too bad they don't have a PAL version available.
To be able to actually *use* one of these things; to have the time to sit through a 12 hour marathon of Farscape or B5 without having the kids crawling all over you... I'd really like a Tivo-type thingy, but I have no idea when I'd be able to actually use it. I barely get to use the dvd player we got for Christmas...
-----
Is Darwin an evolutionary OS?
Come to the University of Mars! Classes starting soon!
Pong marathon here I come...
(2,3-Benzopyrrole)
I love my series one TiVo, I really do. But now it's keeping me from buying an HDTV. Honestly, I go to the local big-chain electronics store and drool over the big widescreen HDTV's like everyone else, but then I think back to the days before TiVo. I would actually have to keep track of when TV shows are on TV again. Forget it.
And I know I could still use the TiVo with the High Def set, but really, why? The only reason then for high def then is DVDs, and that's maybe 10% of my viewing.
So while this new model has some great features, I'm waiting for the High Def model. This will be the killer app.
Just my $.02
Not flaming/trolling. :S
That out of the way, I can see why this review for a very cool toy/gadget is here. But it kinda bugs me that the description includes "Linux-based". Now, I know Slashdot is Linuxcentric (no, really?), but still I think that was kinda irrelevant to the review. Does it make the device cheaper or more stable? Then say it is cheaper or more stable.
It's like that story about Best Buy having a customer arrested, where in the first paragraph it was mentioned that he was an American Indian. Some people took exception to that, and I see the point.
Now, I can just see the moderation: -1, Antilinux. Oh, well, it's just Karma
That's all the more reason for getting a PVR. You can save 25% of the time by skipping commercials. With my ReplayTV, I just use the 30-second skip button and I'm past the commercials almost instantly (I use the 8-second instant replay button if I go too far).
And that doesn't begin to touch how nice it is not having to manage your life around being there to watch your favorite show. Or how you always have something interesting to watch instead of channel surfing. Or how skipping the commercials avoids breaking the tension in a show like 24. Or how watching several episodes of a continuing story back to back can make a TV show feel like a movie. Or how totally pissed off you get when someone spoils the X-Files for you when you're three weeks behind.
The new Tivo's also support getting channel information in-band from the Television Signal (played on the Discovery Channel late night) so you can keep your phone line open for important things, like ordering pizzas.
For those of you techincally minded folks, they have encrypted and encoded the guide data into the video stream, which you Tivo will record and decode. It will then call up (still need the phone line, just not as long) and (After confirming your account status) download the encryption key.
I own two DTiVo's and 1 standalone TiVo. Both r00t3|) with ethernet. Hacking the DTiVo is a couple of order of magnitudes more difficult than hacking the standalone...
Do it for da shorties
One of the main obstacles that is preventing me from getting a TiVo thus far is the inability to save shows externally through a network. With a VCR I can record a show, movie, concert etc. for an unlimited amount of time - why can't TiVo do this? With the much more expensive ReplayTV you can download shows off the machine through a network connection. I find this feature extremely valuable as it would essentially extend the storage capacity to an unlimited amount.
Sure you could buy two 120GB drives for a TiVo, but then a growing amount of that space will be filled with shows stored for the long term. So unfortunately until I can download shows off a TiVo I'm gonna be sitting on the sidelines, or I'll eventually break down and go for the ReplayTV regardless if it's inferior to TiVo in other ways.
And it rocks. I got it figuring my wife could get good use out of it (we have a child coming in a couple of months, and she'll be staying home with him), and so far it's been well worth it. It's already making TV easier for both of us, and grabbing all her favorites. I'll switch it over to use Ethernet as soon as I get 3.0 updated (from what I'm reading, it should update itself within a month or so), and I may add a second hard drive as well so we can do more long-term archiving.
Do I have a few quibbles with it so far? Yes. But not too many. Dual tuners would be ideal, so we could avoid recording conflicts (She wants Friends, I want Smackdown - she wins!), and S-Video out would be cool, too. It's too bad only DirecTiVo offers dual tuners. It's also prone to artifacting in any mode lower-quality than Best, and even then sometimes it'll do it. I also wish I could set Season Pass Manager to automatically grab the episode that's rebroadcast at the odd hour - Food TV shows (like Iron Chef) are the best example of this. When there's an episode being shown at 10 PM and then being rebroadcast at 2 AM, I wish it'd default to grabbing the 2AM show. Things like that would minimize conflicts.
