so i finally got dvr and i have this link:

http://www.satellitesweeper.com/hacking-tivo-and-dvr.htm

saved and i am interested in trying a couple of the things. however, it frequently says tivo and my question is, does it have to be tivo for those things to work or just a dvr??

2/24/2007 8:12:17 PM

Pretty sure thats only for an actual Tivo.

Remember, all Tivos are DVRs, but not all DVRs are Tivos

[Edited on February 24, 2007 at 9:08 PM. Reason : .]

2/24/2007 9:08:24 PM

if it says tivo, then it is for tivo only....unfortunately

2/24/2007 9:16:36 PM

Tivo >>>>>>>>> All dvrs

2/25/2007 4:17:38 PM

Quote :

"Tivo >>>>>>>>> All dvrs"

you need a few more >>>>>>>>>>>>>'s in there and you're all set

2/25/2007 4:25:43 PM

what makes tivo so much better besides being more expensive? not bashing tivo... just havnt really used it

2/25/2007 5:01:57 PM

The only non-tivo dvr I can talk about is the HD DVR from time warner.

Unlike tivo:
If you have 3 or more programs scheduled to record at the same time and change the channel to view live tv, it will ask you to cancel one then let you watch your show for about 30 seconds. Then if you haven't chosen to RECORD the live show, it'll switch (without prompting) to the 3rd recording choice you might not have even known about. This can be annoying if it's something like the weather channel and you have no interest in recording it. If you cancel a recording in Tivo to watch live tv, it won't change the channel on you as long as you're watching it. (Really most of the problems are like this one- annoying but not serious. Tivo is just a better overall user experience.)

Menus on the non-tivo DVR are amazingly slow, low resolution, and poorly laid out.

Time Warner DVR has no smart auto fill feature that'll record programs similar to ones you like. This is only a problem for say... the first 3 days while you still haven't told it to record what you want.

Time warner DVR is much glitchier, freezes more often, and is often a refurb that someone else returned when they cancelled service.

[Edited on February 25, 2007 at 5:21 PM. Reason : ]

2/25/2007 5:20:18 PM

comcast's dvr sucks-- i played with it over at my friend's place onetime, and god it made me want to jump off a building it sucked so bad

2/25/2007 5:57:44 PM

my parents have a directv tivo (old) and in my house i have what directv came out w/ after canning tivo call directv + and even though its hard drive is larger and what all I really miss the tivo. it is faster w/ the menues and faster responding to pauses/fast forwarding and just a all around better experiance

2/26/2007 8:43:34 AM

maybe it's just me, but i don't want my dvr to be recording crap i didn't tell it to. i choose the shows for it to record and i didn't choose other ones for a reason...

2/26/2007 8:46:53 AM

^ that is just an optional feature of TiVo.. it looks at what you are currently recording and looks at what shows you have given thumbs up ratings to, and finds similar shows that you may like.. You actually have to turn the feature on to use it.. not like hte tivo just starts recording crap for you.

2/26/2007 10:05:03 AM

Quote :

"Time warner DVR is much glitchier, freezes more often"

i havent found that. my SA 8300 works perfectly. though since it only has two tuners I can only record two programs at the same time. the only reason i would even consider a switch to tivo is if it had more than 2 tuners which i dont think it does.

2/26/2007 10:56:32 AM

I still say the XP media center interface is great, if not sometimes a bit unstable

2/26/2007 11:16:29 AM

^^the Series 3 tivo actually has 6 tuners, but only two can be used concurrently.. 2 ATSC (OTA), 2 analog tuners, and 2 digital cable tuners (CableCard)

2/26/2007 11:41:54 AM

I used to have the Time Warner DVR in my old apartment. For Christmas, we decided to get our parent Tivo.

I must say, I completely hate the way the Tivo looks and feels. The way that the guide only allows you to see the current program on each channel unless you have that channel selected is annoying. Also, the way that Tivo has the giant summary page that pops up on the entire screen when you switch channels is completely awful for channel surfing. Granted, there might be a way to change that through a preferences page, but I haven't messed with it.
H8 Tivo

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 1:26 PM. Reason : .]

2/26/2007 1:24:15 PM

Quote :

"i havent found that. my SA 8300 works perfectly."

Well that makes one. Mine and 3 of my friend's dvr's are quite flakey. But thank you for showing that if you get one, you have a chance of getting one that's problem-free.

