Should I get a stock TiVo HD or an upgraded model?

[ManOfSteele]

I am going to be getting a TiVo HD soon and I'm trying to decided whether to get a stock unit from some place like Best Buy and then add additional capacity via an external drive, perhaps not immediately. I know I'll want more recording capacity for HD, especially by fall when the new season starts. My understanding is that you upgrade a stock TiVo HD using an external SATA drive or something like the My DVR Expander product from Western Digital, without losing your recorded data.

An alternative is to get something on the net that has already been upgraded. From what I have gathered though through reading articles on the web is if I go this route I will no longer be able to easily add additional external storage, not without sending the box back to where I bought it so they can add the properly configured drive themselves. Is this true? Do I lose the ability to add external storage myself if I get a "pre-hacked" TiVo HD?

[husky55]

I am going to be getting a TiVo HD soon and I'm trying to decided whether to get a stock unit from some place like Best Buy and then add additional capacity via an external drive, perhaps not immediately. I know I'll want more recording capacity for HD, especially by fall when the new season starts. My understanding is that you upgrade a stock TiVo HD using an external SATA drive or something like the My DVR Expander product from Western Digital, without losing your recorded data.

An alternative is to get something on the net that has already been upgraded. From what I have gathered though through reading articles on the web is if I go this route I will no longer be able to easily add additional external storage, not without sending the box back to where I bought it so they can add the properly configured drive themselves. Is this true? Do I lose the ability to add external storage myself if I get a "pre-hacked" TiVo HD?

You are right on both counts. It's really a matter of preference. For HD you will surely need more than 20 hours of recording for convenience. Buying an upgraded model will save you the hassle of upgrading yourself. Yes, you will not be able to use P&P for added SATA external drive afterward, but there is a hack to do that.

Although the upgrade process works, it is far from being a slam dunk. It's all depends on what computer system you have and how many SATA drives are already in use in your system. I have a rather powerful gaming system and I had trouble with the upgrade. However when I went to a basic system, it works for me with some hiccups

Others reported no problem with their upgrades. So take your pick.

Good luck,

[telcoman]

I am going to be getting a TiVo HD soon and I'm trying to decided whether to get a stock unit from some place like Best Buy and then add additional capacity via an external drive, perhaps not immediately. I know I'll want more recording capacity for HD, especially by fall when the new season starts. My understanding is that you upgrade a stock TiVo HD using an external SATA drive or something like the My DVR Expander product from Western Digital, without losing your recorded data.

An alternative is to get something on the net that has already been upgraded. From what I have gathered though through reading articles on the web is if I go this route I will no longer be able to easily add additional external storage, not without sending the box back to where I bought it so they can add the properly configured drive themselves. Is this true? Do I lose the ability to add external storage myself if I get a "pre-hacked" TiVo HD?

My advice is to purchase through TIVO. I just received my new series 3 HD duel tuner Tivo that I purchased through Tivo directly with a lifetime subscription. You may not be able to get a lifetime sub if you purchase at Best Buy? You may want to check that out first? I also have a series 2 non HD dual tuner purchased last December. Comcast here in central NJ just offered a digital tier package for $1 more a month with their Digital Cable box. In order to record I decided to go for the digital Tivo. I still have the Comcast cable box. Comcast customer service told me they did not have M cards but when the Comcast tech showed up, he had an M Card and after a few minutes it was activated and is working fine.

The question I have that I hope someone can answer is can the Tivo remote be toggled between two Tivo boxes sitting on top of my Sony XBR TV so that I can change channels on one Tivo without changing channels on the other?
Right now when I change channels using the Tivo remote, the channels change on 4 tuners on the two Tivo's.
The advantage of this Sony flatscreen XBR is it has 6 inputs with PIP. The new Sony LCD XBR's do not have PIP. Input 1 is for the VCRs, input Input 2 is the Comcast Digital cable box, Input 3 is Direct TV currently not used. Input 4 is the Tivo Series 2 dual tuner Tivo, and input 5 is the new HD series 3 Tivo. Input 6 is still spare.

