I got a 5040 yesterday and am trying to figure it out.

Here is the first problem how do I get it to record a show everytime it's on ?

If I choose a show from the channel guide and pick record this show it looks like it will only record the show everytime it is on in that time slot not everytime it is on.

Am I supposed to use the custom channels for this ?

Choose the show from channel guide, click "find all episodes" (instead of "record this show"), click create the "whatever your show is Theme Channel", then choose whether it's guaranteed or not and the other options.

I've got a couple of 4000 series so it may be a little different.

That's what I thought I just wasn't sure . From what I understand there is no way to prioritize them after making the channels though right ?

No, there is no way to prioritise. When you mark a show as guaranteed, if there is a previous show that was supposed to be recorded at that time it will ask you which show to record.

I haven't ever run into a situation where I want to record every epsiode 24/7 of a show, so I can't answer the question directly, but I do know that "Guaranteed Recordings" don't exist in the 5xxx series.

Then how do you know that a show is going to record? Say you have something scheduled to record daily from 6pm til 7pm but you want to record a movie on a given day from 6pm until 8pm how do you now tell it to record the one time recording of the movie instead of the regularly scheduled program?

Depends on which you schedule first.

Schedule the TV show first (as a recurring time-slot based recording) and when you go to schedule the movie, it'll tell you it conflicts with an existing recording, and you either schedule it anyway (and that episode of the TV show won't get recorded) or cancel it, and the TV show gets recorded.

Schedule the movie first, and then go try to schedule the TV show, it'll tell you that one of the episodes of the TV show conflict with the movie, and it'll give you the option to cancel, record the shows that don't conflict, or go ahead anyway (forget about the movie.)

Another option pops up if your ReplayTV sees other units on the LAN. A "Record conflict on blah ReplayTV" will appear. I see this commonly, since the DVArchive program looks like a ReplayTV unit.

Can you stream video from a Tivo to a pc like you can from a replaytv to a pc? Although I can't stream to my pc as the show is being recorded it is very cool that you can stream a recorded show to a pc using dvarchive.

I don't think you can stream. You can copy the video off the tivo but it is a big hack and they make it really hard.

I played with dvarchive a little it is very cool. What kind of connections do you need to stream over the internet or can't you do that ?

To stream realtime, you would need around a 400-500kb/s upload rate. Mind you, thats about a 4 Megabit connection, and most people don't even have that as a download rate.

The Internet show sharing works differently in that you have an address book on the ReplayTV unit of other units you have added via their ID. Then, in the menu that pops up on a show in the Replay Guide, send is an option that will then allow you to send to someone in your address book. When sending, unfortunatly no indication of the progress is shown, but the receiver can go to the Recieved tab in the Replay Guide to see the percentage complete. See the ReplayTV Users guide for complete setup info, as you have to open ports on your router and such to get this working.

Thanks for the info.

I knew about how the show sharing worked but I thought if you could stream over a lan maybe it would work over the internet but not if it uses that much bandwidth. If it would work it would be great for traveling though

I'm pretty sure I've seen that streaming to your PC from Tivo is possible, but I may have been misreading things. I could have sworn that someone had made a plugin for myHTPC. Again, I could be wrong.

Tony, I hate to bring this up, because I don't want to get in a Tivo vs Replay argument, but are you serious that they took out what little control you had over the priorities of your recordings? From what your explanation sounds like, the only way to give a new show higher priority is to delete all your passes and set them up in a new order. That's not correct, is it? Again, I'm not trying to put down the device, just trying to clarify

From what your explanation sounds like, the only way to give a new show higher priority is to delete all your passes and set them up in a new order. That's not correct, is it? Again, I'm not trying to put down the device, just trying to clarify

That is what I read on another forum too. It's just like the tivo used to be

You have complete control over priorities on a ReplayTV via the conflict manager. If it conflicts, on that screen you set how to handle it. If the conflicting show that would normally record is not on, the other show will record fine.

If you need to change this, you do not need to delete all the shows set to record and start over. Simply change one and it pops the conflict manager back up. Or pop up the channel guide, find one of the shows set to record (noted with a red dot for single record or two for multiple record) and hit the record button. This also causes the conflict manager to reappear.

Edit- Part of the problem I think Tivo users seem to have understanding a ReplayTV unit comes from all the terms Tivo assigns to things. "Season Passes" is a great example. TiVo owners seem to expect other devices to also call recording a show multiple times a season pass.

Edit- Part of the problem I think Tivo users seem to have understanding a ReplayTV unit comes from all the terms Tivo assigns to things. "Season Passes" is a great example. TiVo owners seem to expect other devices to also call recording a show multiple times a season pass.

Um, on the other hand it could simply be that when we refer to it that way, it's because we don't know what it's called on a Replay, and instead of calling it "the thing you set up to record every instance of a particular show", we refer to it by the term we know.

I actually thought about what to call it, and affirmatively decided on "pass" instead of looking up the Replay documentation.


As for the rest of the post, thanks for clearing it up, that's what I was trying to understand.

While that's all true, the problem arises in that "Theme Channels" don't show up on the channel guide and they don't activate any sort of conflict manager. I think they're prioritized based on when they were created, but that could be out of date.

I find that all this isn't actually a problem. Anything I know I want to watch has a recurring weekly/daily reccording, and everything I vaugely like or actors I like have theme channels that randomly pick things up.

Matthew

The problem I have is they say to record a program every time it is on simply hit record twice. Well if I do that it only records it everytime it's on at that time slot that isn't really recording it everytime the show is on.

Here' s another question.

I set up several theme channels and the replay keeps recording the same episodes of shows. Like I made one for x-play on tech tv and it recorded two episodes with the same summary. Is there some way to stop this ?

You weren't having this problem on Tivo? It's really annoying when guide data isn't sufficient enough to fully use the capabilities of these devices. Comedy Central is the most annoying in this regard, IMO. Even Jon Stewart has made comments on the Daily Show about how Tivo owners will find 8 episodes of the show every day

I would just tell my Replay to record channel 354 at 11:30PM on weeknights (you're time may vary, but if you have DirecTV I imagine the channels are the same ).

On the tivo the only time I would have the problem is if there was no show description and that was rare. I don't have direct tv just digital cable so maybe that makes a difference. I never had the tivo record a show twice and have the same info for the show description.

I could do a manual record but that defeats the purpose of having the DVR for me. I just want to be able to pick a show and not have to think about when it's on or if it gets moved. Many of the shows I watch get moved around like on the cartoon network I think the change the adult swim schedule about every week.