We are thinking of switching to cable.
We live in a small town. Cable/phone/internet is thru the phone co-op.
We already get phone and DSL. It's great that since we are in a small town if I have a problem I call Russ down at the phone co-op and get him to fix it. And if he don't fix it I can call his daddy and tell him he needs to have a talk with his son about doing a better job. Ah, the joys of small town life. But I digress....
The phone co-op currently is using plain old cable wire for their system. The are also currently upgrading the system to digital that runs over phone wires. So everything from them now will come in on the phone line. And it will then be digital cable. And if I sign up now I will be grandfathered in and not have to pay extra fees when they do the change over. The new system will come with a set top box that works like a DVR. We do not want to be without DVR capability. But for now they don't have that yet.
Tivo is running a special to get a free tivo box (reconditioned, 40 hours recording time) if you sign up for a 12 month contract at $13/month. Sounds like a good deal.
Now for my questions.
If I sign up now and get a Tivo box will it work ok with the current cable system.
Is a Tivo much different than my Dish Network DVR.
Will the Tivo be compatable with the new system when it is up and running.
If I let my Tivo contract lapse after 12 months, can I still use it as a digital recorder and just record from the cable set top box to the Tivo, since the Tivo will also connect to my computer and I like to save some TV shows (Cartoon Alley).

Any advice or caveats y'all can give me would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Pooh Bear

Thanks.

Pooh Bear

When my local co-op goes digital they will have their own DVR.
In the meantime I want to get one to work with the current cable system.
And then after the contract period is up let the subscription lapse,
and just use the unit as a VCR or DVD-RW.

Pooh Bear

Question.
Since the Dish Network DVR is mine to do what I want to with it,
can I remove the hard drive and use it in my computer.

Thanks.

Pooh Bear

I figured for storage I would just transfer recordings to my computer.
Most stuff gets deleted, but some stuff I like to keep.

I have a lot of questions but I'm gonna try reading the manual first.

Thanks.

Pooh Bear

Good Luck,

Also, I was under the impression that if I had a home movie
on my computer, I could transfer it to the Tivo to watch on TV.
All I can find in the manual is about transferring music and pictures.
So I'm wondering if it can be done.

Pooh Bear

A great place to get started with Tivo is ebay. I bought 2 for $40 each. When I activated service, one of them had a lifetime subscription! A extra nice bonus was since I now own an activated Tivo, the second Tivo only costs me $7/month.

Tivo's do not have built in Ethernet. They have 2 USB ports. You need to get either a wireless USB network adapter or a wired Ethernet network adapter. Tivo's web site will tell you which ones are supported. Others may work, but Tivo will help you if you have trouble getting a supported adapter to work.

A Tivo without a netowrk adapter is just not as much fun. I now have 3 Tivo's (2 wireless, 1 wired) on my home network. This means I can record 3 shows at the same time, transfer shows between them and my computers, schedule recordings on all Tivo's from work or the road, play games with other Tivo users over the Internet, subscribe to Internet only shows (like Rocketboom), and yes, more :)

(Curiously, Tivo 3 sits in a closet -- connected to basic cable but with no TV attached. All scheduling is done over the Internet and shows are transfered to Tivo 1 or Tivo 2 for viewing.)

You CAN transfer video from your computer to your Tivo. You need to download the free Tivo Desktop software. (I think you also need to enable TivoToGo, but this is also a freebie.) This software announces your computer to your Tivo's and you can "pull" video to a Tivo using your Tivo remote. If the video is not in the correct formnat, you can download a free converter from videora.com. I used this recently when I missed the second half of ABC's "The Path to 9/11." I downloaded it off the Internet using utorrent.com's free BitTorrent client, converted it using Videora's Videora Tivo Converter and copied it to a Tivo for viewing. The recording was from England, which broadcasts PAL instead of NTSC which means different resolution and frame rate, but Videora handled it with minimal audio "slip." Be aware that just because it's available on the Internet doesn't mean you aren't violating copyright. I figure that since it was broadcast and I would have recorded it, no harm, no foul.

And finally, yes you can take the disk drive out of a Tivo or other DVR and put it into a computer. They are just plain old IDE drives. The only difference is that they are supposed to be quieter and do seamless spiral reading better, but I've replaced all of the drives in my Tivo's with 300gb drives from Costco or Fry's. 300gb means about 280 hours of TV so it's rare that something "disappears" before I get around to watching it. Since you can get a 300gb drive for $70, I wouldn't bother taking the time to put a used 40 or 80 gb drive from a DVR into a computer.