Will a universal remote such as a Harmony solve my problem.?
Is there a way to take the video output of each Tivo's duel tuners and feed that into the PIP input of the Sony if I want to monitor 4 channels in the two duel tuner Tivo's?

Telcoman
East Brunswick,NJ

[Tom White]

How about trying this offer?

http://www.tivo.com/promo/nea_specialoffers.html

[debnjay]

The question I have that I hope someone can answer is can the Tivo remote be toggled between two Tivo boxes sitting on top of my Sony XBR TV so that I can change channels on one Tivo without changing channels on the other?
Right now when I change channels using the Tivo remote, the channels change on 4 tuners on the two Tivo's.


Yes you can set up your TiVOs so that when you change the switch on the remote between 1<->2 it only changes the channels on the appropriate TiVO. I had mine set up this way for a while when I had both a Series II and my TiVOHD hooked up to the same TV. Then I dropped a 1TB drive into the TiVOHD and got rid of the Series II.

More info here: http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaypost?postID=10359275

[RonDawg]

The question I have that I hope someone can answer is can the Tivo remote be toggled between two Tivo boxes sitting on top of my Sony XBR TV so that I can change channels on one Tivo without changing channels on the other? Right now when I change channels using the Tivo remote, the channels change on 4 tuners on the two Tivo's.

The TiVo peanut remotes have the ability to control two separate TiVo's. The instruction manual will show you how to set this. For the TiVoHD models it's on page 56.

Is there a way to take the video output of each Tivo's duel tuners and feed that into the PIP input of the Sony if I want to monitor 4 channels in the two duel tuner Tivo's?

It's not possible to do what I think you want as each TiVo can only output one tuner at a time. So at maximum you can monitor two tuners (one from each TiVo) plus the TV's own tuner and another tuner from a separate source such as a VCR or DVD recorder, up to the maximum PIP windows that your TV will allow. You would also need to choose which tuner from each TiVo using the TiVo's remote.

Will a universal remote such as a Harmony solve my problem.?

For the remote control issue possibly (I don't own one so I'm not sure). For the PIP issue definitely not as it can't overcome a hardware limitation of the TiVo.

[richsadams]

I am going to be getting a TiVo HD soon and I'm trying to decided whether to get a stock unit from some place like Best Buy and then add additional capacity via an external drive, perhaps not immediately. I know I'll want more recording capacity for HD, especially by fall when the new season starts. My understanding is that you upgrade a stock TiVo HD using an external SATA drive or something like the My DVR Expander product from Western Digital, without losing your recorded data.

An alternative is to get something on the net that has already been upgraded. From what I have gathered though through reading articles on the web is if I go this route I will no longer be able to easily add additional external storage, not without sending the box back to where I bought it so they can add the properly configured drive themselves. Is this true? Do I lose the ability to add external storage myself if I get a "pre-hacked" TiVo HD?You have the option of buying a "stock" TiVo from anyone (the NEA link above for the TiVo HD at $199 is a very good deal BTW if you can take advantage of it) and adding a 500GB WD My DVR Expander available from TiVo or Best Buy for $199 later. It's a very easy plug and play option. That will give you 86 HD/810 SD hours of recording capacity. That's an easy and not too expensive route. Everything you need to know about adding an external hard drive to a TiVo HD or Series3 can be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160).

The other option would be to buy a model with a larger hard drive already installed as you mention. That would be the most expensive but easiest route to take. As noted, the option of subsequently adding an expansion drive via P&P is lost, but can be accomplished by reconfiguring/marrying an external drive to the internal drive later if you're comfortable with opening your PC and connecting a hard drive. If you're going to do that, installing a larger internal hard drive would be the way to go from the beginning anyway IMHO.

The least costly method to increase the recording capacity is to buy a stock TiVo and buy and install a larger internal hard drive yourself. Again, if you're comfortable opening your PC and connecting a hard drive, it's a very simple and almost fool-proof process with a free software program using Windows (WinMFS) or Linux. (More here (http://www.mfslive.org)). Additional information about upgrading an internal hard drive can also be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160); Section III, #30.

