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Tivo and SonicBlue Settle Dispute
Shippy writes "According to this article at the Stereophile Guide to Home Theatre, Tivo and SonicBlue have
decided to dismiss all patent-infringement claims 'without prejudice' and instead focus their energies on energizing the DVR market. 'We believe our energies are better spent expanding the market for DVRs rather than fighting each other,' the former adversaries said in a joint statement. The article also discusses their plans for marketing and also how they plan to respond to criticisms that the DVR market is doomed."
SonicBlue's boxes have no monthly fee. TiVo's machines are available with a lifetime service plan as well (you choose monthly or lifetime). So if it's just the monthly fee that's holding you back, have at it!
look again, because now sonic blue does have a monthly fee of $9.99 i believe, or you can buy a lifetime subscription for $250....
i just came into some money and was thinking of buying one because of the no monthly fee, but then i saw that...back to VCR i suppose
If the two reasons you cited are the only things keeping you from getting one then you haven't researched your options enough.
You can get either a Tivo or a Replay-Thingy w/o a recursive cost and w/o a lifetime subscription.
BOSTON SUCKS!
FYI, you can hack a TiVo to be accessible from the net, but at present it's definitely a job for the technically inclined. (I've done it to both of my TiVos and it works great.) The network-enabled ReplayTV models are probably worth a look if remote access is high on your wish list.
Check here, which was the second google hit on "setting the tivo clock".
E-E-Tivo - If in Debug mode (see C-C-E-E 2 below), lets you set the TiVo's clock. Warning: setting this value may cause all of your Guide data to get "expired". If you want to play with this, keep in mind that TiVo may get mad at you for downloading several copies of your Guide data over the course of a couple of days. The best way to fix a messed up clock without reloading all the Guide data is to do the "Make a Test Call" option. The format of the time entry you use is the same as the format for the settime command. (?)
No, it's not ideal that they make you go through a backdoor to do it, but at least it's possible. Also, a test call might (or might not) work even if you weren't subscribed, but there's no real need. I agree that it should just be a menu option somewhere.
-Puk
TiVo works just fine without when a subscription runs out. You don't get any program info, and you have to manually setup record times, but it does work. Pausing live TV works just like before.
:( Well worth $12.95 a month.
I'm not sure it will work if you NEVER have the subscription, but you could always just pay for 1 month.
I went without an update/subcription for a month when my modem died.
(appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
My TiVo never dials "home". It's a DirecTiVo...gets its guide info from the satellite. I paid for the lifetime membership (really) and just didn't feel like being spied on *cough* I meant anonymous statistics harvested, so I fixed it to never dial.
Took some work, but it worked just fine.
They do. Both Replay and TiVo buy their guide data from Tribune Media Services. TMS provides guide data to just about every program guide provider in existence.
"The guide is definitive, reality is frequently inaccurate."
so you would be happy if the cell company decided to remove the call history feature without telling you?
If I subscribed to a software update service and that's what they did, I would complain to the cell phone company. Are you trying to tell me that being able to subscribe to software updates is wrong, or that their being on by default with TiVo is wrong? Or are you simply ill informed and think tha you cannot turn off the so-called "dial home" feature on a TiVo?
I dont want them to and the only way to keep a TIVO running like it did when it was purchased is to not let it ever talk to the mother company.
Horse hockey. There are a million kits out there for networking support, and the commands required to back your OS out to the network are VERY well documented on a great many sites.
Personally, I don't bother. I vote with my customer support calls and my wallet. So far I've had to use neither, but the day may come when TiVo does something I'm unhappy with and don't want to keep. If they don't offer me an option to back out via customer service, I'll simply buy their competition's device.
so, out of the box, no clock set so you cannot tell it to record at 10 pm
This is also incorrect. You can log into the box and set the time with the "date" command just like any Linux box.
You can also let it make the call in to set the time and get schedule information once and then use it as a digital VCR from then on in. Of course, you won't have all of the most important attributes of a TiVo (like the guide information and TiVo's suggestions), but that's your call.
Let me repeat that for those in the cheap-seats: THAT'S YOUR CALL. You have a Linux-based DVR. Have fun.
and if you let it call home and not subscribe... you get nice pop-up ad's all the time and many functions that should work are disabled. just look at the tivo forums for a list of funtions that do not require any of the guide data to function that are intentionally disabled to "convince" you to subscribe.
I invite people to go have a look at these forums. You will find that the features that are disabled are basically all of the things that require a guide database.
This TiVo paranoia is just silly. Buy the device and use it like they intend. If you find you don't like it 30 days later, take it back to the shop and get your money back and buy a ReplayTV. USE YOUR WALLET TO VOTE.
Yeah, the DVD/PVR combo is nice - but it's about 5x more expensive than a Tivo! If you want to archive, just get the network card for your tivo, download the mpeg files to your PC and archive to CDR/DVD/Tape/HD... Over a 100Mbit this is pretty quick. There are plenty of good hacks for Tivo. Not sure what the Panasonic and similar units are running under the hood, but being able to login to your PVR, have it run a web server, etc. is way cool! Eric
With a DirecTiVo you get your programming from the dish, so no call home is required to TiVo except for software updates (this can be disabled).
You can pop a modified NIC into a [Direc]TiVo and have it use your broadband to "call" into TiVo and not use a phone line. Still need a phone line if you do "impulse" PPV ordering to call DirecTV once a month (I do my ordering via the web so no phone needed).
You can hack NTP updates out of the call (I did, I find my local NTP server at home more reliable as it polls Stratum 2 clocks).
Manual record works just great if you want to use it as a "dumb vcr" and not have any scheduling info (if it's a Stand-Alone TiVo, but remember you get free scheduling from a DirecTiVo).
Best thing about DirecTiVo - No $12.95 TiVo subscription fee anymore. You just pay $4.95/receiver (same as any other DirecTV device). Actually, you get the second of the Dual Tuners in a DirecTiVo for free. Bad news about DirecTiVo - no Lifetime anymore, but at $250 it would take you 4.2 years to even break even vs the $4.95 fee. Odds are your PVR won't last that long.
And if your cable company's set-top box isn't supported by the PVR, because the IR codes for your set-top box either aren't known or published, then you're screwed. This is why I'm stuck programming both my ReplayTV and my cable box whenever I want to tune a show for recording.
I complained to ReplayTV that my IR blaster didn't work with my cable box, and they tried to implement the IR command set for my cable box, but the implementation never worked right. So I eventually chucked the IR blaster cable.