The Official TiVo-Centric Cord-Cutting Thread

[Chris Gerhard]

And again, I don't have a server or storage with music and videos, I have discs, an antenna on the roof and I stream from the internet. I am never going to convert my disc collection to files on a hard disc, that is just my preference but if I did, I would likely use a great player like the Oppo BDP-93 to play the files, not a PC.

[mr.unnatural]

Originally Posted by Chris Gerhard

Not sure how Blu-ray having thousands of movies available is relevant to my comment.

I didn't realize we were only talking about audio. Sorry if I'm a bit off but I was up late with my Mom at the hospital. She fell and broke her hip while at an aerobics class (she'll be 89 this month) and had to undergo surgery.

I pointed out why a PC is pitiful choice for my needs for disc playback, internet streaming, and OTA DVR, nothing against a PC if it was better suited for my needs. Apparently you haven't seen Vudu HDX, it blows Amazon and Netflix away. You started by saying it was a good choice then acknowledged you can't do the things I want either.

I would hardly say pitiful, but possibly inadequate for what you want it to do. It actually does everything you mentioned quite well, and in most cases much better than the vast majority of standalone boxes unless you want to start paying four figures and up for high-end hardware that's only marginally better. I followed that white rabbit down the hole for years until I realized I was just chasing a dream, and then I woke up.

Amazon and Netflix are mediocre streaming choices, IMHO, so it doesn't surprise me in the least that Vudu HDX is better. I still prefer watching movies ripped directly from the Blu-Ray source with full HD audio and zero compression. To me, that "blows away" anything you can get from a streaming service. The source material used for Vudu HDX was probably ripped from Blu-Rays to begin with and then highly compressed to fit in the allocated bandwidth. It might look very good, but it still can't compare to the original Blu-Ray.

Keep in mind that all of my discussions are just my personal preference and opinions, that's all. Everyone has different ideas about what suits them best. I'm just offering my opinion based on years of experience. I'm not trying to change your mind, especially since it's clear you have it made up.

FWIW, I pay a fraction of what it costs per movie via Vudu HDX (or any other streaming service) by renting Blu-Rays from NetFlix. I'm also not saddled with any time limit as to when I have to complete the movie once I've started watching it. There are too many restrictions with streaming services and the price per movie is more than I'm willing to pay.

[dt100]

Originally Posted by Aero 1

Just looked and it also works on the HD. This is great! Now I can skip the Hulu commercials with this!!

I have a really, really basic question. The show is first "recorded" with playlater. Then, the pytivo "fork" allows the transfer to the Tivo of the show recorded on playlater?

Or, using the pytivo fork do you use playon to stream the show to the tivo, and then record the show on tivo as it streams, like recording live tv while watching it?
Thanks

[ntarvin]

Originally Posted by dt100

I have a really, really basic question. The show is first "recorded" with playlater. Then, the pytivo "fork" allows the transfer to the Tivo of the show recorded on playlater?

Or, using the pytivo fork do you use playon to stream the show to the tivo, and then record the show on tivo as it streams, like recording live tv while watching it?
Thanks

Ummmm, kind of... the pytivo fork allows you to access all of PlayOn on the Tivo. So, if you have recorded a show with PlayLater, you can access it on Tivo. (PlayOn has a "channel" to access PlayLater recordings.)

I really haven't had a lot of time to play with all the possible ramifications, so I don't know if you can stream the show to tivo and record the stream. Something to look into...

[dt100]

Originally Posted by ntarvin

Ummmm, kind of... the pytivo fork allows you to access all of PlayOn on the Tivo. So, if you have recorded a show with PlayLater, you can access it on Tivo. (PlayOn has a "channel" to access PlayLater recordings.)

Thanks. When you watch the playlater channel on the tivo, can you use the tivo remote to skip or fast forward through commercials?

[poppagene]

Originally Posted by dt100

Thanks. When you watch the playlater channel on the tivo, can you use the tivo remote to skip or fast forward through commercials?

Yes

[dt100]

That’s good news about the tivo remote controlling the playon/playlater playback.
Does the tivo play the recorded show, or the computer? The reason I am asking is because I don’t have a windows computer, and may get one just to run playon/playlater. I can “spend” the money I am saving by not having cable TV. Can I just get the least expensive windows computer, or do I still need to be concerned about processor speed, chip, etc.?

[Aero 1]

Originally Posted by ntarvin

Ummmm, kind of... the pytivo fork allows you to access all of PlayOn on the Tivo. So, if you have recorded a show with PlayLater, you can access it on Tivo. (PlayOn has a "channel" to access PlayLater recordings.)