If you think 86 hours of HD capacity will fit your needs, my recommendation would be to go with a stock TiVo HD and add the approved expansion drive (http://www.tivo.com/expand) later. If you want to join the TiVo Pioneer Club and increase capacity beyond all imagination (up to 2.2TB's) feel free to hack away! Again, all of the info can be found on the eSATA FAQ thread.

Either way, have fun and let us know how it goes! :up:

[cdeckert219]

The least costly method to increase the recording capacity is to buy a stock TiVo and buy and install a larger internal hard drive yourself. Again, if you're comfortable opening your PC and connecting a hard drive, it's a very simple and almost fool-proof process with a free software program using Windows (WinMFS) or Linux. (More here (http://www.mfslive.org)). Additional information about upgrading an internal hard drive can also be found on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160); Section III, #30.

+1

I just did this a couple weeks ago and it was a piece of cake for me. I like the TiVo HD a lot... and it's nice to have 144 hours available for HD recordings!

[lrhorer]

It's not possible to do what I think you want as each TiVo can only output one tuner at a time.
The end result of your statement is correct, but a clearer and more accurate statement would be the TiVo's output comes from the hard drive (while the inputs go to the hard drive), and there is only one logical set of outputs and only one application pulling program information off the hard drive.

[lrhorer]

If you want to join the TiVo Pioneer Club and increase capacity beyond all imagination (up to 2.2TB's) feel free to hack away!
I wouldn't say that. After all, I've got a really big imagination. All totaled, I've got over 8TB of storage and counting.

Oh, by the way, hypothetically the 2.2TB limit applies to the Series 3, but not the TiVo HD. Using an eSATA RAID array (or drives larger than 1TB when they are introduced), the TiVo HD should be able to exceed 2.2TB. I don't know of anyone who has successfully done this, however.

[richsadams]

I wouldn't say that. After all, I've got a really big imagination. All totaled, I've got over 8TB of storage and counting.

Oh, by the way, hypothetically the 2.2TB limit applies to the Series 3, but not the TiVo HD. Using an eSATA RAID array (or drives larger than 1TB when they are introduced), the TiVo HD should be able to exceed 2.2TB. I don't know of anyone who has successfully done this, however.Good point...some of us are a little more into monster trucks while others of us "settle" for SUV's. :D

[aaronwt]

I'd rather just transfer my recordings to my media server for storage if I want to view them later than having an external drive on the TiVo. I already have four 750GB drives in my Media Smart Server and I will be adding four more 750GB drives next weekend with a four bay eSata multiplier enclosure.

[ManOfSteele]

You have the option of buying a "stock" TiVo from anyone (the NEA link above for the TiVo HD at $199 is a very good deal BTW if you can take advantage of it) and adding a 500GB WD My DVR Expander available from TiVo or Best Buy for $199 later. It's a very easy plug and play option. That will give you 86 HD/810 SD hours of recording capacity.

I've never heard of the NEA. Do I have to be a member to get this deal?

I don't think that in the long run 86 HD hours will be enough. I have two SD TiVos now that I am retiring that I upgraded to 155 hours each four years ago (I did the upgrade myself). I'll likely continue my habit of recording a lot and watching it when I have time, but this time in HD rather than SD. I'm tempted to go with a 144 hour TiVo HD I found on the web, but $900 is pretty steep. That's why I was looking at getting a stock TiVo HD now and upgrading it in the fall when disk prices have fallen a bit more.

I assume there is no difference in functionality between a TiVo HD with an external drive and one that's been cracked open and upgraded with in internal drive, other than losing the easy plug and play option for future upgrades?

[richsadams]

I've never heard of the NEA. Do I have to be a member to get this deal?

