What capacity TiVo?

xoolxool
Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
I want to get a TiVo. I'm concerned about video quality and compression artifacts. I dislike Digital Cable and Satellite for their poor video quality.



That said, the TiVo convenience is not worth some degradation. I'd have my TiVo unit record at top quality settings which would reduce the total number of hours it could store.



So what unit should I buy? What unit did you buy?



40 "Hour" - $199

80 "Hour" - $299

140 "Hour" - $399



Prices exclude rebates, promotions, etc.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 7
    cakecake Posts: 1,010member
    Buy the cheapest one you can get and upgrade it yourself.



    I bought a HDR112 (14 hour recording time) probably six years ago, but I've upgraded it to 145 hours.



    Check out Weaknees.com for upgrade kits. Just drop it in and you're done.
  • Reply 2 of 7
    nowayout11nowayout11 Posts: 326member
    The 40 hour model will get you about 11 hours of recording time on the best quality... and you'll still get some artifacting, unfortunately. So you may not want to go the way of Tivo.
  • Reply 3 of 7
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    i have tivo.. and 40hrs will be fine... our tivo is i think the cheapest and minimum amount of hours... and if you find needing more, then upgrade accordingly to your comfort... good luck
  • Reply 4 of 7
    futuremacfuturemac Posts: 242member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by ragingloogie

    i have tivo.. and 40hrs will be fine... our tivo is i think the cheapest and minimum amount of hours... and if you find needing more, then upgrade accordingly to your comfort... good luck



    plus they now have that tivo2go service where you can archive your shows onto your computer...
  • Reply 5 of 7
    ragingloogieragingloogie Posts: 426member
    Quote:

    Originally posted by futuremac

    plus they now have that tivo2go service where you can archive your shows onto your computer...



    thats cool i might neede to look into that watch tv while at school
  • Reply 6 of 7
    e1618978e1618978 Posts: 6,075member
    Quote:

    I'm concerned about video quality and compression artifacts. I dislike Digital Cable and Satellite for their poor video quality.



    What has better video quality than DirecTv? I had analog cable before and it sucked compared to DirecTv (and that is on a 120" screen).



    Get the 40 hour one - I have a 40 hour one built into my DirectTv receiver and I never run out of space.
  • Reply 7 of 7
    xoolxool Posts: 2,460member
    Sounds like I'll get a basic Series 2 40 "Hour" TiVo and I can always upgrade it later if I feel I need more capacity.



    Regarding compression artifacts, I've seen 'em with Satellite on an uber-small 9" TV, especially with Red (the color most likely to bleed) and when the weather is bad. Digital Cable has its own flavor of compression artifacts, but I find it generally better and more consistent than satellite.



    I don't watch a lot of TV, but most of it is basic cable or local stations. And for me, Comcast still broadcasts these with standard cable signals so I don't see compression artifacts. These signals also consume 9x the bandwidth of digital signals, but that's another issue.
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