TiVo Community Forums Archives - I'm not sure I get it...

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I'm not sure I get it...
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Posted by: bofnyc

I'm really on the fence about buying a Tivo recorder. It sounds like it would be very useful, but I guess what is holding me back is the fact that you can't watch one channel while another channel is recording.

I imagine the following scenario happening quite often:

I'm watching the Yankee game. Meanwhile, Jackass is about to air on MTV. I have a season pass for Jackass, so the Tivo will record it. Unless I'm mistaken, that will mean that I won't be able to continue watching the Yankee game and will have to switch over to Jackass. And if I'm going to have to watch Jackass, then what is the point in recording it?

Am I missing something? Does this happen often to Tivo users out there?

Posted by: unoriginal

If you have basic cable without a cable box you can watch one channel while recording another.

If you have Directv you can record 2 channels at the same time with a DTiVo.

Maybe I am missing something but why do you think you would have to watch Jackass? You could always decide to not record that individual episode. :)

If you do decide to buy a TiVo you won't be sorry! You won't know how you ever lived without it. :)

Posted by: biker

You don't have to record jackass. You could cancel recording jackass or you don't have it to record anything while watching game or record game or watch live. You have many choices. It's really nice when you get use to it.

Posted by: Hunter Green

My VCR can't watch one channel and record another anyway. It's been so many years since I had an antenna input that put multiple clear channels onto the wire that I hardly even remember it.

But with the TiVo, you can get 90% of the benefit of watch-one-record-another. First, since TiVo can scour the other channels and other schedules, it can often find another way to get that other show that's on at the same time as the show you want now. And it does it so simply and so easily that (this is the part that many people miss) you'll actually use it.

Second, after you've had a TiVo a bit you will be in the habit of watching shows when it's convenient for you, wholly irrespective of when the network happens to play it. Since you can watch something that recorded earlier while recording something else, and since you'll almost always watch things that were recorded earlier, ergo, you can watch things whenever you want, and have things record whenever they're there.

If you absolutely have to have two shows on at the same time being taped at the same time and there's no second showing available anywhere for either of them, you can simply split the signal, as mentioned above. But when it comes right down to it, that will be a very, very rare situation indeed.

Posted by: vanguard

To watch one thing while recording another you have a few choices:

Go with directv.
Split your cable.
Watch a previously recorded show.

IME, I find that live tv sort of sucks because of the commercials so I watch more and more recorded stuff. Live TV is still useful for sports because you can replay and slow-mo when and as much as you want.

I hope this helps.

Posted by: vanguard

BTW, replay TV doesn't require you to do anything. It has a "pass-through" mode that does what you're asking for. You may consider that if this is a killer feature for you.

Posted by: bofnyc

Thanks...if faced with this "dillemma", I'd probably just choose to watch one or the other and catch it some other time. I kind of just wanted to hear how users handle this situation. Based on what I've researched through this forum, it does not appear likely that future models will offer the ability to watch one program while recording the other, so there's no point in waiting to jump on the Tivo bandwagon.

The concept of "giving up" live tv is strange indeed. I can't imagine it.

Posted by: arjay

quote:
Originally posted by vanguard
....replay TV....has a "pass-through" mode that does what you're asking for.

Tivo has a "standby" mode which does exactly the same thing.

Posted by: arjay

quote:
Originally posted by bofnyc

The concept of "giving up" live tv is strange indeed. I can't imagine it.

Well, give it a try. No one is forcing you to watch TV in any particular fashion. TiVo encourages timeshifting by the nature of its presentation style but the ultimate decision is yours--and there's no right or wrong involved!

BTW, "live TV" is official TiVo terminology in its menus. It's actually an almost quaint term. The only live TV available these days is news, sports, and special events. Almost all other programs are already prerecorded. What's on now is the "ongoing program"; rarely "live TV".

Posted by: bonscott87

quote:
Originally posted by bofnyc

The concept of "giving up" live tv is strange indeed. I can't imagine it.

