Looking to buy Tivo unit

[schatham]

I talked to DirecTV on Sunday and got a lot of info from them.

My wife & I had talked about getting an additional receiver, and I had also mentioned taking our current receiver and using it as the second one, and getting a DVR unit from DirecTV.

They have 4 units the guy said they provided with the hookup: Hughes SDDVR40, RCA DVR40 and Phillips DSR704 & Phillips DSR7000. He said the more common ones were the Hughes & RCA.

I've got a home computer network, and would want to capture some of the things on there to DVD over the network. However, I found out that none of those 3 units have a network card or 10base T connection.

In doing more research, I found that one unit, a ReplayTV DOES have a NIC card in it, that you can connect over a network and pull the saved items over in I believe MPEG2 format, and burn them to DVD.

Needless to say, I'm confused.

Can any of the Directv DVR units above have the saved stuff pulled over to a DVD? If so, how? I have a wireless network in the house, and the access point is in the same room as the Tivo unit would be.

As much as I'd like to have Tivo there, if I can't grab it over to dvd, it's pretty useless to me. I have been looking too, at the Replay TV, but that one stays in your pocket for $12 a month forever. I've also been considering one of the DVD burners to replace my DVD player (it's the VHS & DVD combo unit by Sansui).

Any advice, guidance, suggestions appreciated. Please feel free to respond via email if you would like.

[Mark Holtz]

:welcome_s to DBSTalk, schatham!

Unfortunately, none of the DirecTiVos series have the ability to natively support a LAN connection. While the USB ports are there, they just aren't activated. Series 1 are more hackable.

There are hacks out there that will allow you to have a LAN connection to the DirecTiVo, but they can be wiped out with a system upgrade. Also, video extraction is kinda verbotten because of the DMCA.

I know, it would be great to transfer the shows and movies for your own private use while traveling. But, if the goal is to transfer the shows off the DVR before space runs out, then you may want to get one of the small drive units and them upgrade it to larger hard drives.

[Ray_Clum]

Or just go ahead and pop for the DVD burner... That's what I'm looking to do in the next couple of months...

[schatham]

:There are hacks out there that will allow you to have a LAN connection to the DirecTiVo, but they can be wiped out with a system upgrade. Also, video extraction is kinda verbotten because of the DMCA.

I know, it would be great to transfer the shows and movies for your own private use while traveling. But, if the goal is to transfer the shows off the DVR before space runs out, then you may want to get one of the small drive units and them upgrade it to larger hard drives.


Man that is inconvenient and a bummer to boot.

I don't want to be screwing with my receiver every 6 weeks or so and paying $80 bucks a pop to swap hard drives. My luck will be that every one I can find is incompatible with the system.

[schatham]

Or just go ahead and pop for the DVD burner... That's what I'm looking to do in the next couple of months...

More and more that's what I'm looking at. I've got a bunch of old video tapes that I'd like to bring over to DVD, just because they're getting some age on them, and I'd like to preserve them in at least the state they are now. Lots of old home movies, etc.

The one thing that's bothered me on one of the units (a Zenith I believe) says it will not copy copyrighted tapes. Don't know how to tell whether they are or aren't copyrighted.

Any particular models you're looking at?

[ccwf]

Everything not in the pubic domain is copyrighted, but you are perhaps more concerned about Macrovision, which is not usually used for basic channels.

Also, people wanting to be able to burn DVDs from their TiVos might want to fill out the TiVo New Features Survey (http://research.tivo.com/togo/ttg.html). The latest survey is specifically about this topic (what editing features do you want, do you want to be able to transfer recordings from your computer back to the TiVo, and so forth). It lets you indicate at the end that you own DirecTiVos.

[Mark Holtz]

I don't want to be screwing with my receiver every 6 weeks or so and paying $80 bucks a pop to swap hard drives. My luck will be that every one I can find is incompatible with the system.The DirecTiVos use standard IDE/ATA drives. However, the way the MFS system is, you end up making a new drive set from your master drive.

I stopped bothering archiving stuff to video a long long time ago. Many of the TV series are now available uncut and without annoying logos on DVD.

[jwwahly]

Or just wait till the tivo dvd burner unit comes out