Timeshifting requires HTPC __AND___ TIVO?

Tivolicious,


Just want to clarify. There's currently no such thing as a single box that can receive HDTV and record to a hard drive, but I could feed the digital output from say an HDTV Directv receiver into a Tivo box right?


Or does Tivo not have the appropriate video in to receive HDTV? Or does Tivo not have the appropriate MPEG encoder to record HDTV?


I'm a newbie here doing research for my potential HTPC and as a long time Tivo user I will be severely bummed if I can't find a way to timeshift HDTV programming.


Thanks,


Tom

Quote:
If you want to timeshift HD content there is currently only one way to do so. Computer based HDTV card (e.g. HiPix) being fed Sat HDTV content from echostar's DishNetwork with the 5000 module.


-Steve

Because I have a HTPC, I balked on buying a TiVo for a long time. I finally bought into TiVo. Looking back it's such a no-brainer I can't believe I waited as long as I did.


Sure, it's another computer, but it's dedicated to recording MPEG-2 video constantly. If you did that with your HTPC, you won't be able to do something like watch a DVD while your scheduled recordings are done.


TiVo is not just about timeshifting shows, it's about intelligent scheduling. All I have to do is tell it I want to watch ER, first run only, and it knows exactly which shows to record. I can also tell it I want to keep no more than the two latest shows of Wheel of Fortune on the box at any time.


The HTPC and TiVo are connected to each other. I use the HTPC to record or take snapshots from shows that TiVo recorded.


I like TiVo so much I'm now switching to DirecTV with TiVo combo units, so they can make perfect digital recordings of the satellite feed, and so I can record two shows at once. I'd love to see a PC try to do all that.


As for HDTV.. Even though I have a very expensive HD ready set, I've given up on it for now. When one of the satellite companies or my cable company decides to get all the local HD stations (OTA is not an option) then I'll revisit that issue. I have HTPC DVD to make my set worthwhile (Thank you AVS).


-- Rob

Quote:
I've been a dedicated Tivo user for 2 years now. What got me started investigating HTPCs is mostly the fact that I would like a way to easily archive shows from Tivo to a monstrously big hard disk and even to DVD. I am more than capable of hacking my Tivo to add big disks but not crazy about all the hassle and risk involved. It will be significantly easier to put one or more 100 GB drives and a DVD+RW in my spare PC than mess around with the Tivo.


So my question is exactly how do you have your Tivo connected to the HTPC? Are you using a TivoNet card and extractstream (another hack I'd rather not have to mess with) or is it plenty good enough to connect the video out of your Tivo to a Video card in your HTPC? If so, which video card are you using and what software do you use to record to your hard drive?


Thanks,


Tom

Quote:
You could do that, but whether it is "plenty good enough" is subjective. Also, I doubt many people chose that option because of the hassle factor, and because of the loss of quality (arising from the analog to digital to analog to digital to analog conversions).


A simpler option for most is to archive to video tape using the Save to VCR option (how else can we use our old VHS tapes, now we have Tivos?) or to consider the Tivonet solution. Others probably just download TV shows and movies, and build their media archives that way (which may be illegal and I'm not condoning it! phew). And then there is also DVD ripping and DIVX


A while back there was a discussion about archiving HDTV content to camcorders using the firewire connection (I think) from an HTPC (meaning gigabytes of data). But that is in the realm of bleeding-edge HTPC usage, rather than mainstream stuff. But HDTV-quality archiving was the impetus, and so you may want to search for the thread.