Yea it can be at first, but if you like watching Live TV, more power to you. But what you'll probably find is better things to do with your time. You don't *have* to watch Friends on Thrusday night. You could just as easily watch it Saturday afternoon and do something else Thrusday night. You know those times when you are aimlessly channels surfing because there is nothing on? Why waste that time? Just watch one of your favorite shows the Tivo has recorded for you.

As for your Jackass/baseball question: I believe Jackass is one of those shows on several times a week at different times. You certainly don't need to watch it at 9 when it "premiers" for the week. Watch your Yankees and it will record Jackass for you at 3 in the morning or something and you can watch it the next day, or next week, or whenever you feel like it. That's the power of a PVR.

Get at Tivo, you won't regret it!

Posted by: arjay

quote:
Originally posted by bofnyc

The concept of "giving up" live tv is strange indeed. I can't imagine it.

Your thoughts give pause. DVR's are basically designed for easy recording without tape. TiVo's specialty is the ability to most easily program such recordings and have them available later at your convenience. It is programmed with a hell of an algorithm to accomplish this. For me this is overkill.

Right now I use a DVR mainly to record conflicts. I have well over a hundred channels available. On those fairly rare occasions when there's nothing on I want to watch either ongoing or recorded I just turn off the TV and do something else.

But what if DVR's are just an interim phoenomenon? (Go get a DVR--I'm talking probably 10 years or more!) If VOD ever becomes practical and economical it would have all the advantages which DVR's currently offer coupled with a much larger assortment of programming available instantly with no algorithm of any kind and no advance planning required at all.

If VOD was priced right it could sell me and provide succesful competition to watching an ongoing program!

Posted by: gregpr

Well you can watch one thing while recording another when you have cable. Depending on how many inputs your TV has, you can split the cable and run one wire to the Tivo and the other directly to the TV.

If you have cable boxes, you can rent another box. Yeah, it can get to be expensive (I have 3 cable boxes), but decide how important it is to you.

I have Tivo off on it's own cable segment with a digital box so it can do it's thing, without interrupting me watching something else. Giving Tivo a cable box also really increased the number of hits on wishlists :) I've got the IR blaster electric-taped to the front of the cable box and the IR blaster on the Tivo covered so they don't interfere with the other box.

Posted by: mharbold

Hi> Just read your post and I have a question. I just got TIVO and the only thing I don't like about it is that you can't watch live tv while Tivo is recording. So, I read that you can use a splitter on the cable, and then you will be able to watch and record at the same time. I don't understand what you were saying about the IR Blasters? What exactly are they? I have my IR control in the back of my TIVO, and it comes out with two L-shaped things - are these the blasters? I have both of them, around two inches apart, sitting on top of my cable box, pointing to this square thing inside my cable box. (instructions from the TIVO Support) What were you talking about when you said you have an IR blaster on your Tivo and one on your cable box and you don't want them interfering with each other? Sorry, but I'm a newbie. Thanks.

Michelle

Posted by: stevel

Michelle,

Yes those L-shaped things are IR blasters. What a lot of people don't know is that there is an additional IR blaster in the front panel of the TiVo box itself - sometimes this additional signal, bounced off walls, can "confuse" cable boxes, so some folks like to block the front panel blaster, which is what gregpr did.

Posted by: TrevorSky

To further explain, gregpr also has multiple cable boxes. Since they all understand the same IR "codes" for changing channels, he needs a way to change one box without changing the other.

TiVo's IR blaster is attached to TiVo's dedicated cable box, and he has that all covered up. This way, when TiVo changes the channel on the TiVo cable box, his second cable box doesn't change with it.

Likewise, when he hits buttons on his second cable box remote, he doesn't want it to change the channel that TiVo is recording from.

Damn, these things are confusing to explain.

Posted by: Kaokulk

quote:
Originally posted by vanguard
BTW, replay TV doesn't require you to do anything. It has a "pass-through" mode that does what you're asking for. You may consider that if this is a killer feature for you.

