TiVo or ReplayTV or Other

Posted by: SonicSnoop

TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 18:02

You all always seem to be a very intellegent bunch and have all the greatest gadgets so I figured you'd be the ones to ask this. Football season is starting and I work sundays so im gonna be missing most of the games so I was thinking of getting one of those units to record them (sick of vcrs and tapes crappy quality) and was wondering if you all could tell me in your opinion which one is best and why. Thanks!
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 18:51

Do you have direct tv ?

If you have cable you may want to see if they offer a PVR. While it probably wouldn't be as good as a tivo/replay but you could try it and see if you want a PVR or not.

I have been using Tivo for many years and currently have a 60 hour series 2 I did try a Replay TV for a short time.

What I did not like about the Replay TV was I want to be able to tell it to record a show evertime it is on regardless of what time or channel and it would not do this.

The things I liked better about the Replay were that it was much faster (tivo can be painfully slow going through menus) and it is very easy to extract the shows thanks to DVarchive.

You may want to do a search there have been many threads on this topic.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 19:31

Quote:
tell me in your opinion which one is best and why.

Ah, another thread about religion.

First consideration is... if you already get your TV through DirecTV, then Tivo is your best option because they have the integrated unit where the satellite receiver is built into the box (actually, two of them are), and the stuff is saved to the hard disk directly without any A/D conversion or data compression.

If you have to get it as an add-on solution, then we're back to the religious discussion. Carry on...
Posted by: DeadFire

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 20:31

What I did not like about the Replay TV was I want to be able to tell it to record a show evertime it is on regardless of what time or channel and it would not do this.

This is not true. I would not want a non-DirecTV customer to ignore ReplayTV because of this statement. With a ReplayTV, you must set up a Theme Channel recording in order to do this. Unfortunately, theme based recordings are "less important" than all other recording types. Thus, if the theme recording and one of your normally scheduled recordings conflict, the theme will not record.
Posted by: tman

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 20:52

I've only got a TiVo as ReplayTV doesn't exist over here but I'm pretty happy with the TiVo. Installed a bigger HD and a cachecard and it's great. Loads of storage and fast. All these addons together mean that it's quite expensive tho.
Posted by: JaBZ

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 21:01

I don't have a ReplayTV (cannot hack it for use here in NZ) so I can't comment on that..
But TiVo ahhh bliss.... 700hrs recording time, cache card, tivoweb, and resolving conflicts between networked TiVo's..
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 21:43

Well no I do not have Direct TV. Have considered upgrading to our local cable companys digital cable tho (just have standard right now). Never really liked the idea of the dish cause in storms you loose or get crappy reception. I noticed something on the tivo site about season passes where youget the entire season of a show. that seems like a cool idea. there are a couple shows I could use something like that for. for their service can I hook it up to my DSL instead of my phone? Do you even need to hook them up for an outside connection? ive been trying to find the time to read thru all the stuff on their sites, but i find it better to get outside opinions on em cause their web sites are gonna try and make it look better then it is. Thanks for all the replys.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 15/08/2004 22:05

Quote:
Never really liked the idea of the dish cause in storms you loose or get crappy reception.
True
Quote:
I noticed something on the tivo site about season passes where youget the entire season of a show. that seems like a cool idea. there are a couple shows I could use something like that for
There are a few stations, though, that don't provide enough information to the TiVo for it to be able to figure out what new episodes are. Of course, you can fall back to recording every episode.
Quote:
for their service can I hook it up to my DSL instead of my phone? Do you even need to hook them up for an outside connection?
Yes and yes. The SA TiVos get show info via the phone/internet.
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 00:16

Well when I had the replay if I told it to record a show everytime it was one it would only record it when it was on at the time and channel I picked when I set up the recording. If I did a theme then I wouldn't be guaranteed that the show would get recorded.

I guess that I don't think that is the same as record it everytime it's on.
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 00:41

If you had direct tv tivo has a unit that replaces the driect tv tuner and will record two channels at once that's why I asked.

With the Tivo series two you can get a usb to ethernet adaptor and connect it to your network to get updates over the internet. The Replay comes with ethernet built in.

With the Tivo you can set it to record a show everytime it's one, everytime there is a new episode or everytime it's on including repeats. You can also tell it what shows you like and it trys to find other shows you may like and records them when it's not doing anything.

