Official AVS TiVo HD Topic! - Page 14

Nope. Can't be done manually. Neither creation of groups, nor moving existing recordings into existing groups.

I've created an Auto-Record WishList which records HD movies from 2006 and 2007. Essentially, all of the new HD releases from movie channels that I subscribe to. When they get recorded, they end up in a single folder called (miraculously enough) "New Movies". The ARWL does tend to pick up a lot of crappy movies that I don't wish to see, so every once and a while I troll the ToDo List and cancel the movies I don't wish to see.

How did you manage to add a 1 TB HDD?

I just made the plunge and picked up a TIVO HD from circuit city for $249.99. I have time warner, and this tivo box is replacing the SA 8300HDC.

I am so happy to be back on TIVO software like before this whole HD DVR thing began, and the SA series boxes came into my life. What junk. Now i can actually enjoy television again, in HD.

Its great to be able to set my tivo hd to 720p fixed, and hook it up with an HDMI cable and guess what?! It actually stays fixed on 720p, reguardless of the channels native resolution. Wow, what a concept.

The cable card is $1.75 a month from my cable company, and I believe my tivo service was somthing like 12.95 a mo. So I am basically paying the same thing I was paying to rent the SA 8300HDC, and pay for the DVR service ($15).

The tivo software alone was worth $250....

never again will I use an SA box by choice.

I added a Seagate 500 GB internal drive:
http://www.thenerds.net/SEAGATE_Seag...500830ACE.html
using this guide:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=360676

and then added the recommended 500 GB eSata drive. Adding the internal drive was very simple, btw and if I can do it, I suspect most anyone could.

Thanks for the response and links. I am having service problems with my cable company ( Bright House around Orlando). Regularly scheduled audio/video dropouts on HD at ~ 5 minute intervals lasting for days. Third housecall tomorrow. If the SA 8300 HD has to go, I lose ~320 GB of recorded programs. If that happens, I am getting a Tivo. It would be nice if somone could come up with a simple way to make a raid system work with the Tivo.

OK, I'll try something similar to what you're doing. I'm using wish lists, but am not auto-recording them. Perhaps if I were to auto record them I'll get what I want.

I've not done this so I know none of the details, but it may be possible for you to hook a Mac computer to your SA 8300 HD via firewire and archive those programs. Look at the IEEE 1394 (Firewire) topics in this forum, or in the Mac forum.

Tivo offers TivoToGo, which allows me to archive all of my OTA channels and many of my cable channels.

I haven't looked at the details either but my memory says after a brief glance at the firewire to PC thread that it was a hit or miss PITA. The real problem, as I view it, is that each 8300 has a unique encrytion code and the recordings on my external Sata will only play if that code is present. Lose the box= lose the code. Lose 8300 internal HDD = lose the box etc. One of my expectations if I get a Tivo (in addition to TTG) is that if it's HDD fails I can replace it without losing the "code" and if it would need to be repaired otherwise, I would likely get the same unit back with the code intact. At worst you lose what's on the internal HDD, not everything. Which leads to the desire for some kind of "simple" raid application which would presumably allow backup of desired programs whether copy protected or not.

Not sure if this is what you mean but they refer to a RAID 0 setup about midway on this page:

http://www.mfslive.org/tivo_hd.htm

Harold

He's looking for a RAID 1 - mirroring functionality. RAID 0 would mean that the loss of either drive would mean you've lost all your recorded content.

Thanks for the insight, I have done very little research on this so far. My view of an ideal world after some serious thought is that some company like Tivo should provide a STB that allows users to easily connect an expandible RAID system with backup capability. For example, start with 2-750 GB drives, one of which the user selects as the backup and can also select which programs are duplicated on it. The system would be expandible to something like 3-4 TB by adding additional drives to the original system which would have been designed (both hardware and software) to support this. As a user increases copied content, drives are added as needed.

My conclusion on this are driven by the belief that many users will find DVRs a convenient form of storage replacing the function supplied by DVD/VCR recorders and also acting as a personally selected VOD library. I have stored ~ 320 Gb in roughly 6-9 months and would have 420 GB if space were available. I can easily see capturing 3-4 TB over several years if I had had a user freindly, reliable system that allowed me to select and manage backups.

Hopefully some CE is working on this.

I've looked (briefly) into what I need to do to transfer hd recordings on to disc via the pc...if I understand correctly, I can use ttg to get the recording on the pc, and then record it onto a regular dvd, which will then play back in hd on an hd-dvd player.

