How about a "playback only" TiVo?

[johnf@home]

I know - a TiVo that can't record sounds silly! But hear me out.

I've got multiple TiVos hooked up in different rooms, and really don't need any more record channels. But it would be nice to be able to put a TV and a TiVo player in the bedroom (or out on the deck, or ...), and load shows onto it over my home network just as I can transfer shows between my TiVos.

I suppose I could get a Zune or an iPod, but that wouldn't give me a TiVo interface (or a screen actually large enough to watch :-). I could just buy another TiVo, but that would be paying for tuner hardware I don't need (the box would have no input signal source), not to mention the full monthly cost of the TiVo subscription.

A "slave" TiVo with maybe 100GB of disk, and with a cheaper monthly subscription just to register it as one of my home units would be exactly what I'm looking for.

[Seattle]

Sounds like a good idea and also kind of sounds like an Apple TV. I might buy one if the price was right.

[CrashHD]

some of my DTivo's are unsubbed, and used for that purpose. I've never had a standalone, but as I understand it, if the standalone is superpatched, it will mrv to the superpatched DTivo

[classicsat]

You would still pay the MSD cost. TiVo is in the subscription business, and I don't think they'd do anything to jeopardize that market, not to mention spend engineering and manufacturing resources on a box not that many will buy.

[MikeMar]

I have a limetime unit that does just that.

It sits downstairs with a 40gig hard drive, not hooked up to any incoming signal

the two tivos upstairs record stuff.

We have a DirecTV HD Dvr that records our main stuff on our tv in HD, but for random stuff we want that conflicts or don't want to fill up the HD dvr, we tivo and transfer on down.

[dswallow]

I just bought a TiVo HD unit primarily for that purpose... to watch shows in the master bedroom that were recorded from any of 3 other TiVo receivers.

I will, however, get CableCARD(s) installed in it eventually; no rush or anything, but the incremental cost is minor so why not.