I’m sure they must, but I don’t even know the terminology.
Basically, I have no interest in cutting CDs. Only want to watch the late movie the next day from a hard disk recording instead of CD or tape.
What are these things called?
Can I buy a TiVo and simply never sign up for their service and still use the machine “locally”, or is it somehow locked?
It is called a DVR (Digital Video Recorder) and to my knowledge, there are no generic ones available out there to buy, but you can build your own if you have a pc with a tv capture card. Try looking up “build your own tivo” in google and you get tons of hits.
A TiVo is a user friendly option, if you are not tech-savvy. If you want to really get into Do it Yourself, you need a PC, a TV Tuner Card, big hard drives, and software (either an application or Windows XP MCE).
The TiVo will need the service. If you already have Satellite service, then you can get a dual tuner TiVo, which is really nice.
You can build essentially the same functionality as a TiVo by installing a video capture card or a TV tuner card in your computer and running some readily available software. The TV tuner card will have the added advantage of being able to select different channels to record at different times; the capture card will be limited to whatever the source is tuned to. Many cards have both features built in. Here is one good article on the topic.
I would recommend buying a Windows Media Center Edition machine if you are up to adding a new machine to your collection.
The “ten-foot” interface is great, you get automatic TV listings for free, and you can tell it to “record Mythbusters whenever it comes on” or something like that and watch as your hard disk space shrinks.
I never imagined how cool it would be until I started using it. Even something as casual as being able to pause the video and then skip over commercials with a flick of the remote is nice.
Sure. You will have to manually enter time/date/channel to record each program.
When you but the Tivo service, you are getting regularly updated program information. This allows you to record a show with a click of a button, or to record every episode of a particular program (they call this a “season pass”). It also allows you to find programs that a particular actor is in, or programs on a particular subject, etc.
But the hardware works just fine without the subscription.
They make them. I have a samsung DVR.
Here is a pioneer at amazon.
You don’t get the TIVO service of listings and the ability to record a show. You have to record a time and channel.
Many cable companies will now offer a DVR (defined above) for a monthly fee. Time Warner Cable of NYC is cheaper monthly than TiVo and I don’t have to purchase any hardware. I know Cablevision, Comcast, and DirectTV also offer DVRs.
Yes and you can buy one!
I know that you said that you didn’t want to record DVD’s but Walmart sells a couple of DVR/DVD recorder combos that record to Hard Drive and/or DVD.
I bought one two weeks ago. Its this one for $300.
It takes a little bit more than the typical VCR to set it up but it isn’t too terribly difficult.
I record to the hard drive all of the time by inputting the VCR+ code from my TV guide. My kids picked it up real fast.
They also sell a cheaper one for about $220 (it has a smaller hard drive)
If you’re a real technically oriented person you can read user comments about these two products in this forum and specifically about my model here at www.avsforum.com.
If you read the forums in avsforum.com you can get a good feel for the positive and negative features of these DVRs.
I do this also and it has totally changed the way I watch TV. However, when my cable box died, there went a whole season of Deadwood that I won’t see until DVD. Of course, they were supposed to give me a credit and never did.
That’s happened to me, also. Same would happen if your TiVo went south. I also have a DVD recorder, and anything I want to keep long term, I transfer to DVD.
I purchased a WinTV PVR USB2 and use GB-PVR (it’s free) to schedule and record shows. The latest version of GB-PVR even allows for scheduling through a web interface (should you be away from your system). I don’t have it running back through the television–so I have to watch the recorded programs through my computer–but it’s a great back-up for the VCRs I still use.
TVs are starting to come out with DVRs built in. For example, there’s this 60-inch unit from LG (also available in a 50-inch model) which includes a 160-gig DVR and the ability to record HDTV, although that really fills up the drive quickly.
I also have a DVR from my cable company, and I’ve been through two DVR deaths already, so that is a down side. On the plus side, when the box dies, you just go pick up a new box from the cable company, instead of shelling out $200+ for a new TiVo.
Actually, I don’t think you can buy Tivo boxes anymore. You get thebox for free but have to sign up for service.
If you want to be really adventurous you can build you own Linux-based MythTV. It is a constantly evolving open-source code base to build the much-talked-about (but doesn’t yet exist) “mythical” convergent media box that is a DVR, DVD player/ripper, CD/MP3/Audio player, news aggregater, etc., etc… Not for the faint of heart, but it can do some amazing things if you build it out correctly.
If you have a friend who is tech-savvy enough to set it up for you, MythTV can be a wonderful thing. We’ve got one set up in this apartment (roommate is a programmer/Linux nerd) … the box itself is in her room, with low-noise components, and the resulting recordings (and live TV) can be streamed to any computer on the network. Our living room entertainment center is actually a TV hooked up to a MacMini with the MythTV frontend software on it. It’s also easily upgradable, since you can buy pretty much any ol’ hard drive, memory, etc.
It can, however, be quite fiddly at times, so it’s best put together by someone who knows what they’re doing.
I’ve wanted to stay out of the MythTV promotion business in this thread, but since someone else brought it up…
I was a Tivo early adopter. I bought a Sony brand Tivo back in late 1999 or early 2000, and only just took it out of service at the beginning of this year. Even way back then it changed the way I watched TV. I’d even hacked it to put in a large hard drive, give me shell access, web server, upload and download video, and so on. But it was apparent that its proprietary nature and aging hardware wouldn’t continue to meet my needs.
So I built a MythTV box with off the shelf parts. HDTV tuner, couple of dual-tuner cards, RAID card, decent mobo and processor, nice large case, five freakin’ hard drives, gigabit Ethernet, some patience, and I was in business. It works flawlessly with the DirecTV receiver and can record several cable channels at once (although I don’t really have a need for such). It also works as a network attached storage server so all of our home folders live on the RAID’ed drive (yeah, gigabit Ethernet is quite fast enough). Because my iTunes and iPhoto folders live there, it’s a simple matter to stream them out to my televisions. I’ve (illegally-per-the-DMCA) copied my DVD’s to the thing. Archives and Archives of TV that I’ll probably never watch.
What’s even a cooler part of this is it’s a centralized system – it lives in my closet. At each of the televisions I have a hacked Xbox that serves as the front end. TV/Video/etc all come fine over the Ethernet connection. They all work at the same time, too. The Macs also work as front ends, so you can watch TV/video/whatever in the office while doing productive work, too.
I can ssh into the box from offsite (like from where I’m at right now) to manage recording, and even stream them to me in the field.
Because I don’t have a land line or PBX requirements, it really is a convergence box.
The only downside is my stupid Linksys router apparently has a buffer overflow bug that causes it lock up if I use certain protocols too much from offsite (it doesn’t like VNC for some reason). I should try to see if I can set up the Myth box as a router….
**Balthisar **
I’m glad you’re so enthusiastic about that system, but I didn’t understand a couple of dozen terms you used, so I think I’ll try the less sophisticated things.
The Polaroid, Pioneer, and Amazon TiVo’s new and used.
All look right. I don’t mind entering in the channel and time; that’s how my VCR works now.
Thanks, everyone, for all the answers!
I have done this (cost about $40 for the cable-ready TV tuner card, which also will capture any NTSC input like video-out from a camcorder, bundled with the software, and a free feed from a directory service). However, there is no TV-out. So you can watch the playback on the PC or burn a DVD, but unlike TiVo you can’t stream it back to your TV. Maybe other cards have TV out, I dunno.