Do I have an accurate understanding of this? I don't mind doing the research to learn how to do it, I already have a couple of links, but I just want to know if my understanding is correct before I spend the time.

And if this is true...can it be true?? I mean, how are they fitting hd on an sd dvd? compression? Doesn't sound like that can be good for the picture...

You might want to see this illustrated thread at TCF:

Creating HD-DVDs and Blu-ray disks with TivoToGo using DVD media...

More comprehensive discussion can be found in the AVS' The official AVS Guide to HD DVD Authoring thread.

Thanks, I might have had them in my list of links to check out, I'll take a look. I was just looking to find out if my basic assumptions were correct before I took off pursuing it...

[quote]Thanks for the insight, I have done very little research on this so far. My view of an ideal world after some serious thought is that some company like Tivo should provide a STB that allows users to easily connect an expandible RAID system with backup capability. For example, start with 2-750 GB drives, one of which the user selects as the backup and can also select which programs are duplicated on it. The system would be expandible to something like 3-4 TB by adding additional drives to the original system which would have been designed (both hardware and software) to support this. As a user increases copied content, drives are added as needed.

My conclusion on this are driven by the belief that many users will find DVRs a convenient form of storage replacing the function supplied by DVD/VCR recorders and also acting as a personally selected VOD library. I have stored ~ 320 Gb in roughly 6-9 months and would have 420 GB if space were available. I can easily see capturing 3-4 TB over several years if I had had a user freindly, reliable system that allowed me to select and manage backups.

Hopefully some CE is working on this.[quote]

Although it would be cool, I seriously doubt it. For one thing, the number of people techie enough to understand a RAID and pay for it is not large enough to support the development effort. In addition, Tivo is marketed as a DVR, not a digital media library. I know there ARE full featured, multi-TB digital media library products, but they typically cost in the thousands, not the few hundred of a Tivo.
Tivo's niche is its incredibly user friendly interface, not necessarily expansion options. It is very much like Mac vs PC 10 years ago.

Then to answer your question, yes, it is true.

Actual recording time will vary by content and channel. Most one-hour network programs will fit on a single-layer DVD after you use VideoRedo to automatically remove the commercials. You can fit up to 1hr30min of HD content from some HD channels.

For longer movies you can use a dual-layer DVD.

This is all without extra compression.

That's just the confirmation I was looking for! Thanks.

It's not really for movies, it's for shows or games that a friend may have missed that I want to pass on to them, or for a special show that I might want to keep.

Without additional compression? interesting. So do these links also describe what to do if you have to span discs, like a 4 hour football game on 2 DL discs? Guess it's time to start reading - I'm encouraged now...

I just got setup with a TIVO HD last night. So far I am disappointed by the video quality I am getting. I don't have a cable card yet, but I do have OTA hooked for HD locals and the analog cable channels, plus a couple of QAM channel. I am using HDMI. my impression is PQ is definitely inferior to the SA8300HD.. I will be do some A/B comparing later today or tomorrow. OTA digital and digital HD PQ is quite inferior to what I have been seeing on the Home Theater PC and even the TV's internal tuner.


There seems to be a number of components to this.

Picture seems to soft...

Also their seems be a fairly high noise levels

IMO there are odd choices for scaling. I don't see an option to send through native. I am not sure yet I am convinced that I want TIVO scaling and deinterlacing.

Gamma sees to be off if the brightness is brought enough to create decent shadow detail you wash out the color..

on th positive side mpeg2 decoding seems good so far with little breakup compared to my various HDTV or SA cable box. Comparable to home theater pc in this aspect. Also the OTA reception seems quite solid with goood sensitivity to weaker channels.

Basically is therer any general advice to improve picture quality. I don't normally use component output... how does that compare in quality to HDMI on the TIVO HD?

Does the Tivo 3 HD produce better video quality output.

[quote=jvos;12414232][quote]Thanks for the insight, I have done very little research on this so far. My view of an ideal world after some serious thought is that some company like Tivo should provide a STB that allows users to easily connect an expandible RAID system with backup capability. For example, start with 2-750 GB drives, one of which the user selects as the backup and can also select which programs are duplicated on it. The system would be expandible to something like 3-4 TB by adding additional drives to the original system which would have been designed (both hardware and software) to support this. As a user increases copied content, drives are added as needed.

