Humax DVD Tivo

[jhags77]

I have the Humax 80hr DVD Recorder and so far am enjoying its DVD burning cababilites very much, however it seems that any show that I transfer via wireless network from my 40hr standalone to the Humax unit cannot be burned to DVD. The Humax recorder says the the audio is in an incompatible format? Has anyone run into this problem and is there a solution? Thanks.

[stevel]

This is a restriction TiVo has implemented - shows transferred from other TiVos cannot be burned to DVD on the integrated DVDR boxes.

[petew]

This is a restriction TiVo has implemented.

The error message is correct. The Non DVD Tivo's do not record in DVD compatible format and the Humax unit is not capable of converting the recording to DVD format. So it's a technical limitation of the two different types of hardware rather than an arbitary restriction imposed by Tivo.

[jhags77]

Thats a bummer... thanks for the info.

[rkester]

should be able to plug that S2 into the Humax directly and record off the inputs in front right?

[dirtypacman]

Use TTG to transfer and burn from your PC with any networked Tivo with the TTG feature.

[UTA_MAVERICK]

Looks like I'm also someone that has shot himself in the foot and now has tons of files on 2 SERIES 2 units that I can not transfer and archive to my new HUMAX DVD TIVO - double bummer on my part!!!

My next question is if I dumped all my SERIES 2 boxes and replaced with HUMAX DVD TIVO S2 units would I then be able to transfer files, and burn from whichever unit I choose, or will some thing else stop me cold?

Has anyone shared, transfered and burned between 2 HUMAX DVD TIVO units successfully?

With PC sharing and iTunes I've been able to share podcasts across units in the house, NOW if I could only get the video podcasts to work, WOW that would be something! But after the DVD burner audio issues, seems like there are other road blocks ahead.

I'LL TAKE ANY REPLYS OR SUGGESTIONS...

I guess I can back to back two units for now and save what I want, but what a hassle!!!

[gtrogue]

My next question is if I dumped all my SERIES 2 boxes and replaced with HUMAX DVD TIVO S2 units would I then be able to transfer files, and burn from whichever unit I choose, or will some thing else stop me cold?

It still won't work. Even though shows from a Humax DVD recorder are in the correct format you still can't burn transfered shows.

It would be logical that Tivo would change the recording modes on all Tivo's to record in a DVD compatible format. Not only would this get rid of the transfer limitation it would also eschew the need for the time consuming transcoding that occurs during TTG transfers.

[UTA_MAVERICK]

One other little (BIG) gotcha on the HUMAX DVD S2 unit is that I still have the ability to set a START FROM PAUSED LOCATION if I want to save to VCR, but Noooo, not if I want to save a show to DVD. I am stuck with all the over-runs of prior shows when recording to the DVD media on the HUMAX, what a load of @$!#. (HUMAX = Human Usability Made Absolutely Xzasperating - aleast for the DVD recorder units!)

I can live with extra trash at the end of a recorded show, but NOT at the beginning which is a big problem for me. I will likely spend weeks with the new HUMAX unit trying to tweek the record start windows to get close (assume I can still go in and adjust this on this series 2 box using hidden controls) as possible to what the major network I watch sets their clock at. Still there will be other instances that I'd need to have the ability to set the PAUSED location as a starting point for the recording.

WHY NOT ENABLE THIS IN BOTH VCR AND DVD or is there a way I can turn this ON with a hidden option?

Then again maybe it would work for ONE show, but not for a series of qued recordings on a single disc.

Grrrr!

I havn't tried to play MP3's or MPEG cd's in this recorder, but from what I have seen so far I'm not too hopeful of the final results. I could do this before with a standalone DVD recorder, but it had lousy menuing (no TiVo notes or summaries for shows, limited labeling ability for titles). Not sure if I'm moving ahead or going backward with the HUMAX DVD unit.

I generally have also avoided burning discs on the PC because of the transfer time and the transcoding issues and finally burning to DVD.

There has got to be an easier, slicker way to go about all of this. But for now not being able to move files from my other TiVos to DVD is the biggest problem.

[gastrof]

One other little (BIG) gotcha on the HUMAX DVD S2 unit is that I still have the ability to set a START FROM PAUSED LOCATION if I want to save to VCR, but Noooo, not if I want to save a show to DVD. I am stuck with all the over-runs of prior shows when recording to the DVD media on the HUMAX, what a load of @$!#. (HUMAX = Human Usability Made Absolutely Xzasperating - aleast for the DVD recorder units!)

I can live with extra trash at the end of a recorded show, but NOT at the beginning which is a big problem for me. I will likely spend weeks with the new HUMAX unit trying to tweek the record start windows to get close (assume I can still go in and adjust this on this series 2 box using hidden controls) as possible to what the major network I watch sets their clock at. Still there will be other instances that I'd need to have the ability to set the PAUSED location as a starting point for the recording.

WHY NOT ENABLE THIS IN BOTH VCR AND DVD or is there a way I can turn this ON with a hidden option?

Then again maybe it would work for ONE show, but not for a series of qued recordings on a single disc.

Grrrr!

I havn't tried to play MP3's or MPEG cd's in this recorder, but from what I have seen so far I'm not too hopeful of the final results. I could do this before with a standalone DVD recorder, but it had lousy menuing (no TiVo notes or summaries for shows, limited labeling ability for titles). Not sure if I'm moving ahead or going backward with the HUMAX DVD unit.