The only other thing that I dislike about it is that I had to give money to Best Buy to get it - between their copy-protection support and the way they've mishandled the GeForce 4 pricing issue I really hate them.
But the ultimate purpose in buying this was to make my wife's life a little easier when she's home with the baby, and it's definitely going to do that. This way, she can watch all the things she wants to, and do it when the baby gives her some free time.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Out of curiosity, why does anyone care that the site that did a TiVo Series 2 review is owned by the same company that owns Slashdot? Are the /. guys feeling guilty about posting this story? If so, why? It's no more or less relevant than most of the other stories posted here.
I love my Tivo, and the review was very good, but I'm having a problem with one feature that the reviewer really liked. I find that when I'm fast forwarding over commercials and then stop I end up seeing most of the commercial before the show returns. I've been using my Tivo for a couple of years, so I may have just gotten too fast. I wish they would add the slider that Richard referred to in the interview. Then I could tune it to my speed.
It's simply to notify people that the parties involved have entanglement and/or financial interest in the story.
until they put a cd burner in the thing it's just not worth it. I want a DVR that can also play DVD's and burn and play what I record maybe in VCD or MPEG4 or something.
You mean "Electric Boogaloo?"
Please don't discrace the cinematic masterpiece that is Breakin' 2 by mispelling its name.
I recommend sending a fromal apology to the producer.
They call it "full disclosure". This way they get people to attack them for artificially boosting hits on the OSDN network, instead of making the more poignant observation that OSDN sites now feel the need to recycle eachothers news -- just one more indication of the open source economy's failure to grow itself (up).
But could you imagine how sweet a Beowulf cluster of these would be!?!?!
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
TiVo is currently beginning the process of rolling out TiVo's 3.0 software to customers. My TiVo has 3.0, and I have to say TiVo kept its word -- the purpose of this release was mainly to synchronize the versions of the various stand-alone TiVos. Some features that were changed from the Series|2's original 2.0.3 version are improved wish list functionality, better TiVo suggestions, and other small features here and there, as well as the unsupported broadband feature and broadcast data download. Get 3.0!
To me it's one of those things where TiVo just "sucks less" than any alternative (having my TV on my desk near my PC; using a VCR)...
Sure stuff'll get better in the future. But for now - TiVo takes the cake imo.
Do it for da shorties
I mean we need a VCR replacement some time.
I think a TIVO/DVD combo would be the ideal television accessory.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
Many people, when trying to explain TiVo, end up calling it a "digital VCR" or a "VCR on steroids." After using TiVo for a month, it is clear that these methods of explaining TiVo's function are unfair...
TiVo's biggest problem is that there is no good way to explain it... Have you ever tried explaining it to your friends, geek or non-geek? All you get is blank stares. But if you *show* it to them, they seem to understand. And if they acutally get one, they quickly become converts.
When people ask me if I like it, I tell them that I would rather give up color than TiVo. I would rather watch TiVo on a B&W set than to have the nicest color HDTV set available.
And the funny thing is, people think I'm kidding...
My word processor was written by Stanford Professor Donald Knuth. Who wrote yours?
Standard journalistic practice. The Economist for example, always mentions if it's reviewing (say) a book written by a former employee, or published by it's parent company, or somesuch.
How many people think the TiVo to be a useless device for themselves? I mean I miss my Fresh Gear and other favourite TV shows.. but there are other forms of entertainment that are just as good. Is it really worth paying for the device and service? I say read a book, but hey, that's just me.
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
"TiVo is committed to protecting the privacy of your personal information. We have reprinted it here for your convenience...." :-)
We used to have horses and carriages -- now we have cars and airplanes and moon rockets.
We used to have VCRs -- now we have TiVo.
Well, at least *y'all* have TiVo. I can't afford it. But maybe they'll send me one for plugging it. God, I wish it was 1999 again and/or I was Harry Knowles...
It's called full disclosure, and it's a bedrock principle of responsible journalism. A reporter or news outlet is responsible to acknowledge any financial interest in the subjects on which they report.
