# Upgrading to Premier, any way to get Copy Write Protected movies onto PC or 2nd Tivo?



## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Thinking of upgrading my Tivo HD with 1tb WD drive, but I am leary a lot of my movies will not transfer with the Red No Smoking sign, saying copy write protected.

Any other ways to get them to another Tivo or to my PC through anything other than Tivo Desktop? The media is encrypted where I cant plug the 1tb drive into a computer and drag and drop correct?

Thank you, 

Shane


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> Thinking of upgrading my Tivo HD


I think you mean "downgrading". The Premier is not an upgrade, especially for someone in your situation.



Shanezam203 said:


> with 1tb WD drive, but I am leary a lot of my movies will not transfer with the Red No Smoking sign, saying copy write protected.
> 
> Any other ways to get them to another Tivo or to my PC through anything other than Tivo Desktop?


Yes, but not with an un-modified TiVo. It would have to be modified. Once done correctly, it can transfer to a PC. It cannot transfer directly to a Premier.

For more details, see the "other" TiVo forum.



Shanezam203 said:


> The media is encrypted where I cant plug the 1tb drive into a computer and drag and drop correct?


It's more than just that, although the programs are indeed encrypted. They also reside on a file system your PC cannot read (or write).


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> I think you mean "downgrading". The Premier is not an upgrade, especially for someone in your situation.


Yeah I am on the fence about upgrading... 
Why specifically is Premier a downgrade from my Series 3 HD with Lifetime?


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> Yeah I am on the fence about upgrading...
> Why specifically is Premier a downgrade from my Series 3 HD with Lifetime?


The Premier has considerably faster networking capabilities than an unmodified Series III, particularly a THD, but other than that there are very few significant features available on the Premier that are not available on the Series III class machines. The main issue, however, is copy protection cannot be circumvented on the Premier, nor can any other of a host of fairly important features, depending upon one's desires and considrations, be implemented on the Premier. They can be on a modified S3 or THD. This includes the ability to transfer material that would otherwise be copy protected, like the videos on your THD.

Again, for more details, see the "other" forum.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

You say the Premiere is a Downgrade from the Series 3 Tivo HD, how is that specifically?

I'm not interested in moding my Tivo any and understand it won't transfer copy written media over any better, other than that what are some advantages and disadvantages of the new Premier box compared to my S3 Tivo HD?

Thanks, 
Shane


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## Joe01880 (Feb 8, 2009)

Shanezam203 said:


> You say the Premiere is a Downgrade from the Series 3 Tivo HD, how is that specifically?
> 
> what are some advantages and disadvantages of the new Premier box compared to my S3 Tivo HD?
> 
> ...


Faster transfer time between 2 premieres, the HDUI that is functionally slower then a series 3 or THD SDUI, the SDUI of the Premiere is very fast.
Othen than that, IMO..nothing


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Right, I notice on my Tivo HD when I use the swivel search, it is slow. It will be like that on my Premiere? 

Anyone else upgrade from Tivo HD?


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> Why specifically is Premier a downgrade from my Series 3 HD with Lifetime?


It's not. Please ignore him. The Premiere is superior in every way, except that it's even more resistant to modification. That's the entirety of lrhorer's objection. For those (like you) who have no intention of hacking it, that's irrelevant.

You don't have a lot of options, though. The transfers are restricted on the TiVo side, not the Desktop side, so alternative software won't help. Without hacking it, I think you'll have to take the output from the TiVo and feed it into capture hardware, like a video capture card for your computer, or a DVD recorder. And if you want HD to remain HD, you'll have to use the computer.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Shanezam203 said:


> I'm not interested in moding my Tivo any and *understand it won't transfer copy written media over any better*, <snip>
> 
> Thanks,
> Shane


That's the point, on a modified Tivo you can disable the encryption and have no red smoking sign so wouldn't be in this situation...


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> It's not. Please ignore him. The Premiere is superior in every way


In a larger sense, the Premier is superior in no way whatsoever. It is slower at networking than a hacked S3, and it offers nothing of value that is not locked down by DRM or other unacceptably restrictive copyright.



wmcbrine said:


> except that it's even more resistant to modification. That's the entirety of lrhorer's objection. For those (like you) who have no intention of hacking it


That is an assumption, and a bad one.



wmcbrine said:


> that's irrelevant.