I generally have also avoided burning discs on the PC because of the transfer time and the transcoding issues and finally burning to DVD.

There has got to be an easier, slicker way to go about all of this. But for now not being able to move files from my other TiVos to DVD is the biggest problem.



The DVD-recorder TiVos simply transfer what's on the hard drive to a disc. That's all. The files are apparently in DVD format already.

Since it's a simple copy process, you can't do ANYTHING with the files to trim them.

(Some have suggested that TiVo doesn't want law suits over them making it possible for people to record stuff off TV then create DVDs that have had the commercials removed, making a pretty decent stand-in for storebought DVD releases of the same TV shows.)

I don't know what sort of tweaking you have in mind, but unless it's a major hack to the TiVo that will allow editing of the recording before burning to disc (something I'm guessing would turn out to be "forbidden" on these forums), the effort likely won't bear any fruit. :(

[stevel]

The usual desire is to remove ads.

This is one of the many reasons I do not like the TiVos with built-in DVD recorders.

[gastrof]

The usual desire is to remove ads.

This is one of the many reasons I do not like the TiVos with built-in DVD recorders.


I'll agree with that.

I don't care that much about removing ads, because if you go thru all that effort, you still only save 15 minutes per 1 hour episode. Doesn't save much space on the disc, over all.

I can fast forward thru the commercials on a burned DVD just like I can on the TiVo.

What I'd like, as described above, is to be able to trim off everything before and after the show itself. ("Padding" recorded to make sure you get the beginning and the end of the show, in case there's a difference in the TiVo's clock and the start and stop times the channel or network is using.)

Another annoyance, tho', is that one recording equals one disc, even if you used the two hour format on a one hour show.

You end up using only half a disc.

The machine should be able to not just trim, but also burn an hour's worth without making the rest of the disc useless.

I'm not even sure, tho', if other brands of DVD recorders with hard drives allow you to use only part of a disc. Maybe they all have this limitation.

Gonna check into that on the Lite On forums...

Hmmm....

[stevel]

The problem with the TiVo models that prevents you from filling up the DVD is that they automatically "finalize" the disc after each write session. Standalone DVD recorders don't do this, and the finalizing means that you can't add to a previously recorded disc.

[gastrof]

Understood.

I just don't know if the Lite On units do the same.

Just posted on two different user forums. Will see what they say.

(Lite On hard drive with DVD recorder units do seem to allow all sorts of editing.)

[tai-pan]

What about using a re-writable...ripping it to the pc and using nandub or something to edit the file and re-burning it from there?

[stevel]

I have never seen a standalone DVD recorder which prevents you from adding content to a DVD, unless you have chosen to finalize it.

If you've got a PC with a burner you may as well use TiVoToGo and save a step.

[rkester]

Maybe I misunderstood what you are saying, but I often put multiple shows on 1 disc. When I recorded everything on High, I'd put 2 - 1hr shows on a disc, or 4 - 30min shows. I have a handful of series I put 8 - 30min episodes on a disc because I used Medium compression.

If I were going to rip and edit, I'd record it in Best quality.

What IS annoying however is when you record a 1 hour show on Best, it runs 2 minutes long. When you burn _that_ to a DVD, you get 1 hour on the 1st DVD, and 2 minutes on the 2nd.

With so many 1 hour programs running over by a minute or 2 these days, you should be able to do some very simply trimming or at least tell it where to split to the 2nd disc.

Another annoyance, tho', is that one recording equals one disc, even if you used the two hour format on a one hour show.

You end up using only half a disc.

The machine should be able to not just trim, but also burn an hour's worth without making the rest of the disc useless.

[gtrogue]

Maybe I misunderstood what you are saying, but I often put multiple shows on 1 disc.
stevel is talking about multi session discs where you can use a DVD-R again by writing to any unused portion of the disc. You can basically have mutlitple recording sessions prior to finalizing the disc.
If the Tivo allowed for such a thing you could record a few shows from one Humax recorder without finalizing the disc, take the disc to another Humax recorder and record a few more shows. The second recorder could then finalize the disc so it would be playable in a standalone player.

Since the data is already stored on a hard drive it seems like it would be a pretty easy task to add a simple edit feature where you could set tick marks for the Tivo to begin a cut and end a cut so commercials could be removed.

[rkester]

ah, ok, makes sense. would sure be nice when trying to match episodes to discs of a show you are collecting. when you have to save a few episodes for months on end until thye air the respective companions to make a dsic you just pull the unfinalized dvd out, burn the show and finalize when done.

seems like it would be an easy software option fix. maybe when they fix the SLOW interface they can do that, lol.

[stevel]

TiVo made a deliberate decision to finalize discs automatically. I think they did this to prevent people from complaining that the DVDs didn't play on standard DVD players (a drawback of the DVD-RW format). The downside is that a major piece of recordable DVD functionality was thrown out.

[rkester]

Should have been pretty easy to default to always finalizing, with the optoin not to when you start the process of setting up a dvd.

But i dont make them so what do I know. ;)

[stevel]

TiVo tries hard to keep the UI simple and avoiding options, especially those that may seem cryptic. But I agree that this should have been an option.

[rkester]

Could always add it to the list for things we want... but I want a faster GUI again first.