I set a season pass for shows I don't want to miss and give thumbs up to shows I like but don't care about missing then I always have something I like recorded.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 03:04

Quote:
I noticed something on the tivo site about season passes where youget the entire season of a show. that seems like a cool idea.

I'm sure that ReplayTV has a similar feature, so don't choose a Tivo based solely on that.

Keep in mind that the Tivo feature named "Season Pass" is merely a nickname and it doesn't actually have anything to do with a show's "Season". All it does is say... for example:

- For the show named "The West Wing"...
- Capture the following episodes: <all episodes> or <only first-run episodes>
- Cap it at a maximum of <1-5> unwatched episodes
- Save them until <space needed> or <until I delete them>

As you can see above, the Tivo has no way of knowing what a "Season" is, it merely names the feature that so you have a vague idea of what it does. And it works best when you "keep up" with the series. For instance, if you let it go for the whole season without watching anything, you'll only see the last five episodes.

An example of where "Season Pass" wasn't really a season pass... Bravo channel started showing The West Wing, all episodes starting from season 1 episode 1, in sequence, Mondays-Thursdays at 4pm. I wanted to get them all in sequence. Well, there's no way to program Tivo to get them all in sequence because it doesn't know their initial airdates. And since Bravo shows West Wing at a bunch of different times (but only the Mon-Thu 4pm episodes were what I wanted), it basically wanted to record a random smattering of West Wings instead of the exact seasons in exact order.

BUT... once I programmed a season pass for the thing, I was able to say "View upcoming episodes", and, using a very clear and simple user interface, choose which episodes I wanted it to tape based on their episode names. It was very easy to compare the episode names to an episode guide a printed off the internet. So, the "Season Pass", combined with a small bit of manual labor, allowed me to see all West Wings in sequence.

Now, for a first run season, it works perfectly. I'm getting a bunch of TV shows as first-runs using the Season Pass feature. It works well for new shows. You just tell it "First Run" and it'll grab the first-run episode of the show, no problem. The only time you need manual labor is if you want to capture old rerun episodes in any sort of a semblence of order.

So that's what season pass is all about. Just some info for your decision.
Posted by: DeadFire

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 03:28

Well when I had the replay if I told it to record a show everytime it was one it would only record it when it was on at the time and channel I picked when I set up the recording.
This is because you didn't set up the record as a Theme.

If I did a theme then I wouldn't be guaranteed that the show would get recorded.
Themes are not guaranteed because episodes of shows that a Theme would record could easily conflict with other recordings you have scheduled. This could make it too easy to miss a first-run episode of a show in favor of the Theme recording a repeat of something else you've already seen.

The point I'm trying to make is that stand alone ReplayTV and stand alone TiVo are essentially equal; they simply have different names for features and different looks. The only one-up TiVo has on ReplayTV is with DirecTV.
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 04:17

I did try the themes but as you said that doesn't guarantee the show will be recorded.

If I go and find when the show is on and tell it to record everytime the show is on then if the shows time changes it won't get recorded. With the tivo I just pick the show tell it to record it everytime it's on and that's it I don't have to worry about it getting moved or when it's on.

Like mythbusters for instance discovery moves it around all the time so if I told it to record everytime it's on I would have to keep redoing it everytime the show moves. If I did a theme then it wouldn't always get recorded.

Most of the stuff I watch is on cable and they tend to rearrange the show times often so maybe it woudn't be a problem if I watched the networks.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 04:22

My thoughts:

- If you have standard cable now, and want to upgrade to anything at all, I would not recommend digital cable. As far as I've seen (and your mileage may vary), I get absolutely terrible signal on my Cox digital cable. The quality is terrible. Yes, our satellite goes out in heavy rain, but it's worth it when it does work, and having dual tuners is worth it as well. However if you have multiple Tivos in your home, the dual tuners become less of an issue with conflict resolving and program sharing.

- I recently notice that you can get an SA Series 2 Tivo at Best Buy of all places for $89. That's for the 40 hour.

- upgrading Tivos is a piece of cake. Instantcake, actually. I recently used that program and it was so easy, it took a mere 10 minutes of work to go from 35 to 114 hours.

- I happen to think that the experience of using a Tivo is unsurpassed.