No, it definitely is not. The fact one purchases a platform that has unacceptable features means one implicitly supports those features and encourages their proliferation. The fact one person has no use for services does not make it acceptable for that person to force restrictions on others that prevent their using those services, whether implicitly or explicitly.

The existence of choice, whether one makes use of it or not, is of utmost importance. I have absolutely no desire to make any use of most of the freedoms I have, but it is utterly imperative that I have those choices to make.



wmcbrine said:


> You don't have a lot of options, though.


And you don't see that as relevant?!?!? A lack of options is just unacceptable. We fought a couple of wars over that ideal.

The simple fact is, if I were to purchase a Premier, it would be a door stop. All, and I mean *ALL* of the most important features would be missing. Your own software, BTW, which is excellent, would be completely worthless.

Any platform which eliminated options is unacceptable, the fact I may or may not wish to implement them notwithstanding. I have absolutely no desire to implement Network Caller ID on my TiVos, for example. Indeed, were it enabled without option on the TiVo and were I not quite able to remove it myself, then I would be willing to pay a fair amount to have such an offensive service removed from my TiVos, but it is completely unacceptable the Premier cannot provide this service. The important question is not what I or anyone else specifically chooses, but that we have the ability to choose.

OTOH, I do definitely want to be able to eliminate the pause advertisements, make efficient use of the search and correlation engines in the TiVo without having to deal with the stupid UI, and freely make whatever legal use of the videos I have in my house I may choose. I also demand that I be able to run whatever software I choose on any computing platform I own. No one - *NO ONE* - has any right to limit that choice.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I'm not interested in moding my Tivo any


That's your choice, but by making that choice you eliminate several of the more important features available on the TiVo.



Shanezam203 said:


> and understand it won't transfer copy written media over any better


(I think you mean copy protected, not copyrighted.) You understand wrong. Although there are a very large number of features available to a hacked TiVo not available to an unmodified one, for many users the very most important (in some cases the only) additional feature is the ability to disable or circumvent the CCI byte.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Soapm said:


> That's the point, on a modified Tivo you can disable the encryption and have no red smoking sign so wouldn't be in this situation...


Technically, the "no smoking" sign has nothing to do with a program's being encrypted. On an unmodified TiVo, recordings with CCI=0x00 are still encrypted. Functionally, this means transferring such recordings can be done with the embedded TTG and MRV utilities, which are very slow. If the recordings are unencrypted, then they can be transferred with 3rd party applications irrespective of the CCI byte value. In short, on a modified TiVo, if CCI=0x00, but the program is encrypted then the program can still be transferred using TTG or MRV, but not other utilities (well, it can be transferred, but one can't do much with it). If the value of the CCI byte is other than zero, but the program is unencrypted, then it cannot be transferred using TTG or MRV, but it can be transferred via other utilities and then read or edited to suit the user's requirements.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> That is an assumption, and a bad one.


It's not an assumption; he explicitly stated it.

You have no sense of the appropriate audience for your rants.



> _The simple fact is, if I were to purchase a Premier, it would be a door stop. All, and I mean *ALL* of the most important features would be missing. Your own software, BTW, which is excellent, would be completely worthless._


My own software makes no use of hacked features at all. I have a Premiere. It is not a door stop.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> It's not an assumption; he explicitly stated it.


And then immediately made additional inquiries offline. The entire difference was his own misapprehension that modifying the system would not meet his needs. He may in the end elect not to modify his TiVo, but this fact does not make your assumption warranted, even if he had not qualified his statement (which fact you ignored).



Shanezam203 said:


> You have no sense of the appropriate audience for your rants.


I have no desire to be sensible of such irrelevancies. This is not a private conversation, it it is a public forum. For every one active participant who has no interest in a specific aspect of a topic there are ten lurkers who do. Responses that only consider the active participants are not only unnecessarily limited and lacking in relevance by comparison, they are in fact arrogant and self centered.



wmcbrine said:


> My own software makes no use of hacked features at all. I have a Premiere. It is not a door stop.


That is because you are fortunate enough to have a provider who does not copy protect everything they legally can. Although such providers currently serve a slender majority of users, that percentage is dwindling daily. If the trend continues, you will be part of a very small minority, and eventually may be forced to join the other camp. In this case, it is highly likely your tune will change considerably - which means it was never a valid tune from the outset. Certainly in this case it does not apply to the OP. If it is or ever will be his intent to make use of MRV or TTG or similar applications, then the Premier is not an option. It is not an acceptable option in any case, the fact your own personal requirements just happen to be met at the moment notwithstanding.

