What happened to my Tivo

They actually did a bugfix, even on my HDDirecTiVo, a few weeks ago.

http://www.directv.com/see/landing/dvr_upgrade.html

I believe that the only thing we'll really get is folders. I don't trust the notion of speed, and we can already do alpha sorting.

Grumble. They list the HD TiVo among the group that's not getting upgraded.

Yup. And I'd like folders, but I'm not exactly champing at the bit for them.

Of course, I'm not a big fan of this arbitrary holdback on features. I'd really just like to have HMO so I can watch any TV show from either TiVo (sans the HD stuff).

That is not cool at all. So does this mean that S1 Tivos will get it? I don't know exactly which model I have right now on my other TV, but I know it's a S1 Tivo. I don't see anything that excludes them.

Do you have a S1 DTivo? The recent thread on DTivo hacking works for the S2 and gives you folders, HMO, etc. It's been working great and it was free.

I have an HD DirecTiVo, which is S2. Do you have a link?

I think you misread that. The question was if the HD software would run on a non-HD box. The answer was yes, but that the HD software does not include folders or HMO.

That doesn't inherently mean that there isn't some hackavailable to enable them. Of course, it doesn't mean that there is, either.

I still haven't heard if anyone knows if this DirecTV update will be going to S1 Tivos as well as S2.

No. On the upgrade page, it says that "DIRECTV DVR models SONY SAT-T60, PHILIPS DSR6000R, HUGHES GXCEBOT and HR10-250 will not receive the 6.2 software upgrade at this time." That's the three S1 DirecTiVo models, plus the HD one.

If it's not clear, this is only talking about upgrading the DirecTiVos. The S1 SA TiVos have been EOL'd for quite some time now.

Yeah, I know that. It's clear, I just didn't know the model of my player, and I didn't know those were all model 1s.

I wish Voom hadn't imploded. It sucks to depend on DirecTV with their screw-overs.

DirecTV may be evil, but none of their (surviving) competition appear to be any better. This may well change in the future, of course...

I doubt the HD-DirecTiVo will support MPEG4. The zillion dollar question is what the migration strategy will be from the HD-TiVo to the in-house HD box. My bet is that the current HD-TiVo continues to work with the channels that it receives today for several years. The new satellites that are going up will transmit MPEG4 but the old satellites will continue to broadcast their current (non) standard signals.

Why no immediate cut-over? Consider that they have a massive installed base of SD receivers that they clearly cannot change overnight. Further, their HD customers (TiVo or otherwise) have generally invested big bucks to be early adopters. If they have any marketing brains, they'd rather offer incentives (i.e., new channels, new features) to make me want to migrate, rather than telling me that my $1000 box is obsolete and I must migrate.

Which means, if you're satisfied with the current small selection of HD channels (HD-HBO, HD-Showtime, etc.) plus whatever HD you can pick up with an OTA antenna, then the current HD TiVo should be safe to purchase. If you want HD locals and you need them from the satellite (i.e., your OTA reception sucks), or you want TiVo features like HMO that they're only promising on the "new" in-house HD boxes, then you're going to want the new, as-yet-vaporware solution. Since my OTA reception is pretty good and I can live without HMO, I'm okay with where I'm at.

Well said. Too bad ABC in my area sucks in terms of reception, even though the information I've been able to gather says it should be just as strong as the others, and the same distance away. Grr. The only local I wish we could get is PBS, which decided to put their HD transmitters about an hour south of DC. Why? Who knows? But we'd have to have two antennas to get all the local HD channels.