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November 18, 2004

Dish Network DVR Hard drive ERASED

Hi. I have a Dish Network 522 DVR. This is the second time in a month that the hard drive has been totally erased. I had over 30 hours of shows on there. The Dish people are clueless. They have no idea why this is happening. There appears to be no way to retrieve the shows at all. I'm pissed.

Has anyone had this happen to them?
-- Chantel

November 18, 2004 in Dish Network | Permalink | Answers (379) | TrackBack

What about a non TIVO PVR?

I want to buy a PVR that works like a VCR but I don't want to pay for the content guide fees of TIVO or Replay.

Where can I buy a HD based PVR that let's me control recording on my own?
-- Mysterious Stranger

November 18, 2004 in DVR | Permalink | Answers (17) | TrackBack

Getting rid of cable box program guide

I just got a Tivo series 2, and I'm using it in conjuction with a Motorola DCT 2000 cable box through Adelphia cable.  Only problem is, whenever I change channels, I get both the Tivo onscreen guide at the top and the adelphia program guide at the bottom.  Together, they take up about 85% of the screen.  Is there any way to get rid of the motorola/adelphia cable guide?

And, if anyone's an expert at cable boxes, why does it take forever for channels to switch after I hit the remote?
-- Scott

November 18, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Answers (20) | TrackBack

4-digit Digital Cable Box

My Scientific Atlantic Digital cable box has been improving its channel changing speed, but recently increased to a fourth digit.  When TiVo changes its channel, it only inputs 3 digits.  Therefore, there's about a 10 second pause between punching in channels on the TiVo remote, and the channel actual changing on the TV.  I've tried all the available SA box codes in the TiVo, but none of them (yet) emit 4 digits.
-- dan

November 18, 2004 in Scientific Atlanta | Permalink | Answers (4) | TrackBack

How important is the phone?

Do I need to have a phone connected ALL the time?  I want to put in a second TiVo [this one goes in the bedroom].  There isn't a phone line nearby.  I can run a wire across the room occasionally.  Would that work?
-- Howard

November 18, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Answers (5) | TrackBack

Shift Recording Quality while recording?

I have a Pioneer 810 TiVo and like to create archive DVDs of favorite movies broadcast over my digital cable system.  I know I can't edit before I write to the DVD, which is a royal pain, but I live with it.  Recording at extreme quality limits the DVD to 1 hour, high quality to 2 hours.  But a movie that goes over 2 hours - must I record at standard quality to squeeze it onto one DVD?  Is the best solution to break the recording into 2 chunks, the majority at HQ, the minority at SQ, and then write "both" programs to the DVD?
-- Dan

November 18, 2004 in DVD, TiVo | Permalink | Answers (1) | TrackBack

DVB tuner for Linux ?

what is the best TV Tuner card that can pick up DVB-T signals that work's in Linux ?

I have the latest WinTV card that is unsupported at the moment...

DVB-T is also known as Freeview and seeing as the UK is going to turn off its analoge signal and the broadcast's are already in MPEG2 this should be the way to go in the UK and EU if you want a PVR....
-- johnjones

November 18, 2004 in Home Theater PC | Permalink | Answers (6) | TrackBack

DVR for DVD burning

I want to buy a second DVR for my second cable box in order to record and to cut DVDs that will be playable my existing region 1 DVD player.  What is a good, not necessarily cheap machine for this purpose?
-- Tyrone Z.

November 18, 2004 in DVD, DVR | Permalink | Answers (3) | TrackBack

ReplayTV Upgrades

I am a technophobe who enjoys my DVR but wets my pants at the thought of personally opening it up to upgrade it.  I am ready to upgrade two ReplayTV units in my house and put them on a wireless network but have no idea where to start.  Any suggestions?
-- RAZ

November 18, 2004 in Hacks, ReplayTV | Permalink | Answers (10) | TrackBack

display caller-ID on TIVO

I have "caller-id" on my telephone.  Before I installed TIVO the incoming call was displayed on my TV set.  Even tho TIVO is connected to my phone line it does not display calls.

I understand there is a "hack" in the TIVO software that can make it possible to display the call info.

Does anyone know how to do this?
-- Paul Duffey

November 18, 2004 in Hacks, TiVo | Permalink | Answers (3) | TrackBack

November 17, 2004

PVR with no phone line?

I want a PVR, but have no land line.  Are there any that can use my wireless network?
-- kevin

November 17, 2004 in DVR, Networking | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

DVR for Voom HDTV

Hello I'm looking to buy a DVR preferably PC based that records HD 1080i and 720p. Does anybody know of a company that sells the setup? I know that Tivo and Replay do not have a HD box the best they do is DVD quality.
-- Sebastian

November 17, 2004 in DVR, TV & HDTV | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

November 16, 2004

Replay HD DVR?

