# DirecTV Launches Whole-Home DVR - Et Tu TiVo



## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

DirecTV Launches Whole-Home DVR 



> Customers will be able to watch and record shows on any set in the house.
> 
> It doesn't get much cooler than DirecTV's Whole-Home DVR service. It's something we've been anticipating for a while and it just might be enough to convince consumers to switch.
> 
> ...


So when will TiVo finally support true streaming.
Other companies have figured out that customers want the while house media box DVR and streaming to the rest of their boxes.

Too late to lead, Please TiVo follow suit.

- Rich

P.S. A TiVo Premiere ad displayed when I read this article.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

It's not good to put all your eggs in one basket. if there are problems you are screwed. Which is why I prefer multiple TiVos that can each record things separately.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

I have a 12 Terrabyte NAS, given the choice, that is where I would put my eggs.

- Rich


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## smallwonder (Jun 13, 2001)

So you can roam room-to-room but what if there's more than one person in the house? Can multiple users stream different programming from the DVR at the same time? 

I prefer separate networked DVRs.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

smallwonder said:


> So you can roam room-to-room but what if there's more than one person in the house? Can multiple users stream different programming from the DVR at the same time?
> 
> I prefer separate networked DVRs.


I Imagine a world where computers could perform more than one task at the same time. A world where there were 1 gigabie networks could tranmit multiple data streams.

What's next, the internet 

- Rich


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

RichB said:


> I Imagine a world where computers could perform more than one task at the same time. A world where there were 1 gigabie networks could tranmit multiple data streams.
> 
> What's next, the internet
> 
> - Rich


Here is what is says on the DirecTV site

Record and watch your favorite shows in any room. With a single DVR. With DIRECTV, you have the power to share all of your recorded programs with any TV in your home. 
Now you can record, delete, pause and rewind your favorite shows no matter where you are. 
You can also: 
Manage your DVR playlist from any room
*Record 2 shows while watching 2 others*
Get 2 times more DVR storage than cable* Set separate parental controls for each TV 
Watch your recorded shows in HD in any room

http://www.directv.com/DTVAPP/content/directv/technology/wholehome

So it says you can only record two shows while watching two. That is far too limiting for a whole house DVR.

Separate TiVos in each room is a much better solution.

Although it does say you need to add another DVR to add two more tuners. But it still sounds like the storage capacity would be too limited.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Here is what is says on the DirecTV site
> 
> Record and watch your favorite shows in any room. With a single DVR. With DIRECTV, you have the power to share all of your recorded programs with any TV in your home.
> Now you can record, delete, pause and rewind your favorite shows no matter where you are.
> ...


It also says this:


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## innocentfreak (Aug 25, 2001)

aaronwt said:


> *Record 2 shows while watching 2 others*
> Get 2 times more DVR storage than cable* Set separate parental controls for each TV
> Watch your recorded shows in HD in any room
> 
> ...


The only thing is if I have read correctly this is their answer to MRV and not the whole home solution which is another box coming later with more tuners and storage.

As a result every DVR on your setup would have this option so for example if you had the same setup but on DirecTV, you would have 9 DVRs for 18 tuners and 18 streams with 2 from each DVR. Now I don't know if there is a built in limit where you can't exceed so many streams..


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

RoyK said:


> It also says this:


Yes, one screen that shows recordings from all the DVRs would be nice but it still is not enough storage space. The only way to have enough storage space is to be able to offload it to a PC like TiVo allows you to.

I off load mine to a tiVo Desktop PC with five 1.5TB drives in a RAID 5 config. And then I can also transfer that to my WHS too with 42TB of storage. I have many Terabytes of HD recordings over the last nine years.

I want some programs in more than one location in the rare occurance of a problem with the DVR.


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## RoyK (Oct 22, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Yes, one screen that shows recordings from all the DVRs would be nice but it still is not enough storage space. The only way to have enough storage space is to be able to offload it to a PC like TiVo allows you to.
> 
> I off load mine to a tiVo Desktop PC with five 1.5TB drives in a RAID 5 config. And then I can also transfer that to my WHS too with 42TB of storage. I have many Terabytes of HD recordings over the last nine years.
> 
> I want some programs in more than one location in the rare occurance of a problem with the DVR.


I'll submit your wants and setup (and budget) aren't typical.....


