Which DVR - Tivo or ReplayTV? 32
lkd7 asks: "I have recently decided to buy a DVR, but I'm not sure whether to go with Tivo or ReplayTV. I know that it is a shaky market right now, but my VCR is just not cutting it anymore. I have tested out both Tivo and ReplayTV, and would be happy with either one (I do not have satellite service and so UltimateTV is not an option for me). The Tivo stocks and SonicBlue/ReplayTV stocks are not the most reassuring. I know that going with either one is taking a risk, but I would like to go with the less risky bet. I'd rather not invest in a $300 paperweight. Does anyone have a recommendation?"
Wait for the Panasonic (Score:1)
Re:Wait for the Panasonic (Score:2)
Re:Wait for the Panasonic (Score:1)
Tivo! Tivo! Tivo! (Score:2)
I reccommend you check out the AVS forums at http://www.tivocommunity.com/
Which PVR? (Score:4, Insightful)
You're probably not going to find many people on Slashdot who will be able to intelligently compare the risks to both companies. I guestimate the chances are roughly equal for both. But keep in mind that the TiVo is much more 'hackable' than ReplayTV.
Yes, they've found ways to load television guide data into the box. If the company goes titsup.com, and the product is completely abandoned, you'll still be able to use it and still be funny functional, just self-serve. But you'd probably have to invest in a network card to do well.
Also keep in mind that you're probably going to be paying less than $300, certainly for the TiVo models. It is too bad that you aren't on DirecTV. Circuit City is selling a Philips DSR-6000 for only $99. And that includes the dual-feed antenna for only $0.01. But if you are very careful in your looking around, you could get a 20 hour TiVo as low as $150 or so. Retail stores are clearing them out.
My bottom-line opinion is to take risk out of the equasion, and choose the one that will give you the best price and features for your money.
Upgrade Upgrade Upgrade (Score:5, Informative)
I had a 20 hour TiVo, and after a trip to pricewatch to grab a 5400rpm drive, and 9thtee.com to get the mounting bracket for the new drive, my cheapy TiVo unit now holds 130 hours.
Tivo is impressive (Score:2, Interesting)
I've had the priviledge to do some development work "under the hood" and can attest to some of the finest engineering and craftsmanship I've ever seen in a consumer device.
A very sharp, reputable outfit, IMO.
Re:Tivo and Replay can't archive mpeg video files (Score:1)
Re:Tivo and Replay can't archive mpeg video files (Score:1)
The only problem I had was with the drivers. I think vanilla 98 was fine- but win2k and me caused the sound not to record sometimes. Who knows - it could have been an IRQ problem specific to my (overloaded) machine. I didn't bother to find out as I'm getting Sky+ (UK) which is a replacement "digibox" which actually rips the mpeg2 stream straight from the satellite feed so no loss of quality- plus it has 2 decoders so you can watch 1 side and record another.
Disclaimer- I don't work for or own shares in Sky and haven't even seen this Sky+ yet- so it may be crap for all I know.
graspee
Replay *can* archive mpeg video files (Score:2)
If you get a pair of 100GB drives, you could swap them every time one gets about full (probably once a month) and archive the shows you want to save.
Or just get one 100GB drive, and put the original back in for while you're archiving--less convenient, but cheaper.
I still love my TiVo (Score:2, Interesting)
I cant say enough good things about TiVo.. they must have some kind of subliminal ads/messages in their menus- but that is ok with me as long as I am still happy with it. Dual tuner is pretty sweet as well.. watch one thing while recording the other... I think they are making cable dual tuner boxes now.
im rambling, have a good one.
Replay (Score:1)
The replay can be hacked, another hard drive added to double the amount of recording time. I've never had any problems with it. The replay 4000 looks especially cool.
Relay (Score:1)
A friend of mine got a Tivo to my chagrin. He returned it 2 weeks later and got a replay. He's been happy since.
ReplayTV resources (Score:4, Informative)
The AVS discussion forum [avsforum.com]. This is the leading site for discussion of ReplayTV. They also have a TiVo forum.
The ReplayTV Hacking Project [sourceforge.net] at SourceForge.
A site for hacking the ReplayTV Remote Control [hifi-remote.com]
extract_rtv [geocities.com], a tool for extracting the MPEG files from the ReplayTV
AVS Forum is a better place to ask (Score:1, Informative)
Arguments can be made for or against either companies long-term viability and trying to guess now who will win is probably futile. Both will likely last at least until their current models become obsoleted by newer ones, either their own or someone elses so whatever you buy today you'll probably feel the need to replace soon no matter what happens to the company. Best advice is to find the one the features you like and buy it.
A feature comparison from someone who owns both. [avsforum.com]
Re:AVS Forum is a better place to ask (Score:2, Informative)
On the other hand, I agree that for discussions of features and technical aspects, AVS Forum is a great site.
"Many" posts are not deleted (Score:1, Informative)
One thing though is that stock talk is generally prohibited in the Tivo forum because such threads are often started by or hijacked by short sellers looking to spread anti-Tivo rumors and FUD. But such threads are usually only locked, not deleted.
ReplayTV advantages (Score:4, Informative)
I think ReplayTV has several advantages to consider carefully:
* There is no monthly fee. I've heard of people buying units for as little as $199 (with a $100 rebate!) on closeout, so you don't always pay more than you would with TiVo for the base hardware.
* There is a 30-second skip button and 8-second instant replay button on the remote. This didn't seem like a big deal when I bought it, but it is incredibly useful. It is thanks to these buttons that I never watch commercials. I remember back when I used fast forward with a VCR on recorded shows, and this is just so much better.