Quote :

"it is faster w/ the menues and faster responding to pauses/fast forwarding and just a all around better experiance"

Oh god yes the TiVo hardware is so much faster. The timewarner Scientific Atlanta DVR's have so little power they'll show you a grey screen for upwards of a minute if they just started recording 2 HD shows. Almost whenever I'm watching a recorded show and the clock rolls to the next hour, my replay is stopped, the screen goes grey, and I have to select and resume the recorded show I was watching before I can continue. What's worse is that if the recorded show wasn't finished being recorded, I'll have to start from the beginning and fastforward to the point I was at.

Now, for the money they're fairly good DVR's mind you (ie, free.) But they are so poorly programmed and underpowered it's not funny.

[Edited on February 26, 2007 at 4:33 PM. Reason : ]

2/26/2007 4:29:27 PM

we're on our 3rd or 4th 8300.. most of the problems seem to be HDD related.. pixel blocking, sound problems, etc.

and yes that whole gray screen once a recording has finished while you're watching it in delay is annoying as hell.. and half the time it doesn't allow you to resume where it left off.

and can they please add the feature that's on tivos where the 'live' or 'skip to end' button takes you to the beginning or to each of the 15min tick marks when in rewind/fastfoward mode.

2/26/2007 7:06:40 PM

Blah yeah, I would like a faster way to get back to the point in the 3 hour program I was at when it decided to interupt me and make me watch it from the beginning.

2/26/2007 10:35:32 PM

^while fast-fowarding, you can use those arrow keys by the select button to skip ahead in 15-minute increments

2/27/2007 11:46:27 AM

my gf's Tivo Series 2 is a piece of shit.

buttons are terribly unresponsive. verrrrry slow menu. looks like crap. only one tuner. its so frustrating to use its hardly worth it.

I'm really happy w/ my cable HD/DVR box.

2/27/2007 4:33:23 PM

Quote :

"Well that makes one. Mine and 3 of my friend's dvr's are quite flakey. But thank you for showing that if you get one, you have a chance of getting one that's problem-free."

i've had no problems with my TWC SA 8300HD either

2/27/2007 4:42:55 PM

you will hate the new OS that will come out for it

2/27/2007 6:41:36 PM

^^ so 60% defect rate then? you're right, that's respectable. TimeWarner is replacing ours... eventually... but they said it would be low priority since the unit turns on and displays picture even if it has issues. Guess they're still short on supply? Right now it won't play half the programs and says "Recording is currently unavaible." That's a recent thing though. Sad thing is, they'll probably give it to some new customer the day after they pick it up from us.

2/28/2007 12:03:21 AM

We've gone through two DVR boxes and are on our third one.

Pieces of shit. That's all I wanted to say. <3

2/28/2007 12:20:31 AM

my SA 8300 works great - never seen any of the pproblems you mentioned

2/28/2007 6:28:09 AM

Talking about DVR's I built my own box. Mythtv does everything that the other DVR's do, but you can upgrade it and honestly do so much more shit (Music, roms, pictures, video's etc...). The program uses linux and a website that gives you a step by step set up is http://www.mysettopbox.tv/ I have had mine for 3 years and I love it. Check it out if you are not happy with what you got now.

D

2/28/2007 9:31:10 PM

^mythtv is really only for dedicated folks. i tried to set one up twice, and after about 10 hours of trying to get the linux dependencies right i just gave up and formatted to windows.

2/28/2007 11:51:46 PM

the one thing I wish my comcast DVR was better at was fast forwarding...with Tivo it seems that when you start seeing snippets of the program coming back from commercial, pressing play would skip back a few seconds and start exactly right...the DVR doesn't so much

3/1/2007 10:17:06 AM

^^The website I gave is a build that combines the OS and the program. All you do it burn it to a cd, pop it in, and it installs everything. I am a total linux noob, and I just followed the steps and it worked.

3/1/2007 10:56:31 AM

I've used a bunch of computer-based DVR software and none of them worked nearly as well as the TWX box. I mean sure you CAN use your computer as a DVR, but in the end a piece of hardware dedicated to a certain task is often going to do a better job than trying to convince a multi-function device to do one thing perfectly.

Quote :

"when you start seeing snippets of the program coming back from commercial, pressing play would skip back a few seconds and start exactly right"

The TWC box does this (SA 8300).

3/1/2007 3:20:13 PM

TiVo Tells You How To Defeat Their DRM To Keep You From Canceling

Want to cancel your TiVo? When you call to tell them about it, they might just try to teach you how to defeat their DRM in order to keep you as a customer. That's what happened to Tino, and he wrote all about it....

http://tinyurl.com/34pr94
via digg: http://tinyurl.com/2pmesd

3/1/2007 7:44:11 PM