So I added a HDTV to the house and wanted another DVR (we already have a DVR connected to a HDTV). I went to the cbale company (RCN) and they talked me into switching my service to a "whole house" service using a TiVo box. I gather this is basically a TiVo router that set up a LAN and connects to the small boxes at each TV set throughout the house. Anyone curently subscribe to this system? What are your thoughts. RCN comes to the house to install it this weekend.
TiVo - through the cable company
- Thread starter MA_PE
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knight1fox3
Jedi MASTER & Friend of Capt. Solo
As long as it does what you expect and is fairly straight forward, sounds like a good set-up. And hopefully they have good customer support should anything go awry.
I'm an almost 4-year cable-cutter so I can't speak to any services like this. I wasn't a fan of using a DVR as it would tend to get so backed up on recorded content, I wouldn't have time to watch it all and ended up either losing the data or just deleting it out right. It actually became a chore to try and "clear the DVR" so we quit doing that. YMMV.
I'm an almost 4-year cable-cutter so I can't speak to any services like this. I wasn't a fan of using a DVR as it would tend to get so backed up on recorded content, I wouldn't have time to watch it all and ended up either losing the data or just deleting it out right. It actually became a chore to try and "clear the DVR" so we quit doing that. YMMV.
Ken PE 3.1
It's wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tube man
I have the whole house dvr thru time warner.
It has more pro's than con's. And on mine, I now can record a lot more than the old dvr setup.
I like it.
I hate tapatalk
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
we have our own DVR that works just like a VCR. it's not set up like a tv guide recording options you have to set time/date/duration, but I can transfer the recording to a DVD if we want to keep it. bigger benefit to us
knight1fox3
Jedi MASTER & Friend of Capt. Solo
I have the whole house Tivo LAN thing, and it seems to work really well. The only problem I have had is with one of the shows I was autmoatically recording (Alaska State Troopers, 
), suddenly all disappeared one day. But I blame that on my teenage daughter. Not because she necessarily did it, but because she's been pissing me off lately, so it feels good to blame her for more stuff.
), suddenly all disappeared one day. But I blame that on my teenage daughter. Not because she necessarily did it, but because she's been pissing me off lately, so it feels good to blame her for more stuff.
Road Guy
Well-known member
so dumb question, what the F is Tivo? Does it basically run off a server? Our shitty DVR only records I think 2 shows at a time without freaking out.. But we don't really have that many issues with that..
wikipedia has a pretty interesting writeup on TiVo.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
Our current DVR basically has 2 tuners that you can watch or record on. i.e. you can record on two different channels but if you want to watch a third channel, you need to stop one of the recordings. This new system essentially has 6 different tuners and a terabyte of storage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo
Our current DVR basically has 2 tuners that you can watch or record on. i.e. you can record on two different channels but if you want to watch a third channel, you need to stop one of the recordings. This new system essentially has 6 different tuners and a terabyte of storage.
snickerd3
Taking suggestions
so it's like the Hopper. Those NJ accented commercials were horrible.
yeah. RCN $5 and $10/month you to death. Next thing you know the damn cable bill is $250/month. I'm actually at $200 now but with my latest beotching this revision I get the new system and the bill drops $30/month. f'ers
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knight1fox3
Jedi MASTER & Friend of Capt. Solo
Most of the early adopters of DVR functionality were the large cable companies. TiVo saw a market for those who preferred not to have a cable service provider and still have DVR functionality. They've been around for quite some time.
yeah wiki had TiVo starting ion the late 90's. I remember the ads. Robot chicken has a great skit on TiVo
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Am I missing something here? Best Buy - two Samsung 48 in. TVs, each on sale for $379, one is a smart TV the other is not. Is there any real functional difference? The linked comparison shows a "difference" in the video and audio connections but I don't think they make any difference if I'm connecting to the TiVo with an HDMI input. Correct?
