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ReplayTV and TiVo Compared
j0atz writes "The New York Times is running a story today that, while it's a bit redundant in the beginning and a bit short on technical details later, gives a rundown the newest features for ReplayTV (numbered 4000 or above) and TiVO (Series2); basically, you can program your favorite DVR to record a show from a remote computer or from another (same-brand) DVR. Along with that, you can stream MP3's and pictures with TiVo now.
Still...I'd much rather use something like FreeVo or MythTV and actually burn my shows to cd, stream whatever I want, etc, etc."
They aint the only two you know :P
Over here in the UK Sky makes a PVR called sky+ I'd hazard a guess that its probably better than TIVO and ReplayTV, but the PSX takes the crown with its DVD-+R
There is no god
At the high or best settings, you'd be hard pressed to pick out a digital cable signal from a tivo recorded digital cable signal.
At the basic quality setting, you'd have no problem whatsoever.
However, if your input signal is poor, tivo will have a harder time compressing it (as it tries to store all the noise), and compression artifacts might become obvious at High.
It depends on the quality of the incoming cable signal. You know, garbage in, garbage out. On my TV I notice a difference, but it beats the hell out of a VCR for quality and the season pass makes me randy.
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
The ReplayTV series was purchased by Denon & Marantz (makers of higher-end A/V receivers), a company with greater resources that SonicBlue ever had. So really they are better off now than they were before. Buy with confidence.
You choose the picture quality (a default which you can override for specific shows/SPs) but higher quality uses more disk space.
Basic looks pretty horrible, and it does the usual blocky MPEG artefacts when something moves quickly but it's better than VHS at least.
Medium is quite watchable, and OK for fairly static programmes (gameshows and the like)
High is what I use for day-to-day and is very good - I have (UK) Sky Digital as the source and it's as good to my eyes.
Best uses even more disk space, but will be as good as what you throw at it. It's what the live buffer uses and is recommended for sports and other fast-moving stuff.
It's pretty straightforward to upgrade a TiVo to use a (cheap now) 120Gb disk and you can store a lot at High or Best with that.
Your friend heard incorrectly. TiVo has 4 levels of compression available: Basic, Medium, High, and Best.
Best: Virtually indistinguishable from the original broadcast. This is a good level for sports or movies with a lot of action scenes.
High: I record everything (except sports) in high. For most shows, it's also very very close to original broadcast quality. On my 120GB TiVo I get about 40 hours recorded at High quality.
Medium: Obviously a small step down from High. Dark scenes start getting hard to see, there are artifacts, etc. I never record at medium.
Basic: I think this one sucks pretty bad and never record anything with it. However, I would get like 130+ hours of recording time on my 120GB TiVo if I used it all the time. Some people are satisfied with it, but I suspect those people have smaller TV sets.
We have a 60" TV, so it's big enough for the quality to be important, and with High and Best, TiVo's quality is awesome. Definitely better than VCD, and better than most DivX encodings I've seen (although I understand you can encode DivX at real high rates too).
It is my understanding that Snap Stream Media http://www.snapstream.com will be releasing version 3 today. I have not personally used it but have read some very positive reviews.
That's all I really needed to convince me. The fact it uses Rendezvous networking technology and has an establish fan/accessory (802.11b hack!) is a further plus.
-I have a gen1 Tivo.
I would be wary of buying one simply because the future of the service is in jeopardy.
That is some horrible information there. I am not worried about my ReplayTV service that has not had a single problem since my purchase last year. If you haven't heard/read, ReplayTV was purchased by a good company, D&M.
Here's an article
Maybe you should reconsider giving out advice.
Anyway, yeah, it'd be cool to have some kind of software solution to all this (preferably Free software), but as it is, it just doesn't seem feasible, mostly because TiVO hardware is cheap and a large part of what you're paying for is the guide service, anyway.
These are mentioned everytime a TiVo/ReplayTV article is published, do a Google search for MythTV or SageTV
There are much better comparisons available, including http://pvrcompare.com/ , a great site for people considering a PVR purchase.
If you go with the DirecTivo units you get NO loss at all since stores the incoming digital signal to the HD directly. You get about 1 hour/GB and it is as good as it is coming off the sat.
TyStudio does that.
The DirecTV Tivos copy the satellite stream including Dolby digital as they come off the Sat-- so they are as "perfect" as the source-- which means for hi-bitrate channels like HBO, it's not DVD quality, but it's better than any cable I've seen.
