I'm thinking of replacing a DirecTV reciever with a DirectTivo unit.

Crusing Ebay shows several directivo units at acution, but specify "no card". Even some units specified as new in box are reported as no card.

What's wrong with that?

Glenn

You won't regret it, I have two DTivo's and can't live without them.

The only reason "no card" is an issue is that DirecTV will probably charge you $25 or so to get you one.

Ditto. Get the DirecTiVo instead of a standalone TiVo as the quality of the image is better.

- Jon

The smart card in a DirecTV box is comparable to the SIM card in a GSM phone. The card implements the personalization necessary to decrypt the shows that you pay for that your neighbor doesn't.

Before you shell out your money, make sure you know what DirecTV will charge you to set up an account like this. They're hesistant to mail out new cards, since those can also be raw material for people who don't like to pay for their TV. Likewise, check out the prices for new gear. I got my gear from American Satellite a couple years ago. They shipped it to me, and a third-party installer showed up to make it all work.

Right now, they're charging $200-$260, depending on which TiVo model you want to get and which dish you want to put on your roof. I have a Series-1 DirecTiVo, and I'd strongly recommend getting one of the Series-2 units if you can. They're smaller, quieter, and may eventually support the TiVo Home Media Center option via the USB port.

Oh, I didn't notice that you're already a DirecTV customer. I don't know what the prices are when you're already a customer, but I'm sure they're higher.

3 Things:

1) No big deal about the card. You have to get a new card when you get a different receiver anyway and DTV will send you one ($25 bucks or so).

2) Be carefull about the units on Ebay that say they are "in a retail box" or somehow imply they are NEW. I bought one of these units and it was in a retail box, but it was FAR FROM NEW. The user I bought from was a guy called "whiteport" and his auction description would lead you to believe that his Tivo's are new, but they are NOT. Don't get F'd while trying to save a buck. I've found that the units are available from your local Good Guys, Circuit City, Target, etc.. for just about the same price. The piece of mind buying locally where you can return it if needed is worth a few extra bucks anyway.

3) I recently heard that DTV was offering a Tivo upgrade to current subscribers for $159. You have to check it out for yourself, but I think that's a real offer and a real deal if it's true.

FWIW - The series 2 units (HDVR2, DSR7000, etc...) will not accept an HU Card, so if that's important to you then you'll have to get a series 1.

I hadn't heard about an upgrade offer.

I'm a new DirecTV user ~1mo. I only had to have my sony stand alone hooked up for about 10 min. to know this was more trouble than it was worth.

I have been crusing Ebay. Its crazy the prices people run up. I've pretty much decided to go retail.

edit: There is something I've noticed about directivo, no web sites seem to mention specifically that you can or can't get tivo lifetime on a directivo unit. The only thing that is mentioned is that you can pay an additional $5/mo to get it.

The biggest problem I have is what to do with the Sony. It's a Series 1 with 240gigs, Lifetime and a tivonet card.

I kind of wish there was news about when HiDef DirecTiVos will appear.

Did you hack your Sony Series 1 and upgrade it to 240gb yourself? If you did, then you could easily hack the new Tivo, upgrade the drives and transfer your Lifetime sub to it.

Lifetime TiVo service is no longer offered on the DirecTiVo units. However, they cut the monthly fee down to something like $5/month. You'd have to be keeping the box for a long time before the lifetime sub became worthwhile.

As to the HD-DirecTiVo, there's much speculation on the matter of its release date. They had a prototype at the last CES and they claim they'll have it out in time for Christmas. A friend and I have a small wager riding on whether they pull it off. Here's the original press release.

I'm a replay man myself, so I haven't really been following the HD-Tivo too much, but I was assuming they were doing a "real" Hd-Tivo that didn't require directv? Using directv is cheating, as they don't have to encode the signal. It is however, better than anything replay can do at the moment.

Matthew

TiVo has announced a "reference design" for an HD-TiVo, and they've also announced a "joint development" with DirecTV. Both will be able to record off-the-air HDTV signals. The DirecTV one will also be able to record satellite signals. One interesting question is how many streams you'll be able to record at one time. Another even more interesting question is how much money you'll have to pay for these things (and when they'll ship).

The zillion dollar question is how far the convergence is going to go. Will I be able to buy a box this year (or next) that has the hard disk, a network connection, an OTA tuner, and a satellite tuner, which can play music, show pictures, delay TV, view and burn DVDs, and more? One box. One integrated GUI. If I had to guess, I'd say you might start seeing truly all-in-one boxes by Christmas '04. That gives Moore's Law time to cut prices another factor of two, and it gives the software guys time to make it all actually work.

In reply to:

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but I was assuming they were doing a "real" Hd-Tivo that didn't require directv? Using directv is cheating, as they don't have to encode the signal.

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An OTA HD-TiVo still wouldn't need to encode HD. It's already digital.

-Dylan

In reply to:

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Lifetime TiVo service is no longer offered on the DirecTiVo units. However, they cut the monthly fee down to something like $5/month.

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And it's free if you get Super Size Value Meal package (obviously not it's correct name) from DirecTV.

-Dylan

Actually I did it twice. Once to add a drive, once to replace both drives. The second time was because I was having problems that were, according to common wisdom, symptoms of drive failure. Replacing both drives and boosting to 240G, didn't solve the symptoms.

That was a bummer. I found what the problem was totally by accedent. While searching for "lifetime subscription" I came across a thread about power supplies. (Tivo Comm. Forums) It seems the power supply of some tivos just didn't have the guts to survive the long term extra load of a second drive. Someone who had a similar problem with a PC recognized the problem and brought it to everyone's attention. Turns out that an exact replacment supply only costs $4.99. (the shipping was more than that). Solved my problems . I could have saved my self... Oh Well.

PS search terms are a pain. I would have found that thread earlier, except that I was searching for "Frozen video", while that thread referred to the problem exclusively as "stopped Video"

And it's free if you get Super Size Value Meal

I'm allergic to paying $80+ per month to save $5.