:)
Read a few issues of any AOL Time/Warner magazine (Time, Entertainment Weekly) and you'll find one. They have their fingers in EVERYTHING.
Yes, NF and LC are both owned by OSDN, as is Slashdot
Are we forgetting that CowboyNeal and JonKatz are also owned by OSDN, two 'assets' that should be liquidated as soon as possible!?!
Because it's a great product. Also, I'm just not that paranoid. TiVo collects data at the zip code level. TiVo knows that at least one person in my zip code likes 'Greg the Bunny'? Works for me. Keep the shows I like coming.
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Troll, Troll, Troll, Troll...
#include
I've been wanting TIVO or some such for quite awhile, but I haven't been able to determine if it works with Starchoice satellite dishes or whether its available in Canada.
I'm talking full functionability here- like being able to schedule, pause TV, etc. from the TIVO unit without a whole lot of manual programming to get the Starchoice channels.
Anyone know if it works??
Id the CDBTPA passes, service to TiVo will stop.. ESPECIALLY because of it's USB hookup.
(And, really, you can't say you've defeated it when it hasn't come to a vote... You may be surprised.)
Whether it's on an IBM mainframe, a wristwatch, a PDA, or powering NASA experiments, Linux is there. Your ISP uses Linux. So does your university. The US Air Force absolutely loves Linux and plans on investing heavily in Linux technology in the coming year. Linux is once again the darling of Wall Street, as more and more investment firms convert their computer infrastructure to Linux. Oh, and that great new movie with the awesome special effects--yup--you guessed it, Linux doing it job again.
There's no getting around it: We are living in the Linux millennium.
All i have to do is go to an irc chan on dal.net and download any tv episode i want. All for the cost of broadband. And the great thing with irc is that i dont have to wait for The Cartoon Network to show all the episodes of ExoSquad. I just download em and whatch em'. And for those of you who dont like to watch on a computer screen: Use something like HomeDVR anyway thats just my two cents.
It's not ideal, but here's what I do:
I have a DirecTiVo unit. I record shows on it, and save them until I delete. At night, I offload the shows that I want to keep onto my DV camera via the TiVo's analog RCA outs. Then I dump the DV onto my G4 and burn a DVD. Like I said, it's not an ideal solution (i.e., analog, too many steps, real time recording, etc.), but it works really well. Since DirecTV does most of the compression, the signal looks plenty good. Do you really need digital quality for backing up World Rally Championship broadcasts?
A ten second Google search would have told you that.
Its one of the first hacks that were available for the Tivo. In fact, an awful lot of the Tivo hacking is done by folks in Australia (including the guy who wrote Samba), and they all run them PAL.
Tip: try searching "tivo PAL hack" on Google.
Tivo Is also a very open company, they are up front about their data collection, and everyone has the choicd of opting out.
That being said, I think its a great product.
Slashdot readers, overall smart people who respect the freedom for the individual but also never lose sight of the importance of community efforts (e.g. open source, space exploration), should reject technology that phones home to report on your viewing behavior and just maks it easier for people to grow dumb scumsucking the televion spoonfeed.
It's not like that, or at least it only looks like that from a superficial point of view.
a) Tivo groks privacy. They have a truly comprehensive privacy policy (unlike anything I've ever seen by a company) that details exactly what the unit does/doesn't do. And they really do stick to it (as Tivo hackers like myself have actually discovered by reading the source). So it records my preferences anonymously, only by zip code. That's okay with me. If it wasn't, then they offer an opt-out that really does work (they set a variable on your box so the data doesn't get sent at all). Cool.
b) PVR tech. actually doesn't make you watch more TV, but more in less time. It frees you from the scheduling of TV. I don't have to watch network drivel at night, instead I can enjoy stuff that it recorded during the day that I'd normally miss (okay, mostly anime type cheesy stuff, but that's just me). And since I *know* that my box will grab my shows, I can turn the tube off and read a book without worrying about missing anything I want to see. I no longer am glued to the tube, instead I go out and do other things, and still watch my shows (in half the time too, since I skip the fluff and the ads).
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
First of all:
"With a VCR I can record a show, movie, concert etc. for an unlimited amount of time - why can't TiVo do this?"
