Series 2 TiVos available at www.tivo.com for $399 (plus membership)

[bluearchtop]

The new series 2 TiVos came out yesterday. Faster processor, bigger disk, and USB ports for future expansion are some of the new features. You might want to save $100 and go for the AT&T Broadband one, because that one is Series 2 ready. Just 20 GB smaller, but most of us here would probably hack it and add a bigger hard drive anyways.

The Replay 4000s like mighty nice too, but still a little too pricey for my taste.

 

[tji]

Series 2 is a bit disappointing... There's really nothing major in the new features.
If it included HDTV support, for both broadcast and DirecTV, I would be the first in line.
With the listed features, I definitely won't be buying one.

 

[bluearchtop]

Yeah, the ReplayTVs look much better.

 

[jamesd1343]

the new Replays ARE impressive...

commercial skip, play shows recorded from one recorder on another. Send recorded shows to another recorder in another household over boradband...

watch the demo its worth it.

 

[jtallon]

Yeah - the replays are impressive, but their price (starting at $699 for a 40 hour unit) is outrageous. The largest one is TWO THOUSAND dollars.

I'll take a Tivo at the lower price plus $10/month any day. I agree that the series 2 is a bit weak on new features, but it has more hours the the original, and that USB port may eventually be used with an ethernet adaptor for some sort of broadband use... Probably not enough of a reason for a series 1 owner to upgrade, but it's a good deal for a new PVR user...

 

[thereds]

Look at it this way....TIVO requires you to have a home phone connection. A regular home phone line costs ~20 bucks a month. ReplayTV4k doesn't need a phone line and most people nowadays have broadband. I have broadband and don't have a homephone just a cell.

I would rather have a replaytv because this way I don't have to get a phone line just to use TiVo. Additionally, I hate paying subscription fees.

I used to own Tivo and it owned but now that I don't have a phone line, replaytv is looking good. Besides, for $699 you get the 40 hour one and you can always hack it with a 120 gigger.

 

[machomadness]

I don't have a dedicated line just for TIVO and have had no problems in the year I've had it. I believe it just dials in late night to update the listings. I've never even noticed it dialing.

 

[jtallon]

macho is right - you don't need a dedicated phone line for Tivo - you just need one that it can dial late at night when it has to update. And the USB port on the new Tivo's will *probably* allow it to do broadband updates like Replay later this year...

Besides - the percentage of US households that have broadband but *NOT* a phone line must be very, very small. I would guess it's a much larger market the other way - households with only a phone line, and no broadband...

One of the things that I find interesting about the Replay units is that all the models are the same aside from disk space, but the price varies by about $1400. On newegg a 160-gig Maxtor drive is only $248. Two would be $500. So you are REALLY getting screwed if you opt for anything but the smallest drive Replay unit and upgrade the drive yourself...

 

[Crank]

Um...yeah, unless of course you don't want to void your warranty

 

[Snyder81]

Crank, it would still probalby be cheaper to mess one up completely, and just try again than to buy the expensive ones.

 

[bluearchtop]

It seems that you can only get the Replay's direct from them, and they are doing limited runs. I wonder why. I still would love to find one of the $99 TiVos and hack it to have a huge drive. No such luck though :-(

 

[JKurtz]

I remember when Replay came out and thinking, "What a joke." Who's going to pay this kind of money for a tape-less VCR. Boy, was I wrong!

I picked up a Replay TV (Panasonic 20 hr unit) from Best Buy on clearance for $70.00 one day, and loved it.

Then, I decided to get DirecTV and got a Tivo enabled system. It has dual tuner, meaning that it will record two programs at once, even while I watch another previously recorded program. It also records them and plays them back in Dolby Digitial (if the show has it).

I've had Replay and Tivo both. IMO, the Tivo interface is much nicer and quicker to use. Its built right into my DirectTV receiver, meaning there is no additional box either. I sold the Replay, even though I got the 20 hr model from Best Buy for $70 on clearance.

DirecTV and Tivo is really an awesome combination. Soon, TV's should come with a Tivo like service built in.

As for the commercial skip:

SELECT + PLAY + SELECT + 3 + 0 + SELECT and you now have a 30 second skip by using the >| button. This setting is remembered until you loose power on the Tivo.

Since the Tivo is also based partially on Linux, you can pretty much count on being able to add a USB network adapter to the new model in the future -- even the possibility of a wireless one too.

 

[Z80]

Alot of people, including myself, have had problems with the nightly ReplayTV dial-up channel guide update. Service in my area was out for over 2 months before they fixed the problem. I had to use a long distance number to update my channel guide because without an updated channel guide these units are pretty worthless. :| I must have spent over 10 hours on the phone with Panasonic (Showstopper) support before they agreed that it was a problem with ReplayTV's dial-up network in my area. I tried to call ReplayTV and Earthlink (they provide the local dial-up service for ReplayTV) and they wouldn't talk to me.:| I guess it just goes to show that you get what you pay for. My next unit will be a Tivo and hopefully with the $10 a month subscription service they will do a better job of keeping their network up and working.

