Move Your Media: TiVo HD : A Hitch or Two

By William Van Winkle , published on March 2, 2009 at 1:31 PM
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The TiVo HD supports video modes up to 1080i over composite, S-Video, component, and HDMI outputs. Audio output can either go over optical SPDIF or RCA. You’ll find two USB 2.0 ports on the TiVo HD’s back, but these are strictly for adding a wireless network adapter. The DVR ignored our media-laden USB drive—in fact, we lost video output and had to reboot the box upon removing our SanDisk Cruzer. So, don’t bother inserting any USB storage. However, you can add an eSATA drive for additional recording storage. As we’ll see, this goes beyond TV show recordings and includes video snagged from the Internet.

One issue we ran into happened when we cycled the power on the TiVo HD, which resulted in the download and installation of another major firmware update that apparently wasn’t completed during the initial “Getting Setup” loading process. (Being notified that you may have more than an hour’s wait sure makes you want to wipe the smirk off that little antenna guy’s face.) You may want to perform the first setup, then unplug the TiVo for a few seconds, plug it back in, and see if you get a second data update before digging into the service.
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Comments
TwoDigital 03/05/2009 4:56 PM
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I had and loved my original TiVo for several years. As the author mentions, there are a lot of good features and the online ability has come a long way since the original v1 and v2 TiVo added the networking features.

The two most annoying things to me: (1) there's no way to control or even pass-through DVD or BluRay playback through the device. If I want to watch movies, I better have 2 HDMI inputs on my TV and I'll need to dig out the TV remote again to switch it (and a third remote from the BluRay player.) (2) you can't play your own media on a TiVo... it only plays something that a TiVo records or something you've downloaded from one of their partners.

Moving to a low-profile Vista Media Center fixed both issues for me (as well as giving me the two CableCards that an upgraded TiVo HD would have given me.)

redhat 04/18/2009 5:49 AM
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I like all kinds of media player that I have some of them with me all day , they can give me much pleasure , I like them very much!

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