Or you could just activate the 30-second skip code.

I couldn't live without that. Every time my power goes out and the DirecTivo restarts the first thing I do is reset the 30-second skip feature.

It's S-O-R-T for me.

das

Does the 30-sec skip code work on Tivo Series2?

I have persuaded about 8 people so far to get the Dtivo
the most recent had his installed on Monday, he called me 2 hours later to tell me he was in love with it.

And has talked about nothing else since then

I just got DirecTivo at the house we are moving into. Quick, stupid question: How can you tell how much recording time you have? I can't seem to figure it out. I'm used to using ReplayTV (which I loved) and so far they are somewhat similar although I haven't delved deep into directivo, just couldn't figure out how to tell how much recording time is left!

Well, with CA, it takes me 0 seconds and doesn't require that I even be paying attention to the TV, much less pressing multiple buttons. With a good signal, CA works very consistently. Yes, there are some shows/channels that it doesn't work as well on and for those you can use X+QuickSkip to skip X minutes or just use FF/RW (which I never do). Tivo offers very limited show navigation features, and ReplayTV offers several--CA, ShowNav, X+QS, X+IR, FF/RW, etc. These come in more handy than you would believe if you are used to making do without them.

I never said this was a deal beeaker, but it is clearly a very nice feature than ReplayTV has that Tivo doesn't. The opposite can be said for Tivo's ToDo list. There are advantages/disadvantages to each product. Tivo just has a lot more disadvantages for me personally. Both are FAR superior to any VCR I've ever used. Both are likely to be driven out of the mass consumer market within the next 5 years by satellite/cable companies' own offerings, which is a shame.

The quick answer is "you can't" (which has been discussed many, many times over at tivocommunity.com). You can get an approximation by turning on suggestions for a few minutes, and see how many of them populate in your "ToDo" list, as suggestions aren't recorded once the device gets full.

Yes, it's a pain, and a feature that really should be included (it's been asked for the last several years).

Fair enough. To me, doing something that requires little effort but works every time (and, as das said, you can quickly see any news breaks that might occur during the commercials such as a quick local weather forecast teaser from the news, etc..) is worth more than doing nothing but doesn't always work. YMMV.

I'm not hip to the ReplayTV lingo referenced above, but I find Tivo's 3x and 60x FF, 8 second auto rewind, and either the "Skip to tick" or 30 second FF to be more than enough. Again though, that's personal preference

Quote:

There are advantages/disadvantages to each product. Tivo just has a lot more disadvantages for me personally. Both are FAR superior to any VCR I've ever used. Both are likely to be driven out of the mass consumer market within the next 5 years by satellite/cable companies' own offerings, which is a shame.

Well, the DirecTivo is pretty well integrated with the satellite market, so it should be here to stay.

But, as you said, ANY PVR is worth an investment if you are at all semi-serious about your TV viewing. Each product offers something the other doesn't. PVR-specific decisions are based on the relative pros/cons of each product.

But you'd be hardpressed to find a PVR owner who wasn't happy with this purchase, regardless of which version they bought. Well, maybe the DishPlayer owners .....

Internet Video Sharing (through www.poopli.com ) is a HUGE bonus that I never realized. Imagine missing a show or only having one PVR to record two shows on at the same time ... What do you do? You record the one show and then request the second off of Poopli.

Also, being able to share shows off HBO or showtime to people I work with is a good thing too.

or get a DTivo, which will allow you to record them both at the same time anyhow

Is it possible to use this Poopli service on a Replay without paying the monthly service fee?

As a SA TiVo owner since the beginning of rollout and a Dishplayer 7100 owner for a couple years, DVR is definitely the way to go.

I just had a few comments on the discussion here to share:

I use my TiVo regularly over the web to remote schedule shows I found out about during the day that sounded interesting (when I am away from my TiVo). This would not be possible with a VCR as I don't know of any net-connected VCRs.

I use my TiVo regularly to extract programs and burn to disc. dealdatabase. com can broaden your knowledge of that. You don't need TiVoToGo if you have the gut to open your box and the patience to read and perform these modifcations. Just put some time into hacking your box and there are some amazing rewards.

