master tivo -subordinate tivo(s) and a bit bucket

I really like the Master TiVo idea. Kind of a controller for two tivos if you don't have one that has dual tuners. Automatically record a show on the subordinate tivo if it conflicts with the schedule on the master.

 

I've been pushing this one for years now.. A way of adding tuners and storage.
Still, it probably wouldn't be free, since they have to recover tyhe hardware subsidy with subcription fees..
Perhaps it could be a lower fee if the slave unit(s) were incapable of playback ontheir own. To be usable, they'd require a faster link than USB 1.1

 

Just to note, all Series2 TiVos, except for the very early 110/130/140 units, have USB2.0. The bottleneck is internal, the CPU.

 

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Upcoming Series 3 unit will have dual tuners and be able to store on an external drive.

 

Unlikely. Although the upcoming High Def Series 3 unit has a e-SATA external hard drive port.

The TiVo software doesn't pay any attention to keyboards or mice. It's not impossible that some future software update could add that ability, but it's not anything TiVo has talked about.

 

clustered tivos, with a shared season pass/todo list, and a "cluster heartbeat" to detect when a member of the cluster was offline would be even cooler.

 

I'd like to see this too. One shared play list, schedule, ... automatically balance the tuner load among TiVo's when possible (optionally force recording to specific tuner).

 

I think a cooler solution without so much redundant hardware (all those motherboards/video decoders/CPUs, etc.) would be some sort of modular tuner design where you can just drop in more as needed as previously mentioned. The only downsides:

• The Ubertivo itself that acccepts all the tuners would probably be expensive and bulky. You can already get a Series2 DT DVR for free with service.
• By having multiple DVRs, TiVo can charge you service multiple times. Charging per tuner in a single box would be lame given each tuner is still using the same source of data and only one DVR's OS to maintain.

 

Other possible downsides:
If you supported multiple tuner types there would be a lot of extra software complexity to handle the range of input types and the fact that lineups on each tuner are probably not identical. (Kind of like the S2 DT in its analog + cable box setup but even more-so)

If you provided support for this uberTiVo to control multiple cable boxes the IR blasters would be a pain. Lots of cables to hook up, and IR interference to try to avoid.

And if you don't provide support to control multiple cable boxes, this uberTiVo would be less useful than multiple S2 TiVos.

Also, at some point you have to worry about the number of video stream overloading the hard disk. (Or if you provided for multiple hard disks that you tried to load balance between, worry about overloading the I/O bus on the motherboard or the disk controllers)

If you built in support for HD via cable-cards then you have the mess of building the cable card readers into the tuner module somehow, plus with HD video you would saturate the I/O much faster.

Some of this can be worked around or minimized, but an uberTiVo like you describe wouldn't trivial to create.

 

I too want this type of feature. I have 3 S2 Tivos one is connected to a computer input card. I record way too much TV and would at least like the ability to remote delete the programs from my main Tivo unit. It would be nice to load balance the recordings so that if a program confilicts then it would give you the option of using one of your other Tivo's. If this cantt be done easily on the tivo unit itself then could it be added to the Tivo Desktop software where I can manage all the Season Pass/To Do Lists there. SO based off the Media Access Key in the software it would:

Be a desktop version of Tivo Online that also has my Season Pass/To DO List in it also.

 

Any of these corrected by Series 3?

you can't dub off more than one show - in sequence, such as overnight, because you have to be there to start the next recording. I'll need to clear TIVO before my vacation.


shows will be deleted when TIVO thinks it needs the space to record something new? This is wacked! Lost a lot of shows, last vacation.. Obviously I don't care as much about a new show - compared to a show I haven't deleted yet.


TIVO season pass records only 5 shows of one program, unless you set it to record more of that program, unbelieveable.. This is the default setting, each season pass must be reset!

These seem to be logical and easy fixes.

 

1. No, still the same.

2. Most people consider this an important feature of TiVo. If you don't want it to automatically delete, that's up to you. You can set Season Passes, etc, as Keep Until I Delete and it won't delete anything to make room. You have always been able to control that.

3. What's to fix? Keep At Most 5 is what TiVo determined most users want as the default, so that's what it is. If you don't like it, change it. It isn't that hard - once you change it, it is changed for that SP forever. When you create a new SP you just set it to what you want - same as Keep Until I Delete.

 

As an old programmer these default settings seem outlandish to me.

The default should be don't erase anything I've specifically told it to record, obviously, and no limits on anything. Then anyone can reset these if they want their shows to be mindlessly erased or they think they want the recording limits.

No other recording device I know of has ever been configured this way. It's inconvenient and it's dangerous for your data.

One button to make TIVO behave like a normal DVR would nicely overwrite their wrong-headed policy. Uniqueness is good only if it improves data reliability and/or ease of use.

 

It might not be your preference, but it's hardly outlandish. I certainly don't want to miss a premiere of some new show because I have 15 daily shows I never got around to watching.

Back to the "cluster" idea. It seems to me (as a nonprogrammer) that it would be fairly easy at least to add an option where you could send a message to tivo central online asking for the program to be recorded on the other tivo, provided the other tivo is available. Obviously it would be better if there was a master schedule and you could ask for a recording on either tivo and see what both tivos are scheduled to do, but I think it would still be fairly useful to be able to route requests to TCO from a tivo.

 

Just to be courteous and answer you, neither do I want to miss a new show because I have no time to watch my already saved shows, but you already know that TIVO doesn't allow hands-off sequential off-dubbing, and so overnight 6 or 8 show offloads, for example, are not an option. I'm stuck with saving each old show individually, when I get the time... I might as well be watching them, it's not convenient.

Maybe you remember the SonicBlue RePlay unit which I'm told did allow convenient off-dubbing, and its cache/buffer was only limited by the free space on the HD. So these improvements are possible.

I'm also stuck with having paid a lifetime premium on this old, small unit, so upgrading to a huge HD is not a smart option for me. I would have purchased 5 TIVOs by now if their policy was more encouraging.

As it is I have 5 other DVRs, each of which have different strengths and limitations, but I always have to separately remember to safeguard the data on the TIVO.

No one else in these forums agrees with me much..

 

Why is upgrading the drive not a 'smart option'? Swapping the drive does nothing to the lifetime sub. In fact, upgrading the drive would probably prolong the life of the unit.

 

I'm not sure I understand entirely. I remember when a lot of people wanted to be able to batch save to VCR, but isn't that problem essentially eliminated with tivo desktop? I can offload 6-8 shows to my PC overnight, and either leave them there (to later return to the tivo), or decide to put them on DVD for later. What am I missing?