If my TiVo's were not hacked, pyTivo would have absolutely nothing to do (as far as videos are concerned, anyway), because it would have no videos on which to perform any actions. To most intents and purposes, pyTiVo is only useful if there is no copy protection in place.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> That is because you are fortunate enough to have a provider who does not copy protect everything they legally can. ... To most intents and purposes, pyTiVo is only useful if there is no copy protection in place.


No, actually it's not because of that, although I am fortunate in that regard. The main function of pyTivo is transferring videos _from_ the computer _to_ the TiVo. If there were _no_ recordings that I could pull from the TiVo to the computer -- none at all, zero -- that would affect that function hardly at all. There are a great many sources of video in the world other than TiVos. Most videos that I send to my TiVo did not originate there, nor on other TiVos.

But no one is even in that extreme situation. All OTA channels are in the clear, and all OTA-equivalent cable channels should be, unless your cable system is acting illegally. And a large portion of what most people watch is on such channels.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

With my Tivo HD I have an external 1tb drive, so I like to record season passes & movies. I never had good luck installing pyTivo the 2 times I tried but I do use Tivo Desktop to stream media from my PC (tivitunes itunes playlists & pics & videos in .Tivo format) and it works well. 

Short of this need to transfer copy write Protected files, I don't do much more. Even if I was replacing my Tivo HD with another Tivo HD and keeping my Lifetime, not all my media would easily sync to my new box. I think that is a bit of a step forward (new equiptment) but a step backwards in regards to my recordings.

Online Season Pass Manager is nice, that wasn't available when I went from Series 2 to Series 3 HD, so that will help with my 50 Season Passes, it's just frusterating the media on my 1tb drive will be lost if paired with another Tivo & not as easy as you'd think Plug & Play like other USB media devices to a computer are...

Regarding the new Tivo Premiere, I believe it has almost double the recording space, an upgraded UI & Search + the little LIVE TV built into the Tivo Menu... + it is much smaller in dimensions Width wise & they are throwing in a slider remote, something I was considering buying for $40 - $60 in the past.


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## shwru980r (Jun 22, 2008)

Shanezam203 said:


> Thinking of upgrading my Tivo HD with 1tb WD drive, but I am leary a lot of my movies will not transfer with the Red No Smoking sign, saying copy write protected.
> 
> Any other ways to get them to another Tivo or to my PC through anything other than Tivo Desktop? The media is encrypted where I cant plug the 1tb drive into a computer and drag and drop correct?
> 
> ...


You could set up wish list searches on your premiere to record the copy protected movies when they are aired again. Most movies will be broadcast again eventually. You can only watch so much programming at one time anyway.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

shwru980r said:


> You could set up wish list searches on your premiere to record the copy protected movies when they are aired again. Most movies will be broadcast again eventually. You can only watch so much programming at one time anyway.


That's what I'll do, I'm ok with that. :up: it just would be nice if whatever was on the 1tb external drive would stay. wonder why it is married to the Tivo box.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

shwru980r said:


> You could set up wish list searches on your premiere to record the copy protected movies when they are aired again. Most movies will be broadcast again eventually. You can only watch so much programming at one time anyway.


I have one movie recorded (Arabesque) that for some reason won't transfer fully to my Video server. I have been waiting five years for it to be broadcast again. There were more than 60 other videos that until fairly recently I could not transfer, either, and I had been waiting over four years for many of them. I have been waiting more than 10 years for Scavenger Hunt to be re-broadcast, and there is a very long list of programs I have which have some inferior aspect related to them and for which I have been waiting quite some years to be re-broadcast. Depending on the OP's list, it might be many, many years before some of them are re-broadcast. It's up to him, of course, if he chooses to roll the dice.

The amount of programming one may or may not view in any given interval is irrelevant. The question is one of which videos, not how many.