I'm not sure what you mean. I have a Sony DirecTiVo. A few months ago, a friend archived a 6-hour concert onto the TiVo just by hitting "Record" while it was on. It records until your available space is used up, just like a VCR.
I've also set up my TiVo to (legally) archive shows to my computer. How? I have an ATI All-In-Wonder Radeon 7500 with video capture tools. I hooked up the S-video input on my video card to the S-video out on my TiVo, and I use ATI's TV software to archive shows. I've archived to DivX, VCD, and WMV with varying results. Sure, it's not as cool as "extracting" all of the shows off the TiVo would be, but it's incredibly easy and there is no question of the legality (as long as you're not distributing the movies, it's the same thing as backing up to a VCR would be.)
By the time this season of Six Feet Under is over, I will have every episode safely archived on my computer. The best part is that I can then take any of this with me on a plane with my laptop without the hassle of carrying around a DVD player.
Before I bought the AIW Radeon, I wasn't sure if archiving to the computer would work, but I can assure you it does. The results (a nice movie/TV episode library) are well worth it, too.
So, if this is the reason you're not buying a TiVo, go to tivo.com and buy one! I love it. I even set up a TiVo for my computer-illiterate parents. The interface is so simple that they picked it up in a couple of days and now they can't live without it. It will change the way you look at TV.
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
and buy one.
Just as soon as TiVO decides to offer them in CANADA!!
grumble
"Remember, any tool can be the right tool." -- Red Green
I *Really* want one of these -
(but can't justify buying one because I detest television...)
Cheers,
Jim
-- My Weblog.
How many monkeys does it take to turn on a Tivo. sheesus.
It's ironic, because Tivo seems to be doing its very best to destroy Linux's reputation as a stable platform. More and more people are getting bit by the broken upgrade bug. This problem will continue to grow, as long as Tivo refuses to admit that bug exists and blames the problem on "hardware glitches" and "weak video signals".
Now, if you get bitten by this bug (and if Tivo remains in denial, you will get bitten eventually), you will spend a fair amount of time talking to Tivo tech support. And eventually they will say, "Look, all computers crash occasionally. Doesn't your home computer crash?" When I was fed that line, I laughed out loud. See, I work on a cross-platform Windows/Linux product, so I have two machines on my desk, one for each platform. The Linux box goes months without a crash or a problem that can only be fixed by a reboot. The Windows box has never lasted more than a couple weeks, and often needs to be rebooted several times a day, depending on what stresses I'm placing on it. I mentioned it to the call-center drone. He didn't have a response. Obviously not on the flowchart.
Right now I'm manually rebooting my Tivo at least once a day. I have "record suggestions" disabled and I record everything at basic quality. That keeps the machine working most of the time. I should probably call them again and bully them into doing a fresh install.
But even if they fix this problem, I've had it with their "our shit doesn't smell" attitude. I don't care how slick their products get. I don't care if they figure out a way to filter out the clichés from JAG, or record the lost episodes of Brimstone. I will never, ever, consider buying another Tivo product.
Just get used to seeing 2 seconds or so of the show returning and then hit "Play" and it'll just you right to the end of the commercial. If you hit pause, you either stop too short, or too far into the show. Use the Play button when fastforwarding.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
The problem was solved with 2.5. Video glitches went away for nearly all consumers. If you still have the video problem, [i]you have faulty hardware[/i].
Note the date on that article: Monday 14th May 2001
It's a solved problem.
Tivo made me LIKE TV. I totally *hated* everything on TV before I owned a Tivo. Commercials that rotted my brain constantly, trying to shuffle my schedule around just so I can see some 2 hour special some night, or even sitcoms that run an entire season with continuity. I would catch the first two weeks and then give up. I would either forget to watch, or id find myself in a bar drinking and thinking "aww crap, i missed days of our lives". I just didnt watch TV. I only had basic cable I watched it so rarely. Now with Tivo I have expanded, and watch maybe 12 hrs a week of TV *when I want to*. If I want to read a book instead i'll do it, it wont interrupt my view habits! TV is GREAT now, I can skip past everything that I loathe so much, and watch all the good stuff.
Dishnetwork is my only source for programming, raw data format storage aside, will the tivo control and get programming information for this? Or am I better off waiting for the DishPVR701?
