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Can TiVo and SA8000HD work together?
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Posted by: bstettin

Whenever Time Warner gets around to rolling out the SA8000HD DVR here in NYC, I am hoping to use it in addtion to, rather than replacement of, my TiVo. TiVo for SD, SA box for HD. That seems ideal, both to continue enjoying the superior functionality of TiVo for SD, and to devote all of the SA box’s memory to HD recording. My question is whether this can be done without having to lease a 2nd, non-DVR cable box to feed into the TiVo. Can the TiVo be connected directly to the 8000HD without fouling things up? It seems tricky because with TiVo, you don’t change channels on the cable box directly. But here, the cable box-slash-HD-DVR needs to change its own channels to do its own recording. I know that the 8000HD has multiple tuners. So can I hook up the machines in such a way that one of the 8000HD’s SD tuners is totally dedicated to the TiVo and the other tuners are controlled internally?

Posted by: squiddohio

I intend to do the same thing when the TWC HD PVR becomes available. Right now I use two SA TiVos, and will use the TWC box to record HD shows.

From what I can guess, based on current configurations, I doubt that there would be any way to control the two tuners as you would like. I know some people with the TWC SD PVR (TiVo Light) and it works just like a regular cable box except that the second tuner will pick up when two shows are being recorded or when the box is tuned to a station not being recorded.

In my instance, I just split the cable before the TWC box and the TiVo, and let the TiVo tuner select the station. This gives me easy access to all SD analog signals. I find that there are very few programs on the purely digital channels that I want to record. Right now, when that happens, which is rare, I just use a VCR fed from a composite output from the cable box. Old fashioned, sure, but it lets me record Sopranos or an HBO movie, and will just have to do until the HD PRV shows up. At that point, with two internal tuners, that new box can record all the prime time network shows in HD as well as the HBO shows that appear interesting.

Besides, you only have one live output from the PVR, so even if you send this signal to the TiVo, you can only record whatever stationthe box is set to, leaving your TiVo's tuner doing nothing, which is a waste as long as you are dealing with stations below 99.

Splitting the cable allows you to record two signals on the HD box and one more on the SA TiVo. The only time this would not work well is when you want to record 3 programs at the same time and all are digital or HD shows, which is not likely, since programs on those channels repeat endlessly throughout the week.

Anyway, that's my plan.

Posted by: bstettin

Thanks squiddohio, but your description of the non-HD SA8000 doesn't sound that bad for us. If you have 2 DVR's that are both fighting over control of the same SD tuner, I can see where the conflict would be untenable. What you're telling me basically is that the SA8000 won't jump to tuner # 2 just because TiVo is using tuner # 1. Fair enough. But, what if you're careful to only program your 8000HD to record HD stuff? Then perhaps you can totally avoid conflicts between the TiVo and the SA box's built-in DVR, allowing them to live and work together harmoniously. Or am I a crazy dreamer??

Also, your cable-splitting approach won't work for me at all, for two reasons: Too many fave channels on digital cable (TRIO, MTV2, BBC America, Sundance, Noggin); and, more critically, Time Warner NYC requires even its non-digital customers to use de-scrambling boxes. When you plug the cable directly into a TV or a TiVo, you get SOME of the basic cable channels, but even the ones you get are on different channel numbers than they come up on normally. Of course, that renders TiVo useless, because its programming info says NBC is on Ch. 4, and you're getting it on Ch. 14.

Posted by: dt_dc

Since you're getting more response here than over at the AVS thread ( http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/show...threadid=377951 ) I'll post here ...

Your suggested configuration would work if:
1. You only record one thing at a time on the 8000 (when you want the Tivo to record something). No overlaps, no recording two shows at once (on the 8000). Don't think HD vs. SD (even though that's the way you intend to use it). Don't think of the 8000 as having 4 tuners (two NTSC, two ATSC/QAM) ... although technically it does. Like the HDTivo ... to the end user ... it's just "two tuners". And your Tivo is just going to get whatever is currently being 'watched'.

2. You never use the 8000 to watch something (a recorded show, or something live) when the Tivo is recording. If you do ... the Tivo is just going to record what you are watching.

Then there's also all the standard problems with Tivo/cable box integration ... some of which are exasperated by the 8000. For example ... channel changes are a bit slow (especially when it's starting / stopping recording of something else at the exact same time ... like at the top of the hour ... which is exactly when Tivo is going to be kicking in with its channel change request). Another example ... if for some reason the 8000 is turned off / reboots ...

A couple notes on splitting the cable:
1. You should have a multiple 'cable lineups' avaiable in your guide setup. One (Basic, Expanded Basic, Analog, or something similar to that) will relate to the pure analog channels (NBC on 14) and another (Digital, etc.) will have NBC on 4.

2. I find the PQ noticably better on the 8000 for digital channels so I prefer to record them on the 8000 anyway.

Best of luck ... but ... I find the cable splitting approach to work out much better.