Perhaps more importantly, he is going to have the same problem when it comes time to replace the Premier, assuming he buys one now. Indeed, unless he deploys an open platform, then every single time he looks to change or upgrade the platform he will be faced with the same issue. It has only been about 4-1/2 years since the introduction of the THD, so he is potentially looking at facing this issue every 4 - 5 years, or maybe less, and that is assuming he doesn't suffer any hard drive failures along the way.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Shanezam203 said:


> That's what I'll do, I'm ok with that. :up: it just would be nice if whatever was on the 1tb external drive would stay. wonder why it is married to the Tivo box.


I agree, it would be nice if it was a standalone device that could be moved from device to device while loaded with movies etc...,


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Soapm said:


> I agree, it would be nice if it was a standalone device that could be moved from device to device while loaded with movies etc...,


That would be real nice! I wish I could record MOVIES to the External 1tb in the event I ever replace my Tivo. maybe in time.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> No, actually it's not because of that, although I am fortunate in that regard. The main function of pyTivo is transferring videos _from_ the computer _to_ the TiVo. If there were _no_ recordings that I could pull from the TiVo to the computer -- none at all, zero -- that would affect that function hardly at all.


This presumes there is some other source than the TiVo for those programs. For many of us, this is not the case.



wmcbrine said:


> There are a great many sources of video in the world other than TiVos. Most videos that I send to my TiVo did not originate there, nor on other TiVos.


I do not know how unique that situation may be in the DVR world at large, but it is certainly not the case for me, and judging by the posts in this forum, not for quite a few other individuals, as well. I do have a trifling number of videos that were not sourced from the TiVos - about 70 DVDs and a half dozen videos I created myself - but the remainder of the roughy 2000 videos on my server all came from the TiVo.

More to the point, there would be no reason to have a TiVo at all if it were not the source of videos. There are plenty of other devices that cost much less than the TiVo that are able to play the videos on my server. Eliminate the ability to transfer videos from the TiVo, and one eliminates the need for the TiVo and pyTiVo in this respect.



wmcbrine said:


> But no one is even in that extreme situation. All OTA channels are in the clear, and all OTA-equivalent cable channels should be, unless your cable system is acting illegally.


That is worse than useless. Eliminating PBS, even if there were a significant number of OTA channels ( 4 is not a significant number compared with more than 350), the content on them is almost entirely worthless. Given a choice between watching that drek and watching nothing, I will read a book or listen to music. That, however, is simply my choice. The important point, yet again, is the ability to choose.



wmcbrine said:


> And a large portion of what most people watch is on such channels.


That is true, although it means they are not only seeking the content that appeals to the least common denominator, it also means they are supporting the activities of a body who engages in censorship, which is an utter outrage. It also means they force upon themselves an endless stream of mindless advertisements that interrupt the flow of entertainment for which they have paid good money, which is also an outrage. OTOH, take a look at the ratings over the last 20 years. Although the networks still enjoy the bulk of all viewing volume, the percentage of viewers who choose alternative sources has been steadily climbing, with the network penetration declining. There is a more salient point at hand, however. In this context, we are not speaking of households in general, but only that subset who choose to transfr videos from their Tivo to an external device. Even in such households which view a significant amount of local broadcast programming, I strongly suspect a significant amount, perhaps even most, of the content that is chosen to transfer is not from an OTA source. In my case, the amount transferred from OTA content other than PBS is flat zero, so my statement - which was qualified to apply specifically to me - was 100% accurate. In my household, a Premier would be little more than a hugely over-priced brick.

To that, however, I hasten to add that quite contrary to your statement above, even if the Premier were not locked down tight, I still would not recommend it as an upgrade to an S3 class TiVo. It has nothing of great enough significance to justify the expenditure of several hundred dollars to replace a platform that performs perfectly well.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> This presumes there is some other source than the TiVo for those programs. For many of us, this is not the case.


I'm pretty sure it's the case for everyone. You're on the Internet.



> _To that, however, I hasten to add that quite contrary to your statement above, even if the Premier were not locked down tight, I still would not recommend it as an upgrade to an S3 class TiVo. It has nothing of great enough significance to justify the expenditure of several hundred dollars to replace a platform that performs perfectly well._


Whether it's a superior machine (it is), and whether it's worthwhile as an upgrade (very questionable) are two different issues.


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## MichaelK (Jan 10, 2002)

Shanezam203 said:


> .... wonder why it is married to the Tivo box.


Tivo made that choice to make nicey nice with the cable people (NOT necessarily the content owners) so that Tivo could get external drives approved for use by cablelabs.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

wmcbrine said:


> Whether it's a superior machine (it is), and whether it's worthwhile as an upgrade (very questionable) are two different issues.


