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Specs on a DVR computer for under $400

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Originally posted by: Fritzo

That's all the Tivo uses your connection for. That, and you can pick recordings remotely from their website (love that feature...able to schedule shows from work) it'll use the connection to receive that. The reason I brought up the Tivo selection is that my geeks friends switched to it after having to constantly fiddle with thier home made PVR boxes only to have them work only 50% of the time correctly.

Anyway, the Series II Tivo's are fully upgradeable, so they won't have the limitations and upgrade requirements of the series I's, and it's something that just works (and works well) with no hassle and no labor involved.
Click to expand...

That's exactly the point. All Tivo uses the connection for is to download the TV Schedule. And I have to pay $13/mo for that? That's the whole reason I won't use their service. Give me the option to buy your hardware and not have to pay them just to get the TV Schedule and I'd be all over it.

But oh well.
 
Originally posted by: Fritzo
Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
$400 > $132

I love the concept of Tivo but don't see the point of paying a subscription fee for something that should be a completely stand along product and not require any sort of outside connection (other than downloading the TV Line up).
Click to expand...

That's all the Tivo uses your connection for. That, and you can pick recordings remotely from their website (love that feature...able to schedule shows from work) it'll use the connection to receive that. The reason I brought up the Tivo selection is that my geeks friends switched to it after having to constantly fiddle with thier home made PVR boxes only to have them work only 50% of the time correctly.

Anyway, the Series II Tivo's are fully upgradeable, so they won't have the limitations and upgrade requirements of the series I's, and it's something that just works (and works well) with no hassle and no labor involved.
Click to expand...

My PVR hasn't missed a recording, and works correctly 100% of the time. I can schedule recordings remotely through a web interface too (don't even have to worry about forwarding any ports), and I don't have to pay $13/month to do it. I can also watch live TV (with full pause, rw, ff features) on a remote machine in addition to accessing all previous recordings remotely. Mine currently only uses 2 tuners, but I could scale that up to 10 if I desired. It can also utilize all available network space for storage, so it isn't limited to just the local drive.

That's just the TV features, I won't even go into the DVD library things that TiVo can't even come close to.

Maybe your geek friends weren't geeky enough to be able to do it right.
 
Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
Originally posted by: Fritzo

That's all the Tivo uses your connection for. That, and you can pick recordings remotely from their website (love that feature...able to schedule shows from work) it'll use the connection to receive that. The reason I brought up the Tivo selection is that my geeks friends switched to it after having to constantly fiddle with thier home made PVR boxes only to have them work only 50% of the time correctly.

Anyway, the Series II Tivo's are fully upgradeable, so they won't have the limitations and upgrade requirements of the series I's, and it's something that just works (and works well) with no hassle and no labor involved.
Click to expand...

That's exactly the point. All Tivo uses the connection for is to download the TV Schedule. And I have to pay $13/mo for that? That's the whole reason I won't use their service. Give me the option to buy your hardware and not have to pay them just to get the TV Schedule and I'd be all over it.

But oh well.
Click to expand...

That's one thing I love about my ReplayTV 3060 when I purchased it from Mercata(dot)com a few years ago it came with a lifetime subscription which is still active. I didn't have to pay an extra $299 for the lifetime subscription, actually the ReplayTV was just under $300 after rebate.
 
Originally posted by: FrankyJunior
Originally posted by: Fritzo

That's all the Tivo uses your connection for. That, and you can pick recordings remotely from their website (love that feature...able to schedule shows from work) it'll use the connection to receive that. The reason I brought up the Tivo selection is that my geeks friends switched to it after having to constantly fiddle with thier home made PVR boxes only to have them work only 50% of the time correctly.

Anyway, the Series II Tivo's are fully upgradeable, so they won't have the limitations and upgrade requirements of the series I's, and it's something that just works (and works well) with no hassle and no labor involved.
Click to expand...

That's exactly the point. All Tivo uses the connection for is to download the TV Schedule. And I have to pay $13/mo for that? That's the whole reason I won't use their service. Give me the option to buy your hardware and not have to pay them just to get the TV Schedule and I'd be all over it.

But oh well.
Click to expand...

Well, like I said, you can to remote scheduling, and there are other things you can do (like ratings, Tivo favorites (it tapes shows it thinks you might like based on your viewing preferences), you can send shows to your PC for viewing or writing to DVD, you can share shows between Tivo's, you can set a Season Pass where it records episodes of any show you wish for the whole season...too many things to list. I'm just saying that my Tivo works better than any PVR I've ever used (I've built 2 that are now being used as kids PC's) and I find them well worth the money.

 
Well does anyone have a definative setup that I should use, program and hardware. I really just want to set it up pick my shows and watch them whenever I want later. I don't care about pausing or anything fancy, just the ability to archive my programming.
 
Originally posted by: mindmaniac
Well does anyone have a definative setup that I should use, program and hardware. I really just want to set it up pick my shows and watch them whenever I want later. I don't care about pausing or anything fancy, just the ability to archive my programming.
Click to expand...



BeyondTV. Altough ALmsot all offerings provide you with sleek interface, BeyondTV hasa feture called ShowSqueeze that provides automatic transcoding. In otherwords, the program automatically converts your massive mpeg2 files in wmv files at pre-programmed settings.

This makes achiving possible with a lot less storage than trying to store all of that mpeg2 video.


screenshots
BeyondTV
BeyondTV link


basically, I have my server upstairs recording, transcoding,and providing LiveTV to my HTPC when I need it. Otherwise, it will just continually record and archive my stuff without bothering me or bogging down this computer.

 
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