Posted by: squiddohio

The above suggests to me the following thoughs, in random order:

First, if you are going to require yourself to be that meticulous about what you schedule on each machine, you are going to be spending more time screwing around with your settings than you spent when you used VCRs. The whole point of the DVR is to tell it what shows you want and then (more or less) forget about it. I have two SA TiVos and feel I spend too much time as it is resolving conflicts that a two-tuner box would do by itself. Adding in the complexity of your proposal, I fear, would require too much time and attention.

Regardless of what shows TWC NY puts out unscrambled on the analog cable, the TiVo should recognize that lineup. That's exactly what I do now. So yes, CBS is 13 on the TiVo but 12 on the cable box (and 912 on the box for the HD version). I know that and TiVo knows that, and it's not a problem. You just have to run guided setup again.

Check with TWC; you may be entitled to more boxes than you know. If so, you could dedicate one to the TiVo and use another for HD or digital signals. A lot of folks do that, I think.

Finally, move on to something besides "TRIO, MTV2, BBC America, Sundance, Noggin." MTV2???? What's that? MTV not sleezy enough? Let TWC dictate what you watch. Stick only to the basic analog chanels and just quit watching "Independant Films." If it's not good enough for CBS to run on Saturday night in August it probably wasn't that good a movie in the first place.

Where were we? Oh, yeah. That HD PVR will make life a lot easier.

Posted by: dt_dc

quote:
You could dedicate one to the TiVo and use another for HD or digital signals. A lot of folks do that, I think.

A dedicated cable box for the Tivo is also a good suggestion. Keep in mind that the 8000HD and the other cable boxes probably respond to the same remote codes so you'll need a very good IR-proof tent.

Posted by: samo

quote:
A dedicated cable box for the Tivo is also a good suggestion.

No, it is not just a good suggestion - it is the ONLY suggestion that makes this setup feasible. You don't want your TiVo drive SA8000 or any other combo box DVR. I tried it with DishPVR and although it is theoretically possible, in practice it becomes a royal pain. You lose all advantages of TiVo AND all advantages of combo box in a same time. The ONLY clean solution if most of your channels are scrambled and you want to keep your TiVo is to get an extra box. If you can't afford or don't want to get an extra box, then you have to decide between TiVo and SA8000 because they will not work together to your satisfaction.

Posted by: ellinj

with all the time the OP will spend managing his setup to avoid conflicts with the 8000HD he looses all the good functionality of the TIVO in the first place. He might as well soley use the 8000HD and dump the tivo. My major complaint with the 8000 series is the amount of managing you need to go to do to make sure the programs you want are recorded.

Posted by: Dajad

You know, contrary to Samo's post, I don't think the two together is such a bad idea. I'm using the SA8000 right now so I'm pretty up on how it works (and its many short-comings).

What you'd need to do is turn off TiVo's suggestions recording feature so that TiVo isn't constantly changing the 8000's channels. Then set up your TiVo to record only shows that don't conflict with those being recorded on the SA8000 or vice-versa.

But, you actually could record when there is just ONE conflict on the SA8000 because the SA8000 CAN record one channel and let you play back/watch another.

So, if the SA8000 is recording, say, channel 150 ... if I walk up to it and change the channel to 202, the Channel 150 continues to record as the channel changes to 202 for me to watch that life. So if TiVo changed the channel while only ONE show on the SA8000 was recording, that too should work.

However, during that time, you couldn't actually play back any of your SA8000 recordings because to do that would knock out the channel that the TiVo was recording from.

But you could watch recorded TiVo shows while Tivo is recording through the SA8000 box.

...Dale

Posted by: vincegreco

I tried time warner pvr and had tivo [ser 2 with a separate box]

there seemed to be interference as boxes didn't work together-nothing worked right, including original tivo

got rid of tw pvr and all is ok, even have a second tivo [ser 1]-still have two cable boxes

vin

Posted by: bstettin

Thank you all. After reading your thoughts, I'm pretty much resigned to the 2-cable box setup. It's cumbersome and expensive (about $10 more an month for the extra equipment rental and "programming fee"), but dammit I just don't want to give up my TiVo's featues & user-friendliness when HD-recording comes around. If only there was a HD Tivo for cable on the horizon. But that's not coming anytime soon (if ever) and DirectTV is not a good option for me.

To squiddohio and dt_dc who continue to insist that if I'm willing to give up recording digital channels I can just split the cable and run it directly into the TiVo, believe me guys, not in NYC. This may be the only cable market in the country where this is true, but here, EVERYONE gets a cable box. The reason, I think, is that so many people live in rental apartments, and TW can't easily get the physical cable out of an apartment when people move out. So they scramble even basic-cable stuff like CNN and A&E. Some channels aren't sccrambled, but they come through on the wrong channel numbers (which get corrected by the basic-cable non-digital box). So the official basic cable channel lineup -- which TiVo would go by if I told it that I only get basic -- is NOT what comes through without a box.