I'm still on the fence about the Premiere upgrade; can anyone offer any more thoughts???


Currently I have a Tivo S3 HD with Lifetime. 
Premier I can get for $199 + $6.95 Multi- Service Discount.
I found someone to buy my Tivo HD with Lifetime for $300.

So I'm $100 ahead or that's 14 months of service...

Not much about the Premiere is jumping out at me to give up my lifetime, lose my 1 TB of movies and shows (multiple season passes) and all the time spent attempting to re record some of my recordings or transfer via multi room viewing or Tivo Desktop. 

Thanks,

Shane


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## generaltso (Nov 4, 2003)

I use the iPad or iPhone ap with my TiVo Premieres on a daily basis. Full functionality of those aps is not available for the S3. 

I've had many OLED S3 and HD boxes over the years, and I now have 3 premieres. I think it's a worthwhile upgrade.


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## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

Shanezam203 said:


> I'm still on the fence about the Premiere upgrade; can anyone offer any more thoughts?


It is the only model actively developed for by TiVo.

Streaming of recordings from premiere to premiere. Bypassing your no smoking sign issue.

Ability to use the TiVo vaporware, I mean TiVo preview with a premiere.

Full iPad and iPhone app support. I do love searching for stuff on my iPhone and launching it to the TiVo. 
Hulu plus

Amazon prime streaming, if you believe TiVos Facebook.

New upcoming netflix interface, if you believe TiVos PR monkey.

1080p output

And this major upgrade that the premiere that will knock your socks off this month according to TiVo Margaret.


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## Phantom Gremlin (Jun 20, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> I'm pretty sure it's the case for everyone. You're on the Internet.


That's not fair.

I'm sure he knows that The Pirate Bay exists. As do I. And yet I've never once downloaded a movie via bittorrent.

However, I do squirrel away some content recorded by my TiVo (less so now since Frontier blocked all non-OTA channels from transfer). IMO my actions are completely legal, and TPB most likely isn't. That's why I don't use TPB and that's probably why lrhorer probably didn't consider it as an alternative.

It shouldn't be necessary to qualify all statements here with the word "legally".


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Aero 1 said:


> New upcoming netflix interface, if you believe TiVos PR monkey.
> 
> 1080p output
> 
> And this major upgrade that the premiere that will knock your socks off this month according to TiVo Margaret.


Above 3 will be nice. Will the major upgrade that is determined to knock off socks be for only the Premiere's and not the S3 HD?

Thanks for all the info,

Shane


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> It shouldn't be necessary to qualify all statements here with the word "legally".


Frankly, it is. We're on the edges all over the place on this general topic.

In fact, under RICO statutes we're probably all guilty just by being here. And under the Patriot Act and other associated protections of our safety they could probably put the whole lot of us in jail for life.

So be careful what you say, or the conversation you seem to be contributing to. Dropping a few "legally"s now and then may help at your trial, if you _get_ a trial.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Shanezam203 said:


> I'm still on the fence about the Premiere upgrade; can anyone offer any more thoughts???
> 
> 
> Currently I have a Tivo S3 HD with Lifetime.
> ...


I have both a HD and Premier running at my house. I can say the premier is a nice machine. Snappy menu's, the HD menus are nice (you can keep watching your show) and mine has been rock solid. The only time I recall it rebooting was when the software updated and when I moved it.

I will also say for my needs it offers nothing my HD doesn't have. I'm not saying you can't get things like Hulu plus but frankly I have no use for Hulu. So if all you want is new and improved then by all means get a premier but if all you need is a Tivo then save your loot. A lifetime HD is paid for and an able machine for the job...

ps... I will be unsubscribing my premier tomorrow. I may get a lifetime to make it more sell-able but I don't have a use for it.


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## Soapm (May 9, 2007)

Aero 1 said:


> New upcoming netflix interface, if you believe TiVos PR monkey.


I don't find anything on Netflix worth paying the monthly fee. Every show I wanted to see said, "Not available online". YMMV...


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## Aero 1 (Aug 8, 2007)

Shanezam203 said:


> Above 3 will be nice. Will the major upgrade that is determined to knock off socks be for only the Premiere's and not the S3 HD?
> 
> Thanks for all the info,
> 
> Shane


the HD is not going to be supported with new features, you will only see rare, under the hood updates . its old.