- switching from phone line to network on the Tivo is actually really simple (despite what many Replay people often say). No, there's no built-in ethernet, but all you need is one of any number of USB>ethernet adapters and you're set. Alternately, you can attatch something like a Linksys WUSB11 to connect to your wireless network. After the hardware is set up, a simple change in the dialing prefix sets you up to get the program guide info from over the network.

- oh, and soon Tivo will have a program where you can send recorded programs to your PC where you can watch them or record them to DVD (or it may have already started...)
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 09:58

I have Comcast cable where I live. they keep pushing us to try their digital cable. they keep removing good channels from the basic cable so eventually will have to go to digital. If I had a single tivo could I record one channel while watching another? Or do I need two for that? I noticed alot of sites about how easy it is to upgrade the tivo. That was a big selling point for me. buy the cheaper one and upgrade it my self. I do have a wireless network so the linksys wusb11 would be the way I would go. was going to ask about that next. From what i have read the tivo can only handle 160gig drives except for the direct tv one i believe. Is this true? Thanks again everyone for your insight. this is very helpful.
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 10:57

You cannot record one channel and watch another with the stand alone tivo but you can watch a recorded show and record another. I have mine record pretty much everything I want to watch and then watch it from the tivo. That way I can skip the commercials.
Posted by: tman

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 11:05

Quote:
From what i have read the tivo can only handle 160gig drives except for the direct tv one i believe.

The kernel isn't LBA48 capable but you can install your own kernel if you wish. I've got a S1 TiVo with a 250GB drive and it works fine. The only issue is that if TiVo issue an upgrade then you need to reapply your custom kernel. I'm pretty safe as the UK software hasn't changed in years.
Posted by: djc

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 11:57

The older standalone Series 2 Tivo's (running 4.x software) can't be made to work with a LBA48 kernel. The newer versions (which appear to be silver in color) run 5.x software, and come installed with an LBA48-compatible kernel from the factory.

--Dan.
Posted by: Dylan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 13:21

I've used both and vastly prefer TiVo. I could explain why but this comparison does it for me:

http://pvrcompare.com/tivoreplayframe.html

Edit: It appears that Replay finally got rid of the terrible guaranteed/non-guaranteed model and does it's space management more like TiVo now. That's a definite improvement but it still doesn't have a To-Do list or exposed priority list for recurring recordings. I consider these absolute necessities, especially on a single tuner recorder.
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 16:13

Thank you for that link that was very informitive. based on that I think I would go with the TiVo, only problem I saw tho is it said comcast wants to make you use their DVR. I hate that crap. let me use what I want to.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 16:21

The only difficulty might be if you get digital cable, you'll have a box that'll need to be controlled by the Tivo. If there isn't a serial port on the back of the cable box, you'll need to use the IR repeater, which really slows down simple things like channel changing. This isn't a fault of Tivo, I'm just bringing it up. If the box does have serial inputs, then that has worked really well in my experience, and fast.
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 17:07

Ugh, just called comcast and they said their digital box doesnt have a serial port, only can be controled by IR. That sux.
Posted by: drakino

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 17:46

I still prefer ReplayTV for the following reasons:

1. Speed. I can quickly see what is on, what is in my saved shows, and navigate the menus.
2. No need to hack the box. If I want more storage, I plop a new hard drive in my computer and let DVArchive pull shows off the Replay nightly. I then just stream them back over the network to the ReplayTV. No need to add ethernet, no need to hack the unit, no need to void the warranty.
3. Internet show sharing. I know Tivo just got permission, but I've been enjoying it for months now with a few friends.
4. Commercial skip. True, the 5500 lacks auto commercial skip now, but it's one button press on the 5500 to skip the commercials. My 5000 and the 4500 do it automaticially.

If I ever get a second ReplayTV, number 5 would be the network conflict resolutuion where the second unit records what the first one can't, and allows the show to be played on either unit.

Oh, regarding "rain fade" with dish service. As I have said elsewhere, I have noticed signal loss on Dish Network 3 times since I have had them. I started service in 1999, and 2 of the losses were due to too much snow on the dish. Deicer works great to prevent this. Only once has a rain storm managed to knock out service, and it disrupted the show for maybe 5 minutes.

