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Tivo???

V

vedder00

Member
😕
Hey I know the Tivo no longer has the cool 3 $100 rebates, but could anyone tell me if there is a place I can get the 14 Hour Tivo for a good price?


All requests must go in the Moderator sponsored ~~~I WANNA~~~ thread.

AnandTech Moderator
 
I have a 14 hour that I upgraded to 52 hours with a 30gb quantum drive. It is pretty easy you need to download the "bless tivo" program and use your PC to "bless" it before installing the drive. The ide and power connections are both ready to go in the tivo. Look in the avsforum.com for the Tivo upgrade FAQ for the finer details.
 
Vedder, unless you're confortable adding things to your computer (like another hard drive, installing a burner, etc) I don't suggest you attempt the upgrade yourself. I'm not afraid to go poking around in my computer (or anyone else's, for that matter 😀 ) but after I read the instructions on doing so, I decided it wasn't worth the time to me (I really don't use the TiVo that much), or the chance that I might screw something up, and end up with a $400 paperweight.

As for buying one on EGay, I wouldn't advise it. If you notice, most of them are being sold with "two free months of service," which means they probably sent in the $100 rebate for the service, and I can just about bet, the $100 rebate for the machine. And b/c many of them are claiming that the FCC is ordering production halted on them, I doubt you can trust them to tell you the truth if they really sent them in or not.
 
Even if you are comfortable adding a second Hard drive to your tivo, You cant add an 80 gig drive without replacing the linux kernel used by tivo with one that has support for drives larger than 30gig. It's possible, but you better know what your doing. Also 30 gig drives are about the price sweet spot now so I dont think the effort, price, and risk are worth the benifit of going over 30gig. since a 30gig will take you from 14 to 52 hours for around $100. use a 5400rpm drive, it's cheaper and produces less heat, and 7200rpm makes no difference with the tivo.
 
You guys gotta let these people know that 52 hours of tivo means 52 hours at like 10fps, you only get 1/3 of the "advertised" storage rate for best/high quality mode.

so..

a 30 hour tivo might record 10 hours of good quality. the 30 hour format really blows in quality.
 
Ahem, er, speaking as someone who has upgraded his 14-hour Tivo with a 60 GB drive to a 90+ hour Tivo, I can tell you the process is not all that hard. If you feel comfortable adding a hard disk to your PC, you can do this.

14-hour Tivo's are still on the shelf at Wal-Mart for about $250...not a hot deal, but Tivo has extended their $100 rebate (which you get only if you subscribe to their service, which is well, well worth it...and you can cancel after 2 months, I think, and still get the rebate).

The hours being quoted are indeed at the lowest quality level. At the highest quality level, my Tivo gets me around 26 or 27 hours of recording. But I do use the lowest quality level to record daily shows that I watch and toss. For movies and weekly programs, I tend to use the higher quality levels.

Since I started using Tivo about a month ago, I haven't used my old VCR even once. Tivo is the new religion!

Steve

BTW. For hot deals on all components required for Tivo upgrades, 9thTee is the place to go. I got a 60-GB Maxtor for $184 there last month.
 
Roadrunner: 1/3 the storage does not mean 1/3 the "fps" ... believe it or not, there are other ways to increase compression besides lowering frame rate. In fact, simply cutting out 2/3 of the frames would probably not even come close to cutting the storage in half since the difference between used frames would be so much greater. I'd wager that regardless of the quality level, the recorder copies the ntsc standard 29.97 frames per second. You will notice compression artifacts on lower quality materials - look into black areas and you can see exactly that, even on high quality or best quality recordings. Also, most lettering or straight lines will exhibit artifacting around them. Heck, even most DVD's have visible compression artifacting (though you wouldn't notice on a small TV). I can guarantee you that you will not notice the jittery qualities of, say, a video game running at 10fps when you view low quality video. For one, they do not lower the fps, and secondly, film is made to be viewed at a lower "frame rate" than video games and is able to do so due to inherent bluring in frames. Just had to clear up that unjustified TiVo bashing. That said, my TiVo (that I got for free at tivo.com/giveaway) is currently on the fritz. I can't exactly recommend a product that breaks for me a week after I get it. I will, however, say that the service was quite cool while it worked, and I may as well go watch Yojimbo while the internal tuner isn't working.
 
Steve0, I didn't mean to mislead anyone. I was thinking of getting tivo and have read a couple of FAQs for adding a new drive. They sounded like they were trying to cover their a@@ if people broke their tivos by including a bunch of warnings. But adding a +30 drive did sound like more work then pop the top and dropin the drive. Have they made any improvements in the last couple of months as far as adding large drives go? And how long did it take you to add your drive?

As far as frame rates and quality goes, I assume it's similar to changing the bit rates of mp3.
 
To those of you with the service, how well is it at recording the programs you want? I mean, do you ever miss the first few seconds or last few of a show? I usually have to set my VCR 1 min before and after the actual times to prevent missing anything. Has such a thing ever happened to you?
 
A couple things. Upgrading a TiVo is pretty much pop the top and drop the drive in. You can add any size IDE drive without modding the kernel. People have added 80gig ones so far (myself I added a 60gig). The kernel thing was a misconception from a while back.

Basically, you run a one command line program on your pc and then put the hd in the TiVo.
 
Wesman2, the disclaimers are right! You are most definitely ON YOUR OWN when it comes to hacking your TiVo. It invalidates your warranty. Which is why many TiVo hackers check to make sure their TiVo works before they open it up. And ALL of them back up their TiVo drive before hacking it. Follow the hack FAQ and use the Dylan disk method. The whole process took me half an evening...most of it spent getting the backup done.

This all being said, at this point in time it might be better to find a 30-hour TiVo, since those are coming down in price...but make sure you get one with ONE hard drive in it, not two, which leaves an open drive bay for you.

Also check out the AVS Tivo forum...link found elsewhere in this thread.

Steve
 
Methos1995,

I got one of the 14-hr Tivo's, and the only problem I have with it is that it does cut off the beginning or end of shows from time to time. The clock in the TIVO unit is set when it calls in to get the program guide, and I have found that sometimes this gets set about 2 minutes ahead of real time. So it will record the last part of the show before and miss the last couple minutes of the show I want recorded. Anybody else found a way to fix this? It doesn't happen all the time, just every now and then. But when it does happen, the only way I can fix it is to force it to call and update the program guide again. Then the TIVO's clock will set itself again.

 
Does anyone still have a copy of the rebate form for purchases ending 9/30? The form for that rebate is now gone from the website and the only have the new one that runs 10/1-12/31.
 
Cheapguy: I was going to take my 9.95 service refund (if they offer it to me) and then just part the TiVo, use the drives for a new computer, the fan, etc... if the price is right, I suppose I'd sell. Be warned though, I am resonably certain that the TV tuner is broken, though I'm sure I can get a replacement unit.

Also, exploding boy, you can get the 9/30 rebate at circuitcity.com (goes looking for link)

Here you go: http://www.circuitcity.com/cs_contentdisplay.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0416931087.0971290201@@@@&BV_EngineID=faljddjghfjbemfcfkmcgck.0&incat=27681
 
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