DirecTV and Tivo....or.....

[slow-dog]

Hey folks, I'm moving, and am looking for input/info. I think I want to get DirecTV with Tivo, but I've got some questions......can you only use the receiver/recorders that DirecTV sells, or can you use a regular Tivo with a regular DirecTV receiver? I wouldn't really care, except that the standalone Tivos are up to like 80 hours. Should I just get the DirecTV enabled ones and modify it if I discover that 35 hours of recording isn't enough?

What about similar DishTV options? Anybody tried them?

I did check out the previous threads on this stuff, but thought I'd see if anyone had any new insights on this stuff......

[chicodaman]

my little bit o' useful input: everyone (not many) I know that has TIVO wishes they would have bought the largest memory available.

[daved]

I have Dish Network, with an old Dishplayer (only holds about 15 hours, best case, but has some other very useful features). At the time I got it the selling points were price (same $10/month for guide but it came from the provider, not a 3rd party, and the overall bill was a lot less than Direct or Time Warner), and quality.

The quality issue remains, at least comparing with a standalone Tivo: the Dishplayer captures the raw stream from the satellite, only decoding it when you want to watch the show. Tivo decompresses the stream, then RE-compresses it to fit at the quality you select. In every case, recompressing a compressed signal will always look worse than a show stored at it's native resolution. If you care about quality, setting the Tivo to its best quality may give you a signal that's only slightly worse than what came off the feed, but it will actually take more disk space!

From a functionality standpoint, I think Tivo wins: it's a better OS, better overall approach to PVR since it is sold on that basis alone. Also, since it has an encoder (the Dishplayer naturally has only a DEcoder), you can grab stuff off the air as well as off of your feed (at least for standalone Tivo, not sure about Direct). These aren't insignificant factors and for some folks they trump picture quality.

I don't think you can go wrong either way. Unless you have an HDTV or are watching at serious resolution, the quality differences are slight. If you're going to get all your tv off the dish, and quality matters most, get a Dishplayer. If you want to get stuff off air as well as off the dish, and if you want to be able to adjust quality based on the kind of program (maybe you don't care if the news looks crappy), Tivo's great. PVRs will change your life. They're really the ONLY way to watch TV, especially in the summer.

-d-

[Bronzetree]

If you decide you want DirecTV, lemme know, S. I have a receiver and remote collecting dust in the closet that I'd let go for dirt cheap. And I highly recommend DirecTV. Only reason I don't have it now is because we live in an apartment complex that doesn't allow it.

[Kittymld]

Originally posted by Bronzetree
Only reason I don't have it now is because we live in an
apartment complex that doesn't allow it.

I thought someone just sued over this and won. And now apartments had to let you put up satellites if you wanted them. I thought thats what I heard.

[MarkH]

if you like playing w/ hardware... rig yourself up a cheap PC w/ a video card that has video in and out (preferably an ATI All-in-Wonder card) pipe the direct tv or whatever signal into the machine and just buy a big hard drive to store it on... Voila! A DIY TiVo that you can control the storage capicity, quality, etc. of.

[slow-dog]

Originally posted by MarkH
if you like playing w/ hardware... rig yourself up a cheap PC w/ a video card that has video in and out (preferably an ATI All-in-Wonder card) pipe the direct tv or whatever signal into the machine and just buy a big hard drive to store it on... Voila! A DIY TiVo that you can control the storage capicity, quality, etc. of.

Well....I guess that'd be an option, although my whole Directivo rig cost me $100. The reason Tivo is worthwhile seems to be the software--it's a slick interface. Yeah....I guess I could write my own scripts to do the same thing, but I'd much rather be watching all the crap tv my Tivo is storing right now. And I can always throw an extra hard drive in there if I need more space.