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ReplayTV May Drop "Commercial Advance"
An anonymous reader writes "Wired News is reporting that the new owners of ReplayTV are considering dropping the Commercial Advance and Send Show options features." I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway. Between that and the 30 second skip function, I'm surprised ReplayTV has lasted this long!
I used to wonder the same thing, until a friend of mine who is messing around with mythtv pointed it out to me (and he's going to be pissed he didn't get to post this):
There are the screen changes, as you mentioned
Commercials are usually a set length: 30 seconds, 1 minute, per ad
Sometimes you get the network logo when the show comes back on
I think there are other ways...sc00p, post 'em up.
Warning: Opinions known to be heavily biased.
The V4 software for Tivo supports the USB Ethernet cards. The one I just bought was V3 software, so I had a phone cord running across the house for 3 or 4 days until it got the V4 download. And I bought a Replay over Tivo, just because of their stand against the Media companies...but the product just doesn't compare. Changing channels is ass-slow, there's no multi-user guide/preference setup, nothign other than the cool sharing feature, which is likely going away. Go for the Tivo, you'll be ahppier.
This space for rent. Call 1-800-STEAK4U
Actually, the new TiVo kernel (4.0+) finally makes use of the USB ports in the back. You can connect either a Wireless or Wired Ethernet device (http://customersupport.tivo.com/tivoknowbase/root /public/tv2006.htm?) and you are good to go. I do this with my TiVo and wouldn't go back to regular TV, ever.
you mean like this?
If you are a longtime serier 1 owner, you also would know that the memory/cpu have really been stretched to the limit.
:-)
They've already thrown VBR, and additional wishlist capabilities (as well as others).
Unfortunately, they haven't found a way to upgrade the 33Mhz Series 1 chip or the 32MB or Series 1 RAM over a phoneline
Extraction to the PC was never a feature TiVo made available it was a hack made by people that have TiVo(s).
"Money didn't "flow" like that at all when cable was in its infancy. One of the selling points was that aside from the local stations, none of the other channels had commercials because you were already paying for it."
I've had cable since the late 1960s. Its real infancy: there were no channels without commercials other than the one at the bottom of the dial where the camera panned back and forth across weather dials.
The selling point was that you could receive stations period. Without cable, the broadcasters were too distant to see.
In 2003, I still have cable since it the only way to see the broadcast networks.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
While watching a show hit:
Select -> Play -> Select -> 3 -> 0 -> Select
The move to the end of the show button turns in to a 30 second skip button. It works great for me, sometimes it turns off after software updates so you will have to run the button sequence again.
I had bad luck with that function chopping out bits of show anyway.
turn off commercial advance, after the advance and rewind a couple of seconds to desired point. Turn commercial advance back on.
Commercial advance is by far one of the greatest features, it makes hour long shows into 40 minute shows saving me time and giving me more tv!
"It takes many nails to build a crib, but one screw to fill it."
TiVo had built-in support for USB ethernet well before Version 4 came out...version 4 of the software just added an "official" interface menu where you can pick static IP/DHCP.
I bought my Series 2 last year when they were still at version 3. All you had to do was plug in the USB ethernet adapter and set the dialing prefix to #401. My TiVo has *never* touched a phone line - it's been ethernet only since day 1.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Responding to all of the "I told you so" Tivo posts:
:)
The one reason that I bought a ReplayTV instead of Tivo is that I can plug the unit into my router and then download the recorded Mpeg2 files down to my primary computer, where I can then compress it into Divx or whatever.
It is the open attitude that SonicBlue represented that eventually won me over. I can only hope the D&M is good about this too. If not... MythTV is probably in my future
You do know that most televisions allow you to "delete" channels you don't watch? Channel surfing is a lot smoother.
You don't need a phone line with TiVo -- if you buy a Series2 box (which is all you can get new) then you can connect a USB to ethernet dongle to it and use it for everything -- including the initial setup call. All you have to do is plug in the dongle and set the phone prefix to ",#401" (the pause key does commas).
Current units are still shipping with 3.x, so if you want to use a wireless network you're SOL until it self-updates to 4.0 (well, you can use a USB->ethernet dongle plus a wireless bridge).
Note, however, that the DirecTiVo's are not under TiVo's control, but DirecTV's. DirecTV has seen fit to disable the USB ports on all models, for no given reason. So none of the above applies if you have DirecTV and want to use a DirecTiVo (of course, if you have DirecTV you have to have a phone line anyway...)
I'm noticing a lot of posts along the line of 'This is why you should use MythTV..'
Don't overlook SageTV!
While it's not free, nor open source, it's the most incredible PC-based PVR I've seen to date. At only $59.95, it's a bargain. Program guide data is FREE! Upgrades are FREE! And the pace of development has been outstanding.