I don't think that in the long run 86 HD hours will be enough. I have two SD TiVos now that I am retiring that I upgraded to 155 hours each four years ago (I did the upgrade myself). I'll likely continue my habit of recording a lot and watching it when I have time, but this time in HD rather than SD. I'm tempted to go with a 144 hour TiVo HD I found on the web, but $900 is pretty steep. That's why I was looking at getting a stock TiVo HD now and upgrading it in the fall when disk prices have fallen a bit more.

I assume there is no difference in functionality between a TiVo HD with an external drive and one that's been cracked open and upgraded with in internal drive, other than losing the easy plug and play option for future upgrades?You'd have to ask Tom about the National Education Assoc. (teachers assoc., etc.). I've no idea if just anyone can order using that link or not.

Yes $900 for a 144 HD hour TiVo HD is way over the top IMHO. Anyone that can swap out a hard drive in a computer can put one together for about $600 or so and about 45 minutes worth of time. Drive prices will continue to drop too. Rather than buy an upgraded TiVo for an inflated price, you might want to spend a little time studying how to do it yourself on the Official eSATA Drive Expansion: FAQ + Discussion thread (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5616160#post5616160) (Section III, #30)....and then do it yourself! It's very easy and you can spend that extra cash on something worthwhile. :)

[ManOfSteele]

I can definitely do this kind of thing myself; I upgraded my old DTiVos myself, not to mention many others computers over the years. That's not an issue. If I can do it myself for $600, then it's a no brainer.

Is there any particular brand of eSATA drive I should buy? There are lots out there, but if there are models that have caused people grief I'd like to avoid those.

[ManOfSteele]

BTW, I understand a TiVo HD comes with two CableCARD slots and I'll need to get these from Comcast. This will be my first foray into the CableCARD world. Is there anything I need to know about CableCARDs?

[aaronwt]

I can definitely do this kind of thing myself; I upgraded my old DTiVos myself, not to mention many others computers over the years. That's not an issue. If I can do it myself for $600, then it's a no brainer.

Is there any particular brand of eSATA drive I should buy? There are lots out there, but if there are models that have caused people grief I'd like to avoid those.

You can do it for much less than $600. Newegg has the WD Green 750GB drives for only $130 shipped. Winmfs is free and the tiVoHD is around $265 shipped from Newegg. Although I did forget about the TiVo servcie. So for just the TiVoHD and upgrade it's only $400.
And once you've opened up the TiVo and see how easy it is, you can do the physical part of removing and replacing the drive in literally a few minutes. What takes more time is copying the original drie to the new one, but if only a few things are on it, that's only 10 minutes of time to copy it.

[ManOfSteele]

Is there any particular brand of eSATA drive I should buy?

Nevermind, I see this is all covered in the eSATA thread...

[ManOfSteele]

BTW, is there any reason I should consider a Series 3 box over a TiVo HD?

[richsadams]

BTW, is there any reason I should consider a Series 3 box over a TiVo HD?I think you've gotten answers to most of your questions. If not, let us know.

We have both the Series3 and TiVo HD and I've run them side-by-side for comparison at one point. I like our Series3 slightly morer for a few reasons, but none that would cause me to go out and buy another if I were considering one or the other. I'd buy the TiVo HD instead...and then upgrade the internal hard drive.

Check out this post (http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5353037#post5353037) for spec comparisons between the Series3 and the Tivo HD.

BTW, if your local Comcast office can provide a single multi-stream or "M" cable card instead of two "S" cards, go with that. Also ask them to be sure that the tech brings several (of whichever version) cable cards with him...there are numerous reports of them having to go through several cards to find ones that work.

Happy upgrading and viewing! :)

[richsadams]

You can do it for much less than $600I was referring to buying and upgrading a new TiVo HD with a 1TB HDD (WD AV GP or Hitachi CinemaStar) . One could certainly be built for less by using smaller hard drives. But then I'm a proponent of going with the largest drive that your budget can manage at the time. :)

[ManOfSteele]

I'd buy the TiVo HD instead...and then upgrade the internal hard drive.

