Have Both HD and SD DVRs in Same Room?

[dogdoctor]

I have recently purchased the HR10 and was planning to replace the SD-DVR40 in the living room with the HR10 and relocate the SD DVR to the bedroom. I am currently awaiting an install date of 3/15. After reading lots of threads about the slowness of the HR10, and "blackout" episodes, do most (sane - not Tivo addicts ;) ) people just have 1 DVR in the living room with the HDTV or do they have both the HR10 and a SD DVR as well?

Let me state that my wife loves Tivo now - an easy convert - but that we generally watch all of our shows within 1-2 days of recording. I think the most we had in our recorded list was 12 shows. Am I really going to notice the slowness of the HR10? Is it that painfully slow that I should keep the SD DVR in the living room as well?

Ben

[Redux]

keep the SD DVR in the living room as well?I keep a SD DTivo in the same room with the HD. number of reasons, but primarily not to waste the storage on non-HD material. HD receiver also has some networking shortcomings, so the SD machine is there as a link to the household SD library.

[jamescambron]

I have my HDTV set up as your question described. I am enjoying having both types of receivers on the same TV.

My set up is this...I use my HD TiVo only for HD recordings because even after a hard drive upgrade, I am only able to record 77 hours of HD. I keep 20-30 HD movies in my "Now Playing" and still have plenty of room to record series that I enjoy that are broadcast in HD.

My standard definition TiVo has been upgraded to record 225 hours which gives me plenty of space to record almost anything that I think may interest me. With all the automobile, DIY, and sports programming that is available, I am able to have a wide variety of programming on many subjects without having to tie up valuable HD TiVo space.

There is no way I will ever want to watch all I have recorded on the two receivers, but I have a lot of programming flexibility that makes it very easy to always have something interesting to watch on TV.

[DavidS]

The HD Tivo is slower, but not painfully so, at least to me. Like the others above, we use our SD Tivo for SD programming (Daily Show, Veronic Mars) and overflow when we get too behind on watching and fill up the HD Tivo. I got a Harmony remote so we would not have to use two remotes.

[roberb]

I agree with David's suggestion.

I would keep the SD along with the HD. This is what I did. We record most SD stuff on the SD machine, and HD stuff as well as things that my wife is not interested (auto racing, etc.) in on the HR10-250.

I set up the remotes so that each mchine only responds to its dedicated remote. I put a sticker on one of them to easily differentiate between the 2.

I hope this helps,
RB

[jamescambron]

Through Tivo or Weaknees I bought a remote (less than $50.00) that has a toggle to switch between two TiVo receivers in one room. I've had it for three years or so and as I upgrade receivers, this remote has been fine.

[TCG]

I just ordered HDTivo too and will most likely keep both Tivo's in Family room for primarily storage reasons mentioned above. Because my wife and I wanted to watch DVR from Mast BR SD TV, I recently added a Terk Leapfrog Wireless audio/video extender to the SD Tivo box. Works great!!

[cheer]

I keep both in the same room, but the SD DTivo isn't connected to satellite. I use it for overflow storage and for MRVing SD stuff from the other household SD DTivos. I have my Harmony remote set for two activities ("Watch TV", "Watch Old Tivo") and it's smart enough to switch codes when I switch activities.

[mr.unnatural]

I've got three HDTivos and one standard def DTivo in the same room (and sometimes more that aren't subbed). I have a Home Theater Master MX-700 remote that I have programmed with every available set of IR codes for a Tivo. If I'm playing around with an upgrade on another DTivo I simply set it up with a remote code other than the ones I'm currently using on the subbed units so as not to interfere with their normal operation.

I have a Gefen HDMI switcher for the video outputs from the three HDTivos plus my Marantz DV-9500 universal disc player that plugs directly into the HDTV. The digital audio for all four devices is switched through the Gefen and then into my B&K Reference 30 preamp/processor. The SD DTivo audio and video is switched directly via the B&K and routed to one of the S-video inputs on the HDTV.

[dogdoctor]

I want to thank you all for the input. it seems most of you keep both boxes in the same room for storage space, not for lack of usability (slowness/blackouts - which I'm sure to find just as annoying). I'm still hesitatant to keep both in the same room. I mean, we just never even get a 40 hour tivo full and I would like to have a tivo in the bedroom. Simple solution is get another tTivo...but the wife wouldn't allow it. I just can't imagine that if we can't fill 40 hour tivo, how will we fill the HD tivo?

As for the advise on the remote codes...great to know they can be changed. I love my H880.

As for TCG: thanks for the advice on the Terk Leapfrog Wireless audio/video extender. It would be difficult to tell if would work, our house(rented) is seemingly made out of lead. I mean we are our own bunker...hell cell phones don't even work indoors. I would be worried about signals making it through the house.

If you really think that I will want the extra space (keep both in same room) - given I can't fill a 40 hr tivo, speak up. All opinions are welcome. Thanks for everyone's time.

[cheer]

Well...are you going to be Tivo-ing HD content? That consumes a lot of space -- IIRC, the HR10-250 is rated for about 30 hrs of HD content. So judge accordingly. If you don't ever fill a 40 hr Tivo, then you're probably just fine -- after all, it's unlikely that 100% of what you record will be HD anyway. I, on the other hand, have been known to fill up an 80 hr Tivo or two, so space is always an issue for me. (I watch a lot of TV. Plus, if I go out of town on business, or my wife goes out of town to her mom's or something, stuff builds up fast because we watch almost everything together.)

Remote codes: I'm with you on the Harmony. Mine just about saved my marriage -- being activity-based, combined with the Help button, means that my wife can use it and[ handle problems like the video input being wrong or the Toslink switch being off. The trick to getting the Harmony to work (which I found right here at TCF) is:

You can't leave either Tivo set to the default (0) code. Set one to 1 and one to 2.
Keep your Tivo remotes handy (and remember which is which -- I speak from experience, here)
Go to the Harmony website and set up two activities: one for the new Tivo and one for the old, including setting up your inputs, etc. appropriately
After you set your remote up, go to troubleshooting for one of the activities and tell it that the buttons don't seem to be working
The troubleshooting process will ask you to grab your original remote, point it at the Harmony, and push a few buttons
The Harmony will identify the proper remote codes for that Tivo based on the few buttons you press and reset itself accordingly
Repeat the troubleshooting thing for the other activity
You're done

Works fabulously.