I want to buy a TIVO so bad but......

[beequick]

With my current Dish Network and VIP 622 receiver I can watch 2 different channels on two different televisions with one receiver. I am not here to bash Tivo by any means. I really really want one for their programming and transferring to PC technology but Tivo not being able to offer this hinders me greatly due to having kids watching programs downstairs and me watching my shows upstairs. I just want to get rid of Dish right now and go to Comcast with TIVO but this is holding me up so much.

Is Series 4 going to offer this capability and not rely on the Multi Room Viewing, which is really sad technology. I know they are getting SDV and this will free up bandwidth will this also allow a more streamlined process of just having ONE tivo?

[MickeS]

Nobody knows if TiVo will ever have this functionality. Personally I doubt it.

[HPD]

With my current Dish Network and VIP 622 receiver I can watch 2 different channels on two different televisions with one receiver. I am not here to bash Tivo by any means. I really really want one for their programming and transferring to PC technology but Tivo not being able to offer this hinders me greatly due to having kids watching programs downstairs and me watching my shows upstairs. I just want to get rid of Dish right now and go to Comcast with TIVO but this is holding me up so much.

Is Series 4 going to offer this capability and not rely on the Multi Room Viewing, which is really sad technology. I know they are getting SDV and this will free up bandwidth will this also allow a more streamlined process of just having ONE tivo?

Why would anyone want only one Tivo. With two you have four tuners and with three you have six tuners. That means you can always record ALL of your favorite programs.

[exegesis48]

I'm a recent switcher from Dish Network to Tivo (Comcast). I couldn't be happier. The multi-room viewing feature of the ViP 622 is nice, but it's not really an advantage over the Tivo. When I first signed up for Dish I had to pay $199 for the 622 (i think that may have changed now, but it was a year ago). You can get a Tivo HD from Amazon for around $250, not much more than the leased 622 that I had to send back to Dish when I recently switched. That Tivo HD is standalone and can record two programs at once (just like the 622). Now for another $50 you can get a Series 2 from Tivo which you can install in a second room and also record two programs at once. So really, for $100 more than a leased 622, you get more capability. Don't get me wrong, I loved my 622, it did EXACTLY what it was supposed to do. But the thing is, I love my Tivo HD more... It does what it's supposed to, and more. It's nice having Tivo Suggestions, you'll never know what you are missing on the 622 until you switch. Just make sure that you tell the Cable Company that you are a Dish customer, because they will give you some sweet offers to convince you to switch.

[steve614]

I've seen/heard the commercials for dish DVRs being able to output to 2 TVs and thought to myself how cool this would be for Tivo.

IMO, this is the only reason Dish can truthfully advertise ''better than Tivo''.

[exegesis48]

It can only output one tuner to each tv, that really isn't that amazing. It's just a way for them to save money on hardware really, you're not really the benefactor. Especially since the second TV is SD only. The reason that they say it's better than Tivo is because of the reviews on CNet.com and other sites. The 622 is a wonderful piece of kit, but not just because of the multi-room viewing feature. The 622 is much faster than tivo when navigating menus, and it doesn't really require much of a learning curve as it operates just a like a TV Guide. Tivo is great at recording what you MIGHT want, but it's alot easier to record EXACTLY what you want on the 622.

[bkdtv]

Note Dish Network dropped that "two output" capability from its newest, lower cost ViP622 HDTV DVR.

That new Dish ViP622, DirecTV HR21, and the TivoHD are all based on the Broadcom BCM7401 which is not capable of decoding and outputting two different channels simultaneously. The Dish 622/722 use an older Broadcom chip with that capability.

No Dish DVR offers multi-room viewing in HD like the TiVo.

[brennt]

I just recently got a TivoHD paired with Verizon Fios. I will be canceling Dish with a 622 soon. When I first got the 622, I had it in multi-room mode. I quickly found out that with both tuners occupied for live viewing, that conflicts easily occur when a timer is set to go off on another channel. I soon disabled the multiroom feature, as it didn't seem to be that great to me at the time.