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Honestly, you can start to watch the shows you like WHEN you want to. Everything you detest about TV you can skip past .. Literally. I used to never watch TV till I bought my Tivo because it was just commercialized crud. Ads being stuffed down my throats for stuff id never buy. Now I watch everything that *I* want to see, and skip everything else I dont. It's really a life altering device in the sense that you have control over the companies you hate so much. Not only that, but if you let them send in your viewing habits you're telling the companies directly their commercials SUCK because you fast forwarded through them. Maybe they'll make them better!
What will RCA tell consumers when they ask why they can't record DVD to the hard drive even though they're in the same box?
What will they tell the DVD cartel when some Norwegian hacker enables DVD->TiVo copying and posts the code online?
Anyone who tried to market such a device would get screwed over by both consumers and the MPAA.
0 1 - just my two bits
If I want it to record Jeremiah on Showtime and they are two minutes behind (it happens), will it cut off the last two minutes of the show on the far end?
Nope, it's not even available for regular cable TV in Canada.
I hadn't really thought about it that way, but lack of easy recordability is my biggest reason for not getting digital cable or an HDTV. My series 1 tivo is fantastic. I watch more shows I like but spend less total time doing it (TV is around 1/3 commercials, and I no longer watch "filler" shows between shows I like).
Without a Tivo-like device, I won't move to HDTV.
Since the early-adopter market is the same type folks who have Tivos, I wonder how this is hurting HDTV adoption? I suspect more than a few early tivo purchasers who would otherwise have gone on to become early HDTV purchasers are now too happy with their tivos to give up their power just yet.
For regurgitating the Tivo party line. Unfortunately it's pure bullshit. The problem is still very widespread.
TiVo does a daily call to get the schedule. Regular season football games are scheduled for 3 hours, which means if there is a game on at 4:00 PM and 60 Minutes is on at 7:00 PM, your TiVo will ask you to change the channel a few minutes before 7:00 PM. If you aren't home or don't respond, it will change the channel at 7:00 PM to record 60 Minutes. At this point, there is no way that TiVo could know when a football game goes into overtime.
The solution to this problem is 'padding'. This means that when you schedule your recording, you can tell TiVo to start or stop the recording a certain amount of time early or late.
For example, when you record a single game, or have a Season Pass (all NFL football games) or Wishlist, (all NFL Football games with a keyword like '49ers') you can tell TiVo to stop recording from a few minutes to at least an hour late. (Don't remember the exact number).
So let's say you told TiVo you wanted to record the 49ers game on Sunday at 4:00 PM, which is scheduled for three hours. However, you don't want to miss the end, so you tell TiVo to stop recording 30 minutes late. You already have 60 Minutes scheduled for Sunday at 7:00 PM. TiVo will immediately tell you that there is a recording conflict, and at that point you can decide which show you want to see more. TiVo will not record a partial program (e.g. half of '60 Minutes').
By the same token, if Showtime schedules a show to start two minutes early, you can tell TiVo to start your recording two minutes early so that you make sure you get the beginning of the show. Again, if there is a conflict with an already scheduled program, TiVo will tell you.
Hope that answers your question.
Kids are the reason we bought our Tivo. Getting up after their bedtime and interrupting the sopranos was not good. They almost saw some things they are not at all ready for. Now when the kids get up for the third time it doesn't matter.
Tivo is the first expensive gadget that my wife apologized to me for bitching me out about buying. It's now her Tivo.
Cat
- Tivo shipped a lot of PVRs with bad disks. A lot more than any computer manufacturer would consider acceptable.
- Tivo didn't anticipate that any PVRs would have bad disks. Would have been nice if there were a way to perform diagnostics without opening up the PVR or sending it in. Kind of a basic feature, don't you think?
<sarcasm>Hey, that really makes me feel better about the problem!</sarcasm>Anway, I don't believe it. Some of the symptoms are not consistent with a hardware bug. The big one is the tendency of the PVR to insist that it's not getting a video signal when it really is. Problem goes away (temporarily) if you reboot.
