Questions on Premiere

[chelman]

I just finished browsing the Tivo Web page on the premiere, I waited 10 minutes to chat with a rep without succes, and couldn't get answers to some questions that I still have:

1. I have a lifetime service with my Humax, If I take te the lifetime offer on the premiere, Can I continue using my Humax until it dies? or I have to stop using it?

2. Can I record on an external eSATA drive?

3. Do cable companies have the m-cablecards for recording 2 shows at the time available?

TIA for your responses.

[mikebaratta]

Originally Posted by chelman

1. I have a lifetime service with my Humax, If I take te the lifetime offer on the premiere, Can I continue using my Humax until it dies? or I have to stop using it?

You can still use it with limited functionality, and I believe it will bug you about not having service on it. To what extent you can use it I don't have much detail on that. You should be able to watch live tv and manually record. If you can transfer programs from other tivos then you'd be pretty set.

Originally Posted by chelman

2. Can I record on an external eSATA drive?

I believe Tivo sees it as if it wasn't another drive, but part of the tivo itself. As of a couple of months ago only the myDVR expander was supported.

Originally Posted by chelman

3. Do cable companies have the m-cablecards for recording 2 shows at the time available?

In my area (central NJ) both cablevision and comcast have M-Cards.

Hope this helps,

Mike

[ZeoTiVo]

Originally Posted by mikebaratta

You can still use it with limited functionality, and I believe it will bug you about not having service on it. To what extent you can use it I don't have much detail on that. You should be able to watch live tv and manually record. If you can transfer programs from other tivos then you'd be pretty set.

without a sub all the HUMAX will do is record the 30 minute buffer and you can trick play on that but never save it as an a actual recording. Any recordings on the box at the time service stops can be viewed indefinitely. you can not do things like copy shows from other TiVo DVRs or schedule recordings etc..

that said you can call and likely get a discount on a new lifetime sub for the premiere and leave the old sub on the HUMAX if you wnat 2 TiVo DVRs in action.

I believe Tivo sees it as if it wasn't another drive, but part of the tivo itself. As of a couple of months ago only the myDVR expander was supported.

In my area (central NJ) both cablevision and comcast have M-Cards.

Hope this helps,

Mike

right - the TiVo premiere will not show you where recordings are - it will just show you the total time for recordings you have available. The now playing list just stays as one list.

M-cards should be the prevelant option in most places now - though the CSR for a loca lcompany may not have the most up to date info

[ThAbtO]

1. Tivo currently do not transfer lifetime service from 1 Tivo box to another, unless its from a special offer. The $199 lifetime offer is for an additional service on the Premiere as a multi-service discount. Regular Lifetime is $399/$299 MSD. You will not get a discount on the box.

2. When you attach an external eSATA drive to the Tivo, it will be merged into a single storage space where shows are stored on both drives. Removing a drive will delete shows recorded after the drive was installed, shows before the install will not be affected.

3. The correct term is Multi-stream cable card, cable service reps may or may not know what a 'M-card' is. Most cable should have the Multi- and less may have the single stream cards. Since the Premiere has only one cable card slot, Tivo recommends Multi-stream for full dual tuner functionality in digital cable.

[OvrrDrive]

Originally Posted by ThAbtO

.

3. The correct term is Multi-stream cable card, cable service reps may or may not know what a 'M-card' is. Most cable should have the Multi- and less may have the single stream cards. Since the Premiere has only one cable card slot, Tivo recommends Multi-stream for full dual tuner functionality in digital cable.

I work for a cable company, and have service at home with a different cable company and we both refer to it as an M-Card.

[WhiskeyTango]

Originally Posted by chelman

I just finished browsing the Tivo Web page on the premiere, I waited 10 minutes to chat with a rep without succes, and couldn't get answers to some questions that I still have:

1. I have a lifetime service with my Humax, If I take te the lifetime offer on the premiere, Can I continue using my Humax until it dies? or I have to stop using it?

Just to reiterate what Thabto said because there have been conflicting responses here. The Lifetime will stay with your Humax and you will get another lifetime sub on the premiere at the discounted rate of $199. So you can continue to use the Humax until it dies.