I bought the dumb TV but I'm thinking I should return it and get the SmartTV. Even if I don't need/use the browser, hell it's the same TV for the same money with web capability built-in. I just hate paying more for less.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/compare?skus=4513700,9481034&url=%2Fsite%2Fsearchpage.jsp%3Fcp%3D1%26searchType%3Dsearch%26_dyncharset%3DUTF-8%26ks%3D960%26sc%3DGlobal%26list%3Dy%26usc%3DAll%20Categories%26type%3Dpage%26id%3Dpcat17071%26iht%3Dn%26seeAll%3D%26browsedCategory%3Dpcmcat193400050018%26st%3Dpcmcat193400050018_categoryid%24abcat0101001%26qp%3Dtvtype_facet%3DTV%20Type~LED%5Ebrand_facet%3DBrand~Samsung%5Etvscreensizerange_facet%3DTV%20Screen%20Size~46%22%20-%2049%22&productString=1219756369972*1219704420852
I bought the dumb TV but I'm thinking I should return it and get the SmartTV. Even if I don't need/use the browser, hell it's the same TV for the same money with web capability built-in. I just hate paying more for less.
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/compare?skus=4513700,9481034&url=%2Fsite%2Fsearchpage.jsp%3Fcp%3D1%26searchType%3Dsearch%26_dyncharset%3DUTF-8%26ks%3D960%26sc%3DGlobal%26list%3Dy%26usc%3DAll%20Categories%26type%3Dpage%26id%3Dpcat17071%26iht%3Dn%26seeAll%3D%26browsedCategory%3Dpcmcat193400050018%26st%3Dpcmcat193400050018_categoryid%24abcat0101001%26qp%3Dtvtype_facet%3DTV%20Type~LED%5Ebrand_facet%3DBrand~Samsung%5Etvscreensizerange_facet%3DTV%20Screen%20Size~46%22%20-%2049%22&productString=1219756369972*1219704420852
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knight1fox3
Jedi MASTER & Friend of Capt. Solo
I would also go for the Smart features if the price is the same. Call it future-proofing. :thumbs:
jeb6294
Well-known member
I almost got one of the Samsung Smart TV's the other day at Sam's...actually I got it, then took it back the next day when "we" decided it wasn't needed. It was a midsized TV for the living room because apparently the one that's in there is actually the step daughter's and she needs it back. One of the big selling points is that there's a Time Warner app for the Samsungs. TW has decided that they aren't doing analog anymore so to watch anything you either have to have one of their DVR's or add one of their little tuner boxes. With the app, you can log into your TW account and watch TV without any boxes.
Road Guy
Well-known member
I am not sure if you call it a "smart tv" but we have an office In the front of our house that is also a guest bedroom, we want to take the bed out and put in a sofa for some extra living space. but I wanted to get a TV that would also double as a computer monitor? I was thinking so I could sit on the couch with a keyboard and do work or surf for pron, etc?
Is this setup pretty easy to find? Plug and Play? The room is fairly small, 10X12 so I think we can set this up.
Where the back of our house is we get so much sun that you cant really see the TV in the mornings (honestly too many windows) so we were thinking it would be nice for those morning cups of coffee to have in the office where the sun isn't yet..
This plan should also discourage people (family) coming to visit ;D
Is this setup pretty easy to find? Plug and Play? The room is fairly small, 10X12 so I think we can set this up.
Where the back of our house is we get so much sun that you cant really see the TV in the mornings (honestly too many windows) so we were thinking it would be nice for those morning cups of coffee to have in the office where the sun isn't yet..
This plan should also discourage people (family) coming to visit ;D
knight1fox3
Jedi MASTER & Friend of Capt. Solo
You could just connect a small mini-PC (see image below) to the TV to make it actually smart. Then having a wireless keyboard/mouse and more would be quite simplistic and the overall user-experience would be a lot better. I still find the "web browser" function on Smart TVs to be pretty useless and cumbersome.
Dimensions are roughly 4.5" x 4.5" so it's super-compact for a full-blown PC.
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