Oh, and I just found a new bug. Don't know if its a separate issue, but I think not. I turned on "standby" so I could watch on one channel while recording on another. Forgot to turn it off again. Came back the next day, and the Tivo had turned itself off. Did the unplug/plugin thing, got a reboot. (Was still in Standby mode!) Here's where it gets amusing: I watched a live show (which I had half-missed because of the glitch). When I was done, the Tivo played the startup animation and wouldn't let me interrupt it! God I hate that stupid mascot.
Imagine a beowulf cluster of these!!
I don't want ANOTHER monthly service with the monthly service fee. I want a hardware device. Someone is going to come along and offer a true stand-alone digital VCR with many of Tivo's and Replay TV's features. Then Tivo and Replay TV will be ancient history.
I don't mind people seeing what I watch (aggregated by zip code or age group, at least), if it means I can tell the networks which shows I like and which ones I hate. In fact, I sort of wish that the thumbs up/down information was wired directly back to the networks' headquarters.
It might not put an end to bad TV, but it'd certainly make better targetted bad TV.
(Incidentally, I doubt that current Tivo statistics are of much use to anyone who isn't specifically targeting the early-adopter techy-geek market. That doesn't mean the information is totally useless, or will always remain so.)
They have a new system that evidently does record HDTV
The literature I read claims that it works with anything ... even my digital cable. How does that work, though? Does it have a comcast digital cable box built in? I doubt it. Do I feed it the coax from my TV Out on the box? Then how does it change to the right channel to record my show?
So confused.
Does TIVO support wireless USB ethernet cards?
Currently, I have two VCRs and I use them to record every show I watch. Of course, I do this because I can avoid commercials, and because I can watch what-I-want-when-I-want :).
Each VCR has the standard 8 program-slots. So, between the two, I can record 16 programs (or, slightly more than that, as some programs can record two shows if they happen to air consecutively).
I've read the TiVO reviews, and they sure do look nice. But, to be honest, my primary reason for getting one would be for the ability to record more than 16 programs per week.
Having said that, though, TiVOs are kinda expensive (especially if I were to get one of the pre-upgraded ones). So, I may just buy myself a third VCR. Though this may be off-topic, can anyone recommend a highly-programmable VCR? That is, I'm sick of having only 8 programs -- surely someone makes a VCR that can store 16 or <wishful thinking>256</wishful thinking> programs, right?
Alex Bischoff
HTML/CSS coder for hire
Haven't we learned that this concept fails. TV networks would feel no need to support this, because it would cut into add revenue. The actual VCR replacement piece of Tivo is not the piece that I find most interesting about these devices.
I wouldn't hold your breath awaiting the demise of this concept. Its more like they have opened up the doorway for this concept.
Nothing new as I see it. I've had a PVR (ReplayTV) for quite some time and I get a bit upset how Tivo claims to be revolutionary with their product. So it runs Linux. So do I. Big deal. And my dead aunt is still using Microsoft and is still waiting for customer support.
Yes, you can tell the Tivo to pad the beginning or ending time of certain shows.
Santa Claus
Bad science fiction
Sealand
Tivo
Wanna watch me pull a rabbit out of a hat?
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.
Who specifically do they really mean when they say "partners" in this context? Are the partners the channels that are advertised under "Showcases"? Or is it the manufacturers (Sony, Philips, as mentioned elsewhere in the article)? Someone else?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
What is TiVo?
Since I don't own one, I'll probably make a grievous error, but my ego compells me to try to see if I understand what a TiVo is.
A TiVo disconnects you from any time dependency in your viewing habits.
As such, the closest analogy would be a CD player or mp3 player -> FM radio, assuming you owned all the CDs or MP3s the radio ever broadcast.
Another analogy might be a hand delivered newspaper at your doorstep, as opposed to going to get one yourself, and as opposed to waiting for a 7 o'clock or 11 o'clock broadcast, excepting that print medium is actually a couple days delayed for the convenience of 'read on demand' as opposed to 'read on broadcast'
A better analogy would be CNN.com -> CNN on broadcast, in that rather than being forced to wait through meaningless news you hear/see meaningful news, you can pick and choose, search, and read on demand, as opposed to view on broadcast. It breaks, of course, in the fact that CNN.com doesn't 'cache' locally, unlike TiVo.
Do any of those work?
GPL Deconstructed
Server side PVR built using VOD technology is another option that is emerging in the UK. We are already doing a limited form of this with our iDTV system. I'm aware that at least two others are also developing this technology.