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## chrispitude (Apr 23, 2005)

This functionality would be fine with my. My "whole house" solution only needs to support two active TVs at once. Actually, it would be just two TVs, period.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Yes, one screen that shows recordings from all the DVRs would be nice but it still is not enough storage space. The only way to have enough storage space is to be able to offload it to a PC like TiVo allows you to.
> 
> I off load mine to a tiVo Desktop PC with five 1.5TB drives in a RAID 5 config. And then I can also transfer that to my WHS too with 42TB of storage. I have many Terabytes of HD recordings over the last nine years.
> 
> I want some programs in more than one location in the rare occurrence of a problem with the DVR.


There will always be storage space issues. TiVo has an advantage.
However, DirectTV and Moxi understand the notion of watching programs (not just the ones without copy protection) in all rooms.

Furthermore, I understand that TiVo will be re-establishing its DirectTV DVR. It looks like there may be a reason to go with the DirectTV brand. I have DirectTV in my vacation home and this is a interesting option.

TiVo is falling behind.

- Rich


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

RichB said:


> There will always be storage space issues. TiVo has an advantage.
> However, DirectTV and Moxi understand the notion of watching programs (not just the ones without copy protection) in all rooms.
> 
> Furthermore, I understand that TiVo will be re-establishing its DirectTV DVR. It looks like there may be a reason to go with the DirectTV brand. I have DirectTV in my vacation home and this is a interesting option.
> ...


Of course next year TiVo wil come out with a new Premiere with four tuners and many of these other new features just to screw me.


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## RichB (Apr 2, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> Of course next year TiVo wil come out with a new Premiere with four tuners and many of these other new features just to screw me.


I hope they do because this box really should be considered a network server for satellites within the home network.

- Rich


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## janry (Jan 2, 2003)

Sound nice except I'm guessing I'd have to subscribe to DirecTv. That's a dealbreaker.


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## ZeoTiVo (Jan 2, 2004)

aaronwt said:


> Of course next year TiVo wil come out with a new Premiere with four tuners and many of these other new features just to screw me.


how did you know your name came up at the meeting?


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

chrispitude said:


> This functionality would be fine with my. My "whole house" solution only needs to support two active TVs at once. Actually, it would be just two TVs, period.


I'd guess that for a VAST majority, 2 tv's at once is enough!

I know it would be for us.

if you get 2, to make it 4 tv's at once, I'd guess that would cover over 99% of the households out there.

I doubt they care much about that 1%


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

Directv's MRV is pretty cool but it isn't without problems. We have 4 TV's and 4 HR20's. Mine is in my office. The kids dominate the one in the living room. My wife controls the DVR in the master bedroom. Before MRV we were constantly wanting watch something recorded on one of the other DVR's. We couldn't watch kids shows in the bedroom, or my shows in the living room. For a while we tried to maintain complete playlists on each DVR. But with 2 tuners one DVr couldn't do everything. So now with MRV we can watch any show any where. Totally cool. 

ON the downside I can't hide some shows from showing up on all the playlists if I want any of them to show up. So if I record Mexican Booty Call 7 in my office it immediately shows up on the kids DVR. Likewise I have to see half the nickelodeon playlist on my office dvr when I'm looking to see what's recorded. My other biggest complaint is pausing, ff, etc, is really sluggish when viewing a remote show vs. viewing a local one.


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## jaywtivo (Aug 29, 2004)

RichB said:


> DirecTV Launches Whole-Home DVR
> 
> So when will TiVo finally support true streaming.
> Other companies have figured out that customers want the while house media box DVR and streaming to the rest of their boxes.
> ...


I am not expertly informed on this, but from what I understand, there are some significant hardware modifications that need to be made to your whole house wiring to get this to work. It sounds great on paper, but there are much easier ways to accomplish this with cable. (HDHOMERUN/MC7)

EDIT: There are some UNSUPPORTED alternatives over ethernet, however.


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## AbMagFab (Feb 5, 2001)

jaywtivo said:


> I am not expertly informed on this, but from what I understand, there are some significant hardware modifications that need to be made to your whole house wiring to get this to work. It sounds great on paper, but there are much easier ways to accomplish this with cable. (HDHOMERUN/MC7)
> 
> EDIT: There are some UNSUPPORTED alternatives over ethernet, however.


Not for DirecTV. They use the existing coax to their DVRs for everything.

Same could be done for Tivo, using the in-home coax.


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

jaywtivo said:


> I am not expertly informed on this, but from what I understand, there are some significant hardware modifications that need to be made to your whole house wiring to get this to work. It sounds great on paper, but there are much easier ways to accomplish this with cable. (HDHOMERUN/MC7)
> 
> EDIT: There are some UNSUPPORTED alternatives over ethernet, however.


mine use plain old ethernet. no special wiring.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

AbMagFab said:


> Not for DirecTV. They use the existing coax to their DVRs for everything.
> 
> Same could be done for Tivo, using the in-home coax.


