Tivo v. ReplayTV...Take 2

After a relatively happy honeymoon, my marriage to the new Tivo is on the rocks.  I've been spoiled.  ReplayTV just does what I expect, with less of the intrusive advertising of Tivo.  Here are my sticking points:

  • You can only buffer live TV for 30 minutes.  There was an old hack where you telnet'd into the box to change this, but it doesn't work any more.  ReplayTV will buffer up to available diskspace.  This means that on Tivo, if you pause live TV and hit hits the 30 minute limit, it starts to play the beginning of the buffer.  If I am out of the room, I miss the show I had paused.  Quite unnerving.
  • Skip forward button moves to the end of the program by default.  I can use a hack to make it go 30 seconds (to make passing ads easier), but it loses the hack everytime it is rebooted.  Thirty seconds is the default on ReplayTV.
  • No way (that I can tell) to have it record a show on a particular channel, at a particular time.  I can tell it to record from 11-11:30 on comedy central, but it records whatever is there, not just "The Daily Show" like I want it to.  If I setup a Season Pass for the Daily show, I get the same show records 3-4 times a day (since they re-air it).  ARG!  This is simple (and the default behavior) on ReplayTV.
  • No way to tell it to record a show on low priority (e.g. if it doesn't conflict with a guaranteed show).  When you tell it to record another show that conflicts, it will allow you to record instead, but if multiple shows conflict, I can't decide which are guaranteed, and which are not.  ReplayTV has the notion of Guaranteed and non-Guaranteed shows which simplifies all of this.
  • Taking my bandwidth to download ads for movies, cars, etc.   On ReplayTV, I will get an occasional image ad on the Pause screen, but Tivo goes way beyond that.  They download movie previews, complete car ads and more.  I thought I was paying them ($15/month) for the service.  Stop using my broadband connection to make you more money. 

So this leaves me with two options, go back to my ReplayTV (luckily I still have it), or see what a Windows Media Center Edition box with the XBox MCE Extender will do for me.  For now I am probably just going to get the ReplayTV going again, and look at the MCE for the future.

Comments:

There is a way to prioritize your season passes in Tivo. You simply go to the "Season Pass Manager" and the ones with the lower rankings (closest to 1) will take presidence. So if you have two shows tht both start at the same time the show ranked closest to 1 will win.

Aaron Weiker (Posted Monday, January 03, 2005 )

There are some other options out there as well. It all depends on how much "tinkering" you want to do, but in general the more tinkering you are willing to do, the more power you will get.

A friend of mine vouches for Beyond TV / Beyond Media with the FireFly remote (RF!) from www.snapstream.com. This is a pretty cheap package, but it is software only. If you dont want to put a "ATX tower" next to your TV, then see www.htpcnews.com for machine case/cooling options.

There are some even less expensive avenues. SageTV is very cheap, although very powerful. So is MyHTPC/Meedio. There are OSS alternatives like MythTV (http://www.mythtv.org/modules.php?name=MythFeatures). On the hardware side, there are choices as well... I know of someone who has a system with SIX hauppage PVR-250 tuners in it. You can get hardware client set-top devices too such as XBox Extender, HP Media Extender, even linksys/etc make a few, and there is a nice one from hauppage (MVP).

If you go for MCE, www.thegreenbutton.com and www.xpmce.com have great info as well.

Keith Rome (Posted Monday, January 03, 2005 )

MCE does it for me. No monthly fee, good program guide and no adverts. The skip 30 seconds feature is invaluable for skipping adverts. I always watch programs 15 minutes after they start, even if I'm around - this means I can skip all the adverts.
The only thing that it doesn't have is the priority on the 'series link'. But it is clever about which shows to record in the series - it won't re-record the same show twice, even if they decide to air a repeat in the normal weekly slot.
There's a new .NET add-in SDK too.

JoeW (Posted Monday, January 03, 2005 )

Check the options on your season pass, and set it to "First Run Only" so that you only get the latest version of a show, with no repeats. Of course, this depends on TV Guide knowing if it is a repeat or not, as Tivo uses TV Guide for all its guide data.

Chris (Posted Monday, January 10, 2005 )


 



 
Save Cancel