Don't discount the Dishplayer DVR.. people often speak negative about them, but hands-down they afford the quickest way from lossless dish signal mpeg2 to DVD since you can pull the drive, hook into removeable drive bay on your PC and rip off hour shows in seconds. I mention removeable harddrive bays for the convenience. It's a very simple mod to both your receiver and PC. This is MUCH faster than using your networked TiVo or ReplayTV to extract programming because the IDE bus on your PC is much faster than the network connectivity from the TiVo or ReplayTV. Though there are methods to extract directly off the TiVo harddisk (and probably ReplayTV I would guess), but it isn't done as cleanly as with the Dishplayer and the advanced tools out now. Expect to only be able to extract around 0.5MB/s (shows being around 1GB per hour) over a network. The Dishplayer MPG file extracted works great directly burnt to DVD-video format. No re-encoding of the video or audio is necessary and the discs play happily on a variety of DVD players (even though the resolution is slightly less than the standard-mpeg2 compliant format of DVDs). Upgrading to a larger harddrive is also extremely easy with the Dishplayer 7100/7200. Dish's original Dishplayer (the one I am referring to) may be the oldest, has had problems in the past and is 'outdated' with a primal interface, but if you like to archive shows at broadcast quality from Dish, it should definitely be looked at. A couple days ago the contract between Dish and Microsoft over the webTV portion of the Dishplayer expired that allowed Dish to send a pulse down killing pirated cards that the Dishplayers were popular for. Today the Dishplayer is no longer fetching $300 on eBay and they seem to be plentiful all of a sudden (I wonder why hehe)

Just one more thing.. NOW is the time to buy DVRs and HDTV capture cards. I believe there is a FCC mandate that by Summer 2005 all new DVR and capture boards will have to support a broadcast flag in hardware. This will mean if CBS doesn't want people recording CSI to later burn to DVD, they can flip a switch and your DVR or capture board will not be able to 'legally' record that show without an illegal hack. If you buy equiptment prior to this hardware regulation, you won't have to worry if you can or cannot record such and such show.

Just like a Series 2 Tivo, a ReplayTV is useless without a subscription (monthly/lifetime) so that would be a "No".

crap

As I have a DirecTiVo, I wouldn't have any use for a Replay beyond the networking abilities.

Well, the thing is that while CA isn't 100% accurate on the whole it is generally 100% accurate for the shows on which it works. I.e. it's usually not a matter of it skipping one set of commercials during a show but not the next. This behavior generally remains consistent in recordings of future episodes of that show. The problem is that it just doesn't work at all for some shows and some networks--usually shows with a lot of dark scenes and networks that have little/no transition between content and commerical. In these cases, one can just revert to using one of the other navigation methods I mentioned. In sum, for shows one regularly watches, there is a great deal of predictability as to whether CA is going to be helpful or not (and usually it will be).

Quote:

Well, the DirecTivo is pretty well integrated with the satellite market, so it should be here to stay.

There is actually a lot of concern about this. In case you didn't know, DirecTV has recently sold all of its shares of Tivo stock. Many people believe this move is in preparation for DirecTV to introduce its own DVR and basically push DirecTivo out of the market. Rupert Murdoch (owner of DTV) has already done this with the satellite service he owns in the UK, so this is more than just idle speculation. If this *is* DirecTV's plan, Tivo doesn't stand a chance. When its contract with DTV expires in 2 years (IIRC), it will be game over for them.

Yeah - it easy to remember which shows it works on and which it doesn't (Law & Order being the best example).

Plus a lot of times, if it does not immediately advance, if you press 2-QS, it will jump to the exact correct point where the commercial break ends (instead of 2 minutes ahead like it normally would).

I've played with both TIVOs and Replays ability to manually jump over commercials and I find the Replay navigation with 30-sec QS (with the easy ability to do any number of minute QS) and 7-sec IR to be far easier and more effective.

I do alot of video editing/archiving of my shows. One recent thing I have noticed is the FOX network (in particular) leaves little to no black frames between a show and the following commercial. They seem to be interlacing the last frame of the commercial with the first frame of the TV show. I have a feeling this is intentional so that DVRs that skip over commercials will have a much harder time skipping (as I suspect the total black frame is in the algorithm for the DVR to find where the commercial breaks start and end). Evil!

Glad my TiVo's skip-to-end button is now a 30-second skip button (just press select, play, select, 3, 0, select and that button will change function to a 30-second skip button).