# Alternatives to accessing media with a hacked DirecTivo



## Phillip Chapman (Sep 9, 2003)

Like everyone else, weve been waiting and waiting for the next DirecTivo. Were still using a SD DirecTivo. Due to an upcoming job relocation, we will need DirecTV installed at our new home and will likely be making the switch to a HD DirecTV DVR at this time. 

We frequently download and archive content to DVD with our current setup without any quality loss. Obviously the HD DirecTivo wont allow us to do this, so I wanted to get some opinions and ideas as to what are the highest quality and easiest ways to record programming as we are evaluating all of our options at this point.

Obviously, we could keep the SD DirecTivo in another room and continue to use this for this purpose. However, I didnt know if there were better alternatives. Should an HD OTA capture card and Windows Media Center be considered? What is the process for burning these files? Obviously a downside would be that this would only work for OTA content. Also if I record from the HD DirecTV DVR to a set-top DVR via component cable, what issues should I expect to run into? What other options should be considered?

Thanks in advance for your help. This seems like a common issue that folks are facing so I wanted to see what ideas and/or suggestions everyone had.


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## Phillip Chapman (Sep 9, 2003)

I wanted to bump this thread from last week.

Like was mentioned above... We frequently download and archive content to DVD with our current DirecTivo setup without any quality loss. Obviously the DirecTV HD DVR wont allow us to do this, so I wanted to get some opinions and ideas as to what are the highest quality and easiest ways to record and burn programming as we are evaluating all of our options at this point.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

Phillip Chapman said:


> What other options should be considered?


Who is your local cable provider? If it is not TWC and they do not over use the CCI flags, switching to them, getting a TiVo Premiere and using PC software to get the shows from it is your best option. If you want to stick with DTV, then you have already listed your only real option short of just playing the show and recording with a DVD recorder.


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## Phillip Chapman (Sep 9, 2003)

CuriousMark said:


> Who is your local cable provider? If it is not TWC and they do not over use the CCI flags, switching to them, getting a TiVo Premiere and using PC software to get the shows from it is your best option.


It's Suddenlink. I discovered that Suddenlink may offer their own Tivo Premiere box. Could I still use a regular Tivo Premiere with Cablecard or would I have to use Suddenlink's Tivo Premiere if they offer it in my area?

http://www.tivo.com/products/source/cable/tivo-suddenlink/index.html

We've been with DirecTV since 2001 so it would be hard to switch. I would think DirecTV's HD quality would be better than anything cable could offer. Fios isn't an option here either, DirecTV may be cheaper too. So it's really cable, DirecTV or OTA.



CuriousMark said:


> If you want to stick with DTV, then you have already listed your only real option short of just playing the show and recording with a DVD recorder.


Will there be any copy protection or flags from the DirecTV DVR when playing back recorded content from the S-video/composite/component outputs to a set-top DVD recorder?


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## ss_sea_ya (Sep 2, 2010)

Phillip Chapman said:


> Will there be any copy protection or flags from the DirecTV DVR when playing back recorded content from the S-video/composite/component outputs to a set-top DVD recorder?


I don't think so.

Another option is OTA, media PC with record capabilities, and NETFLIX or something similar.


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## Phillip Chapman (Sep 9, 2003)

ss_sea_ya said:


> Another option is OTA, media PC with record capabilities, and NETFLIX or something similar.


This is the area where I could use some opinions. If we went down this road, I would probably have Direct HD for the main room, but record-and-burn OTA via Windows Media Center. Any articles or links for this process would be recommended. I'm assuming Windows Media Center would record to HD. What is involved with burning the files to Blu-ray or recompressing for DVD? I have several DVD programs including VideoReDo which can ediit both Tivo files and Windows Media Center files.

I could burn DirecTV exclusive content when needed via a settop DVD recorder.


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## CuriousMark (Jan 13, 2005)

Phillip Chapman said:


> It's Suddenlink. I discovered that Suddenlink may offer their own Tivo Premiere box. Could I still use a regular Tivo Premiere with Cablecard or would I have to use Suddenlink's Tivo Premiere if they offer it in my area?
> 
> http://www.tivo.com/products/source/cable/tivo-suddenlink/index.html


Good question. If it is like RCN, then the cable company offered box will have a slightly different feature set than one you buy yourself. For example the RCN box cannot do NetFlix or Amazon VOD, but it does get RCN VOD. You will need to check with Suddenlink to see if that will be the case with them.

Suddenlink is expected to also offer Whole home DVR service, similar to DirecTV's at some point. So both your DVR and your cable boxes might in fact have TiVo interfaces.


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## Phillip Chapman (Sep 9, 2003)

CuriousMark said:


> Good question. If it is like RCN, then the cable company offered box will have a slightly different feature set than one you buy yourself. For example the RCN box cannot do NetFlix or Amazon VOD, but it does get RCN VOD. You will need to check with Suddenlink to see if that will be the case with them.
> 
> Suddenlink is expected to also offer Whole home DVR service, similar to DirecTV's at some point. So both your DVR and your cable boxes might in fact have TiVo interfaces.


After some research, the Suddenlink Tivo Premiere is an option for $15 a month. Some said on-line it's the same cost as their generic HD DVR. Yes, their custom Tivo Premiere doesn't offer Netflix but does have VOD, exactly the same as you described. Apparently, the real Tivo Premiere with CableCard is $15 + $5, so going with the Suddenlink unit would be the best bet.

We will likely stay with DirecTV for the better picture quality, but this is a little tempting. We will have to think about this.


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