They are using MoCA. It is basically networking over the coaxial cable. It performs the smae job as using twisted pair, although MoCA has speeds up to 270mbs if not even faster now.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> It's not good to put all your eggs in one basket. if there are problems you are screwed. Which is why I prefer multiple TiVos that can each record things separately.


There's no limit to the number of DVRs you can have in this DTV setup and they all share across DVRs as well as non-DVR settop boxes. Before I had to switch to cable I had this with DirecTV and had 3 DVRs and one non-DVR and could watch any program recorded on any DVR in a real time stream.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

smallwonder said:


> So you can roam room-to-room but what if there's more than one person in the house? Can multiple users stream different programming from the DVR at the same time?


Yes, but miltiple users were not able to watch the same program in two different locations. Not sure why you would want to, but you couldn't do it.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

RichB said:


> However, DirectTV and Moxi understand the notion of watching programs (not just the ones without copy protection) in all rooms.


This was one of the biggest advantages for me with DTV and is causing the most problems for me with Comcast.

I could use one DVR for all of my Premium Sports Programming and watch the games on any other TV in the house. With Comcast in SF, they restrict the MLB package to the TiVo I recorded it on, so I'm not able to start the game in the living room and finish the game in my bedroom.

I watch hundreds of games a season and this has become a HUGE PITA for me. I will be leaving Comcast (and thus TiVo) for DTV as soon as we move. Never again will I deal with this.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

vansmack said:


> Yes, but miltiple users were not able to watch the same program in two different locations. Not sure why you would want to, but you couldn't do it.


I know several families with 4 to 6 people that would fall into this category. Sometimes three of them are watching the same program at diferent locations in the house. They are all doing their own thing so this is the norm for them. It's not like 30/40 years ago when the whole family sat around the TV to watch a show.


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> It's not good to put all your eggs in one basket. if there are problems you are screwed. Which is why I prefer multiple TiVos that can each record things separately.


You can record the same show on another networked DVR if you want a back-up. In fact, I have multiple DVR's networked, so I usually record an OTA and a SAT copy of network shows on different DVR's.

A whole home DVR network allows for multiple DVR's (up to 16), so you really no longer have to worry about scheduling conflicts. If you split your recordings across 2 DVR's, e.g., you'll have 4 simultaneous tuners and 100 SL's to work with, and each DVR's playlist will show all the shows on both machines.

And if you keep all SL's for a particular network on the same DVR, the HR will schedule consecutive shows on the same tuner, so each show will be fully "auto-padded". That means the recording will actually start 30 seconds early and end 90 seconds later, greatly reducing the chance of a "clipped" recording. So one of my DVR's only records CBS and NBC, another only FOX and ABC. A fifth records TNT, USA, AMC, etc. Been doing this for months and it works like a charm.

Any recording can be watched simultaneously on the original DVR and a client STB or DVR. It can not be watched simultaneously on two client receivers, tho.


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## trip1eX (Apr 2, 2005)

HiDefGator said:


> ON the downside I can't hide some shows from showing up on all the playlists if I want any of them to show up. So if I record Mexican Booty Call 7 in my office it immediately shows up on the kids DVR. Likewise I have to see half the nickelodeon playlist on my office dvr when I'm looking to see what's recorded. My other biggest complaint is pausing, ff, etc, is really sluggish when viewing a remote show vs. viewing a local one.


I think the Premiere has the solution for this part of the equation if I remember right. Individualized Playlists.


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## Terri (Dec 1, 2004)

I just left Directv because it didn't support TiVo! You want to talk about lockups on a DVR, go to directv with a series 2 TiVo!! Major problems!


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

trip1eX said:


> I think the Premiere has the solution for this part of the equation if I remember right. Individualized Playlists.


but can you share one playlist and not another?


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

Terri said:


> I just left Directv because it didn't support TiVo! You want to talk about lockups on a DVR, go to directv with a series 2 TiVo!! Major problems!


why would you use a series 2 with directv? a combined dvr\tuner is a way better solution.


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## MikeMar (Jan 7, 2005)

HiDefGator said:


> why would you use a series 2 with directv? a combined dvr\tuner is a way better solution.


I actually have a series 2 lifetime on a regular SD DTV receiver in our bedroom. Works just fine w/ the IR blaster
and why would that cause LOCKOUTS?? makes no sense there at all.
Unless you are talking about the Directv tivo?