:-P
The flipside is that the DirecTivos are more difficult to hack, and I don't think there's any easy way to Hack the HDVR2 (latest and 'greatest')
As others have mentioned, the HDVR2 is plagued with audio issues, while not devastating, still annoying-- and there hasn't been a patch since release-- 8 months ago. Also, there's no word on support for Home Networking for this model, even though the hardware supports it.
I've been too lazy-- but if if I give up on DirecTV sanctioned networking, I'm going to actively persue video extraction options.
Huh?
A decent tuner card does not run for more than $60. And you only need one (MythTV for example can use more than one though). Now, a TiVo (not counting service) is still cheaper than a PC you build for the same functionality. Thats what you get with mass produced bare bones hardware.
Looks like APEX is joining the bunch. This also includes a DVD player, or rather this DVD player includes a DVR. I don't read anything about a service fee either.
ADR-1000
You "can" do it with a series 1 tivo as well. There is an option to "Archive" a show, mainly meaning to VHS tape. But I have had it go into my video capture card and store it that way on my computer for later burning.
Not the best method, but it works.
"Then along comes the OSS community. Builds a competitive box at 3x the price, software that's more difficult to use, and a feature-set that still can't compete. (yay for OSS)."
What do you mean - THEN comes along the OSS community?
Your tivo was built on OSS software!
Right, but you're seriously degrading the quality doing it that way. You get an extra round of compression artifacts, not to mention noise from the digital-analog-digital conversion.
I have tried both MythTV and Freevo.. Each of which took days to get to work and not fully. The quality of the broadcasts was very low and there were driver issues and hacks all over the place that had to be done just to get a common TV tuner to work correctly (AvertMedia). That aside I wasn't impressed with either product after weeks of fighting and research. I am looking at TiVO at this point.
The /. crowd is still missing a valuable lesson in "building your own tivo" -- it's freaking EXPENSIVE! I love how all the lists of "needed hardware" included multiple super high-end video capture cards -- each of which costs the same as a full TiVo.
Now mind you, I have not yet built my own PVR, but have actually been looking into it quite a bit now.
How is it more expensive? First, as far as I know, you'd need a VIA EPIA with at least around an 800MHz chip on it; that should set you back around $105 shipped. Then you'd need some memory; an extra $50. 80 gig hard drive; should be around $80. WinTV PVR card, to handle all the MPEG2 encoding from TV; $125. Mini-ITX power supply; $30. (Throw in some extra for a case, or put it in something fun like at mini-itx.com.) Linux distribution and an installation of Freevo or MythTV; free.
No priceless joke at the end of the list: good.
That totals under $400 ($390). I'd say put an extra $75 in the mix, just in case there are upgrades/other necessities, and you're at $465. When I was looking at TiVOs this past December, they ended up being well over this price with subscription services.
Now, the question remains of whether or not my product list up there would be feasible...
I've extracted/re-encoded several times without any appreciable degredation in quality. Just record your shows at high/best quality and you shouldn't have a problem.
Compatability with DirecTV.
.. they are.. but the DirecTV receiver I needed for it to work was another 150$.
.. buy a refirb DirecTV/Tivo receiver. That was 6 months ago and not a problem since. And Tivo is actually cheaper that way.. 4.95$ a month.
I bought a ReplayTV first... but after trying every way to get it to work with my direcTV receive and failing, I called DirecTV and according to the techs I talked to.. Replay systems are "not supported"
So, I took it back to best buy the next day.
I think looked at rolling my own.. but 1) they didn't compare cost wise and 2) nothing was mentioned with them working well with DirecTV. All the linux/windows packages are geared for Cable Boxes, not satelite.
So, I ended up at plan C)
We just traded our cable box for a PVR through our cable company. We got an integrated PVR/cable box with a 40 hour hard drive, and almost no DRM - we can record everything except pay-per-view. They even let us spit stuff out onto tape if we want.
How is this different from TiVo/REplayTV? Actually, I think TiVo/ReplayTV can record PPV, you just can't transfer them.
All for $5 per month. (JOY!)
SO you're renting the device. Once you stop service you probably have to give it back. Maybe not a bad deal but I don't know if this makes you the luckiest guy in the world, and most likely aren't the only customer with this provider using a PVR.
For those of you who dont know, when you have a TiVo hooked up to your television, you aren't watching "live" TV. You are watching TV from about 1 second earlier. This is required for of the ability to pause or rewind live TV.