Really? I wonder how it would do that with my digital cable box? :rolleyes:

Posted by: Matt McIrvin

quote:
Originally posted by bofnyc
I imagine the following scenario happening quite often:

I'm watching the Yankee game. Meanwhile, Jackass is about to air on MTV. I have a season pass for Jackass, so the Tivo will record it. Unless I'm mistaken, that will mean that I won't be able to continue watching the Yankee game and will have to switch over to Jackass. And if I'm going to have to watch Jackass, then what is the point in recording it?

Am I missing something? Does this happen often to Tivo users out there?

There are several possible ways to handle this.

1. If you're watching live TV, the TiVo always asks before changing the channel. So suppose you actually are watching the game live through the TiVo. It'll pop up a message on screen saying that it wants to change to MTV to record Jackass and asking if this is OK. If you tell it "no, don't do that," it won't.

2. Once you get used to using the TiVo it's likely that you won't even want to watch the Yankee game live-- at least, not completely live. You can start watching a TiVo program before it's done recording. If you tell it to record the game in advance, then you can come in partway through and fast forward over all the commercials, catching up to real time by the end of the game. This is great for sports!

But if you set up to do that, the TiVo will notice that the recording conflicts with the Season Pass for Jackass, and ask you which one you want it to record. If you tell it that the game takes precedence over Jackass, it won't bug you any more about it. If the same episode of Jackass airs at some other time, you'll get it then.

3. Suppose that you absolutely, positively MUST record that Jackass episode at that particular air time, but you also want to watch (or tape) that game. (In my experience, this sort of thing happens most often with prime-time network programming, e.g. "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" and "Andy Richter Controls the Universe".)

One way around this, as long as at least one of the two programs is on an unscrambled, analog channel, is with a cable splitter. This is a three- or four-dollar device you can get at any Target or Radio Shack that you can use to split the incoming cable signal two ways. Send one to the cable box (and thence to the TiVo) and the other straight to the TV, or to your VCR's cable input. The TiVo will get "Jackass" and you can watch the game live through the TV or tape it on your VCR. This approach won't work if both programs are on channels that require use of the cable box, but that's really quite rare.

In a fit of nerdly overkill I bought a *three*-way splitter and ran cables all over the place, so that I could technically watch one thing live on the TV, record another channel on the VCR, and get a third on the TiVo at the same time. But this is more than was strictly necessary for most practical purposes.

Posted by: arjay

quote:
Originally posted by Kaokulk

I wonder how it would do that with my digital cable box?

It wouldn't. ReplayTv's "pass through" and TiVo's "standby" are limited in usable functionality to cable or OTA RF inputs not requiring an intervening cable box.

Posted by: aciurczak

quote:
Originally posted by Matt McIrvin

In a fit of nerdly overkill I bought a *three*-way splitter and ran cables all over the place, so that I could technically watch one thing live on the TV, record another channel on the VCR, and get a third on the TiVo at the same time. But this is more than was strictly necessary for most practical purposes.

In a fit of **extra** nerdly overkill, I traded in my old 3-way splitter for a 2 way splitter, but then ran output into my vcr, then out the vcr to the TV. I can still watch one thing live on TV, record a different thing on the VCR, and record a 3rd thing on the tivo. The only advantage to a 2-way instead of 3-way splitter is slightly less degradation in signal quality.

Posted by: DrStrange

quote:
Originally posted by aciurczak
In a fit of **extra** nerdly overkill...

Bah. In a fit of biggie-sized nerdly overkill, when I had cable instead of DirecTV and only 4 PVRs I had it hooked up so I could watch one thing (either live from cable or from a Tivo) while another Tivo was recording something else from cable while the VCR was recording yet something else from another Tivo or from the cable while the Replay 3030 could be copying something from a DVD, and I could put most any combination of two devices up via my TVs PIP.