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## HiDefGator (Oct 12, 2004)

MikeMar said:


> I actually have a series 2 lifetime on a regular SD DTV receiver in our bedroom. Works just fine w/ the IR blaster...


it may work fine but the combined directivo still provides a far better solution.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I know several families with 4 to 6 people that would fall into this category. Sometimes three of them are watching the same program at diferent locations in the house. They are all doing their own thing so this is the norm for them. It's not like 30/40 years ago when the whole family sat around the TV to watch a show.


Then those families that vaule the ability to watch the same show simultaneously in separate rooms shouldn't get DirecTV....

But if they want to pause a recording in one room and pick it up instantly in another room without having to wait for the transfer to catch up, then DirecTV's method is better.

Or if they want to fast forward through commercials of a recording in another room and not have to wait for a transfer to catch up, then DirecTV's method is better.

Or if they don't want deal with draconian transfer restrictions of content that they pay for and should rightly be able to watch in any room they wish, then DirecTV's method is better.

It's good to know that you will defend TiVo to the bitter end no matter what anybody throws at you.


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## nrc (Nov 17, 1999)

vansmack said:


> It's good to know that you will defend TiVo to the bitter end no matter what anybody throws at you.


So someone drops this troll in a completely unrelated forum and nobody is supposed to defend TiVo?

Other benefits to TiVo's method: It's been available for years, there's no extra fee, and it enables offloading programs to high networked RAID storage (where not restricted).

Should TiVo add streaming? Absolutely. But for me the ability to actually transfer programs is much more important.


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

nrc said:


> Should TiVo add streaming? Absolutely. But for me the ability to actually transfer programs is much more important.


I doubt DirecTV will allow copying or transferring files as currently implemented on stand-alone TiVO's. DirecTV encrypts content to the receiver it was recorded on. They always have and probably always will.

The good news is as a result of that encryption practice, even copy-protected programs can be streamed to other DirecTV boxes in the home. I find that capability much more important than transfer.


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

I like DirecTV's (and Verizon's and Moxi's) home DVR concept much better than the Tivo solution. It's cheaper, quieter, it works with every single channel, and it's cheaper. Did I mention it was cheaper? 

I like the Tivo DVR the best, though. If the future DirecTivo supported DirecTV's MRV, and did it WELL, it would be the best of everything.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

vansmack said:


> But if they want to pause a recording in one room and pick it up instantly in another room without having to wait for the transfer to catch up, then DirecTV's method is better.
> 
> Or if they want to fast forward through commercials of a recording in another room and not have to wait for a transfer to catch up, then DirecTV's method is better.
> 
> ...


You obviously don't have any Premieres since your post is based on antiquated info. My observations are based on fact. I don't have any of the issues you stated.

With premieres there is no waiting. i'm getting 90mbs transfer rates between Premieres. I transferred the 2.5 hour Lost recording in minutes this morning to another Premiere. I can watch a recorded show, pause it, go into another room and initiate a transfer from the paused point. i don't have to wait for anything to catch up since the transfers rates are so quick.

And I have no issue with DirecTV. If they had not made the decision to drop TiVo years ago, I would probably still have them. But they did, so I switched to comcast in 2006 and then to FiOS in 2007.
Of course now they have re-embraced TiVo, but I have no plans to come back.


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## vstone (May 11, 2002)

I don't know about current offerings, but the SA 9300 series boxes were theoretically capable to doing almost this. One unit would record and satellite units could view those recordings. It was built into the software and you could find the settings. I don't know id the system actually worked or if it was ever deployed. Didn't use Ethernet. Used coax (I guess, but maybe USB).


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## BobCamp1 (May 15, 2002)

HiDefGator said:


> why would you use a series 2 with directv? a combined dvr\tuner is a way better solution.


Because I can't get my locals otherwise. I have HD-only locals. I need the MPEG4 and/or the ATSC decoder. I could sell my Tivo and get an HR2x. Based on your post, the HR2x must be superior because it's an all-in-one solution. The fact that it misses recordings and crashes is irrelevant.


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

BobCamp1 said:


> [...] The fact that it misses recordings and crashes is irrelevant.


Happily, that's outdated info.  I'm a long-time TiVo fanboy who had to switch to the HR2x in 2007 if I wanted to get my Yankee games in HD. I replaced my four HR10's with HR20's back in the spring of 2007. Knock on wood, I haven't crashed or missed a recording I wanted due to an HR2x error for the past couple of years.


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## dbenrosen (Sep 20, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> I can watch a recorded show, pause it, go into another room and initiate a transfer from the paused point.


