DirectTV with built-in TiVO rocks.

December 13, 2000 3:32 PM

DirectTV with built-in TiVO rocks. (Note to self: buy flowers for wife on day that credit card bill for this set-up and $199 lifetime TiVo service arrives.)
posted by MattD (18 comments total)

Oh yes. It does so rule. It would rule even more if they activated the box's second tuner, though, and fixed the "first run only" bug with Season Passes.

Had mine two weeks and wouldn't give it up, though.
posted by kindall at 3:57 PM on December 13, 2000

A dish reciever and a dishplayer is nicer, in that it has an ac-3 in/out on ends, so, you can record DD stuff.
posted by tiaka at 4:01 PM on December 13, 2000

There's a lot of impatience and anger on the Tivo forums. You see, DirecTiVo owners have the new version of the TiVo software, while long-time TiVo owners are left waiting for the upgrade.

It wouldn't be so bad, except that v2.0 fulfills 75% of my feature wishlist and fixes 90% of my complaints. The list has me drooling. Record by keywords, category, and cast, an overtime scheduler (no more cut-off primetime shows!), a season pass manager, view upcoming episodes, buffer-save when hitting record, and it won't record duplicate shows. Damn you, DirecTiVo!
posted by waxpancake at 4:03 PM on December 13, 2000

Actually, it does record duplicate shows. The feature that's supposed to prevent this... doesn't work, apparently because the source from which TiVo gets the data isn't correctly flagging the programs as to whether they're repeats or not. You still have to manually schedule season passes for shows like "The Daily Show" that air multiple times during a day or week. The padding feature, too, would be a lot more useful if you could set it globally instead of having to set it for each program.

Still worth every penny, though. They'll fix that stuff eventually, I'm sure.
posted by kindall at 4:39 PM on December 13, 2000

replayTV is way better. but yeah its great.
posted by phunkone at 7:00 PM on December 13, 2000

Why's ReplayTV better? Aside from the 30-second skip button, that is.
posted by waxpancake at 7:15 PM on December 13, 2000

The 30-second skip feature, as far as I can tell, is the only substantive feature ReplayTV has that TiVo 2.0 doesn't. Doesn't much matter; TiVo's 60X search speed lets you skip over three minutes' worth of commercials in, well, three seconds. Either is such an improvement over a VCR that I'm not going to complain.
posted by kindall at 12:54 AM on December 14, 2000

It should also be noted that ReplayTV will display ads while you pause the show; you have to hit another button to clear them (probably, uh, "Clear".)

TiVo is fantastic.
posted by hijinx at 4:13 AM on December 14, 2000

ReplayTV will display ads while you pause the show

Look for this "feature" in TiVo's future as well, once they start needing to increase revenue.
posted by daveadams at 10:23 AM on December 14, 2000

I know this isn't the TiVo support forum, but...is there a way to remove the bottom status bar when pausing the image? Sometimes I'll pause to check on a name or word that's near the bottom of the screen, only to have it covered up by the status bar.


posted by gluechunk at 10:45 AM on December 14, 2000

Having been REJECTED in the great TiVo giveaway contest that everyone else on metafilter won, I wouldn't know.

Okay, so I might be a little bitter. Sue me. I'm just waiting for TiVo to start sucking so that I don't have to feel so bad.

Not that I watch that much tv... (my daughter's insistence on watching her Teletubbies tapes all the dang time kind of cuts into what little I do watch anyway).

I kind of like my vcr - it has this neat feature where I can actually *pop out* the recorded show on a piece of technology called a "tape", which I can then *share* with other people! I can buy as many "tapes" as I want, thus getting essentially *infinite* storage!

Take that, TiVo people!

(okay, it was weak, I know. Sigh.)
posted by beth at 2:12 PM on December 14, 2000

Hey, you TiVo people. Can you pipe TiVo through the VCR and record it?

(sorry beth, I'm not trying to strip away the magic of the vcr from you, I'm just curious. :-)
posted by cCranium at 2:21 PM on December 14, 2000

So I'm curious...did anyone else sell their TiVo, or did you all like the thing so much you decided to keep it? Me, I'm basking in the satisfaction that a only quick $200 can bring.
posted by MrMoonPie at 2:35 PM on December 14, 2000

The TiVo has standard co-ax and A/V outputs, as well as a "save to VCR" feature that I use all the time. Makes it much easier to archive different series to different tapes, and you can edit out commercials if you have the patience for it. Besides, if I ever get tired of the TiVo service (for example, if they start piping in ads), I plan to dissect the beast for 30GB of off-the-shelf IDE hard drives.
posted by harmful at 2:55 PM on December 14, 2000

gluechunk: Click "Clear" while pausing to remove the status bar.
posted by waxpancake at 6:46 PM on December 14, 2000

Doh! I am orders of magnitude less special than the mighty TiVo people.

Sigh.
posted by beth at 9:43 AM on December 15, 2000

By the time you get tired of the TiVo service, those 30GB hard disks will be worth about $5.
posted by kindall at 11:43 AM on December 15, 2000

beth: s'alright, you're not the only one.
posted by cCranium at 12:03 PM on December 15, 2000