Server side offers a number of cost & QOS advantages. Since each piece of contents needs to be stored only once, when server side the total hardware cost is reduced, even when considering high level of redundancy. Server side also has advantage of eliminating the requirement for in-field or return-to-base repairs. The cost advantage to the SP, and consequently the consumer is considerable. The unit cost of this system is currently around £60 (~100USD/EURO) and this tend towards zero as the customer base increases.
The issue with server side is licencing (as ever:) though we have found the BBC very cooperative, indeed enthusiastic; about this technology. Hopefuly this will force commercial content providers to be more flexible.
I bought a series 2 a couple of months ago, and by gollly is it the dogs bollocks or what? Thanks to that fastforward, I can now watch a 1 hour program in 40 minutes without the ads, which actually makes previously mediocre stuff watchable.
That said, I have had a problem - every now and then, at the beginning of a program the picture freezes, and control is lost. The only way is to switch to standby, and turn it back on. Its a pain, but there's no way back to non-tivo world.
Also, how bad is the indemnity clause in the series 1? This one borders on threatening death if you modify it.
There are a number of USB ethernet devices supports by the Linux 2.4.x kernel, but which drivers actually ship with TiVo v3.0?
As I recall (a friend of mine who worked at Linuxcare with Andrew Tridgell has a couple of hacked TiVos) Tridge and co reverse engineered the TiVo's guide data format and generate their own data for Australia by screen-scraping various tv guides hosted on the web. I think the guide data (you can find some on the tivo.samba.org ftp site IIRC) is then rsynced onto the TiVo via an ethernet connection. I think they have intentionally not published the guide data format because they don't want to endanger TiVo's revenue model.
But it is doable, I've seen it.
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
Maybe that's how it works now, but it's not how it should work. The way TiVo life should run, is that when you ask it to record, say, City v United - you get exactly that, because in a perfect world, broadcasters should throw out PDC-like codes at the start of their programs.
...
Having a code that's readable by TiVo-like boxes, which says "This program has ended, you can stop recording now" only benefits the consumer^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H user, and we all know that aint enough to get into production. [The advertisers will complain]. So have a code that goes out saying "This program is starting", so that the boxes recording the previous prog will stop, having recorded more ads, keeping the corporate machine running.
I have a VCR with PDC, but I always turn it off, as there have been instances that PDC codes go out during breaks - screwing my preferences. Maybe if more people used TiVo-like boxes, there'd be a demand for better broadcast codes, and we'd all win. [Though the advertisers would win less than the great unwashed].
Oh, hang on - that would require corporate co-operation
Gr
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Ceci n'est pas un sig.
News.com story.
I am interested in this kind of setup as well.
Wrong. The PVR Content is delivered freely as part of the basic service subscription, Essentially an ADSL line rental that starts at 6UKP (~10USD/EURO)pcm.
Bye-bye timeshifting;
Wrong. This is time shifted DTV, though currently we don't support pausing a live-stream, this a not-yet-implemented restriction.
hello being c*****d by paying to re-watch content you've already purchased once.
Wrong, the BBC is a public service broadcaster and this is free content, delivered at point of use for free. The consumer pays nothing for the content.
The nature of our platform mean this can even be enhanced, it is truely interactive and enhanced using web content. Essentially the following styled for DTV Browser.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/blueplanet/
Of course content providers and the BBC love VOD - it's practically a licence to print money with very little benefit to the consumer.
Wrong, The BBC is funded through public licence, the probably excercises the highest standards and produces the best serious (Educational/Documentaries/Current Affairs/News) content in world.
TiVo basically gives you VOD without the overbearing corporate greed associated with current attempts at it.
Wrong, the BBC is a not-for profit, is TIVO ?
Could you be more wrong
Problem is, TiVos wouldn't sell at the full price they need to be to make a profit. So they have a subscription plan; most people seem to be more willing to pay $20 a month than an extra $200 up front.
If you want to buy a piece of hardware and not have a monthly subscription, buy the lifetime sub. Just think of it as paying the full cost of the unit up front.
Who said the link was "proof"? It just saves me the trouble of describing the bug. Though it is rather disturbing that people are still reporting this bug long after it was "fixed".