The don't know if the FIOS or DirecTV solutions can do this, but the one thing I wish TiVo could do would be to somehow mark the transfer point back to the source. For example, I transfer a program (form the paused point) to a second TiVo. I then watch some more. When I am back at the original TiVo, I have to fast-forward the original recording to the new place I've watched to. Does the Fios solution allow this, since there is only one recording being played back from a single location?


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## funks (May 24, 2010)

AbMagFab said:


> Not for DirecTV. They use the existing coax to their DVRs for everything.
> 
> Same could be done for Tivo, using the in-home coax.


Hmmm, Uverse does this as well (uses in-home coax) and already has whole-house DVR. I'm able to record 4 shows at the same time and watch them in any TV. But relocating and moving to an apartment limited my options (basically, I'm stuck with Comcast)

The new CETON card InfiTV4 card supports 4 streams in one M-Card w/ Windows Media Center 7 + Media Center Extenders (XBOX 360's)

I personally believe TiVo needs to get in gear to remain relevant - they need to sell a whole home setup that works similarly to Uverse. Maybe one central box with slots for two M-CARDS (giving 8 total streams), then extender type devices that talks to the main unit for each TV that needs one. This way, people can get away with not renting any equipment from the cable companies at all aside from the cablecards. I'd gladly pay the 12.95$ per month for it (guid), along with an 8$ protection plan (for the main box).

I'll most likely be replacing my Premier with a Core I3 based HTPC - just need some more feedback in regards to the Ceton card. I already have one XBOX 360 arcade, and purchasing another one as an extender is no biggie.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

The Ceton card is delayed again. They pushed it to the end of June(or later) instead of the end of May.



> Dear Aaron,
> 
> We know that you have been eagerly waiting for the first shipment of the Ceton InfiniTV 4 digital cable quad-tuner card and want to update you on where things stand. Unfortunately, were not going to make our planned May 31 ship date as we expected when we announced it in March. We believe units will ship by the end of June but we dont yet know for sure. Rather than waiting, we wanted to let you know what we know at this point.
> 
> ...


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

nrc said:


> So someone drops this troll in a completely unrelated forum and nobody is supposed to defend TiVo?
> 
> Other benefits to TiVo's method: It's been available for years, there's no extra fee, and it enables offloading programs to high networked RAID storage (where not restricted).
> 
> Should TiVo add streaming? Absolutely. But for me the ability to actually transfer programs is much more important.


It's not that he's not allowed to defend TiVo, it's that it's TiVo's way or nothing. At least you recognize the value in the way other companies are doing something - there's a tremendous value to streaming.

Transferring to a hard drive is nice for storage, but for sharing between DVRs, streaming with DirecTV was much more effieicnt than TiVo's current transfer method. The ability to do both would be ideal.


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## sluciani (Apr 21, 2003)

dbenrosen said:


> The don't know if the FIOS or DirecTV solutions can do this, but the one thing I wish TiVo could do would be to somehow mark the transfer point back to the source. For example, I transfer a program (form the paused point) to a second TiVo. I then watch some more. When I am back at the original TiVo, I have to fast-forward the original recording to the new place I've watched to. Does the Fios solution allow this, since there is only one recording being played back from a single location?


That seems logical, because you resumed while watching a "copy" in another room, so there's no way for the original TiVO to know how much of the copy you actually saw.

Because you're watching a "stream", DirecTV remembers the progress bar location on the source DVR. So you can start watching in room A, resume in B, and finish back in room A (or room C or D). It always picks up from the last point viewed. I imagine FiOS streams work exactly the same way.


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## vansmack (Dec 1, 2003)

aaronwt said:


> You obviously don't have any Premieres since your post is based on antiquated info. My observations are based on fact. I don't have any of the issues you stated.


Not the case. I had 3, 2 I purchased on discount and kept, one that I paid full orice for and sent back. I'm not getting the same throughput on my Premiere's as you are, though I currently have one setup on wireless N and I'm sure that's the problem. It wouldn't be a probelm with streaming or with a resume from where I left off feature.


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## aaronwt (Jan 31, 2002)

vansmack said:


> Not the case. I had 3, 2 I purchased on discount and kept, one that I paid full orice for and sent back. I'm not getting the same throughput on my Premiere's as you are, though I currently have one setup on wireless N and I'm sure that's the problem. It wouldn't be a probelm with streaming or with a resume from where I left off feature.


I get the same 90mbs speeds using a wireless N bridge, both at 2.4Ghz and 5Ghz.

I am using Dlink DAP1522 units as Access Points and wireless bridges.


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