Part of it might be my elevation, since it has 7,000 feet less to go through.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 18:33

I wish I could see the boxes that Comcast gives you. I wasn't able to find any technical info on them. Tivo has, I believe, 3 types of serial connections that will work, but it wouldn't suprise me if Comcast is trying to push their own technology. They're big on their "On Demand" service, which sounds really cool in theory, but I have a friend with the service, and he says it only works about 25% of the time.
Posted by: msaeger

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 18:50

I don't think that the tivo will only run one cable cable box with the serial. I use the IR blaster with mine and it works fine. If you want to flip channels it is way too slow but I almost always watch shows recorded on the tivo and if I want to browse what is on I just use the tivo guide.
Posted by: Attack

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 19:22

Quote:
You cannot record one channel and watch another with the stand alone tivo but you can watch a recorded show and record another. I have mine record pretty much everything I want to watch and then watch it from the tivo. That way I can skip the commercials.


Not true, if you put the TiVo in standby mode it will continute to record and you can use your TV tuner to watch something else. This is just like the vcr/tv button on just about every vcr.

A second way to do this would split your cable and have one go to the TV and the other to the TiVo, then use the RCA or S-Video to get the TiVo to the TV. When you want to watch TiVo you would change video inputs on the TV to the correct input.


I currently have 3 SA TiVo's in one room and an HDTV cable box. I have the signal split 4ways going to the cable box and TiVo's. I then have the Cable box going to the TV via component. Two of the TiVo's go to the TV via RCA and the thrid is via S-Video. It works very well.

The three TiVo remotes just gets very confusing.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 16/08/2004 19:50

Many cable systems and all satellite systems have dedicated boxes that are required to get any sort of useful signal. If one's system is like that, then you can only record or live-view one thing at a time. You could bypass the DVR and watch something that doesn't require the box, but this is likely to be nearly nothing.

If you have a cable system that doesn't require a box or if for some reason you can actually receive a decent number of channels at good quality over the air, then you can certainly view something other than what the DVR is viewing, but in my experience, such setups have always been uncommon and are only getting rarer.
Posted by: lectric

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 00:58

Quote:
oh, and soon Tivo will have a program where you can send recorded programs to your PC where you can watch them or record them to DVD (or it may have already started...)

Where did you read that?! I can't wait.
Posted by: gbeer

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 01:24

I don't think Replay has any kind of Wish List function either. Wish lists let you select a particular actor, keyword, title word... and it will automatically record anything that is a match. For instance instead of a regular season pass, which is channel and show based, I use a wishlist for the title "STARGATE SG-1". This picks up Stargate no matter what channel it is on. It works well for those shows that are being used to fill in odd programming gaps.
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 01:47

Search your favorite search engine for TivoToGo.
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 01:50

Quote:

If you have a cable system that doesn't require a box or if for some reason you can actually receive a decent number of channels at good quality over the air, then you can certainly view something other than what the DVR is viewing, but in my experience, such setups have always been uncommon and are only getting rarer.


We watch exactly one channel with any regularity which requires digital: the one Daria is on

My TiVo is set up to record from cable, and has a second input configured to feed only the digital range, via the cable box, on the SVideo port. Yucky, but it means I can use the digital cable receiver for other things if the TiVo isn't.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 01:59

Quote:
We watch exactly one channel with any regularity which requires digital: the one Daria is on

Noggin!

*embarrassed*
Posted by: drakino

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 04:04

Quote:
I don't think Replay has any kind of Wish List function either. Wish lists let you select a particular actor, keyword, title word... and it will automatically record anything that is a match. For instance instead of a regular season pass, which is channel and show based, I use a wishlist for the title "STARGATE SG-1". This picks up Stargate no matter what channel it is on. It works well for those shows that are being used to fill in odd programming gaps.


It does. You go to Search, put in the text, set what to search (title, actor, etc...) then use the "Create theme channel" option.

The only feature that I know Tivo has over the ReplayTV is the rate a show thing to have it record similar shows. The ReplayTV does have an extensive Replay Guide selection though, where you can tell it you like classic SciFi and it will record such shows.

ReplayTV on the other hand has several features over the Tivo.
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 04:44

Quote:
Quote:
We watch exactly one channel with any regularity which requires digital: the one Daria is on

Noggin!

