no-subscription Tivo style DVR??

[Mike521]

Hey all, I've been looking for some thoughts on digital video recorders, so hopefully this topic is ok for these forums.

I'm wanting to buy a DVR but I'm definitely not going to spend any money on a subscription for something that's basically going to be a high quality vcr for me.

Does anyone know of a dvr that doesn't require a subscription?

I'm very new to the DVR situation, so any other tips and pointers would be great too

thanks

 

[ekÆsine]

I sold a computer to a guy who was an electrical/mechanical engineer. he told me he had a TIVO box and that he could download updates for free (probably from the internet, try google for this info) so maybe you should look into this before totally ruling out that possibility of getting a TIVO.

 

[Mike521]

what do these updates do? I don't need updates, I just want a high quality recording device that I can program to record on schedule, and maybe occasionally pause live tv.. I don't know what the updates are but I don't need to be updating my vcr every month that's for sure..

I'll do some searching for free tivo updates though, thanks

 

[ekÆsine]

I think it is the subscription updates. I beleive they are the updates that tell the tivo machine what shows are available so you can schedule whatever shows you want to record. I have never used TIVO, but from my talk with this guy he made it clear you do not need to pay for the TIVO service to use it. he may have mentioned some kind of TIVO patch/ hack so you should also look into this too.

 

[Mike521]

ohh well that's great to hear, I'll look into a hack if necessary but preferrably I can use it without subscribing, I'll email their customer service and see what they say

 

[Mike521]

well, I've been searching and have been unable to find info on how to hack the tivo to work without a subscription. I found a couple of blogs where the writers complained (harshly) about the fact that the tivo corporation deliberately disabled the best features of the tivo, so it wouldn't work without a subscription.

I called tivo today and asked them if I could work it without a subscription, and they just gave me a flat out no -- saying I couldn't even set it to record channel 5 at 8 pm, etc.

absolutely ridiculous, I definitely don't need to spend 13/monthly on a high tech vcr, I hope the tivo people lose a lot of sales till they finally allow it to work without a subscription.

Anyway!!!

does anyone know of alternative DVR's that don't require this garbage?

 

[ekÆsine]

well doing a simple google search told me that the subscription may not be hackable....but it looks like everything else is hackable including hard disk space and you can still use manual record without subscription. TIVO runs on linux and uses regular IDE hard disks. here's one hack:

http://www.maximumpc.com/how_to/reprint_2002-03-04.html

i saw many hacks and one person said there was a way to get a subscription hack by using bash. my google search words: tivo hack, tivo subscription hack

http://www.tivotechies.com/viewtopic.php?p=179

1.10. Can I hack my TiVo so I don't need a TiVo subscription?

NO NO NO. This is something that will NOT be explored. TiVo has been very gracious in not coming down on all this hacking described in this FAQ and we will do nothing to harm that. Nothing will be looked at to get around the subscription service so don't ask! Regardless your TiVo will function as a VCR already with manual record mode.

 

[jayhawker01]

Hey I bought a used Tivo on ebay and it already had a lifetime subscription. So find someone who is selling on Ebay.

 

[Mike521]

hehe I stumbled across that FAQ also, ek

but I haven't been able to find a gauranteed how-to on the way to hack it, and have just seen mention of manual recording still working, but according to the tivo saleswoman who I spoke with on the phone, absolutely nothing will work now without the subscription.

I may buy one and test it out, seeing as how there's a one month gaurantee or something

I'm really amazed that there doesn't seem to be an alternative

 

[ekÆsine]

Mike you could also buy a VIVO video card for your computer and use it as a digital video recorder. I used to have this Sapphire VIVO that had RCA video inputs...oh wait I still have another one. anyways you can use them and just plug in your super video or RCA video from your VCR, TV, cable/ sattelite box, ect and record them to your computer. you can than burn them as SVCD to CD or make a video DVD if you got a DVD burner. or you can just save it at full quality on your hard disk and play it off from there. The software I had with the Sapphire card was from ATI and they had this cool software that was very easy to use. I tried recording as Super VCD from my sattelite TV box and the picture quality was probably better than VHS. I was intending to tranfer my VHS tapes to DVD, but I'm so lazy. never got around to it