In it's current build, it supports;
- Multi-tuner, multi-lineup recording (satellite on one card, cable on the other.. or two cable captures, or five.. whatever.)
- Recording to either Mpeg2 or Mpeg1 format (for easier portability to DVD-R or VCD.)
- Network streaming to other PCs
- Automatic recording of favorites, as well as suggestions based on your viewing history (which is easily disabled.)
- XMLTV listings import (if for some reason, free listings aren't good enough for you.)
- Dscaler support and plugins (much better quality than MythTV, Tivo, or Replay on my HDTV.)
- Audio library management..
Features they're saying will come 'soon' include;
- HDTV Support
- DVD Playback
It's not free, but it's definitely a value. The way the guys at Frey Technologies are adding features is just unbelievable. Sometimes, free solutions are not the best.
actually, any tivo supports network, do a search on google for Turbonet or Turbo Net and Tivo. The Tivo system boards (all of them, or atleast the first series does), have the header to hook up a network card, plug it in, and boot the system, and it works (they compiled eth support into the kernel that is distributed as part of tivo). Then you just change the dial out number to some wierd code (I forgot off the top of my head), and the tivo will use network to pull down info. Although, since mine is hooked to the phone line anyways, I am not sure if it sends the data it sends over the network or not.
I came, I conquered, I coredumped
Possible, but damn difficult. Getting everything going and working together is possible, but it takes a LOT of work.
I'm still fairly early in the process, but it looks like I'm going to have to change keymapping in just about every application to get them to work with my remote, without a keyboard and without use of a mouse. PC applications just aren't setup that way.
It's possible that a Freevo-like approach will work, but Freevo itself doesn't have any sort of a plugin system, so it's all or nothing... Freevo doesn't have everything that you would want, so a lot of coding needs to go into it still. It might be easier to start from scratch than try to adapt Freevo to do everything (editing, transcoding, burning, transfering, network functions, etc).
Not sure at this point, I'm still working on it. But in any case, it's very difficult to get a machine working like a Tivo unless you want the exact features, and only the features that MythTV or Freevo have, and are capable enough to trawl through the cryptic documents often needed to setup the hardware (video capture, remote, video+TV-out, etc.) and can solve all the problems that are sure to come up in the process.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I have owned a ProScan VCR for several years now. It has a few interesting features that I'm surprised people haven't picked up on.
MovieAdvance and CommercialAdvance.
CommercialAdvance is *by far* the greatest feature. I set my program to record and let it go. It will record as you'd expect. Except, at the end, it then goes back over the show (assuming nothing is queued up to record after it) and runs through the show marking the commercials. It takes a couple of minutes and then it's done.
When I go to watch the show, I just hit play and watch as usual. When it hits a commercial a blue screen (no jokes please) pops up and the VCR automagically fast-forwards past the commercials. Never once has it screwed up, it *always* returns to picture just as the show is coming back on.
The other feature which I rarely use since I don't rent tapes anymore is the MovieAdvance. This actually causes the VCR to fast-forward past all of the advertisements and FBI warnings at the start of the tape and begins rolling at the start of the movie.
The CommercialAdvance feature is the primary reason I refuse to by a DVR. Until one offers me the same feature (no hassle commercial skipping) I see no reason to switch. Oh, and for the content producers out there, the VCR DOES record your ads, I just don't see them. You have no right to force me to watch your ads. I have every right to skip them.
About 6 months ago I built my own computer/TIVO based around ATI's AIW Radeon 8500DV, which comes with their fantastic RemoteWonder. ATI's latest software has a 30 second skip feature, plus you can set up custom buttons to skip back or forward 3 seconds to get exactly where you want to be.
My family can watch the recorded shows on any computer throughout the house. We can pause live TV. ATI's software identifies the station and gives the program's name (which is great for surfing). You can also set it up to check what's on all of your favorite channels at the same time!
Plus, you can use if to store you music collection (which you can also play throughout the house) and for games.
And best off all, you can build such a system for less than $500 bucks and you'll never have to pay monthly fees.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
True: Anyone can hear that the ads are louder
False: The loudest parts of the ad aren't any louder than the loudest parts of a show.
The sound in the ads is compressed, ie. the frequencies are compressed. There is less dynamic range. The audio is run through a compressor which squishes the highest and lowest frequencies.
Lots of pop music does this. It sacrifices dynamic range for a punchier sound. Listen to an older recording (a symphony; Dark Side Of The Moon...) and watch the meters. They peak at parts that don't sound that loud. This is the stuff that gets compressed away. Soundtracks, like Pink Floyd, care about preserving the full dynamic range of the sound; pop songs and ads don't. They just want your attention.
By running the signal through a compressor, all the rest of the frequencies can be boosted up to the peak level. If you look at the meters for an ad, they hover around the peak level. So more of the sounds are more consistently louder - but at their loudest, the ads aren't any louder than the shows.