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## hillyard (Nov 1, 2011)

I have an HD and a Premier. I like the hd better as it works how it always have. The premire has been screwed up with the new software so the hd not getting updated is a plus.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

Aero 1 said:


> the HD is not going to be supported with new features, you will only see rare, under the hood updates . its old.


Ok, then that is a good plus to upgrade.


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## wmcbrine (Aug 2, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> IMO my actions are completely legal


I guarantee you the copyright holders don't share that view.

You should read what Jack Valenti said about the VCR sometime.


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## Wil (Sep 27, 2002)

wmcbrine said:


> I guarantee you the copyright holders don't share that view.
> 
> You should read what Jack Valenti said about the VCR sometime.


I stopped listening to Jack Valenti when he proclaimed he slept better with LBJ as president, though now Valenti's dead he's making a lot more sense.

Copyright holders are not responsible for the restrictions in in-home viewing, nor are the conduits like HBO, etc.; it's the cable companies.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> I'm pretty sure it's the case for everyone. You're on the Internet.


You must have misunderstood my original post. Being on the internet is irrelevant to the issue at hand and your response is non-sequiteur to my original point. With the exception of a relative handful of DVDs and a very small number of videos I authored myself, all the videos on my server originally came from one of my TiVos. There is no other source I choose to use to feed my server, and I suspect the same is true for some siignificant number of users of Galleon, kmttg, pyTivo, etc.

How the internet would have relevancy to that is beyond me. (Yes, I realize the very fact pyTivo was created with the ability to transcode on the fly means it was designed from the outset to handle content that did not come from a Tivo, but that feature is not one of relevance to me and to many others. That does not mean it is a bad feature - quite to the contrary - but it is one of which many of us indirectly choose not to make use.)



wmcbrine said:


> Whether it's a superior machine (it is),


I quite disagree. Generally speaking, I am as concerned with superior performance as anyone else, but I am not so blind as to consider performance the only metric which determines a valid value judgment. The fact theBCM7413 is faster than the BCM7038 and BCM7041 or that the platform boasts dual CPU cores is not irerelevant, but it is overshadowed by the inherent crippling of the platform involved with the individualized crypto keys deployed in the unit.

More specifically, if I were concerned about better network performance in this case, then I would not be employing TTG or the Ethernet interface. I would be using back-ported USB drivers with a 1G USB / Ethernet adapter and 3rd party transfer utilities, all three being readily available.



wmcbrine said:


> and whether it's worthwhile as an upgrade (very questionable) are two different issues.


Agreed, but a Ferrari which will run only on gasoline purhcased from Ferrari is a hunk of garbage, no matter how fast it can run or how expensive and well designed its components.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Shanezam203 said:


> I'm still on the fence about the Premiere upgrade; can anyone offer any more thoughts???
> 
> 
> Currently I have a Tivo S3 HD with Lifetime.
> ...


Unless you have a 3rd Tivo in the mix, you lose the MSD when you sell the THD.



Shanezam203 said:


> Not much about the Premiere is jumping out at me to give up my lifetime, lose my 1 TB of movies and shows (multiple season passes) and all the time spent attempting to re record some of my recordings or transfer via multi room viewing or Tivo Desktop.


Well, I would be of much the same opinion with one exception: Transferring the content off to an open platform offers a number of important advantages. For one thing, no matter what, if the content resides solely on a TiVo, then sooner or later you *WILL* lose it, whether by hard drive failure, human error, or a system upgrade.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Phantom Gremlin said:


> I'm sure he knows that The Pirate Bay exists. As do I. And yet I've never once downloaded a movie via bittorrent.


Is that what he meant?

William, is that what you meant? If so, then you absolutely completely missed my point. I was not saying that other sources of video (regardless of how questionable they may or may not be) do not exist. I am saying that many of us choose to use the TiVo as the one and only source of video for our pyTivo systems.

No offense, but it seems you have a real cognitive block against the notion of one choosing a particular strategy or that such an ability to choose is important.

For the record, I have never downloaded anything from the net unless I have properly rented or purhased it, or otherwise met the requirements of the copyright holder.