Of course I wound up never using PIP, never watched live TV, never recorded TV shows directly to the VCR, rarely copied DVDs to the Replay (rarely used the Replay at all in fact) so when I dumped cable for DirecTV/DTivo/UTV I didn't bother to wire to support all that, although I've since added a PC video capture card to the mix for screen shots for my comparisons. I think I can still copy from PVR to tape in the background and put most anything in PIP, but it's been ages since I've bothered to try.

Posted by: arjay

My ReplayTV's are packed away for reserve use if needed. Nothing in my current set-up requires a phone line except the SA TiVo which is subbed this month only to check out its subbed features.

There is a lot of interconnectivity between components (DBS DVR to TiVo; DVR and/or TiVo to several VCR's; VCR to TiVo; DVD to VCR or TiVo, for example) but the only complicated connections routinely used are those enabling the TiVo to record whatever signal is sent to my main TV (it can be bypassed to avoid its half second delay) and the ability to watch from any of three TV's throughout the house programming from either of two DBS DVR's, multiple OTA sources, various VCR's, and a couple of DVD players.

Two of the three TV's can watch programming from the TiVo. I mostly record conflicts (between programs or my schedule and programs) so especially appreciate the ability to instantly set up tapeless recordings from an EPG. Some of the VCR's are (almost) never used.

Posted by: Breacagan

quote:
Originally posted by arjay
It wouldn't. ReplayTv's "pass through" and TiVo's "standby" are limited in usable functionality to cable or OTA RF inputs not requiring an intervening cable box.

Actually, I think they would work as long as the cable box has an RF Bypass function. However, on my Motorola DCT-2224 box, that requires an extra gizmo (read: extra cost to the cable company) that attaches to the back of the box. Ergo, no RF Bypass function.

Posted by: bobcarn

I have Comcast digital cable. Because Tivo has to change the digital box to whatever channel I want to record, the only thing you can watch from the digital box at that time is whatever Tivo is recording.

But..... I split the cable before it went into the digital box. One part of the split goes directly to the TV, the other half of the split goes to the digital box. From the digital box, I use standard Video/Audio cables to go through Tivo (then a VCR in case I want to permanently save something), then Video/Audio cables to the TV's Video/Audio inputs.

When I'm watching TV with Tivo, I have my TV set to Video1. But when Tivo changes the channel to record something, and I want to watch something else, I just switch the TV to the normal ANTENNAE input and watch whatever my TV can normally get from cable.

My TV is cable-ready, so I can watch any channel that I can normally watch without the cable converter. I actually use this technique on Thursday nights when I record Survivor and watch Friends.

If you don't have a cable box, and just use your cable-ready TV to normally change channels, then putting the Tivo in Standby mode lets you tune the TV normally while Tivo saves stuff for you in the background.

Posted by: tbh999

OK, I'm going to put in my two cents.

Dump cable and get DirecTV. Why? Well because cable companies are EVIL, if you don't believe me just look at my signature line for an independent confirmation. :D

OK, why, well DirecTiVo is the killer app for DirecTV. You can record two different shows while watching a third previously recorded show (or record one show and watch a second live show) all at highest quality mode. OK, I know, not everyone can get locals from DirecTV so I guess that that is a good excuse...

TiVo will change the way to watch TV. I have talked a several people into joining the Tivolution (freinds and family) all were skeptical and worried about the Spousal Approval Factor (SAF). However, within a week they and their spouses were hooked.

The only problem is that the DirceTivo's are very hard to find. They're not in production any more and the DirecTivo Series 2 aren't do out until the end of summer/fall.

Posted by: DBCooper

quote:
Originally posted by Kaokulk
Really? I wonder how it would do that with my digital cable box? :rolleyes:

It won't. On the other hand, very few cable companies have a significant number of digital channels that are not also available as analog channels with similar quality. So the question becomes, why do you have a digital cable box? Indeed, why have a cable box at all? Life is much better and cable is much cheaper with TiVo searching for good, free TV shows. TiVo finds more good stuff than I have time to watch.

