TiVo Community Forums Archives - SVR 2000 VS Sony DirecTivo

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SVR 2000 VS Sony DirecTivo
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Posted by: ursapooh

I upgraded my SVR2000 easily and am now thinking of getting a Sony DirecTivo. Any issues with upgrading it? Does it have an extra drive bay like my SVR2000? Any advice, concerns, well wishes?

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Shawn

Posted by: Backhack

They are the same, except you dont need a bracket, the ide cable is tight though. You can now upgrade both A and B however there is NO selection of recording quality its all at best! Also the Philips DSR6000 is the same except for the remote and the Sony controls Sony vcrs directly. They are on sale at CC for $99. You will be VERY happy with a DTiVo

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Deo Vindice
Ducit Amour TiVoae
Sony T60 116 Hrs, Sony SVR2000 30 Hrs, Philips HDR312 107 Hr
Philips DSR6000 106 Hrs

Posted by: stevel

Well, I wouldn't say they are "the same". The DirecTiVo models view and record DirecTV service only, whereas the SVR-2000, a standalone model, can record from any source that can provide an RF, composite or S-Video feed.

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Steve (Sony SVR-2000, 103+ hours, TiVoNET, Dish Network)
(Philips DSR6000 (pending installation))

Posted by: Worf

Plus DirecTiVos require way more hacking to get things done because of the "lockdowns" whereas SA TiVos do not...

(And SA TiVo's are controlled by TiVo, so whatever TiVo decides it wants in them, the SA's get. DirecTiVos are controlled by DirecTV, so if DirecTV doesn't like something, it's gone).

Posted by: ursapooh

quote:
Originally posted by Backhack:
They are the same, except you dont need a bracket, the ide cable is tight though. You can now upgrade both A and B however there is NO selection of recording quality its all at best! Also the Philips DSR6000 is the same except for the remote and the Sony controls Sony vcrs directly. They are on sale at CC for $99. You will be VERY happy with a DTiVo

Well I may not be getting DirecTivo since I can't find a good alternative for local channels. I have to do some more thinking. What did you mean about upgrading A and B only recording at best? Were you saying that I could use only best since I had so much space or that upgrading A somehow prevents me from choosing anything but best?

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Shawn

Posted by: hinsdale

DirecTiVos only have one recording quality - perfect lossless. He simply meant that the DirecTiVos do not have an MPEG encoder, and actually dump the video stream exactly as it is transmitted from DirecTV satellite. There is no loss because there is no compression (on the TiVo end) and thus all recordings are in "better than best" when compared to SA.

You may want to revisit the Locals issue as a new satellite is being launched in the next few weeks (or maybe already has?) and will be active as of Jan 1 which will include many local markets now not covered. There are must-carry laws in regards to locals which DTV must comply with as of Jan 1 2002.

Posted by: Backhack

Well I was refering to the upgrading of the hardrives and such, also most sa owners dont understand that a DTiVo capacity is rated at the SA best quality. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
ursapooh; how far do you live from Atlanta or any other major market you may be able to recieve networks off the sat or you can do what I do and use your old SA to record off the " lifeline Cable" or off the air or you can "move" http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif to Atlanta. Anyway there is a page at Directv.com on local chanels that you put in your zip and it will tell you what you can recieve off the sat.

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Deo Vindice
Ducit Amour TiVoae
Sony T60 116 Hrs, Sony SVR2000 30 Hrs, Philips HDR312 107 Hr
Philips DSR6000 106 Hrs

Posted by: ursapooh

quote:
Originally posted by Backhack:
Well I was refering to the upgrading of the hardrives and such, also most sa owners dont understand that a DTiVo capacity is rated at the SA best quality. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif
ursapooh; how far do you live from Atlanta or any other major market you may be able to recieve networks off the sat or you can do what I do and use your old SA to record off the " lifeline Cable" or off the air or you can "move" http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/wink.gif to Atlanta. Anyway there is a page at Directv.com on local chanels that you put in your zip and it will tell you what you can recieve off the sat.

I am actually a suburb of ATLANTA but DirectTV doesn't offer my local UPN or WB. How could I go on without Star Trek or Buffy? As for the lifeline cable, my cable company (AT&T) says they are no longer offering anything less than a digital package. Oy.

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Shawn

Posted by: DJRobX

quote:
also most sa owners dont understand that a DTiVo capacity is rated at the SA best quality

Or more specifically, you get "Better-than-best" quality at a data rate that's generally somewhere between Basic and Medium on a SA TiVo. In short, DirecTiVo is *VERY* efficient since it takes advantage of DirecTV's pristine source +expensive encoders.

