For me, the main reason I switched from ReplayTv (w/digital cable) to DirecTivo w/Tivo was because I wanted the box and recorder to be integrated.

With digital cable, I had an IR blaster hooked up to my ReplayTV and I always had to worry about missing shows due to a missed channel change. It worked well about 98% of the time, but if the cable was ever slow to react for some reason I'd come home to a wrong show. That was the worst.

With DirecTivo, I never have to worry about it recording the wrong channel. Plus I have the dual tuners and the increased quality (the recording looks exactly like the DirecTV signal).

I was very pleased with my ReplayTv but I am so in love with my DirecTivo. Soooo glad I made the switch.

I don't think there is a question between DirectTivo and normal Tivo or ReplayTV. If you have DirectTV then DirectTivo is the best option.

If you want it for cable, it's a toss up. Both products are great and people are happy with whichever they choose. But myself being more of a tech-geek, I went with ReplayTV (3 total). I archive certain shows onto DVDs, which is real easy to do.

Plus the ability to use www.poopli.com to get any show I missed/forgot to record/accidently deleted is a big bonus. If you have other friends with ReplayTV, you can even get them to share some premium shows (Sopranos comes to mind)

I am wanting to get this so bad, I just am afraid I wouldn't use it. It's $99 and then just $5 a month? What if I didn't like it, could I sell the receiver? Would the receiver be mine or does it belong to DirecTv? Is it possible to have the Tivo in one room and still have the regular receiver in the other room? Is it a pain to hook up or is it easy?

Even though I don't know you, I can guarantee you'll use it. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that it will probably change the way you watch television completely.Assuming you are talking about the DircectTV Tivo, that is correct.The receiver is yours, so you can sell it any time you want, open it up and upgrade, whatever you want to do.Absolutely.It's easy to hook up, but the $99 includes installation.

If you read the manual for one of the DirectTV boxes, it might give you a better idea of all the features. Here's one for the most common model:

http://www.directv.com/learn/pdf/Sys...S_SD_DVR40.pdf

As a beta tester, I couldn't talk about DVArchive 3.0 when I originally posted this. However, it is now officially released. See http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...hreadid=381755 for the details.

A quick summary of the high points:
* TV Listings Integration. You can view a TV Listing grid for your area, search the listings for shows, view upcoming recordings and conflicts and schedule shows to record (scheduling recordings is for ReplayTV 5xxx only, for now). You can also get a nightly email delivered with upcoming recordings and conflicts.

* Web Server. You can now view the contents of your ReplayTV(s) and DVArchive via a web page, initiate downloads of shows from your ReplayTV to DVA, delete shows from your ReplayTV or DVA, view TV Listings, search the TV listings, view upcoming recordings and conflicts and schedule shows to be recorded.

* Much improved storage system. Each show now has it's own descriptor XML file. You can import shows into DVA by simply copying their files into one of DVAs storage areas. You can delete shows from DVA by simply deleting a shows files from the storage area. You can designate storage areas as removable allowing you to dynamically mount and unmount devices (DVD-ROMS, CDROMs, USB hard disks, network shares, etc). When you mount a removable device, DVA auto-scans it for the shows on it and adds them to it's list. When you unmount, they quietly go away. You can also install usage quotas on each storage path.

* Ability to download photos from the web directly into your ReplayTV via scheduled task (great for creating almost live weather map screen savers on your ReplayTV, local WebCam shots, etc). You can also schedule downloading regular photos from your server to the ReplayTV.

DVArchive 3.0 is very, very impressive. It is a very good reason to get a ReplayTV over a Tivo IMO. Enjoy!

Be sure to thank the author Gerry Duprey for months of hard work!

I got DirecTV to give me a Tivo receiver for free

So Tivo here I come

Ok, Installation of the Tivo to take place shorly. As a new Tivo owner, what is the first thing I should do? Any tips, tricks?

Set up the 30-second skip on your remote.

Select
Play
Select
3
0
Select


(I think that is it, I usually do it from memory every time the power goes out and I have to re-set my machine.)

Oh, and I think you have to do this while you're playing back a program, not while watching Live TV.

If you have DirecTV, it will probably take a day or two to get all the shows listed in your channel guide. But you can start setting up season passes for stuff that is in the guide already.

Also, make sure you Customize your channels. Get rid of any channels you don't receive. It makes scrolling through the guide a lot easier and if you use Tivo Suggestions you won't have to worry about Tivo recording a blank screen from a channel you don't get.

