On 2010-10-12 10:20 , Gregg Dinse wrote:
I have never owned (or used) a TIVO, but I asked a few questions about one at a local Best Buy recently. I believe that everyone I asked, and everything I read, says that a Cable Card from the local cable company is required for the TIVO to work, even if one has no cable box and only cares about the unencrypted signals.
i've been cable-free for a decade, but if your TV can receive the channels directly, the TiVo can; quoting from the TiVo website:
"To access all of your high-definition and digital cable channels, a small CableCARD decoder(s) must be inserted into the back of your TiVo HD, TiVo HD XL, Premiere or Premiere XL box. If you do not insert a CableCARD decoder into your TiVo box, it will still receive antenna and standard-definition analog cable channels, plus online features if your TiVo box is connected to the Internet.
In order to record two channels at once on a TiVo HD or TiVo HD XL box, you'll need either one Multi-stream CableCARD or two Single-stream CableCARDs. If you have a Premiere or a Premiere XL, you'll need one Multi-stream CableCARD to watch your HD and digital cable channels."
One sales person told me that our local cable company (Time Warner) would require me to step up to the highest level service
i would never go to Best Buy for advice, seriously
If that last part is true, then a TIVO might be an alternative I would consider. The EyeTV tuner lists for $150 (though I got a used one on ebay for $90) and a Mac Mini lists for either $700 or $1000. I assume the server version is preferred because of the larger hard drive capacity (1 TB versus 320 GB).
the "larger hard drive" is the net storage after a second drive replaces the DVD drive -- for home theatre purposes, i'd get the non-server version since you can pud DVDs & CDs into it
Does the extra RAM (4 GB versus 2 GB) or the slightly faster CPU help at all with the DVR aspects?
2GB might be okay if you do nothing else with the Mini, but i'd want 4GB; it's an easy upgrade on the new Minis
Both versions of the Mac Mini have eSATA ports
no, neither version has an eSATA port; maybe you were thinking of the eSATA ports on the TiVos?
an external Firewire drive will work on a Mini as well as the internal drive, and if it is a 7200rpm desktop drive it will be faster than the internal drive
From what I gather, there are 2 current TIVO versions: one for $300 and one for $500.
they are significantly cheaper if you buy elsewhere than tivo.com (e.g. $250 & $430 at Amazon); and TiVo HD is still available from retailers for even less; i have TiVo HD and i understand the Premiere versions are not a huge step up
The fancier one has a larger hard drive (500 GB versus ???) and built-in wireless.
320GB vs. 1TB ... and no, the fancier version (Tivo Premier XL) does _not_ have wireless built-in
To get wireless working on the cheaper one, I heard that one must buy the TIVO wireless adapter (for $80).
there are many wireless units that work and the box also has an ethernet port; the TiVo wireless-N adapter is a waste of money because TiVos can't transfer data at N speeds; in my case i plug the ethernet into an Airport Express that also extends my network and pipes music to the stereo
Also, one must pay for the TIVO service. The lifetime subscription is $400.
you can also pay by the month or by the year, of course; if you buy the lifetime sub, be aware that if the box dies, your subscription dies
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