I really haven't had a lot of time to play with all the possible ramifications, so I don't know if you can stream the show to tivo and record the stream. Something to look into...

have you had a problem with this fork running it as a service? i cant push shows with it if its running as a service but playon works. when i disable the service and run another instance of pytivo by running the .py file, it works fine. for some reason, i cant get any versions of pytivo to work as a service.

[ntarvin]

Originally Posted by Aero 1

have you had a problem with this fork running it as a service? i cant push shows with it if its running as a service but playon works. when i disable the service and run another instance of pytivo by running the .py file, it works fine. for some reason, i cant get any versions of pytivo to work as a service.

There have been some issues with running it as a service - if you go to the PlayOn forums (playon.tv) they have an area on Tivo. It has quite a long discussion on the pros and cons of running it as a service and how to do it...

[dt100]

Originally Posted by ntarvin

There have been some issues with running it as a service - if you go to the PlayOn forums (playon.tv) they have an area on Tivo. It has quite a long discussion on the pros and cons of running it as a service and how to do it...

I looked on the playon.tv forums, and could not find the Tivo section. It is probably right under my nose. Can you please post a link to it, or describe where it is. Thanks

[ScottE22]

This is where TiVo ownership hurts a little bit...

I bought a Premiere in February for the great room with PLS. Love it. $600

I bought a second Premiere in March for the master bedroom with PLS. Love it. $500

Now I have a "theater room/media room" downstairs where we do most of our movie watching and the occasional big TV event (Superbowl, World Series, Olympics, and -- regretfully -- The Bachelorette). When I had DTV, I never paid for a box down there choosing instead to schlep the master bedroom box up and down when there was a need. Primarily, I just didn't want to pay the $7/month for a rarely used box.

What I'd love is another TiVo, but I find that we basically use the bedroom TiVo as a streaming device for the shows recorded in the great room -- it really doesn't have its own Season Passes except where recording in the great room would have caused a conflict.

So what to do downstairs? I need something to serve as a TV tuner for the projector and something to stream the occasional DVR'd show from the great room box. It just seems that buying another $100 device plus another $400 PLS is an awful lot of green -- like making the total expenditure $1600! I guess that's not AWFUL all things considered because over a year that's $133/month which is only slightly more than I paid for DTV and once it's paid, it's paid for "life."

I understand there will likely be an IP STB which sounds like EXACTLY what I want except it's not available until "end of summer" and, even then, sounds like it won't work with a vanilla Premiere -- only the XL4.

I also have 2 Roku boxes and an old Apple TV, FWIW.

So I'm stuck... I wish there were another device that could stream from a TiVo, but obviously they have an interest in NOT doing that.

I could probably work out something with TTG and transcode/encode content for later viewing, but that would require planning and work and time. So, no TiVo-ing the game upstairs and starting it an hour later downstairs.

Anything I'm missing (besides hauling a box up and down when needed)? I'd like to think that if it were easier to watch stuff down there, I'd use the room more.

So, to summarize, I want another TiVo but I don't want to buy another TiVo.

[dlfl]

Originally Posted by dt100

That’s good news about the tivo remote controlling the playon/playlater playback.
Does the tivo play the recorded show, or the computer? The reason I am asking is because I don’t have a windows computer, and may get one just to run playon/playlater. I can “spend” the money I am saving by not having cable TV. Can I just get the least expensive windows computer, or do I still need to be concerned about processor speed, chip, etc.?

Unfortunately I believe the correct answer is you need a fairly beefy PC for good PlayOn performance. PlayOn streams the video to the TiVo via pyTivo and the TiVo records it. Like other pyTiVo transfers you can start playing the video on your TiVo/TV almost immediately, but it is playing back from a recording on the TiVo hard disk. In most (all?) cases your PC is transcoding the video, which is compute intensive. In fact it could conceivably be transcoding it twice because both PlayOn and PyTivo use ffmpeg to transcode. My PC has an Intel i7 860 CPU (quad core) at 2.8 GHz and 8 GB of RAM. When PlayOn/pyTivo are processing a Video the CPU usage is around 15%. When only PlayOn is streaming (to a different client) it runs about half that. These numbers seem to imply you could use a lot less powerful PC if you didn't want to do anything else on it.

PlayOn has different quality settings and higher quality requires more CPU power. They recommend their "automatic" setting, which is all I've used so far. The picture quality is not true HD but is quite acceptable to me on a 40" LCTV. The pyTivo PlayOn plugin tells Playon it is feeding a Wii client, so I assume some combination of that setting and the quality setting determines both picture quality and bitrate (transcoding work) that is used.