When will Replay introduce a DVR model capable of recording HDTV?
-- toothless

November 16, 2004 in DVR, ReplayTV | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

iLo PVR any good?

I am looking for opinions on a new PVR made by iLo.  It has an 80 gig hard drive and a dvd burner.  It's sold through WalMart and only costs $278.

From some of the forum threads I've read about this, it seems like there were early issues due to bad firmware, but they have all be resolved with the recent updates.  It also appears to be very easy to replace the hard drive.  Just swap it out, format from the menu and you are done.

I haven't seen it at my local WalMart yet and I was just looking for some more info.
-- Ted (ed. note: hopefully not an employee of iLo ;)

November 16, 2004 in DVR | Permalink | Answers (268) | TrackBack

November 15, 2004

Replay TV Archives?

I have been a Replay TV user for years.  In August my Replay 40 hour hard drive crashed.  I went to Circuit City and bought a Reconditioned out of box 80 hour machine.  Last week when I was on vacation, where I was hoping Replay was taping all my shows, I lost number two.  Seems the hard drive was gone here too.  Does anyone know how to unload or even just watch the shows on the hard drives of either machine using an external device or another computer?
-- Ted

November 15, 2004 in ReplayTV | Permalink | Answers (39) | TrackBack

SATA Drive for Explorer 8300

I'd like to expand my capacity of stored recorded programs and Scientific-Atlanta's Explorer 8300 DVR allows you to attach a SATA hard drive. Which companies make these devices for this use?

I assume the video is encrypted and that you couldn't transfer it to your computer for editing purposes.
-- C. Zaglifa

November 15, 2004 in Hacks, Scientific Atlanta | Permalink | Answers (179)

November 14, 2004

Adding Series 2 Tivo with DirecTv Tivo

I currently have a DirecTv Tivo and want to add a Series 2 for the Home Media Option and for the additional space.  I plan on setting up the series 2 wirelessley.  Are there any problems I should anticpate in setting up both Tivo's? 
-- Tim Castelli

November 14, 2004 in DirecTiVo, Hacks, Networking | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

November 12, 2004

Digital Ready TV Capture Card

I have Comcast digital cable and have been thinking about getting a Tivo since the PVR Comcast offers in not available in my area, but I would rather make my own PVR so I can playback DIVX and XVID also.  Does anyone know of a Hybrid or Digital TV caputure card, and if so how well does it work?
-- Jason

November 12, 2004 in Comcast, Hacks, TiVo | Permalink | Answers (1) | TrackBack

November 11, 2004

Is there a pvr that records in a known format

Is there a PVR that uses mpeg or another recognisable recording format such that the video can be transfered to a pc for backup?
-- Neil Harper

November 11, 2004 in DVR, Hacks | Permalink | Answers (3) | TrackBack

November 10, 2004

Sony SAT-A65 data port cable?

I'm building a PVR system, and would like to know where (or how) I can get a DB9 to RJ6 cable to connect the PC to the Sony SAT-A65 data port to change channels using SageTV.
-- Karl

November 10, 2004 in Home Theater PC | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

November 09, 2004

Can I record on one DirecTV TiVo, and watch on another?

I'm wondering if anyone has successfully set up their DirecTV TiVos, so that a program can be recorded on one machine, and watched on the other.  DirecTV tells me that feature is available on stand-alone TiVos (as part of the Home Media option), but not with their DirecTV TiVo receivers.  Has anyone successfully gotten around this restriction?
-- Andy Burdick

November 9, 2004 in DirecTiVo, Networking | Permalink | Answers (2) | TrackBack

November 07, 2004

LOST / WEST WING conflict

I have a problem -- one that's shared by anyone else who happens to be a fan of both LOST and THE WEST WING (which I'm guessing is a lot of people).

Now that LOST is clocking in at 1:01, it overlaps with WEST WING by one minute -- and hence poses a scheduling conflict.  TiVo says I have to pick one or the other, and can't record both.  Ack!

But since more and more shows are starting to impose this sort of weird scheduling, it seems to me that TiVo should simply give me the option to start a scheduled recording a minute late, or stop it a minute early.  However, currently it only offers the reverse -- I can start a recording early, or stop it late -- but that doesn't solve my problem.

(Furthermore, under "Record by Time or Channel", I can only schedule recordings at 5 minute increments -- which also doesn't solve my problem.)

Do you know if TiVO has any plans to address this?  I can't be the first person to have this issue.
- Paul

November 7, 2004 in TiVo, TV & HDTV | Permalink | Answers (10) | TrackBack

Cheapest PC for PVR?

