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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.
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
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.