[Aero 1]

Originally Posted by ScottE22

This is where TiVo ownership hurts a little bit...

I bought a Premiere in February for the great room with PLS. Love it. $600

I bought a second Premiere in March for the master bedroom with PLS. Love it. $500

Now I have a "theater room/media room" downstairs where we do most of our movie watching and the occasional big TV event (Superbowl, World Series, Olympics, and -- regretfully -- The Bachelorette). When I had DTV, I never paid for a box down there choosing instead to schlep the master bedroom box up and down when there was a need. Primarily, I just didn't want to pay the $7/month for a rarely used box.

What I'd love is another TiVo, but I find that we basically use the bedroom TiVo as a streaming device for the shows recorded in the great room -- it really doesn't have its own Season Passes except where recording in the great room would have caused a conflict.

So what to do downstairs? I need something to serve as a TV tuner for the projector and something to stream the occasional DVR'd show from the great room box. It just seems that buying another $100 device plus another $400 PLS is an awful lot of green -- like making the total expenditure $1600! I guess that's not AWFUL all things considered because over a year that's $133/month which is only slightly more than I paid for DTV and once it's paid, it's paid for "life."

I understand there will likely be an IP STB which sounds like EXACTLY what I want except it's not available until "end of summer" and, even then, sounds like it won't work with a vanilla Premiere -- only the XL4.

I also have 2 Roku boxes and an old Apple TV, FWIW.

So I'm stuck... I wish there were another device that could stream from a TiVo, but obviously they have an interest in NOT doing that.

I could probably work out something with TTG and transcode/encode content for later viewing, but that would require planning and work and time. So, no TiVo-ing the game upstairs and starting it an hour later downstairs.

Anything I'm missing (besides hauling a box up and down when needed)? I'd like to think that if it were easier to watch stuff down there, I'd use the room more.

So, to summarize, I want another TiVo but I don't want to buy another TiVo.

http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingbox-prohd

[ScottE22]

Originally Posted by Aero 1

http://www.slingbox.com/go/slingbox-prohd

I've considered that. But how to get the TiVo picture onto the basement projector? I think at one time there used to be a Sling "Catcher" or something that was made to hook up to another TV in the house, but now they seem focused on mobile viewing.

A Slingbox and a Boxee with Slingplayer would be more than a TiVo with PLS.

In other news, refurb Premieres are on sale for $49 through Thursday. May have to bite the bullet.

[Aero 1]

Originally Posted by ScottE22

I've considered that. But how to get the TiVo picture onto the basement projector? I think at one time there used to be a Sling "Catcher" or something that was made to hook up to another TV in the house, but now they seem focused on mobile viewing.

A Slingbox and a Boxee with Slingplayer would be more than a TiVo with PLS.

In other news, refurb Premieres are on sale for $49 through Thursday. May have to bite the bullet.

hook your laptop to the projector and use the sling software

[dt100]

Originally Posted by ScottE22

So what to do downstairs?

Can you connect the Tivo to the projector the "old fashion" way - by running a cable from the Tivo (via a splitter) to the projector? Very long flexible drill bits are available for drilling through walls and pulling wires. I have one Tivo connected to three TV's (all in different rooms), using Hotlink to control the Tivo from two of the three rooms. I have a raised foundation house, so this was easy. You can also run wires inside of a closet where no one will notice.

[dt100]

Originally Posted by dlfl

Unfortunately I believe the correct answer is you need a fairly beefy PC for good PlayOn performance. PlayOn streams the video to the TiVo via pyTivo and the TiVo records it. Like other pyTiVo transfers you can start playing the video on your TiVo/TV almost immediately, but it is playing back from a recording on the TiVo hard disk. In most (all?) cases your PC is transcoding the video, which is compute intensive. In fact it could conceivably be transcoding it twice because both PlayOn and PyTivo use ffmpeg to transcode. My PC has an Intel i7 860 CPU (quad core) at 2.8 GHz and 8 GB of RAM. When PlayOn/pyTivo are processing a Video the CPU usage is around 15%. When only PlayOn is streaming (to a different client) it runs about half that. These numbers seem to imply you could use a lot less powerful PC if you didn't want to do anything else on it.

PlayOn has different quality settings and higher quality requires more CPU power. They recommend their "automatic" setting, which is all I've used so far. The picture quality is not true HD but is quite acceptable to me on a 40" LCTV. The pyTivo PlayOn plugin tells Playon it is feeding a Wii client, so I assume some combination of that setting and the quality setting determines both picture quality and bitrate (transcoding work) that is used.