* My.ReplayTV.com lets you access your box over the Internet. If I'm on a trip but have Internet access, I can log in and delete unwanted shows to make space, set new shows to record, and see what I have. This is especially important if you are running low on disk space.
I'm sure TiVo has its own advantages, but I'll leave them to a TiVo owner.
Re:ReplayTV advantages (Score:5, Informative)
TiVo and ReplayTV each have their advantages, but TiVo has some important advantages in ease-of-use. Some people like to think of ease of use as "moron" features, but can openers are easy to use and nobody thinks you'd have to be a moron to resent using a needlessly-complex can opener.
Now, with regard to Replay's "advantages":
Overall, TiVo's ability to allow you fine-grain control over what you will or won't record, its superior management of disk space and its superior hackability all add up to compelling arguments for most people in the /. crowd.
Oh, one other thing. If you decide you like ReplayTV better for whatever reason, be sure to not buy the Panasonic ShowStopper models. Panasonic botched the implementation of Macrovision on their boxes. TiVo strips Macrovision, tags the show with a Macrovision bit and then reapplies Macrovision on playback. Panasonic ReplayTV units just flat out won't record anything with Macrovision.
Re:ReplayTV advantages (Score:1)
Re:ReplayTV advantages (Score:1)
Why not cook your own? (Score:4, Informative)
So what I look for in a PVR is features 1 and 2. I don't care about 3 and 4 and I don't want antifeatures 1 and 2.
For PVR, basically, again to my way of thinking, you need a PC with reasonable monitor, moderate CPU and memory requirements, because the sound card and video card will do all the compute intensive stuff (e.g. MPEG-2 encode/decode) in dedicated hardware. Then just pick a suitable sized hard drive and then "all" you need is:
There are many options for PVR software on Windows. There are also lots of ongoing project related to television listings and PVR functionality, particularly of course for Linux.
On the subject of standardized TV listing formats, the one I know of is XMLTV
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~epa98/work/apps/xmltv/ [ic.ac.uk]
there are lots of TV guides to scrape information from e.g.
UK TV guide http://www.tvtv.co.uk/ [tvtv.co.uk] German TV guide http://www.tvtv.de/ [www.tvtv.de]
As for PVR and related projects, here is a list from my bookmarks
Mac TV Reminder http://members.home.nl/vissering/Shareware.html#T
Mac BTV http://www.btv.org.uk/
WinVCR http://www.cinax.com/Products/winvcr.html
LinuxVCR http://hyvatti.iki.fi/~jaakko/linuxvcr.html [hyvatti.iki.fi]
LinuxTV http://linuxtv.org/ [linuxtv.org]
LinuxVDR (video disk recorder) http://www.cadsoft.de/people/kls/vdr/download.htm [cadsoft.de]
Kvdr http://www.s.netic.de/gfiala/ [netic.de]
Hauppage WinTV-PVR http://www.hauppauge.com/html/wintvpvr_datasheet.
ATI All-in-Wonder Radeon http://www.ati.com/na/pages/products/pc/aiw_radeo
preview article about Bell Expressvu Canada's PVR service http://www.cedmagazine.com/ced/2001/0401/04e.htm
I can assemble a web page on these topics, if there is interest.
ReplayTV attitude (Score:4, Interesting)
So while TiVo got a big boost from the open source world because they used Linux instead of a proprietary OS, I think ReplayTV is more in touch with the attitude of the community.
nVidia Personal Cinema (Score:2, Informative)
It comes with an nVidia remote, which is such a cool feature. Unfortunately, according to this TV Tuner Video Card Roundup [anandtech.com] from AnandTech [anandtech.com], the PVR software included with the ATI All In Wonder board is a lot better than nVidia's.
TiVo Isn't Going Away (And Is Hackable) (Score:3, Interesting)
What's more, the service is emminently hackable so if they really did go down it wouldn't be hard to build a listings service that kept the unit functionality going in spite of a company closure. Several people have claimed to hack this already, though code is not readily available last I checked (for obvious reasons). Either way, I've got my daily calls going over my ethernet network, so it wouldn't be hard to sniff out the necessary bits or put some work into documenting the MFS partition formats and inserting it directly from a source like XMLTV [ic.ac.uk].
So, for a fun project and damn useful toy, grab yourself a 20 hour Tivo cheap (see AVS TiVo Forums [avsforum.com] for pointers to cheap deals at Wal-Mart, Target, etc.), a big harddrive [pricewatch.com] (most any 5400 rpm will do), and a hard drive bracket and ethernet adapter [9thtee.com] (here's a good tutorial [newreleasesvideo.com]). Then have fun with a device that's both well suited to the task (stable, nice tv based user interface, very sharp picture) and gives you a chance to sink your teeth into some fun hacks.
FWIW, I've been spending a lot of time hacking up my own media-box project of late and I really think that it isn't yet a viable option. Dual booting Debian/WinME with a AIW Radeon [ati.com] and SB Live Platinum 5.1 [soundblaster.com] gives you the ability to do everything a TiVo can and more, but the interface, stability, and interoperability leave a lot to be desired. On the up side, its great to be able to play DivX, MP3, Emulators, etc. in the living room A/V system. Wonderful as a system oriented towards archived playback, music, and games, but don't buy one thinking its going to be nearly as useful in place of a TiVo.
... rjs
In favor of TiVo (Score:1)
Supposedly there's free TV listings avalible for tivo someplace, can anybody fill in on this?
Check out the UIs (Score:1)
intuitive on the Tivo.
One little example:
The Tivo has a TV (&/or stereo) power button.
On the Replay you first change the remote's
mode to TV, then hit "power".
No big deal to anyone who's worked a multi
device remote control, but even my mother
inlaw can work the Tivo.