 

[CmdrTaco]

jkurtz, you rock. always thought you needed to hack your tivo to enable 30 second skip... just tried your code and works like a charm.
rokken

 

[Hooobi]

For those who are hesitant to hack their own ReplayTVs, there's actually someone on ebay selling pre-programmed drives that come with instructions and you basically just swap them for the drive in your unit. In fact, if I remember right, you can even send your unit in & they'll do it for you.

Of course, if you're gonna go to the trouble of swapping drives, you might as well do the whole thing yourself & save some money on the drive.

 

[PBMax]

<< Yeah - the replays are impressive, but their price (starting at $699 for a 40 hour unit) is outrageous. The largest one is TWO THOUSAND dollars.


<<

For $399 + $250 (lifetime sub) = $649. If you want the added features that the Replay does then add $50. Seems to be on par to me. Get whichever one you want. Replay doesn't have a subscription fee.

 

[bluearchtop]

I think the best bet right now is the AT&T Broadband Tivo offered on www.tivo.com for $100 off. It's series 2 hardware ready, just 20 GB less. Has the faster CPU, USB, etc. And you don't need AT&T Broadband either.

 

[chasem]

Is there a tv-recording product that doesnt have a monthly charge?
Is there one that supports digital cable? Or do they all? I have normal cable, not digital
What one should i get keeping in mind, that i wouldnt like to spend more than a 100$

 

[HepDude]

chasem.

The PVR (Personal Video Recorder) that doesn't have a monthly fee is the "Dish PVR" (the current model is the 501).

It's a PVR built into a Dish Network satellite receiver, and so it only works with Dish Network.

However, you might want to investigate whether Dish Network would be a better deal overall than your local cable system.

If you stay with cable, you pretty much have to get a TiVo to get PVR capability - the "lifetime service" (which means no monthly fee) costs $250 (ie equivalent of 2 years). You can find people selling their TiVo with lifetime service on ebay, as well as regular used and new TiVos (use the usual caution when bidding on ebay).

 

[XZeroII]

You'd think that TiVo would learn their lesson from the first time. People don't want to pay that kind of money for such a POS. Sure, a few people would get it, but I think this will bust like #1.

 

[JahWren]

FWIW, I have a replaytv 4K and love it. I bought the 80gb model because it had a $100 discount, making it the best value per dollar of all their models. The thing I really like about it is the network connection. 3rd parties have already developed a plethora of utilities to work with it over the network. I am able to save standard mpeg files off the replay to my PC's hard disk with ease as well as make my PC look like another 4K and have the replaytv play video from it. Every day the tools get nicer and more functional.

I am sure that once the tivo can do ethernet over its usb ports, similar tools will pop up for the tivo. But, one thing the tivo won't be able to do is match the replay's network speed - I am able to pull the video off my replay at 2.5-3MB/sec over a 100BT connection, because USB 1.1 is limited to 12Mbits/sec you will never see much more than 1MB/sec off the tivo and probably less than that due to the various overheads.

BTW, the video hardware in the replay 4k is capable of doing HDTV level output. Right now it will only do 480p max, and sonic blue has never said anything about doing better, but the tivo2 doesn't have anything better than s-video output so no matter what, it will never do even 480p. It is a small thing, but for someone with a HDTV it makes a difference.

PS, I am one of those weirdos with broadband but no land-line phone. I use a cell for all my phone needs and broadband for all my internet needs, so the replay worked out just great for me.

PPS, neither is perfect - to do that would mean at least dual-tuners and support for recording HDTV signals too.

 

[bluearchtop]

Drool. What can you do w/ the HDTV though? I mean, you still need a HDTV decoder, right? Or is that built in?

 

[JahWren]

All the replay 4K does is de-interlace so playback is at 480p instead of plain-old-NTSC 480i and that is all Sonic Blue has claimed for the machine. But, the hardware is there to do more, so it is *possible* that new software might do more. The de-interlaced 480p is nice for regular broadcasts, but one of the things Sonic Blue has alluded to is an internet-only channel where they download shows direct from Sonic Blue headquarters over the net to people's replays during idle time on the net. With the hardware already on the box, they could *conceivably* download better than dvd quality shows, all the way up to full HDTV resolution.

I hope I'm being clear about what is and what might be with the replay box, because there is a huge gulf between the two. My main point in mentioning this stuff in this tivo2 thread is that what might be possible on the replay 4K will never be possible on the tivo2 because the hardware just isn't there. The s-video jack on the tivo2 is the limiting factor, while the software is the limiting factor on the replay 4k.

 

[stoner87]

Hey, replay 4k guys!!!

Don't hack your stuff and void your warranty...turn your PC into a Replay server.