I just got it hooked up, and it works fine, but my DSL speed has taken a huge hit. I went from 1200 to 92. I have one wire running straight to the phone jack, and a line running straight to the Tivo receiver. There is a splitter on the main line for the phone, which is splitting the phone and DSL connection. The DirecTV guy ran a seperate line from the phone line to the Tivo because when they were both plugged in, the DSL worked and the Tivo didn't.

Not sure if I made much sense, all I know is my connection sucks now, what should I do?

I just messed with my settings a little. Now my connection speed is back to normal, but my Tivo isn't connected to a phone line. I tried a splitter to conenct the Tivo and the DSL, but then the DSL won't work at all, even with a filter.

Any ideas? Or am I doomed to have to connect the Tivo manually once a day?

hey i have cable modem and no router. My pc is next to my tivo so every week or so i plug the ethernet cord into the tivo. You do not need to do it daily, i do it once every 7 days or till i get a warning.. or if u have some time you just plug it in and go to connect to tivo service and you are done,

Oh so it's not required daily? That is a relief.

How does the programing stay up to date? Does it do it a week in advance?

DirectTV TiVos get their programming via the satellite. It's always updating. The phone line is only used to upload anonymous viewing data and to download software updates.

So unless there is an update, I don't need to hook up to a phone line at all?

My DirecTivo usually downloads programming updates every night at 2am from the satellite. You'll see the red record light and one of the tuners will be a black screen with a message that it is acquiring info.

My phone calls are usually only scheduled about every 3 days or so, I'm assuming to check for software upgrades.

hey.. i just did an update today after like 10 days.. i think you get 12-4 day guide data at a time so youre good to go for that period of time, it really saved me the hassle of getting a router and stuff

Can you transfer stuff from the Tivo to your PC? What do you need to do this, if it is possible that is.

The reason why I ask is I would seriously be interested in making some DVD's of some Laker games on ESPN Classic

That is legal, right? If it's for your own personal use?

I can't really answer if it's legal, but extracting the digital signal from a DirecTiVo is far from an easy process.

I have a capture card and hook it up that way. I can't complain about the results. They aren't as good as keeping the original, but good enough.

As for updates, I think I've had 1 or 2 in the last year. You can get away without a phoneline.

If I wanted to get DirectTivo and I did not have a land line in my apartment would it still be possible? When I move, I only plan on having a cell phone.

A question for the experts...

I am a Seinfeld junkie, so I want to record the daily episodes, which of I think there are about 3.

My question is, how do I do this? I tried season pass, but that doesn't seem to record every showing. I tried the wishlist and it again either didn't record every showing or tried to record the showings on the channels I don't get (like Fox east coast or whatnot). Is there a way around this?

Another thing, I wanted to record all the new Simpson epidodes that air on Sundays only. I tried season pass, and it was going to record every episode, not just the new ones. I even changed to first run only, and it stayed the same.

Please help a Tivo n00b out

Here's a few suggestions:

Go into preferences and remove all the channels you don't have access to, that should take care of things like Fox East Coast.

As for Seinfeld: are these episodes duplicates? TiVo won't record a second showing of the same episode if it appears in the guide or history twice in about a 4 week period. If you set up the passes for "all (with duplicates)", that should record everything.

Sounds like Simpsons daily repeats are on the same channel as the new Sunday episodes? I only get Sunday Simpsons episodes on my Fox channel (daily repeats on another), so I can't say what the problem is there. I'm guessing if you set it up as including repeats to begin with, it's not going to delete out scheduled recordings after you changed it to first-run. I would think once you changed it to first-run, any episodes that appear in the guide from that day forward would reflect the new setting. You could delete the season pass to wipe out all recordings and then readd with first-run to try it out.

It's possible, although I believe you'd need a land line for the initial setup. However, this can be done by taking the TiVo over to a neighbor's.

For anyone that watches the Screen Savers on TechTV, that was DVArchive 3.0 shown on the segment that aired in the past couple of days that showed how to convert non-ReplayTV videos to RTV MPEG-2 format for playback on the ReplayTV using DVArchive. The segment really didn't show any of the cool new features of DVA 3.0, but I bet there will be another TSS segment on it soon.

If Seinfeld/Simpsons air on different channels, you also need a Season Pas for every channel, or else a wish-list to get them all. A Season Pass is channel-specific.

Also if you change the Season Pass settings (ie to First Run only) often it might take a little bit for the change to show up in your To-Do list. Usually afte r the daily re-indexing, I think.

I have my Simpsons set to First run only and it definitely works. (Sometimes certain shows are not flagged correctly in the channel guide info such as The Daily Show, but Simpsons should work.)