My conclusion on this are driven by the belief that many users will find DVRs a convenient form of storage replacing the function supplied by DVD/VCR recorders and also acting as a personally selected VOD library. I have stored ~ 320 Gb in roughly 6-9 months and would have 420 GB if space were available. I can easily see capturing 3-4 TB over several years if I had had a user freindly, reliable system that allowed me to select and manage backups.

Hopefully some CE is working on this.
My comments are my current vision of an "ideal" world. I believe there will be an expanding market for such products as more and more people experience recording HD on todays DVRs. An HD library needs lots of available space. My limited research indicates there are currently no user friendly "boxes" available today for someone as technicly challenged as me. Tivo could help enable a solution by designing their software to support such an arrangement with another vendor supplying the RAID arrangement designed specifically to support a future Tivo product. I, personally would br willing to pay $1k-$1.5k for such a product with additional $ for added HDDs as I needed them.

Native is the first option in the Settings -> Video menu. The second is hybrid, which outputs HD formats natively, but deinterlaces 480i channels to 480p.


Considered that the gamma on the SA boxes might be off?

I assume you are using the same HDMI input for both SA and Tivo DVRs, as some displays save different separate settings for each HDMI input.

The TiVos use the same Broadcom decoders found in the Motorola DVRs, DirecTV DVRs, and Dish Network DVRs. From what I recall, Scientific Atlanta uses a solution from ATI.

Ive had TIVO HD in Poughkeepsie's Time Warner Cable for quite a few days now, and am happy to report its been great. I have 1 SA multi Stream cable card installed in the tivo, and I get every channel I got with my SA box, excluding the VOD and PPV 2-way type channels. Signal is strong, about 87%-90% all the time for each channel, and I have not had any of the problems with the SA cable cards that some have reports, such as the artifacts and dropped sound on channels. Everything has been fast, smooth, all channels work, including TBS HD (I have heard some people are having trouble getting this channel with TIVO and TWC.)

Its a match made in heaven for me. If I ever crave my HBO VOD or other VOD, ill just rent a SA box thats not a DVR for $5 a month, but I never really used it anyway.

The Tivo is Great.

Saw the native settings right after posting. Yeah same HDMI port. TV set had been ISFed... sources were a PS3 and a Toshiba XA2. Looked great with a Proband ATSC digital STB, a Samsung STB which had a very nice picture except that it was oversharpened in the Samsung way without any method to turn the edge enhancement down. The SA8300HD was okay not great on picture. I expected more of the TIVO that's all.

I have put it on a componnent interface and it looks a good bit better. Forutnately both the HDMI interface and Component are active togehter. The Home Theater PC looked great over the air... but would not lock to my loca ABC HD affiliate and was iffy on others. If the PC tuners were as good at signal capture I would not bother with the TIVO.

I just got M Cable Card setup.. easy process but it took ahwile, I will see what cable looks like on digital on the TIVO, I never seen cable look as good as OTA HD on any device, we will see.

I think people mess with the TIVO setup so long they feel vested in the darn thing. If the picture is okay on component on this set is okay I will keep it. I was hoping it would compare to the home theater PC in PQ for HD Broadcast. It seems to handle multipath well something I can't say about the half dozen PC tuners I have tried.

How have other people felt about picture quality on the Tivo HD, particularly with SD digital and HD? I have a Moto 6416 which I'm fairly happy with for PQ, so the possibility of Tivo not having good PQ worries me a bit. Fortunately my area now has digital simulcast, so at least I won't have to worry about analog PQ (my old Series 2 Tivo noticeably degraded the analog channels, even recording at best quality). Anyone else have any thoughts?

My new Tivo HD is connected to a 65" HP DLP. I can only describe the live tv as murky on hdmi. It is definitely much better on conponent. I do get a tiny hint of interference or rf noise as you can see a color band roll slowly up screen depending on how dark the scene is. I am using a very good Monoproce component cable. I will be doing some more experimentation with the Tivo attached to my Panny Plasma and Sharp LCD. I bought it specifically for the HP in my living room.

I am not completely happy but the TIVO picture is decent on the HP over component. I would prefer to only use HDMI. Everything else I have ever tried looks pretty much the same over HDMI or component on the HP. I am a little spoiled because I normally am using an XA2 as a source or a HTPC and both do a very nice jobe with SD materials as well as HD.

The bad part about the Tivo is that if you suspected you had one that was not quite upto snuff off the shelf, the effort to change it out seems pretty extreme compared to a cable box, considering the dual setup with Tivo and the cable company.