-- Rob

Posted by: Backhack

Boy same deal for me(Star Trek) except my cable is just poooor Picute quality.I cant wait for January (I had "moved" to my sisters house to get the Houston feeds) http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/biggrin.gif At my bussiness I use an off the air antena for the locals and an old sa tivo and it works pretty well, you could do this until UPN gets on the bird for Atlanta. I cant stress enough the BIG differences in the DTivos ver the SA when you have DTV. The sound is MUCH better if you are using a Home Theater set up. If you add a 80GB drive then you will almost never run out of room and can keep a few movies on indefinetly. IMHO I dont think DTV will keep UPN off much longer. http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif

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Deo Vindice
Ducit Amour TiVoae
Sony T60 116 Hrs, Sony SVR2000 30 Hrs, Philips HDR312 107 Hr
Philips DSR6000 106 Hrs

Posted by: colemanr

quote:
I am actually a suburb of ATLANTA but DirectTV doesn't offer my local UPN or WB. How could I go on without Star Trek or Buffy?

We'll be getting WB36 and UPN69 starting on January 1st from the new spotbeam satellites...

Rob

Posted by: ursapooh

quote:
Originally posted by colemanr:
We'll be getting WB36 and UPN69 starting on January 1st from the new spotbeam satellites...

Rob

That would solve my problem indeed. Is there any verification of that I can go find?

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Shawn

Posted by: ursapooh

quote:
Originally posted by hinsdale:
DirecTiVos only have one recording quality - perfect lossless. He simply meant that the DirecTiVos do not have an MPEG encoder, and actually dump the video stream exactly as it is transmitted from DirecTV satellite. There is no loss because there is no compression (on the TiVo end) and thus all recordings are in "better than best" when compared to SA.

You may want to revisit the Locals issue as a new satellite is being launched in the next few weeks (or maybe already has?) and will be active as of Jan 1 which will include many local markets now not covered. There are must-carry laws in regards to locals which DTV must comply with as of Jan 1 2002.

So adding a 85GB drive to my Tivo gave me 36 hours at best and 130 at basic. Getting the comparable drive for the DirecTivo would only then give me 36 hours?

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Shawn

Posted by: hinsdale

An 80 GB drive will give you an extra 71-73 hours of better than best - or a total of around 106-108 hours of perfect recordings.

Posted by: ursapooh

quote:
Originally posted by hinsdale:
An 80 GB drive will give you an extra 71-73 hours of better than best - or a total of around 106-108 hours of perfect recordings.

How is that possible? Is the DirecTV compression just that much better?

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Shawn

Posted by: redrouteone

TiVo- $5 Mpeg encoder

DirecTV- $50000 Mpeg encoder

Which do you think will do a better job.

Also most stuff on DirecTV is not broadcast in real-time so their encoders spend a lot of time encodeing. Thus better encodeing less bandwith needed to do the same job.

Think of it like a Very Highly tuned Turbo charged 4 cyl vs a V8 big-block. Both will make you go fast very fast, but the 4 banger would use 1/3 the fuel.

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I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."
- Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto (Soh Yamamura)

Posted by: Worf

TiVo's encoder is probably more around $50 in quantity each, but your point's the same. Also, I think DirecTV's encoders are more or less real-time encoders as well - they get incoming stream from the station, encode it and broadcast it. The main reason they cost so much is basically based on quality per bit - DirecTV's encoders can handle VBR, shared bandwidth (each encoder for each channel has to compete for a fixed number of bits available to each satellite - a dynamic allocation controller takes care of this), and still have to output the best possible quality for the least bits. Takes a lot of work and R&D to do it.

TiVo's encoders are designed to compromise quality per bit for cost - they perform so much poorer compared to DirecTV's. DVDs are the same - good movies may be encoded with a better encoder (these can be non-realtime), while worse ones with a cheaper one.

Also, DirecTV has to worry about some stations giving them digital streams, so they don't have to encode it, but have to tell the encoders how much bandwidth has been pre-allocated...

Posted by: davewill

quote:
Originally posted by Worf:
[B]...TiVo's encoders are designed to compromise quality per bit for cost - they perform so much poorer compared to DirecTV's. DVDs are the same - good movies may be encoded with a better encoder (these can be non-realtime), while worse ones with a cheaper one...[B]

All of this is true, but don't forget that DirecTV also starts with MUCH MUCH better source material. MPEG is really sensitive to noise. A lot of people's perception of the different quality settings on TiVo has to do with the clarity of their source. That's one of the reasons why some folks swear that they can't watch anything but High, while others think the Medium or Basic is acceptable. I'm convinced that many of the "only High for me" camp need to improve their signal quality. The SA TiVo's encoder, if fed a pristine video source can produce a decent result at comparable bitrates.

[This message has been edited by davewill (edited 11-21-2001).]

Posted by: Worf

"Basic is good for me"

And I get lousy signal quality. (Check out some of my screenshots I post up - one , more )

Basically, it's filled with noise - a lot less since I installed an amp, but still there. The only reason I record in basic is because of the signal quality - using high quality just means I get a more accurate reproduction of the noise vs. what I get in basic. So given a choice, I just pick basic - I don't care about the extra noise or accuracy of noise.

So I just threw your theory out http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/smile.gif. It's poor enough that "High" doesn't do anything but record it more accurately http://www.avsforum.com/ubb/tongue.gif.

Edit: But yes, I agree, DirecTV starts with much better source material.

[This message has been edited by Worf (edited 11-22-2001).]