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Capacity Question

4K views 13 replies 6 participants last post by  TimAtkins1 
#1 ·
The Tivo HD specs state that it can record up to 180 hrsSD, 20 hrs HD.

The FIOS DVR States 80 SD and 18 HD.

Can anyone explain the discrepancy in the ratios?
 
#2 ·
There is no marketing "standard" for storage capacity. A 160GB drive can store about 35 hours of Universal HD, 25 hours of FOOD-HD, 19.5 hours of ESPN-HD, or 18 hours of a full-bitrate ATSC channel. Which figure do you use when marketing a DVR?

Actual capacity will be a little less, because DVRs also reserve some space for their software as well as the HD buffers. Different DVRs may reserve more space for the buffer than others.

TiVo's claimed 180 hours for SD are for analog channels at the lowest quality setting. With FiOS and CableCards, there are no analog channels, only digital channels that are recorded as-is. TiVo capacity with FiOS SD will vary from 80 to 120 hours depending on what SD channels and content you are recording.

The Motorola DVR doesn't allow drive upgrades, but you can easily upgrade the 160Gb drive in the TivoHD with a $100 500Gb drive or a $250 1TB drive. Here's a screenshot of my TiVo with a Western Digital 1TB:

 
#3 ·
There is no marketing "standard" storage capacity. A 160GB drive can store about 35 hours of Universal HD, 25 hours of FOOD-HD, 19.5 hours of ESPN-HD, or 18 hours of a full-bitrate ATSC channel. Which figure do you use when marketing a DVR?

Actual capacity will be a little less, because DVRs also reserve some space for their software as well as the HD buffers. Different DVRs may reserve more space for the buffer than others.

TiVo's claimed 180 hours for SD are for analog channels at the lowest quality setting. With FiOS and CableCards, there are no analog channels, only digital channels that are recorded as-is. TiVo capacity with FiOS SD will vary from 80 to 120 hours depending on what SD channels and content you are recording.

The Motorola DVR doesn't allow drive upgrades, but you can easily upgrade the 160Gb drive in the TivoHD with a $100 500Gb drive or a $250 1TB drive. Here's a screenshot of my TiVo with a Western Digital 1TB:

Lots of good info in your reply, thank you.

Now I know that the Tivo HD has a 160 GB HDD. What size is the HDD in the Moto box?

I'm trying to decide (before my 30 day grace period ends)whether to keep the TIVO HD or get another FIOS box. Now that the FIOS firmware has been updated (yesterday)the guide and DVR library navigation are on par with TIVO. The reason that I got the TIVO in the first place was the ease of adding space. I'm guessing that FIOS will be replacing the current DVR with an expandable one. Hopefully they will also enable media sharing between 2 DVRs. If the upgrade materializes this year, I think I can make do with the current HDD space.
 
#10 ·
I'm guessing that FIOS will be replacing the current DVR with an expandable one. Hopefully they will also enable media sharing between 2 DVRs. If the upgrade materializes this year, I think I can make do with the current HDD space.
You have alot more faith in providers than I do. I would wager that they will never make that DVR expandable. Your best hope would be that they come out with a larger model and let you swap them. As for multi room viewing, they could easily do they now but they don't. That would lead me to believe that they have no desire to allow this.
 
#12 ·
I'm trying to decide (before my 30 day grace period ends)whether to keep the TIVO HD or get another FIOS box. Now that the FIOS firmware has been updated (yesterday)the guide and DVR library navigation are on par with TIVO. The reason that I got the TIVO in the first place was the ease of adding space. I'm guessing that FIOS will be replacing the current DVR with an expandable one. Hopefully they will also enable media sharing between 2 DVRs. If the upgrade materializes this year, I think I can make do with the current HDD space.
The biggest reason for having a TiVo on FiOS is reliability.

The new FiOS IPG looks pretty, but they are still using the same cheap guide data provider (FYI Television). This guide data provider routinely flags old episodes as new and new episodes as old, etc. In six months with the Verizon DVR, I missed an average of 2-3 series recordings per month. It wasn't the fault of the DVR, it was the fault of the guide data provider (FYI Television) that they use. No DVR can reliably record if provided with faulty information.

I finally bought the TiVo after I had missed ~20 episodes of my favorite series. I only waited that long because I was told repeatedly by Verizon upper management and the director of FiOS engineering that they were working on the problem. I've recently learned that Verizon has multi-year contract with FYI Television and will be stuck with their inaccurate guide data for another year.

Right now, due to the writer's strike, there isn't much in the way of new series programming to record. But when the regular TV season starts, you are going to miss new episodes of your favorite shows every month due to that inaccurate guide data. People are going to complain on the forums just as they did during the last season, and the season before that, but nothing will change until Verizon switches to another guide data provider.
 
#13 ·
FiOS does have a multiroom HD DVR. I don't recall if it will stream HD to other HD STBs or DVRs on the MOCA network, but it definitely will stream to SD STBs on the MOCA network.
They have multi-room viewing but it is frome ONE home media DVR to as many as 5 or 6 STBs. I'm not talking about that though......I'm talking about having 2 DVR's networked so that the programming on each can be viewed by the other as well as the STBs.
 
#14 ·
The biggest reason for having a TiVo on FiOS is reliability.
I would say that program guide reliability is *one of* the biggest for TiVo on Fios. Easily expandable capacity either through eSATA or internal drive replacement is huge (no pun intended). 160GB for HD content isn't nearly enough for most regular users of a DVR. TiVo's handling of buffers and switching between tuners is way better than the Fios DVR. The Fios DVR is loud and hot as hell. I could list more but suffice it to say that IMO TiVo blows the FiosDVR away.
 
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