On a different note, I am skeptical most of the content I want is available on Pirate Bay, although I really cannot say, since I have never participated or even investigated it, nor do I ever intend to do so.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

wmcbrine said:


> I guarantee you the copyright holders don't share that view.


If you are speaking of the CCI byte, then the copyright holders have absolutely no legal say in the matter. Setting the CCI byte to values lower than 0x02 is by law solely at the discretion of the CATV provider, not the copyright holder, on any channel other than a locally broadcast one. What's more, honoring, or not, the CCI byte is not in any form or fasion a matter of law, period. It is a requirement for certification by CableLabs, but CableLabs is not in any way or form a governmental entity and has zero legal authority. A CATV system is not required to support a box that is not CC certified, but other than that there is no legal authority involved. There isn't even a requirement that any CATV system refuse to support an unapproved platform, merely a requirement they do support one that is. Indeed, it is not even required that a CATV company (or effective equivalent) be a member of CableLabs or offer any support or endorsement to CableLabs or be affiliated in any way with them. The most obvious example is Verizon, who is in no way associated with CableLabs.

On this point the regs seem a little fuzzier, but it looks to me like Verizon's support of CableCards is totally voluntary. Certainly AT&T does not support them, and the Satellite providers are definitely specifically allowed an exclusion. By my reading I don't think Verizon qualifies as a CATV system, or at least is not forced to qualify as such.

If you are speaking of something other than the CCI byte, then things get fuzzier, again.


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## lrhorer (Aug 31, 2003)

Aero 1 said:


> the HD is not going to be supported with new features, you will only see rare, under the hood updates


All of which are really excellent reasons to prefer the S3 to the Premier.

You can have all your bells and whistles and keep them far from me. I seek that which is stable, reliable, well understood, and widely supported.

I have also yet to see a single, solitary proposed new feature that is of any significant value.



Aero 1 said:


> its old.


Oh, brother. 
Not even. I only retired my (nearly) 12 year old S1 when it died a couple of months ago, despite having three S3 class TiVos in the house for over four years. I have numerous hardware platforms under my management that are nearly 30 years old. When a platform becomes obsolete, I dump it, but contrary to the foolishness engendered by the "newest model" syndrome, a platform does not become obsolete until it fails to provide appropriate service. If a platform does what is required of it, then replacing it is nothing but a waste of money.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

lrhorer said:


> Unless you have a 3rd Tivo in the mix, you lose the MSD when you sell the THD.


I have 2 with Lifetime, good point to double check thanks.


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

Shanezam203 said:


> I have 2 with Lifetime, good point to double check thanks.


Don't you have an S2 with lifetime?


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## FlipperJ (Dec 12, 2002)

I stumbled on this discussion. I think we're all TiVo enthusiasts and would like to see them survive particularly since even with the bugs, Tivo is a better product than anything else of which I'm aware.

Tivo can't put out a product without intense copy protection and stay in the good graces of content providers and publishers. So they lock down Tivo, as they always have. The fact that some of us have hacked our way around it does not make Tivo wrong for implementing copy protection, it's the only way to avoid lawsuits which could put them out of business. I think it's naive for us to expect them to leave a backdoor open for hackers.

TiVo Premiere in concept_ is_ a superior product because it's features and performance specs make it so. The fact that it can't be hacked as easily is a false argument (a fallacy if you will) as to whether the product is superior because neither device was designed for that purpose. In actual practice, the Premiere has had it's well known faults so staying with the previous generation of equipment is a good decision for some. Personally I have both and miss the Premiere features on my HD and occasionally the stability of the HD on my Premiere. I'm not using either as a door stop any time soon.

We shouldn't bash TiVo too hard is my point. What else are we going to use if they fold? The cable company DVR? Heaven forbid...

The right tool for the right job: if you need to move your content in a manner not intended by the manufacturer, stick with the HD. It doesn't make the HD superior, it makes it hackable. My personal experience of late is that my Premiere has worked correctly with the add-on services, the search feature, the content transfer, the iPad app and with Streambaby. It hasn't crashed in a long time (knock wood) and given these improvements I think putting it down is unfair.

As for the "unsupported" features that many of us want, as always if you want to make Premiere do those things, then figure it out or wait for someone in our community to figure it out. It's not supposed to be easy - where's the fun, and elitism, in that? 

