Hubbard Graham

Maximizing Tivo Recording & the Best Tivo product Choice

My coworker is in the market for a Tivo/PVR setup. He is a big football fanatic. He of course is tired of the VCR recording. His questions are 1) What PVR system offers the most Hard drive recording space and 2)What methods exist to maximize recording capacity. (i.e. Should he connect a DVR to the Tivo to offload some of the games he records and relieve space on the PVR hard drive. Importantly, is this possible? What are the common practices of Tivo Users. All ideas welcome. and cost is not a factor.

~HGII~

Robert_J

First, what is his source of programming? Since he's a football fan, I'm hoping DirecTV and the Sunday Ticket. Second, what quality does he want to watch the games in? Standard definition or high definition?

-Robert

Hubbard Graham

Hi Robert

The source is Direct Tv and standard def. is the format.

hubb

~HGII~

Pamela

It's very easy to upgrade the storage capacity of a TiVo. I have 2 120 GB HDs in mine for a total of around 280 recording hours (at the lowest quality). Recording sports should be done at the best quality, so the capacity would go down. According to the Weaknees site:


With the new Series 2 TiVos, which just came out, you could put a couple of 300 GB HDs in, if you wanted. BTW, I got my upgrades through weaknees

It is also very easy to dump the recordings to dvd recorder or VCR.

Robert_J

Then the DirecTivo is the obvious choice. $79 for existing customers or $99 from DirecTV with installation and any additional parts needed. These models will record about 27 hours of programming. If more is needed, drop-in replacement drives are available (see above). Even cheaper, you can do the upgrade yourself for the price of a drive. Anything is much cheaper than the premium price for the larger capacity DirecTivos.

As for which one to get (Hughes, Samsung, RCA), it doesn't matter. They are all the same on the inside.

I think you are confusing your acronyms. DVR and PVR are almost interchageable. You can connect a DVR recorder, VCR, computer with a video capture card, etc. to a DirecTivo to record programs. This is analog recording though. Digital extraction of the video is a touchy subject in most forums and will require extensive knowledge of the Tivo to get it to work.

-Robert

Hubbard Graham

Thanks Robert, You've been most helpful... I see you are from southhaven. i'm orignally from Jackson Mississippi.

~HGII~