This can cause problems. I have Digital Cable from TW which offers Dolby Digital 5.1 surround on some channels and I have a high end audio system. Because TiVo does not have digital audio out nor support for it, I literally have to discontinue to EVER watch a show in digital 5.1 surround because of that 1 second lag in between live TV and Tivo TV. The audio and video aren't synced up.
Also, because you are not watching live TV, video quality suffers even on "best" recording mode. The bigger your TV, the more you will notice. Mine is 65" so I notice quite a bit.
I use one of the alternate video outs (as opposed to "send to vcr" feature) to record directly to an A/V dvd recorder. Very good quality on trasnfer even on medium quality. Using an AV component instead of extracting files is less hassle and you can make the recording as you watch the original. Also, anyone comparison shopping from this article should note that the ReplayTV does have a "wish list" type feature that is integrated into the regular show search (Tivo requires you to set up these requests in an entirely seperate menu feature).
You must have Time Warner Cable... its the only PVR from a cable company that can actually record two shows at once. But you don't have commercial skip or fast forward, or anything like TiVo's Season Passes. Just remember, you get what you pay for.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Hey,
:)
I recently compared and purchased my first PVR, a ReplayTV 5040 machine. Everyone I know has a TiVo ver 1 and they like it. Why did I choose Replay over TiVo ver 1 or ver 2?
Mainly because of being able to send shows from box to box over ethernet. And to best that, you can run DVArchive on a computer and it acts as another ReplayTV box on the network. You can save shows to it and play shows off of it.
TiVo has crappy broadband connectivity. Ver 2 is supposed to support USB. What additional hardware are you going to have to buy to connect that to something? I've got CAT5 running already out my DSL, I just plugged in my replay, it got an IP from DHCP and that was it.
Also, I found on avsforum.com some of the authors of the ReplayTV software hang out and answer questions. Much nicer then having to contact someone at Phillips.
You can record shows, and play them back whenever you want in both of them, blah blah. But this ethernet stuff is the wave of the future.
-m
http://www.invisik.com
I could go on. Also, I'm pretty damn sure that TW won't be distributing any cable box that'll let you dump anything via FireWire. Call it a hunch.
ceci n'est pas un sig.
First, the features that D&M is talking of dropping are for future models, possibly to allow for differences between low-end and high-end models.
/. editors when posting the previous story. They were talking about Commericial Advance, which is the feature whereby the unit detects commercial breaks and automatically skips over them for you without pressing any buttons. (That's also one of two features, along with show sharing, that SonicBlue is being sued over--I haven't heard if the lawsuit was transferred as part of the sale.)
Second, the 30-second skip is not one of the features in question. That was a misunderstanding by the
Oh, and ReplayTV also has a x-minute skip available--just hit a number followed by the skip (or instant replay) to skip that many minutes. I've programmed my remote with this sequence so that I have a 2-minute skip button--I use that, and then fine tune it with the 30-second skip and the 8-second instant replay buttons. (I'm beginning to think that 3-minute skip may be better.)
DirecTV-integrated TiVos are not TiVos in the same way that standalone TiVos are. DirecTV took over all management of the DirecTiVo models, including software rollouts. It may even be that DirecTV has its own programmers maintaining the DirecTiVo code. At any rate, they're responsible for deciding what features to rollout and when.
Currently, DirecTV hasn't committed to offering the 4.0 software or the HMO feature set on their TiVos, but they're paying attention to the success or failure of TiVo's HMO rollout and they'll decide what to do based on HMO's popularity with owners of standalone Series 2 models.
If HMO is a hit, you'll see it on DirecTiVo models. If it's not, you won't. It's that simple.
I just thought I should point out that most of the people who are quoting you $400 for a TiVo unit are quoting you the retail price for a standalone TiVo. Now what savvy Slashdot shopper actually pays retail? :P
The HDVR2 DirecTiVo is $199 if you're a current DirecTV subscriber. Just call DirecTV at 1-800-DIRECTV and request it. That's $199 installed, I might add.
If you're not a current DirecTV subscriber, you can get an HDVR2, a dual LNB dish, and have the whole damn thing installed for $219. Check American Satellite for more.
If you want to stick with digital cable (bleh, why?!) and wish for a standalone TiVo, all you have to do is go to TiVo.com and click on the Buy TiVo link. There you'll see 80GB TiVos for $249. (Note that the DirecTV TiVos can record more programs on an 80GB drive than the standalone TiVos set at Best quality, so don't let that affect your buying decision.)
