[Tig] OT TiVo (was: Re: Is packaged media close to end of life?)

[Nick Johnson]

One particularly interesting feature of the newest HD TIVO's is that they
output both HD and SD "simultaneously" from an HD recording.  I haven't set
mine up yet but both Weaknees (where I bought them with a terabyte of
storage) and TIVO verified this before I bought my new ones since this was
essential for my application.

To me that seems quite a feat (HD to SD downconversion) for a $299 DVR.

One thing missing from the new ones, however, is the ability to control a
cable box via the IR blasters the old ones supported.

That means I will have to keep an old TIVO until I can give up the cable box
which is still necewssary to receive certain services from my cable company
(like Pay-per-view) that require interactive communiucation which the
regular cablecards can niot do. 

Does anyone om the TIG have the real scioop on "open" cablecards?  If so I'd
certainly be interested and I imagine a few others might be also.

My cable company (Time Warner) talks about the new "open" cablecards (on
their website) that can do everything a cabkle box can do as being available
about now (4 Q 2007, 1 Q 2008) but I haven't been aable to reach a "human"
at Time Awarner who even seems to know wht a cable card is or whether they
have th M Card or just the oldeer cablecard that only tunes one channell -
much less anything about the new "open" cablecards.

But even if they do offer the "open" cablecard soon, TIVO has not declared
support for iopen cable yet to my knowledge. 

There's always some "gotcha" - which is why I haven't installed my HD TIVO's
yet.  I'd like to at least get the dual stream M -cards since I'd only need
one per TIVO.

Thanks,

Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: tig-bounces at tig.colorist.org [mailto:tig-bounces at tig.colorist.org] On
Behalf Of Bob Kertesz
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 11:08 AM
To: Telecine Internet Group
Subject: Re: [Tig] OT TiVo (was: Re: Is packaged media close to end of
life?)

Happy 2008 from the TIG wiki at
http://www.colorist.org/wiki3
 ====

>> My HD TiVo uses around 15-20 gig for a decent quality 2 hour movie.
>
>forgive my ignorance on consumer video products but I don´t know
>much about TiVo.  does it take baseband video (what I used to call
>IF in radio-speak) and allow you to tune all the channels at your
>convenience at a later time?

There are two basic types of TiVo, older style analog units with built-in
tuner(s) for off-air or cable analog channels, plus baseband video/audio
inputs, and the new HD models, which also have two off-air/analog cable ATSC
tuners, and two slots for cablecards (no baseband inputs). The cablecards,
available from the cable company as monthly rentals, contain a QAM (digital
cable) tuner and the security electronics which authorize channels. I've
owned
TiVos of one sort or another for almost a decade, can't imagine watching TV
without one.

At its core, the device records and plays back TV shows, whether off-air or
cable. It can additionally suck content down from the internet if connected
that way. And the never models can act as a form of media center - for
instance, with appropriate software running, I can connect to my PC and show
MPG or JPG or MP3 content from it on any TiVo in the house, and I can move
content between TiVos as long as the DRM flag allows it.

The boxes.with dual tuners can record two channels simultaneously while
playing back a recorded show. If the source is digital, the bits are
recorded
directly to the hard drive, so playback is as good or as bad as the source,
but lossless in terms of what the TiVo does. Analog sources and cable have a
"good-better-best" quality choice, and are recompressed by the TiVo, with
the
lowest quality recording fields only.

Aside from the mechanics, the user interface is what sets the box apart and
is
a premium experience that one pays for on a monthly basis with a TiVo
subscription. For your money you get a FULLY searchable 14 day guide, the
ability to time shift programs at will, the ability to pause live TV for up
to
30 minutes, the ability to have it smartly record the programs you want. By
smartly, I mean that if the geniuses at the networks start moving your shows
around the schedule, the TiVo will simply find them and record them anyway.

The UI is very powerful, brilliantly designed, and ridiculously intuitive
and
simple to master. My sister the total Luddite was up and running with hers
in
less than 15 minutes.

--Bob

Bob Kertesz
BlueScreen LLC
Hollywood, California
bob at bluescreen.com

The Ultimate in ULTIMATTE® compositing.  
For details, visit http://www.bluescreen.com

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