TiVo, PVR, and DVD solutions

[loup garou]

Originally posted by: figgly
When I put up my first two posts/pleas for technical help on this site I get zero responses...

Alright, I was wrong. You don't work for the cable company, you're a crackhead with too much time on your hands. For christ's sakes, learn to summarize your feelings in to some semblance of coherent thinking.

That said, after deciphering your response, I'll give you point one. I misread your first sentence, thinking you meant Tivo, Replay and PC PVRs didn't work with cableboxes.

I was at the Time Warner station you mentioned a month ago, and there were no lines out the door. However, I will try out their new PVR asap now that I know it's available in Manhattan and see how it compares to Tivo.

 

[metroplex]

Ok so the general consensus is to get TiVo...

1). Are there any specific reasons why I should go with Replay TV over TiVo? or Vice Versa?

2). Do I NEED to pay for the TiVo service or a similar service with ReplayTV? If not, is it easy to just use the hardware as a PVR? The service is cool but its extra money that I don't really have

3). Would the TiVO/Replay TV work with most/if not all cable TV boxes if available? I just watch broadcast TV mainly and use NetFlix for movies. Cable TV is totally worthless, but broadcast cable is normal broadcast TV with 300x better reception.

 

[metroplex]

Will ReplayTV work w/o their service?

 

[CFster]

DirecTivo has the best picture quality. Because it's a DirecTV receiver and a Tivo unit in one box, there's no MPEG conversion done between the receiver and the Tivo recorder. That coupled with the superior picture quality of satellite vs. cable, made the DirecTivo an easy choice for me.

Some people say the DirecTivo doesn't have the storage capacity of other Tivos, or Replays. While the DirecTivo has 35hrs - some others may have 105 or more. What people don't realize is that the 105 is at a lower resolution. It's more like 40 at high resolution setting. The DirecTivo only has one setting - high res. I upgraded mine to 105hr anyway.

I just run a cable from the DirecTivo into my PC (through my camcorder which converts the signal from analog to digital, via firewire into my PC) and record everything I want to save onto DVD. The quality of the recording is indistinguishable from the broadcast signal in my opinion.

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: metroplex
Will ReplayTV work w/o their service?

No.

Go to AVSforum.com and ask.

I own a Replay 5040 that I upgraded to a 120 gig drive and LOVE it.

 

[metroplex]

The ReplayTV looks like the better of the two - w/ the commercial skip feature.

I'm thinking about using my current AMD XP2100+ 110GB system as a PVR PC - what's the best PVR card out there? Hauppauge? eMuzed?

How's Hauppauge's software?