Finally, if you're interested in video extraction, you can hack the TiVo. If you're not interested in hacking your TiVo, just do what I did: I set up an ATI All-In-Wonder card and hooked it up to the second input of my TiVo. I then used the "Save to VCR" function to archive shows. With a CD burner, I can burn to VCD... if you have a DVD burner, you can burn direct to DVD. "Save to VCR" comes with your TiVo, works well, and doesn't require hacking your TiVo. It makes archiving video a cinch.
When it's all said and done, you could buy two standalone TiVos for less than what you're paying, or opt for the DirecTV option and pay LESS for a TiVo, installation, and 6-8 months of DirecTV service... and you don't have to do any more work other than clicking a couple buttons on American Satellite's website. When you look at it this way, building your own doesn't make much sense!
Simpli - Your source for San Jose dedicated servers and colocation!
If you're really worried about video quality, I'd recommend a DirecTiVo. I love mine.
Aside from being able to record two shows on different channels at the same time (even while you watch another previously recorded show), they simply copy the already encoded (MPEG-2?) video from the satelite signal. It doesn't encode for storage->decode for viewing like the stand-alone units.
"PROFANITY is the inevitable literary crutch of the inarticulate MOTHER FUCKER." -- some PC user
To do this on a Tivo you have to remove the hard drive and put it in a PC, futz with it and put it back in. If you have a series 2 Tivo you can setup the net connection to download the movies over the network but its not a friendly process. To download shows from a series 1 you have to add an gray market network card.
With ReplayTV you can just use DV Archive to download shows from it. Friendly interface, no warranty voiding required.
I know TiVo supports it. I use it all the time if I can't understand what someone just said... rewind a few seconds, turn on CC, and there it is.
ReplayTV is selling refurbished 5040 units for $330 + shipping ($12 for ground/standard), which includes a lifetime service subscription.
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
The protocol that TiVo uses for it's HMO (Home Media Option) is open. http://developers.tivo.com
There is a Linux server available that I think is better than the official TiVo server already. http://ptivohmo.sourceforge.net. You have to get it out of CVS, but it works great.
The server has a few problems here and there, but it's updated frequently. I use it daily and very rarely have any problems.
In the face of pressure from the tv industry, Replay may be dropping the 30 second skip feature and Tivo doesn't even have it unless you do the little hack and even then it's a pain in the butt.
Please read your reference more carefully. Lots of posts in the thread you cited tried (apparently in vain) to clarify your error. ReplayTV/DM is not considering removing 30-second skip. Even the article summary is clear on this:
"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!
Again, ReplayTV has two features that are useful for avoiding commercials: (1) Commercial Advance, which automagically skips commercials in recorded or timeshifted live TV, with no button pressing or any other sort of user intervention and (2) a 30-second skip button that the user can press to advance past commercials (also works in multiples of 30s by pressing a number key before skip, so 2 + skip = 1 minute advance).
Moreover, reading the actual article you referred to would have revealed to you that ReplayTV/DM is not planning to remove any features from existing models, so commercial advance, 30-second skip, and internet show-sharing are here to stay for existing models. ReplayTV/DM is, however, considering not including commerical advance and/or internet file sharing on future models. There is no talk of removing 30-second skip from future ReplayTV models. Got all that?
Also, the Tivo has no internet file sharing or automatic commercial advance, but the 30-second skip, which isn't enabled by default, is pretty trivial to enable (button-pressing only required, no opening the box or anything else that you might find scary, or reasonably call a pain in the butt).
All that said, I'd me more likely to buy a ReplayTV now than a few months ago. D&M bought 'em, so they're not going anywhere (so the service is not in jeapordy). Software updates with new features for existing models are on the way according to D&M. Heck, D&M even sent out a letter recently to those who bought ReplayTV a few months ago with the rebates, and indicated that they will be honoring the rebates. Future ReplayTV models may be less feature packed (I love commercial advance, personally). And, refurbed units with lifetime service included are available for incredible prices.
everything in moderation
I used to have a Replay (Panasonic Showstopper), but bought a Tivo when I went to DirecTV because my local cable provider finally annoyed me enough. I picked up a combined "DirecTivo" unit.
For $199 I got free installation with dish (and they did a great job) and a dual tuner unit (Hughes HDVR2). The HDVR2 records the original data stream from the satellite (IOW, no digital-analog-digital generation loss) so the recorded shows look as good as watching live. My local channels come in over the dish now, and show up in the proper channel slots (2, 4, 5, 7, etc.) instead of up in the 600s or 700s. Satellite, local, and pay per view are all integrated into a slick package.
