Oh TIVO masters, why were you so STUPID on the TivoHD????

I gues you haven't read any of the hundreds of posts which explain why huh?

 

Here's one.

There's a bunch more.

Cliff-notes?

The technology to record HD is not consumer level technology (it would make the TiVoHD be out of the reach of most)

 

From TiVo's perspective, they have a current technology product to manage external devices: the Series 2 DT.

I would expect there'll be an updated product at some point that essentially allows digital OTA and control over an external receiver for other SD sources not directly supportable.

To make things more seamless for people like you, though, getting multi-room video transfers going for the Series 3 and TiVo HD units would go a long way.

 

The answer is yes, it would have killed them. You are in a very tiny minority of customers that desire this feature. People with cable only don't need it. People with OTA only don't need it. People with satellite have generally migrated to integrated satellite receiver/DVR combo machines from their provider (or have older DirecTV/Tivo combos), for good reason (more efficient storage, no AV quality loss from original transmission, lower costs). People like you who wish to reencode SD analog output from a satellite receiver have become a minuscule fraction of the user base. Auxiliary input, IR blaster, + software support would have driven up the cost of the box for everyone else, it doesn't make sense to put it in for the maybe 1% of people who would use this and turn off the other 99% with a higher price who would never use it.

Why not just continue to use most of your S2s, you can pick up a TivoHD for solely OTA HD purposes if the price works for you.

 

The SD Tivos are designed to do what you ask as far as recording from a sat receiver or external box. The Tivo HD is designed to record from digital sources only. The cost to add analog recording as well would defeat the purpose of the box - a low cost entry into HD recording. I don't know of any HD capable DVR that will record from an analog source. It just wouldn't make sense to build and market such a device. There'd be little or no demand for it, at least not enough to make it a viable or profitable product.

Next?

 

Sorry, not true. Tivo HD records analog cable and OTA just fine.

Next?

 

I am in agreement with the OP. The TiVo HD was clearly designed so a version of it could be built to have AV inputs/control an STB. I think TiVo should have release the current TiVo HD but also should have release a version that included the AV inputs to replace the Series 2 DT at the same time - they could have even removed the cable cards and the unit would have had MRV and full TiVoToGo abilities. If they had I would have bought at least one to replace a Series 2 unit and I don't have an HD TV yet.

Thanks,

 

So is OTA the only HD you'd ever want to record? Do you know how much of a niche that is?

 

I stand corrected. It is true that it will record the analog cable channels. I forgot about them because I never watch them or record from them.

Actually, there are more people in this category than you might think. Just look at all the folks with HTPCs using MythTV, BeyondTV or SageTV. You can only record OTA or in-the-clear QAM channels using a HTPC tuner. During the regular season I probably record about 90% or more of my programming from my local OTA HD network affiliates. Aside from a few shows on the Sci-Fi channel, TNT-HD, FX, USA, and HBO-HD, there isn't much on the cable channels I watch during that time period. Until DirecTV or the cable companies beef up their HD lineups, the local HD OTA channels provide the largest source of HD programming available to many people.

 

It depends on your viewing habits nothing I watch from satellite is available in HD at this time so yes I would be fine with that - plus I have no desire to pay for the HD tier with whats available at this time.

I have no idea how much of a niche that would be but there are 25 million satellite subscribers that it would at least give a better option than the current one which is needing a DT and a HD TiVo unit to do what a HD TiVo with video inputs could do.

Thanks,

 

Do not forget the issue of copy protection. Content brought in via S-video, even though SD, is of unknown origin. When I had my XP MCE running, it refused to record "Sunday Morning Shootout" from AMC. Tivo doesn't care if you want to record, say, SMS onto a DVD but it doesn;t want to be in the middle of that type of fight.

Besides, OP has 4 SD Tivo's. He could easily swap one out without throwing a hissy fit.

 

Swap one out for what? He said they are all controlling individual STBs.

A TiVo HD that could record through video inputs has no more copy protection issues than it does now. What adds copy protection issues to the Series 3 and TiVo HD over the Series 1 or 2 are cable cards and flags in the shows it records.

Thanks,

 

yes- in a word it is cost to make the box that drives what is happening here.
To add OTA to an SD would have to be digital tuner. You have to sort out the code to have digital recordings on it. Plus you can not view HD from a Series 2 so how crazy would that be. ETA - crazy in the sense of adding digital OTA to an S2 but then you can not make use of it to watch OTA HD in HD

To add the analog inputs and IR controllers to the TiVo HD of today would add to the cost of the box, and cost of the box for TiVo HD was very significant design constraint. Could have been done on the S3 but who would spend that kind of money for an SD sat box and OTA. Cheaper to get an S2 and a TiVo HD than an S3 .

I suspect the box that atmuscarella describes will be the future direction of the S2 when analog becomes less prevelant. Also to be a really good box it would want to have the ability to record HD from a component input. That tech exists but is very costly now. of ocurse that cost will be falling and when it makes business sense Tivo seems poised to put out a box that can record HD from sat, from OTA and also cable box for those not wanting to go the cable card route. It would also be a hedge against SDV and 2 way cable card not making it to public use.

 

You got me on that one. I forgot he was a satellite user.

If a Tivo can be restricted from recording (or saving for more than two hours, as several, including myself, have seen), it has control over copy protection. The fact that it rarely does, does NOT mean it won't do so more often in the future. If it records from Svideo, it loses that control. I can make a great SD DVD from the Svideo output of an HD receiver. Presumably I coculd run HD based SVideo content into a Tivo, then run it to Tivo Desktop, then make a DVD. Perhaps Tivo doesn't want to be part of this production line. The fact that S1 & S2 can do it doesn't mean that Tivo wants to continue supporting this particular feature. [/QUOTE]

Yet another argument against a cablecard-less Tivo being able to record digital cable! This one had not occurred to me yet.

 

Not so crazy. While Tivo HD's can considered HD Tivos, they can also be considered digital Tivos. There are SD digital tube TV sets right now. They downrez HD channel to SD. I'm not sure there's a good business case, but when analog cable goes away I could buy a new TV set for the kitchen, or I could just hook it up to a Tivo HD.

I'm not so sure that there is a huge market for DVR's connected to StarChoice Receivers. D* and E* provide DVRs (of varying quality, to be sure). It would make more sense to have a Tivo HD with one M-stream cablecard slot (or whatever is the next technology) and one (whatever D*/E* call their card)a slot. As an aside, maybe Congress should have D* & E* standardize their cards (note: I don't know if this is technically achievable - maybe two cards in one?).

 

I wouldn't be surprised if TiVo did consider this, since the TiVoHD has the internal hardware AND the space on the back of it to handle AV inputs.

For some reason (my guess is price) they dropped it. I think it would be a good idea to have it included.

 

No matter what the price?

Al