What Tivo do I need??

Pedrothelion said:

Hi folks,

Hoping somebody can advise regarding a rather unique/annoying situation in which I find myself. I live in a Post Properties apartment in Dallas. Post is the main apartment leasing company in town, and they have exclusive deals with Internet providers, satellite providers, etc., so I'm stuck with DirecTV, which is fine, in theory. The issue is this--I got a HD TV a few months ago, and was instructed that, because there are many feeds (the different apartments) off one satellite, I cannot us the DirecTV HD DVR. This is non-negotiable--believe me, I've tried. So ever since I got the HD TV, I've lived without Tivo.

So, what can I use? I suppose it needs to be something entirely separate from my satellite receiver. Any thoughts? I've be very grateful if someone can steer me in the right direction...

Click to expand...

Well... both HD Tivos... both the S3 and the newer/less expensive TiVoHD get excellent over the air reception with even just a small indoor antenna. This of of course depends on your proximity to the broadcast towers. Go to antennaweb.org and check out your HD TV reception situation, and if it looks like your are in a reasonable OTA situation try out an HD TiVo... it does work wonders. Of course this does limit you to TiVoing the over the air TV only.

Umm .... if you have a sat feed available to you, there's no reason you can't attach a DirecTivo unit.

Maybe I don't understand the problem .... ??

Thanks for the replies. I really do appreciate the both of them, though the first solution wouldn't be acceptable to me. I would want to be able to Tivo pay television as well--Entourage, Flight of the Conchords, etc.

I'll try to clarify a bit. I am unable to use the DirecTV receiver/DVR all-in-one unit, which would be ideal. I must use my standard non-DVR receiver instead. I want to get a DVR that will work for all channels but IS NOT the DirecTV receiver. Can I just plug in a regular old HD Tivo between my receiver and my tv? If so, which one would work best? Thanks...

For HD from DirecTV, there is no HD-DVR that you use separate from a DirecTV HD receiver. A Series 2 Standalone will do everything you want, except record in SD. A TiVo HD will not work with DirecTV at all.

If you can get the full HD signal from DirecTV, you could at least use their DVR in single tuner mode.