I do think the 622 is much better in many respects than the TivoHD. But as I adapt to the TivoHD, I'm starting to overlook some of these items. I just upgraded to a 1T internal HD, and I am very happy about that. I was running only OTA on the Tivo until Fios was installed 2 days ago. Now, with the TivoHD/Fios combo, I am happier than the Dish/622.

[wmcbrine]

I just upgraded to a 1G internal HDI hope you meant "1T"! :)

[brennt]

I hope you meant "1T"! :)

Oops! I edited my post to show 1T. I guess I wouldn't be watching much HD with 1G :D

[TolloNodre]

It can only output one tuner to each tv, that really isn't that amazing. It's just a way for them to save money on hardware really, you're not really the benefactor.

I disagree, that capability also allowed for Picture-In-Picture when not using the 'two output' mode. That is something that I would like to see TiVo do.

[pilotbob]

Why would anyone want only one Tivo. With two you have four tuners and with three you have six tuners. That means you can always record ALL of your favorite programs.

If only TiVO would enable SP leveling... so that you add a season pass to "any" TiVo and it is shared on all your TiVOs and the SP's are records where there is a free tuner and/or free hard drive space.

BOb

[ZeoTiVo]

I've seen/heard the commercials for dish DVRs being able to output to 2 TVs and thought to myself how cool this would be for Tivo.

IMO, this is the only reason Dish can truthfully advertise ''better than Tivo''.

meh, second output is SD only. Not much of a feature really and only on the high end VIPs.

with my TiVo setup I can watch any show on any TV in the House in SD and as I switch them over to TiVoHD I canwatch any HD show on any TiVo in the house.

In fact I recently had house guests who were on vacation and had some missed someshows like New Amsterdam and the Sopranos. They stayed in our bonus room, which also has the TV and TiVo the kids normally use. Instead of silly cartoons my guests watched those shows in the evening before going to sleep and were quite pleased with the MRV functionality. The Sopranos was also a suggestion that recorded since I was not watching it at the time yet they were able to watch the next one in the series as they were watching since the suggestion was there.

so maybe mostly SD at my house but my house guests did not mind and found the MRV feature far more useful than being to tune in some second tuner for Live TV.


PS - I also have no desire for PIP on my TiVo DVRs. I want to choose to watch live TV and with a 30 minute buffer can pause it if needed to do something in a menu.

[TolloNodre]

I also have no desire for PIP on my TiVo DVRs. I want to choose to watch live TV and with a 30 minute buffer can pause it if needed to do something in a menu.

And giving someone else the option for PIP prevents you from choosing how to watch live TV?

Oh wait, it doesn't. :p

[ZeoTiVo]

And giving someone else the option for PIP prevents you from choosing how to watch live TV?

Oh wait, it doesn't. :p

if TiVo added PIM as optional - I would turn it off, whine a bit about resources wasted and forget about it.

far more functional would be ability for HME to overlay the video though with things like caller id, fantasy stats on game day or real time weather alerts etc..

[mattack]

If only TiVO would enable SP leveling... so that you add a season pass to "any" TiVo and it is shared on all your TiVOs and the SP's are records where there is a free tuner and/or free hard drive space.

This has been called "cooperative scheduling" in discussions here.

I would pay $$$ for this feature, even though I have lifetime subscriptions on my Tivos.
(Though I can already think of counter-examples.. I am usually near FULL on my Tivos.. so I sometimes purposely cancel recordings and reschedule them on another Tivo. But I guess I would purposely get over that for cooperative scheduling. Though with 4 tuners now, I already can add padding on most shows I care about.)

[mattack]

Why would anyone want only one Tivo. With two you have four tuners and with three you have six tuners. That means you can always record ALL of your favorite programs.

Fewer Tivos == fewer separate subscriptions (including lifetime subscriptions).

[TiVoEvan74]

I hope TiVo 6 will enable me to watch 6 TVs at the same time, while I record from another 6, all from 1 receiver! :)