So, the show is actually recorded on the Tivo for playback later, and skipping commericals? If that is the case, I can do the transfers and then watch the shows later.Thanks for the detailed answers.

[dlfl]

Originally Posted by dt100

So, the show is actually recorded on the Tivo for playback later, and skipping commericals? If that is the case, I can do the transfers and then watch the shows later.Thanks for the detailed answers.

Yes. Until recently there was a problem that some transfered shows would immediately be deleted by the TiVo as soon as they finished transferring. It appears that recent code mods in playon.py have eliminated that problem. The plugin is working perfectly on my TiVo HD with a wired network connection, both push and pull. YMMV.

Here is jkasyan's thread on the pyTivo forum on this:
http://pytivo.sourceforge.net/forum/...ler-t1610.html
I'm not sure what the status of his installer is -- I don't use it. You can make your own assessment of that by reading his thread and/or pm'ing him.

I'm attaching a zip that contains eveything you need to add this plugin to a Wmcbrine pyTivo installation. Unpack the playon folder into your plugins folder. The AddToPyTivo.conf.txt file contains the lines you need to add to your pyTivo.conf file to create the PlayOn "share". The code in the zip is also available from the Google Code repository link given in the first post of the jkasyan thread linked above.

[dt100]

dlfl- This is fantastic .. thank you.

[Aero 1]

Found a great DNS service that will bypass MLB blackouts. $5 a month or $50 a year, change DNS settings on your router for full LAN bypass or on individual devices so you can watch local MLB teams. MLB was my last Cord Cutting necessity for my local team. Now i can retire the slingbox at my dads house and watch the home feed of the sh*tty Mets in HD!

http://unblock-us.com

They support only a handful of sites, but MLB is the biggie: http://unblock-us.com/3582.html

Supported Devices: http://unblock-us.com/how-to-set-up/

I changed the DNS settings on my router and now my xbox, 2 apple tv's, 3 rokus and smart Tv can now access local MLB.tv. The performance is great, no degradation on my internet connection relating to changing the DNS service from OpenDns. Tested netflix on tivo, works fine, web surfing, fine. Its a great, private, fast DNS service.

[SWFan]

I cut the cable cord last summer. I was a fairly early Tivo adopter and when I decided to go HD back in the day, Tivo didn't offer any HD versions, so I jumped ship and went with TWC's crappy box, though it did work. Used that set up for many years. Finally last year realized I was paying around $60/mo to watch roughly four shows a week that were all on local network channels.

So, when I decided to cut the cord last summer I knew I still wanted DVR functionality and I decided to go back to Tivo. Bought a Tivo Premier.

I fortunately live within 20 miles of all the local antennas, so I just bought an inexpensive indoor antenna and have it connected directly to the Tivo.

We also signed up for Netflix's streaming service. While the Tivo can play Netflix I was not happy with its performance or UI. Fortunately I had an Apple TV 2 and I use that for Netflix watching.

We signed up for Hulu+ and kept it for only about 4 months and then dropped it. There was just too much content that was available via their web interface that wasn't allowed to be shown on "mobile" devices which includes Tivo.

I signed up for Amazon's 30 day trial of Amazon Prime, but we don't order much from them and I didn't find anything they offered that we weren't getting with Netflix and then some.

We are also a Mac household, so I'm looking forward to Mountain Lion coming out as it will include Air Play in the OS. According to the tests people have done with the developer builds we should be able to wirelessly stream any content we pull up in the browser to our Apple TV. This will add one additional level of flexibility.

[ntarvin]

We've talked about PlayOn - another program that works well with TiVo is Miro - for tv and podcasts. If your tv show or podcast has an RSS feed, you can set up Miro to auto-download new episodes and have them waiting on your Tivo.

At the bottom of the MyShows list, my Tivo shows the video files I have in the default locations on my computer as long as I have them set to "share" in Windows 7. (Actually, I have 2 computers that show up on Tivo at the bottom of the MyShows list.)

When I click them, they show a long list of vid files, and some additional folders - (1) PlayLater - files I have downloaded on PlayLater, and (2) Miro - all the podcasts and shows I have downloaded on Miro. (and whatever else you have set to download to My Videos under your User directory in Windows)

I'm finding that Tivo is quite versatile for gathering up web stuff, and there is less and less need for connecting my computer to the net.

Anybody have any other proggies that will work with Tivo????

[jrm01]

Cord Cutter results for the second quarter:

Direct TV lost 52,000 subscribers
Dish lost 10,000
TWC lost 169,000
Comcast lost 176,000

However,

Verizon FiOs added 120,000
AT&T Uverse added 150,000

Net loss about 130,000.