*embarrassed*


Ha, I'm not.
I'd be watching "My So-Called Life" there, but hooray for DVDs.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 12:57

lol, that's exactly what I've been watching on that channel

*embarrassed again*
Posted by: Daria

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 13:45

Quote:
lol, that's exactly what I've been watching on that channel

*embarrassed again*


And he comes out every Friday night... Like Urkel!
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 15:21

Quote:
I use a wishlist for the title "STARGATE SG-1".

Incidentally, a tip for the Tivo people... When setting a wishlist by keyword, if the keyword is more than one word, it'll do a fuzzy search.

For instance, I had a wishlist for JAMES BOND and of course it started grabbing everything with JAMES in the title+description, and also everything with BOND in the title+description. Not what I wanted, of course.

The secret is to put "JAMES BOND" in quotes for an exact match, which works.

Except there's no quote symbol on the character chart...

The big secret is that the PAUSE key on the remote control works as the quote key in the character-entry screen. See, 'cause the pause symbol is two vertical bars which kind of look like a quote symbol, too.

Clearly the Tivo interface designers are smartasses.
Posted by: matthew_k

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 17/08/2004 17:41

Oh how I long for the day of advanced searching in theme channels. If tivo had a logical "not" for their theme channels, I suspect I'd buy one. There are plenty of shows where I've seen all the episodes, but would still like to see anything else with the actors, but there's no way to put Alyson Hannigan in any not get the four hours of day of Buffy that FX shows.

Matthew
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 24/08/2004 18:10

Welp I just went out last night and got a 40gig Tivo, set it up and configured it with a wireless usb nic. I originally grabbed a 802.11g one cause that was all they had and they said it was backwards compatible with 802.11b which is what i run at the house. but it turned out it wasnt compatible with my tivo, so luckly my roommate had a 802.11b usb wireless nic, so he got an upgraded one tivo got a handme down Now when I get home I will see if I cant get it to record things. I played with the pause and slow mo features. pretty cool. I had to use the IR blaster for the regular cable box, but it was easy to setup. The pause in flipping channels is somewhat annoying but dealable. I dont know if its just me but for some reason the picture looks slightly fuzzy. not a whole lot but just a hair during normal live tv. anyone else have this? Id like to slap a 250gig HD in this baby soon
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 24/08/2004 18:36

If you have a standalone TiVo, any video you watch from it will definitively be worse than the source, since it's using MPEG (2, I believe) video codecs to compress it lossfully. In most cases, it's not much worse, but it is noticeable when you first switch over. Once you use it for a while, you probably won't notice it any more except the rare occasions when it gets bad. Rippling water and video static are two such instances that it has a hard time dealing with. "Any video" includes even "live" TV when you watch it via the TiVo. In order to give you the slomo, pause, etc., it actually records live TV and replays it a few seconds later. If it annoys you for whatever reason, you can also bypass the TiVo and plug your initial source directly into the TV as well as into the TiVo. Then you can switch TV inputs to see real live TV, sans video compression.

It's important to point out that you should only run your live TV source(s) through the TiVo and make sure other things like DVD players don't run their video through it. It'll compress the video making it worse without providing you any benefit (not to mention that pressing play, pause, etc. will all be delayed by the few second TiVo live TV buffer), and that's provided that the TiVo won't do weird things with Macrovision, which it may.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 24/08/2004 19:08

I remember when Stephen "Blue" Heaslip posted about a problem where his Playstation's control inputs seemed to lag by half a second or so. The next day he posted that he'd figured out that the problem was that he'd routed the playstation video through his Tivo...
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 25/08/2004 00:33

The only thing I have pluged into the tivo is the cable box and the vcr we used to connect the cable to the tv. never even use the vcr so im not to worried about it. the dvd is plugged right into the tv. recorded my first movie today it was cool. now just need to sit down with the book and figure out what all I can do. set it up to record football that should be fun to watch with slow mo. I am starting to get used to the slightly lower quality. If I went with comcasts digital cable would it be any better? thanks
Posted by: DWallach

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 25/08/2004 13:15

Quote:
If tivo had a logical "not" for their theme channels, I suspect I'd buy one.


That's my single greatest wishlist item. I'd love to record "Jazz and not smooth".

*sigh*
Posted by: morrisdl

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 27/08/2004 11:33

Quote:
...set it up to record football that should be fun to watch with slow mo....


