Parents sticking with series 1 tivo.

[EJ]

My parents live in central North Dakota where directv offers no locals in sd or hd, and the local market only offers HD for PBS and CBS OTA. They were able to obtain a waiver for ABC so they can get HD that way. In their theater room I have them set up with a HR20-700, they get NBC and FOX via analog through their VCR.

In the main viewing area is a different story. I gave my parents my sony 36" HD CRT, but they wanted to keep their 1st gen tivo. Why don't they upgrade to a newer model with things like DT? Well there is no good broadband access where they live, and no local dial-in # and they are grandfathered in on the toll0free dial-in. They also payed $199 for a lifetime service in Sep. 2000. That brings the fee to $2.26 a month and falling.

So what I did was get a deal on a directv H21 HD receiver and connect the s-video to the ivo, and the component directly to the tv @ 1080i (TV won't accept 720p) so as long as the tivo isn't using the sat to record a program, they can use the H21 for real HD, although a letterboxed s-video downconverted HD signal looks surprisingly good!

I'm sure all this will change when the analog channels go away, but for know my parents are happy to keep the series 1 chugging along.

I wonder how many lifetimer boxes with grandfathered 800# dialing are`strill being used?

ej

[fredct]

Well, for starters, you won't get dual tuner ability wih DirecTV. As a simple explanation, the dual tuner S2 can only record one digital channel at a time, and all DirecTV channels are digital.

Also, the Series3 and HD are not compatible with DirecTV either.

They could still upgrade to the S2 for additional features, but without any broadband access, those are not particuarly compelling.

You parents are in an unfortunate mess of very rural (no broadband, apparently no cable?) and satellite (which the FCC has not forced to open up to 3rd party boxes).