Cost in time: none. I'm able to log into work from home over a VPN, so I just worked at home the days of installation. Yeah, my cable company still gets me for Internet, but they achieved fiber optics at the curb in my area and reasonably priced megabit access, so that's OK.
The monthly charge for the Tivo service is only $6 through DirecTV for some reason. Honestly, if I have to worry about a $6 a month charge, I have greater concerns that watching television more efficiently.
I read accounts of the roll your own approach, and it just seems like endless hours of annoyance. I like to program and mess about with my computers (I have Macs, PCs and Linux boxen), but I really can't see the point to re-inventing the wheel in this case. They do seem to be getting a little more plug and play, but still... the claims of "it's free this way" completely ignores the value of a person's time.
As for the comparison, I liked the Replay a lot. It was my first DVR, and I had a definite "how did I live without this" reaction. However, I like the Tivo more for three reasons: "to do" list, better conflict resolution, and better search functions.
I like the direct recording of the original data stream, but Replay could just as easily do that in a combo unit, I imagine. I don't care about sending stuff to the computer, so I can't speak to that. Ultimately, it's just TV... that's why I like the DVRs in the first place- they make my TV time much more efficient (and shorter). If I just HAVE to have a copy of a movie, DVDs are cheap.
--- Ban humanity.
The Tivo and Replay both support the passing through of the closed caption signal. The compression of the video doesn't affect CC.
However, if you are asking do the boxes themselves actually have the ability to generate CC subtitles, Replay does not. The Tivo Series 1 machines can *if* you have the ability and time to go through installing a separate add on program from here:
TivoVBI
"TK-421, why aren't you at your post?"
I can echo this. Sitting on the floor of my office right this second is a Replay 4160 that I just received today back from Replay support when the hard drive in my unit crashed last week. So I can verify that customer support & RMA functions of Replay are up and running just fine.
Worry not about the bankruptcy, it appears ReplayTV is very much a going concern.
SonicBlue is selling the ReplayTV 5040 (including Lifetime activation) for only $329
This is an incredible deal, especially since the price of the activation alone will be $299 on June 1st. The only catch is that it is refurbished, but it still comes with a 90 day warranty.
This is a limited time/quantity offer, so I'm guessing that it won't be available much longer.
More info in the AV Science Forum
Tivo: $250
Permission to use Tivo: $250/life-of-machine or $13/mo
Tivo network hardware: $50
Permission to use Tivo network hardware: $100
Cost to restart all that if the Tivo breaks: $600
Building your own: priceless.
Okay, that is overdone, but I was really considering getting a Tivo until I read about all those additional charges. It would actually be cheaper to build one, and the frustration of doing so would be offset by MythTV's ability to act as a front end for all my emulators and play content I find on the net and even download the weather.
You are degrading the quality of the video if you're capturing it through the analog outputs, even if it is a DirecTiVo. There is no loss[*] between what the dish receives and what you burn if you're doing digital extraction using TyStudio, but there is if it's converting it to an S-Video signal and you're digitizing it with a capture card (and then there's the matter of getting an audio capture card that can capture the digital audio output).
[*] That is, no further loss beyond the digitization process that DirecTV puts on the signal themselves. Your digitally extracted copy just has no further loss beyond that already present in the transmitted signal. You want less loss? Get a BUD (Big Ugly Dish), point it at the uplink feeds for the various networks, and figure out how to extract the signal it receives digitally.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
And now, in readable form. (Just changed my default to Plain Old Text from HTML Formatted. Sorry, I'm new.)
With TiVo's new networking feature, you must wait several minutes as the show is copied onto the second unit, where it will remain as a duplicate. You lose instant gratification, but gain the freedom to offload recordings from one TiVo to another when the first one's hard drive is getting full.
This isn't entirely accurate. While the ceiling of the bitrate for Best Quality recordings on a TiVo is higher than that of the USB 1.1 ethernet adapter, recordings at other qualities can be watched as they transfer on the receiving TiVo without delays on a clear 100 Mb/s LAN.
And even at Best Quality, my experience has shown that some shows can still be watched as they transfer without delays, depending on how much motion is in them. Series2 hardware running 4.0 (which enables this Home Media Option) apparently do some basic Variable Bit Rate (VBR) encoding. I had no problems watching the original Night of the Living Dead while it was transferring.
Though TiVo hasn't said that 4.0 enables VBR on Series2, my experience with that transfer and being able to store many more hours of G4's Portal at Best Quality (very low motion for the majority of that show) than my TiVo's capacity reports, indicates that some VBR encoding is going on.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?