[rminsk]

If you tune both tuners to channels you do not receive it is like standby (except for video output being on) until your TiVo records a program. After it records a program it will continue to buffer the channel it was recording. Why not just put it in standby?

 

[rminsk]

Because putting it in standby would shut down both tuners.

It does not shut down the receivers. Power is still going from the TiVo to the multiswitch. It is still getting a satellite signal and receiving guide data and writing the guide data to disk. The only thing standby does is to stop buffering live TV and shutdown the output enabling the analog bypass to work.

 

[rminsk]

Tuning to an unavailable channel on one tuner appears to cut disk thrashing in half. I don't want to shut down disk thrashing from both tuners.

Why not?

 

[rminsk]

I set one tuner to 43 and the second to 44 and put the unit into stand by.

Why tune to channels you do not receive if you are putting the unit into stand-by mode? Stand-by will stop buffering live TV.

 

[rminsk]

That wouldn't let me watch live TV on one tuner and minimize disk usage which is what I am trying to do

I'm sorry that I misunderstood what you were doing. I thought you were going to tune to two channels you don't receive instead of going to stand-by. If you are watching then tuning to one channel you do not receive will quite things down a bit.

 

[rminsk]

The XM music channels don't buffer either, do they?

I think they actually do but trick play is disabled. The music channels are much lower bandwidth.

 

[rminsk]

There are three ways to stop it from writing to disk... 1) Unplug it from the wall. This is the "maximum energy saving mode." 2) Tune to music stations. Audio only stations are not recorded. 3) Tune to unavailable channels -- either channels that do not exist or unauthorized channels. It obviously cannot record what it doesn't have.

I've never understood why Tivo, Inc. even made "standby". A) Tivos don't draw a huge amount of power to begin with. B) "Standby" doesn't shut off any of the power sucking bits. (like the mpeg encoder, mpeg decoder, hard drive, and/or cpu.) [Granted, DTivos don't have encoders.]

As already discussed in standby mode the DirecTiVo does not buffer live TV so the only writing to the disk it does in standby is the guide data and other housekeeping chores. Besides not buffering live TV standby serves the purpose of allowing the analog pass through to work. In standby it does save close to 1 watt.