I have a Model 1 TiVo (live time service, 200++ hours recording, Ethernet, 1Gig cache accelerator etc...).
I go rid of Comcast and want to get Direct or Dish TV but don’t want to have to use the "IR control cable" due to the slowed response and other known problems.
I can't get a straight answer on what systems can be controlled via a direct (serial) connection; can anyone shed some light on this?
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SF Bay Area
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Thu, March 16, 2006 - 6:49 PMI can tell you about DirecTV, I know very little about Dish other than they don't use TiVo but some other DVR software, so no Season Pass, you program their's by time and channel like a VCR.
DirecTV uses TiVo but Ive been concerned that they haven't mentioned it in their ads, just that they have a DVR. There are always rumors about them dropping it.
I know of nothing that operates on a serial connection to the DirecTiVo units. Maybe I should check the back to make sure it's there. I have a regular and an HD unit. The USB ports exist but have never been used. I understand it is a major hack to get it to use a USB ethernet connection instead of a phone line.
And if you're recording from the unit to another device like tape or DVD recorder guess what? You do that manually. It does not attempt to start the unit for you like the standard TiVo units. You get all the same prompts but you start your recorder by hand. There's no IR mouse or anything like that with the unit.
One other difference I recall was that the regular TiVo unit would give you some critics 4 or 5 star rating system on a movie. Not there on the DirecTV version. I guess it looked bad they were providing a crappy movie. -
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Sat, March 25, 2006 - 7:10 PMActually I have Dish and their DVR has something like season pass...they dont name it. When you are in the tv listings, you click on a show, it goes to a record screen and the default setting is to record it every time it comes on on that channel, though you can modify it to record only new episodes or to record all episodes on all channels or just to do a one shot record...
I know nothing about the connections though, sorry. But our DISH dvr is cool...it is a two-room unit, and lets you record two programs on at the same time, and even watch a third program (as long as it is one you had recorded already) while the other two record. It has pretty good logic (most of the time) about arranging things to avoid conflicts, but you can override it pretty easily if you disagree...
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Mon, March 27, 2006 - 12:39 PMOn the Dish unit. What happens when the show gets moved to a special day one week and what happens when a regular hour show has like a 90 minute to 2 hour finale?
I supplied 3 people at work the 90 minute season finale of Battlestar Gallactica because their Dish DVR stopped recording after an hour. It is also my understanding that the Season Pass is a TiVo/Replay patent not just a trademarked name.
The dual tuner, dual record and watch a 3rd is similar to DirecTVs standard unit. The HD unit however has 4 tumers. 2 satellite tuners and 2 over the air HD tuners. It is still only records two at a time but the source can be any combination of local HD or over the air channels. I'm only guessing but I would imagine Dish's HD uniti is similar? -
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Wed, July 5, 2006 - 10:20 PMThe Dish DVR I have (625 or something like that) will record a show passed a certain time whether or not that is what the show normally is. For example, Inside the Actor's Studio sometimes has 2hr specials instead of regular 1hr blocks. My DVR will record the whole two hours. I've never encountered a problem where my DVR didn't record the whole show of something.
As for times moving, that is automatically adjusted since with the guide update, so no problems there. -
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Thu, July 6, 2006 - 5:21 PMThe record by show vs. time is a recent addition to the Dish DVR software. There's also a lawsuit over it since it's one of the patents clearly owned by TiVo (I think they had to buy it from Replay). TiVo's only viability as a company are in the patents it holds. Most likely an attempt to force TiVo into licensing or have a large warchest for legal battles.
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Thu, July 6, 2006 - 7:53 PMWE have a Direct tv DVR R10 it is TIVO. I can tell you one thing if you go from TVIO to a non tvio DVR you will not be as happy.
I got my New R10 at www.weaknees.com/ I think they sale installed systems as well.
Elijah -
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Fri, July 7, 2006 - 3:54 AMMine's just a loaner. I would have a Tivo for the pure purpose of being able to hack it, but I'm not going to spend money just for that. Free vs pay, no question there on which I'd choose. -
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Sat, July 29, 2006 - 8:28 AMThose people who missed the special episode of Battlestar may not have had their guides updated properly via their landline connection (phone). I watch Battlestar Galactica faithfully and my Dish recorded the special episode fine. As it did with My name is Earl's 45 minute one. It also caught mid-season timechanges on other shows we watch. The key is that the receiver has a schedule for dialing out to update the guide, and IF you are on the phone (or your teenager) when it tries to dial out, it will just fail to try that day. We had this problem for awhile until we figured out our teenager was still on the phone at 3AM every night after he got a new girlfriend... we changed it to 5 AM and the problem was solved. The receiver warns you of this problem though, but you can't ignore the warning like we did (when it fails to update, it will show you a box saying that a $6 service charge that gets waived as long as it connects faithfully will go into effect unles you ensure it has landline access).
Now we do frequently miss the beginning of shows when a sporting event has caused an entire prgramming schedule to be bumped ahead because of overtime periods or otherwise running long.. This has been an ongoing issue with Sunday episodes of Cold Case. Does the TiVo catch those kinds of completely insceduled time changes?
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Re: Model One and Dish/Direct TV
Wed, November 22, 2006 - 10:00 AMto answer my own question, the answer is no and yes.
Series 1 do not support the serial remote control connection (but they came with the cable for it anyway)
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if you've "hacked" you tivo ( that is have ftp/telnet access) it is a simple patch to turn it on.