As for choice, this is a commercial product, a device for recording and playing back entertainment. It isn't really a great rallying point for a freedom issue. TiVo has a history of being lenient towards most activities except stealing their service. I think expecting more from them on the digital rights frontier is unreasonable and maybe a little greedy?

Well, that's just my opinion and I could be wrong. BTW, if free reign over your video files is so paramount, you should probably be using a MythTV box.


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## lew (Mar 12, 2002)

lrhorer said:


> Agreed, but a Ferrari which will run only on gasoline purhcased from Ferrari is a hunk of garbage, no matter how fast it can run or how expensive and well designed its components.


I suspect many (most?) Ferrari owners would buy a Ferrari which only runs on Ferrari gas if there was even a small improvement in performance and the gas was readily available. Gas would probably have to be available at places other then a Ferrari dealership.

I don't buy the analogy. The premiere allows owners to view video which are obtained from Netflix, Amazon, Hulu+, Blockbuster (?) etc. Include Hulu+ and the Premier lets you get "gas" from more gas stations then the S3 units.

A stock TivoHD won't let you use MRV for a show flagged with a CCI byte. It's believed a stock Premier will soon let customers stream that show to another Premier unit. A situation which is better for the vast majority of tivo customers who have no interest in hacking their unit by replacing a chip soldered to the motherboard thereby voiding their warranty and probably ending the ability to have tivo repair their unit out of warranty.



lrhorer said:


> If you are speaking of the CCI byte, then the copyright holders have absolutely no legal say in the matter. Setting the CCI byte to values lower than 0x02 is by law solely at the discretion of the CATV provider,


My understanding, not sure if it's a real fact or an "internet fact", is some content owners like HBO are contractually requiring at least some cable systems to set the CCI byte to a more restrictive value. HBO has a lot of original programming. It is a copyright holder for some of their programming. It looks like the reverse isn't true. A cable company seems to be able to set the flag to a restrictive value without the permission of the content provider.

Makes no sense to me. I can sort of see HBOs right (and maybe even the movie studios right) to set the byte. I can't think of any reason why Cablevision should have any say.

Probably a matter of what lobbyist/special interest group Congress and cable labs decided to listen to. Maybe I'm too cynical....


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

unitron said:


> Don't you have an S2 with lifetime?


I have 2 Tivo's with Lifetime and 1 @ $6.95 msd.


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## bradleys (Oct 31, 2007)

wrong thread.


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## Shanezam203 (Jul 28, 2007)

FlipperJ said:


> Well, that's just my opinion and I could be wrong. BTW, if free reign over your video files is so paramount, you should probably be using a MythTV box.


Not important at all, it was just a question I wanted to ask before I upgrade to premiere.


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## jhernandez86 (Dec 3, 2008)

I have an S3 TX HD with the $99 lifetime offer, and a premier with a $99 offer two. During Black Friday, Amazon was running a promotion on the Homerun 3 tuner for $169. The HDhomerun has the same functionality as the tivo premier, and if you have an xbox, you can extend this functionality to your tv. 

Right now, is a paint to get Free DVR services, but this will change when the Time Warp patent that tivo has expires. This patent expires in 2017, and prepare to see manufactures building television with recording capabilities. 

Tivo is a decent product, and it change how we watch tv, but I am not sure how they will survive since their business model depends on subscription. In the near future this may be a free services. I hope I am wrong, but the writing is on the wall, just check HDhomerun with Microsoft Media Center and the Xbox.


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## flip69 (Oct 6, 2003)

lrhorer said:


> I think you mean "downgrading". The Premier is not an upgrade, especially for someone in your situation.
> 
> Yes, but not with an un-modified TiVo. It would have to be modified. Once done correctly, it can transfer to a PC. It cannot transfer directly to a Premier.
> 
> ...


How do I do this? How do I find the other Tivo forum?


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## unitron (Apr 28, 2006)

flip69 said:


> How do I do this? How do I find the other Tivo forum?


Easiest way is to plug "Tivo Prom Day" into google and get a return of a site whose initials are DDB

It gets into topics which are not really out and out theft of service but more along the lines of stuff about which the content providers are rather short-sighted. Since TiVo wants to keep a good relationship with them, and this site wants to maintain friendly diplomatic relations with TiVo, actually including the url to that site here shows up as a line of these things * instead.

So around here we refer to it as "the other site", or "the site which must not be named" if we're feeling melodramatic.


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