I'd like to assemble a dedicated PVR out of a PC, and have already purchased Beyond TV and a Hauppage 250 card for this. Unlike many people who want to do this kind of project though, I do not already have an old PC that I can use as my base system. I also don't have deep pockets, so I would like to purchase the cheapest new PC I can get that will do the job.

(Provisos and parameters: 1) I know I could get a dirt cheap system used, but I want to be covered by a warrantee. 2) I don't want to fuss around with buying a bunch of cheap parts individually that may not work well together. I'm aiming for high reliability and don't want to waste a lot of time. 3) I don't need to fit the thing in my stereo cabinet, so I don't need a HTPC-style case.)

I've been surfing around awhile and this seems like a pretty hard challenge. Most current PCs are made with gaming in mind. They have much faster processors than you really need for a PVR that uses hardware encoding, so they may run hot and require a noisy fan (bad). They often come bundled with stuff you don't need for a PVR (speakers, printers), but lack what would be desirable in a PVR system (e.g. a really HUGE hard disk, lots of PCI slots to add additional tuner cards, etc).

Can PVRBloggers recommend manufacturers/retailers that fill the bill?

Oh -- one last wrinkle. I have to be able to buy it in Canada.
-- Kevin O'Neill

November 7, 2004 in Home Theater PC, media servers | Permalink | Answers (4) | TrackBack

November 05, 2004

Remaining Capacity on Series 2 TiVos

What is the best way to determine the amount of capacity remaining on a Series 2 TiVo, considering the OS doesn't inherently have this feature.
--EMG

November 5, 2004 in TiVo | Permalink | Answers (3) | TrackBack

November 04, 2004

Call your Tivo?

I am a senior at Tufts University in Boston, Massachusetts.  I took a course last semester in voice recognition software, and we added functionality where you could call your PVR.  Since my group was with poor college students, we went out and bought a TV Tuner card and installed mythtv on our computer.  We then went ahead and built the functionality where you could call your Tivo box from any phone and schedule a recording.  My question is, for all of the Tivo customers out there, would you want to be able to call your box if you forgot to schedule a recording?

This system really works.  It's not fake.
-- Daniel Wolchonok

November 4, 2004 in Hacks, TiVo | Permalink | Answers (6) | TrackBack

Streaming video to Tivo

Is there a way to stream videos from a computer to a tivo via a network? I see alot of movies on my computer, and I was wondering if I could do that so that I wouldn't have to watch stuf f on my tiny lcd screen in my unconfortable swivel chair.
--Alex Basile

November 4, 2004 in Home Theater PC, Networking, TiVo | Permalink | Answers (3) | TrackBack

DirecTv Tivo Unit - Can one cable be split for dual tuner functionality

I have a DirecTv Tivo unit and love it.  The unit has two tuners so I can record two shows at the same time.  The problem is that I only have one cable leading from my splitter (my signal goes from my dish, to a splitter in the basement, and then to four rooms in my home) to the room where the DirecTv Tivo unit is.  My electrician said it would be a major job to run another cable up to that room from the basement.  I have tried using the cable that I have and using a splitter in the room to connect to the two separate inputs on the DirecTv Tivo box.  What happens is that I only seem to be able to receive about 2/3 of my available channels.  Have also tried a signal booster and this doesn't help.  When I check my setup screen on Tivo, many of the nodes receive no signal and I'm guessing those are the ones that carry the signal for the channels that won't work. 

 

Does anybody have a solution to this problem besides finding a way to run another coax cable from my basement to my bedroom?  Thanks!
-- James

November 4, 2004 in DirecTiVo | Permalink | Answers (53) | TrackBack

November 03, 2004

HDTV/DVR Choice

It seems there are only three HDTV/DVR boxes right now.  One is DirecTV for $999.  I could buy a DVHS for less than that.  The other two are Dish and Comcast for $10 a month (basically).  I have Comcast cable and want to upgrade to HDTV/DVR cheaply.  Dish says it will hold 30 hours of HDTV.  Comast says it will hold 7 hours (according to my local rep in Atlanta).

Is there any reason I should not go with Dish? Will something better come out during the XMAS season such that I should wait a few months? Does Dish run a XMAS special each year (such as free installation) such that I should wait a month or two?
-- Niel

November 3, 2004 in Dish Network, TV & HDTV | Permalink | Answers (4) | TrackBack

November 02, 2004

DVD Burner Compatible with TiVo

I have a directv/Tivo box that has a feature that allows you to "transfer to vcr." Can I hook up a dvd burner instead of a vcr?
-- Adam Smedstad

November 2, 2004 in DirecTiVo, DVD, Home Theater | Permalink | Answers (22) | TrackBack