Dual Tuner - Trying to kick the Tivo

[flatblack]

Ok,

This is a quesiton that I'm sure has been answered a million times before, but I can't seem to digest everything that I'm reading. Ultimately, I am trying to get rid of our Tivo. It looks like BTV can do what we want, and more, with no recurring fees. Also, I love the Tivo SOFTWARE but Tivo HARDWARE is awful.

My question is this. If I have a single cable, running to the back of my Tivo DVR (it's a Tivo HD with a cablecard), and can record two shows at once, why can't I do that with a home built solution? I'm not really talking about the CableCard, more of (if I understand this correctly) why do I need to splut the cable and then plug it into a dual tuner card?

[mayhem70]

There are dual tuners like the PVR-500 and HVR-2250 from Hauppauge that work and they can work like you describe.

Where it gets tricky is deciding how and what you want to record. Digital HD hardware comes in ATSC/clear QAM and only recently with the Hauppauge HD-PVR can you record in HD but only single tuner.

Why? Cablecards and hardware manufacturers couldn't agree because it boiled down to DRM (Digital Rights Management).

The cost of a HTPC solution really is alot of money up front, but you end up with something that really meets several needs and far more flexible than TivoDVR.

[Cal]

Funny. I was just about to start saying you join us over on the Snapstream fourms. Ya, I read the Tivo fourms a lot as well. (forgot where I was for a second)

Mostly for the TV and general chat area.

A roll your own solution is so much more flexible and powerful.

As noted above. It can be done. Also a Home system does not have to be expensive if you reuse older stuff.

My original system was a P3-800 that did dual recording before I upgraded it and it worked great for SD stuff.

I still have not looked into HD myself yet so I can't say much to that side of things.

[jbartlett777]

I recently switched back to two HD Tivos after three and a half years of enjoying BTV. The main issue I have is lack of HD tuners with cablecard support and a lot of shows I want to watch aren't on clear QAM channels.

Comcast's quality here sucked so I switched to Verizon FiOS. The quality ROCKS but they don't have any analog channels - all digital. So that retired my two DualTV cards and cut my recording capability from 8 shows to 4. Then after one of my HDHomeruns died, I was down to 2. At this point, a Tivo with a cablecard had more functionality than the BTV server.

I don't like the ads that Tivo dsplays and I really missed the commercial marking BTV has but after programming my Tivo remote to utilize 30 second skips, it's not so bad any more.

[tscales]

Tivo can't match the HD PVR. It's still buggy, but close. Way cool.