Considering the price differential, I think I'll stick with the TiVo HD; I'm sure I'll like this *much* better than my old DTiVo boxes I'm replacing.

Speaking of which, in my former setup, I had two DTiVo boxes hooked to my main TV, with an AVcast system wired up to let me view either DTiVo from any TV in the house (TiVo 1 was on channel 76 and TiVo 2 was channel 78). The AVcast system doesn't work when Comcast HD is active for some reason, so I've been mulling over my options. I plan on getting two TiVO HD boxes, and I thought I could put one in the main TV room and one say in the master bedroom, and rely on MRV to get content from one location to the other (although 95% of my viewing will take place in the main TV room). I don't have wired ethernet unfortunately at either location. Is wireless good enough for MRV or should I try one of the powerline products?

Or should I just keep both TiVo HD boxes in the main TV room, and get another video distribution system to replace the old AVcast system? I know Channel Plus has something simiilar.

[jamesweber]

ManofSteele

Wireless G works fairly well for MRV for HD if your cable provider doesn't flag it to prevent copy/transfer. I usually only need to give it a minute or two before I start watching it. You will in most cases have to sit through commercials transfering HD content unless you want to give it 10 minutes or so before you begin watching it. My cable provider flags all of their digital channels which prevents me from using MRV but all of my OTA HD channels transfer with no problems or restrictions.

Wireless G works great for MRV on SD content, usually you will have enough transfered before the first commercial break to FF through them.

[richsadams]

Considering the price differential, I think I'll stick with the TiVo HD; I'm sure I'll like this *much* better than my old DTiVo boxes I'm replacing.

Speaking of which, in my former setup, I had two DTiVo boxes hooked to my main TV, with an AVcast system wired up to let me view either DTiVo from any TV in the house (TiVo 1 was on channel 76 and TiVo 2 was channel 78). The AVcast system doesn't work when Comcast HD is active for some reason, so I've been mulling over my options. I plan on getting two TiVO HD boxes, and I thought I could put one in the main TV room and one say in the master bedroom, and rely on MRV to get content from one location to the other (although 95% of my viewing will take place in the main TV room). I don't have wired ethernet unfortunately at either location. Is wireless good enough for MRV or should I try one of the powerline products?

Or should I just keep both TiVo HD boxes in the main TV room, and get another video distribution system to replace the old AVcast system? I know Channel Plus has something simiilar.I'm not familiar with AVcast, so can't speak to that. I know a lot of folks use Slingbox (http://www.slingmedia.com/) to get TiVo programs from one place to another via broadband.

If you have two TiVo's (you'll need two subscriptions for them to work of course) MRV will work using a wireless connection without any problem. Transfer speeds may be faster if they are hardwired through a network, but they will work even without a network using TiVo wireless network adapters (http://www.amazon.com/TiVo-AG0100-Wireless-Network-Adapter/dp/B000ER5G6C/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1206858993&sr=8-1). Now and then we have our "guest room" TiVo record a program that conflicts with two others our "living room" box is recording. (Once we had them both recording on both tuners at the same time!). Then we just use MRV to move the recording(s) from one to the other. Ours are all hardwired now, but we used to have wireless and it worked fine. You can start watching the transferred recordings almost right away. The only issues are with programs that are copy protected and can only be transferred once or some never. That's probably what you're running into with Comcast HD programming.

[aaronwt]

I was referring to buying and upgrading a new TiVo HD with a 1TB HDD (WD AV GP or Hitachi CinemaStar) . One could certainly be built for less by using smaller hard drives. But then I'm a proponent of going with the largest drive that your budget can manage at the time. :)

That's just it, there is a huge price difference between the 750GB drives, $130 for a WD green, and the 1TB drives, $230 for a WD green drive. LArger is better but $90 for an extra 250GB is alot. If the prices last Summer were what they are now, I would have gone with 750GB drives for everything. At the time though, with sales, the 1TB drives were a lower cost per GB so I bought 4 drives. I recently replaced one of my Hitachi 1TB drives and used it in a PC I set up as my TiVo Server so it is mostly dedicated to the TiVo files. And used in conjunction with my media server, I will have over 7 TB of storage for my TiVo recordings. That's a far cry from 5 years ago when I had a PC with 2.5TB of storage with 12 hard drives for my HD recordings at a cost of over $3K. Everything is so cheap now by comparison.