I've had a Comcast/Moto DCH3416 for a while (also live in a digital simulcast area, so get SD channels in digital), and recently got a TiVo HD. TiVo is connected with HDMI, DCH with component. On HD I can't see a difference in PQ. In SD, the TiVo stretches the pic a bit more (I don't like side bars), so if you compare the same program by switching back and forth between the 2 inputs, the Comcast box looks ever so slightly better--but once you get used to the TiVo stretch, you forget about it (just like when you first started watching stretched SD). If you leave sidebars, PQ is same.

I'm very happy with the TiVo HD compared to the Comcast DVR. I have a 6 year old series 2, and after using a Comcast DVR to over a year, now that I have the THD, I feel liberated!

I ran into a very interesting little behavior. I am not sure it would constitute a quirk, but since I am being forced into componenet from subpar video over hdmi... it is a bit quirky and requiring another work-around.


If you are connected to your AVR through HDMI and you have also have a component connection depending on the order that you power up devices you will get a stop message alert that tells you to disconnect the HDMI connection and connect the audio through a separate cable. If you merely switch the TV source to HDMI it will get an HDCP sync and you can then switch the TV source back to component and it will happily continue sending audio to HDMI and video out the component ports of the the Tivo.

Thanks vstream and gtgray. I guess I'll just have to try it and see how it compares. If I can pass through the native resolution, then hopefully it will be okay since my TV will do the stretching for SD channels. I use component connections now, so I'll keep using that with the Tivo.

gtgray,

If your cable provider has Hdnet, you might want to record their test patterns on Saturday and take another look at HDMI to see just what is out of whack on your display.

I will look for that... but I am not foolish enough to think it is my display. If my SA8300HD looks fine, 3 Toshiba HD DVD players, a half-dozen SD players, a PS3, a Samsung, STB, a Probrand STB, a couple of HTPCs... I literally have a boatload of devices that look great over HDMI on this display. Only the TIVO sucks on HDMI. Finally why would I would calibrate an ISFed display way off normal for the rest of the gear I only for the Tivo when only the Tivo would require special calibration. I don't use component for any other device so calibrating one of those otherwise unused ports for the Tivo makes a lot more sense. What is weird is that on HDMI the Tivo looks like it has a lot edge enhancement and digital noise reduction applied but insted of looking edgy and clean it just comes off murky.

I will find the test patterns it will certainly be handy to get it dead on the component port. Right now I have the Tivo looking good enough on Component to not bother with further really... I ended up letting the TIVO run in Hybrid and let it deinterlace 480i... why it sucks so bad on HDMI is hard to fathom. Like I say I have an A2, XA2, D2, PS3, SA8300HD, Probrand 3150, Samsung H260F, an HP Paviliion 2005 Media Center PC with a 7600GT, and a DIY HTPC with Vista/ATi HD 2600, not to mention a motley assortment of SD players from Samsung, Sony, Pioneer, and the only troublesome device on that TV was an Oppo 981, a 970 worked fine.

The 981 had different issues but it is pretty well known that putting one aDLP or Plasma is likely to be tilting at windmills because of the macroblocking.. Given every above I would say the issue is the Tivo... but it really doesn't matter at this point as it is looking fine on component and I am considering an external scaler because neither my TV nor the TIVO will win awards for their 480i>480P deinterlacing, but for whatever reason the Tivo doing the deinterlacing of SD seems to look better than when my TV does it.

I have been kind of adamant about always going digital to digital as that theoretically should deliver the best results. In this case the Tivo sucks on HDMI on this TV set for whatever reason. When I get the time an inclination I will plug it into my Panasonic 58PX60U, and also 1080P Sharp LCD I use as my PC monitor... In the meanwhile thanks for the advice.

What do I have to do to get this little beastie to update its firmware. I notice it still has 8.x something?

HD shows here are 3.5 to 4.2GB per half hour. Even removing commericals you won't fit more than an hour on a dual layer disc. It's easier with MRV just to store a title on a drive connected to the PC. Even though I have internal 1TB drives in each of my 3 Series 3 TiVos and 1 TiVoHD (all connected to FIOS), if I want to archive something I can just transfer it over my network to the PC and NAS drives which have several Terabytes of storage capacity. Then if I want to watch it later I can use MRV to transfer it back to a TiVo and all 5.1 audio and HD will be the same as it was originally broadcast.