(assuming you are speaking of American football) Actually, that’s one of my favorite DVR recorded shows - but watching it in light speed. You can watch a 3 hour football game in 1 hour. Besides the commercial skip, the 30 sec skip works perfectly between plays
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 27/08/2004 16:10

Quote:
You can watch a 3 hour football game in 1 hour. Besides the commercial skip, the 30 sec skip works perfectly between plays


Given how my team (the Redskins) was doing at the end of last season, in addition to what you do, towards the end of some games I was also fast forwarding through plays
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 27/08/2004 21:46

Where is the 30 sec skip? I have a fast forward rewind, instant reply and an advance button that catches all the way up with current live tv but no 30sec skip I know of. I have the SA S2 Model TCD540040 if that helps any. Also could someone give me a run thru how to setup how to get my tivo to record all redskins games? I found it in the guide and went to set up a season pass but it was saying it would record ALL football games and I dont want that. Thanks!
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 27/08/2004 21:52

On the tivos, 30-second-skip is a hidden feature that must be activated with a secret combination of keystrokes. On my tivo, the keystrokes are:

- Play something from your Now Playing menu so that you're in playback mode.
- SELECT
- PLAY
- SELECT
- THREE (3)
- ZERO (0)
- SELECT

If you've got sounds turned on, you should hear "bong bong bong" if you did it correctly.

Now, the two little curly-que buttons, the ones that normally skip to the end or the beginning of a program, go forward 30 seconds and back five seconds, respectively.

Please note: This setting is stored in volatile RAM, so if you lose power to the tivo, you'll need to do the S-P-S-3-0-S keystroke sequence to re-enable it. Before I had it memorized, I had that keystroke sequence written down on a sticker inside the battery hatch on my remote.
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 00:04

Thanks Tony! Ill give that a shot later tonight. I recorded the skins game so I will be in playback mode when I check it out.:) be nice to skip them commercials
Posted by: drakino

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 04:01

Quote:
You can watch a 3 hour football game in 1 hour. Besides the commercial skip, the 30 sec skip works perfectly between plays

My ReplayTV records one NFL game a year, the Super Bowl. I watch it with the content advance feature, that way the annoyning game is automaticially skipped and I can see all the commercials. It's a hidden toggle that inverts the commercial skip logic.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 04:03

*redskins spoiler (in case you haven't watched that recording yet)*


Lol. That was a game in which I used my before-mentioned techniques

I've really got to keep a running total of who on here lives in VA and the metro area in general. We should set up a meet
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 06:26

I set my tivo up to record and went out to dinner, well it was spoiled for me then when i turn to look in the direction of the bar and see the 'lovely' score in the 4th with only a minute or so left. still went home and watched it playing with the 30sec skip tony told me about. Love that. tho my recording ended with 2:00 left in the game. That kinda annoyed me. guess I should start telling it to record 10min or so past the end of something. Loving the tivo so far tho.
Posted by: wfaulk

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 15:26

Quote:
the two little curly-que buttons, the ones that normally skip to the end or the beginning of a program, go forward 30 seconds and back five seconds
FWIW, the back-five-seconds one always goes back five seconds. It does not jump to the beginning. In order to get to the beginning, you hit the go-to-end button, then hit it again.
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 15:41

Heh, I didn't know that, I'd never used that button until after I'd gotten used to the 30 second skip feature.
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 18:09

you can still use that button to go to the end? I have tapped it many times to skip commercials in 30sec increments and it never went to the end. Or are you refering to another button?
Posted by: tfabris

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 18:52

No, you can't use that button to go to the end after you've programmed the 30-second-skip.

What Bitt was telling me was that if you haven't programmed the 30-second skip feature, the button is both the "go to end" and the "go to beginning" button. Press it once to go to the end, and a second time to go to the beginning.

I had stated the original purpose of the other button (the back-five-seconds button) incorrectly. It was always a back-five-seconds button, and the 30-second-skip feature does not change its behavior.
Posted by: SonicSnoop

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 28/08/2004 21:00

Oh ok.
Posted by: Dignan

Re: TiVo or ReplayTV or Other - 29/08/2004 03:11

However, you can start fast forwarding and use the 30 second skip button to advance by tick marks as usual.