[RonDawg]

The end result of your statement is correct, but a clearer and more accurate statement would be the TiVo's output comes from the hard drive (while the inputs go to the hard drive), and there is only one logical set of outputs and only one application pulling program information off the hard drive.

The OP wasn't looking for a detailed technical dissertation on TiVo. He wasn't interested in knowing if it was true "live" TV straight from the tuner, or whether it was buffered or time shifted programming from the hard drive. He wanted to know if he can watch all four "tuners" at once, and I simply explained to him that wasn't possible.

More technically detailed doesn't always mean clearer, and can muddy up your explanation even more, especially when it wasn't specifically requested.

[telcoman]

BTW, I understand a TiVo HD comes with two CableCARD slots and I'll need to get these from Comcast. This will be my first foray into the CableCARD world. Is there anything I need to know about CableCARDs?

I just upgraded to a series 3 HD Tivo last week and my Tivo activation went much better from Comcast than the previous activation of their digital cable box (General Instrument) a week earlier.
Although Comcast csr originally told me they did not have M Cards, the Comcast tech showed up with one and it activated on the first try.
One important thing to keep in mind is your cable feed needs a adaquate signal and if you are going thru splitters you are going to have issues. Taking care of the tech $$ helped as he reterminated all my cables, installed a 15db amp, one 8 port splitter, and one 6 port splitter. I have all my RG6 cables home run to the basement labeled and run inside the house to both floors. They are going to return to install a new feed into my basement from their outside pedestal. I also have a cable modem and router.
If possible run all RG6 new cables directly to each TV location. Comcast seems to have better quality F connectors than what I find in Home Depot so it is not a big deal to let them terminate you cables as it seems to provide a better connection.

Telcoman

[ManOfSteele]

If possible run all RG6 new cables directly to each TV location.

Unfortunately I live in a townhome on a slab. It's pretty difficult to change the wiring that was in the place originally, if not impossible. I managed to get new RG6 lines to the two bedrooms closest to my external network closet, but my living room is diagonally as far away from my cable source as you can get...

[Tom White]

I've never heard of the NEA. Do I have to be a member to get this deal?

I don't think that in the long run 86 HD hours will be enough. I have two SD TiVos now that I am retiring that I upgraded to 155 hours each four years ago (I did the upgrade myself). I'll likely continue my habit of recording a lot and watching it when I have time, but this time in HD rather than SD. I'm tempted to go with a 144 hour TiVo HD I found on the web, but $900 is pretty steep. That's why I was looking at getting a stock TiVo HD now and upgrading it in the fall when disk prices have fallen a bit more.

I assume there is no difference in functionality between a TiVo HD with an external drive and one that's been cracked open and upgraded with in internal drive, other than losing the easy plug and play option for future upgrades?

No membership rquired. In fact, when you click "buy", it will take you to tivo.com where you can log in to your account and complete the transaction.

The tivo hd at $199 and adding a larger drive is certainly cheaper than anything else I've seen.

By the way, I am not a member of the NEA, I just saw this promo somewhere ad thought I'd pass it on. I picked up my series 2 DT from a similar promo for the kidszone - free with a one year sub.

[ManOfSteele]

No membership rquired. In fact, when you click "buy", it will take you to tivo.com where you can log in to your account and complete the transaction.


It's a done deal. I just bought two TiVo HDs through the NEA deal and also decided to get the 3 year TiVo subscription. So now I'm definitely comitted...

[aaronwt]

ARen't there a few days left with the Lifetime promotion? With $399 you can get a lifetime subscription. I wish it would have been offered in 2006 then all my boxes would be lifetime instead of just two.