Posted by: DBCooper

quote:
Originally posted by tbh999
The only problem is that the DirceTivo's are very hard to find. They're not in production any more and the DirecTivo Series 2 aren't [due] out until the end of summer/fall.

Have you any way to verify that DirectTV with TiVo is out of production? As far as I know, they are scarce, but not out of production by all manufacturers.

And the Series 2 stand-alone is available now from AT&T and from the TiVo website. Best Buy will have them by the end of this month. Indeed, by the end of this week in some cases.

Posted by: ACE101

quote:
The concept of "giving up" live tv is strange indeed. I can't imagine it.

Here's how it went for me when I first converted to TiVo. I also couldn't contemplate not always watching live TV other than dealing with recordings on VCR. Anyhow, I used TiVo much like a VCR at first. That meant if I was recording something and wanted to watch something else, I'd just switch inputs on my TV and use the second cable box I had installed just for that purpose, even when I had the VCR setup. Then the next thing I realized was that I could push pause during live TV and go to the bathroom or make a sandwich or something, and I realized I wasn't watching live TV anymore, but wait-a-minute yes I am but.........Then the lines began to blur. Once I had enough on hard disk, I'd just simply let the recorder record anything I scheduled and just watched one of the shows that I had already recorded. Because you'll ALWAYS have something there that you wanted to watch anyhow.

Live TV is not as much a "reality" as it seems. It's just another concept. Strange yes. Wierd yes. Really really functionally cool? YES!

Ron

P.S. Just wait till you can fast forward through commercials. Live TV is going to seem VERY restrictive very soon to you.......

Posted by: arjay

quote:
Originally posted by ACE101

Live TV is not as much a "reality" as it seems. It's just another concept.

I want to watch the latest episode of a favorite show as soon as it's available.

We just lost accessibility to PBS' national feed. Used to get The Newshour at 4 p.m. PDT. Now I have to wait 'til 6 p.m. to get it locally. Find me a TiVo which can get me the current day's Newshour at 4 p.m. and I'll become a card carrying member of the "TiVolution"!

As I stated earlier in this thread few current TV shows are "live". What's on "now" is the "current program". In days of future past when TiVo may be just a memory the first availability of a program may be a premium event and it then may be offered at regular price on VOD.

Posted by: Skylooker

quote:
Originally posted by Hunter Green
My VCR can't watch one channel and record another anyway. It's been so many years since I had an antenna input that put multiple clear channels onto the wire that I hardly even remember it.

Very important statement right there. Don't be confused by this, since Tivo is no different than your VCR in this regard. The only difference between Tivo and VCR where the "record one, watch another" issue is concerned is that the VCR has a "TV/VCR" button and Tivo has "standby mode". Both of these do the same thing and that is to take that device's coaxial input and loop it through to it's coax output, bypassing the device's internal RF modulator.

So, if there's an "aaaaaw man, that sucks" here, it would exist whether you use a Tivo or a VCR. If you feed OTA antenna or unscrambled cable to this coax input, you're good to go. Otherwise you're talking about additional satellite equipment, cable converters and the like.

Posted by: tbh999

quote:
Originally posted by DBCooper
Have you any way to verify that DirectTV with TiVo is out of production? As far as I know, they are scarce, but not out of production by all manufacturers.

You are right I do not KNOW that the DirecTivo Series one are out of production. However, all indications are that at least the Philips units are, people that have recently purchased units have said that the manufacture date is over a year old and some vendors REPORTEDLY are limiting sales of DirecTivo's to NEW DirecTV customers only (because of the kick-back they get from DirecTV for signing up new customers). I don't know about Sony or Hughes.

quote:
Originally posted by DBCooper
And the Series 2 stand-alone is available now from AT&T and from the TiVo website. Best Buy will have them by the end of this month. Indeed, by the end of this week in some cases.

I know that the Series 2 stand-alones are available, I was referring to the Series 2 combo units (DirecTivo, DTivo, etc).