Digital Video Recording on your Mac

[RandyMoon]

OK, I admit it up-front, this is a shameless way to sneak in a question under the cover of Mac modifications, BUT, if you were planning on buying a Digital Recorder for your Mac, what would you choose? There is TiVo and other options at Best Buy "Marine." I know Moe is going to move this to Mods, I did not fool him.

I am tired of 6 frickin commercial breaks on ABC during 'Lost' and 'Invasion' (while on my Mac ). I would like to find a high tech solution to avoid commercials (usually the same frickin commercial over and over and over). In case you missed it, ABC has gone from 4 commercial breaks in a 1 hour slot to 6 commercial slots. Net affect, 1 hour programs have 42 minutes of program and the rest in mindless commercials. If you take out "what happened last week" and "what will happen next week," you are down to 40 minutes of entertainment and 20 minutes of crappola.

This cuts into sailing time.

Signed, your shameless sailing friend (please forgive me, hoping for some digital recording advice) just in case you are thinking of digital sailboat entertainment.

[Zavala]

This is a really good question Randy, and right on target for the forum. I've been thinking about something like this for the myself. Perhaps a nice 42" plasma t.v. across the stern as well. Do you think it's overkill?

I know where you're coming from though. There's been a number of times I thought, "hey I wonder if the Mac board guys would have an opinion". Lot's of smart folks here. Hmm... let's see, anyone have a suggestion for a five-seat sports car that goes like the dickens? To get me to my Mac faster of course....

Seriously, we don't have a DVR, but one good friend swears by TIVO and another is very happy with a Media PC. I think I'd consider a Media PC laptop in your situation for sure -- as it would work well on the boat.

[richandlori]

TV??? Tivo??? What the heck are those? I ripped them out at my house 5 years ago and have been much happier and have more time for family and boat!

Ok...yes...yes...yes, I have a TV and DVD player on the boat for the kids when sailing gets boreing (imagine I just typed that, how could it ever be boreing?)

Anyway, I'm a realist!

RIch

[kevin carroll]

I have one of the first Commercial TIVO's (yes it still works) I have bought three succesive ones!!! I would think that a Tivo would be quite a power draw for a standard power plant on a Mac.

I just bought a 22 inch flat screen for my Gemini, and it is very very nice, probably going to hold off on moving one of the Tivos on board because of the power consumption. Apple just announced today the Video Ipod, wonder if it has video out??

Kevin Carroll
Catastrophe
Gemini 105M
Previous Owner
Jump the Shark 01 26X

[Frank C]

I've had a DTV+TiVo for five years - the ONLY way to watch television is from a TiVo harddrive. Nice thing about these DTV combo units - they have dual tuners. That means you can watch one channel while recording another. Or, record both tuners simultaneously while watching a third program that you recorded earlier. It's amazing how TiVo can handle three simultaneous streams to & from the same hard drive. But ... these dual tuner devices are only for the DirectTV satellite system.

But that's not the best answer to your question. TiVo now has a DVD recorder unit that records any video stream to an internal hard drive (antenna, cable, etc) AND ALSO then lets you copy that recording to a DVD. Take that DVD recording to your Mac & just play it.

Humax is one brand among several TiVo-to-DVD recording units, advertised here on the TiVo website, (80 hours @ $199).

[Carl Noble]

I received an email yesterday from Tivo about the Humax 80 hour unit. I did some research on it last nite and found that alot of people are unhappy with it's picture quality as compared to a regular Tivo unit.

[Catigale]

We are one of the three households in my town that dont have cable TV, Im told...(hyperbole of course)

Anyone notice that a high end cable bill is the same ROM as a slip for your Mac?? Whats up with that balance of value.

My limited number of neurons would be overwhelmed with so many channel choices...I do watch free TV at home, snuggled with up with Admiral after the kids go to bed (they still think all 8 year olds go to bed at 730pm ) when they turn that off in a few years that will be the end of TV for us.

Read papers - buy a liberal one, a conservative one, and find the truth in between somewhere...

[Zavala]

Read papers - buy a liberal one, a conservative one, and find the truth in between somewhere...

That's good advice. Basically that's what I do except online instead of print. We don't have cable either. And you're right -- the savings covers the cost of my annual slip fees.

[richandlori]

Another area that a liberal and concervative agree on (get TV/cable out), so I must be doing something right. By the way, I do suscrbe to both National Review and the Nation! You have to get both sides, because the truth IS in between.

[Frank C]

I received an email yesterday from Tivo about the Humax 80 hour unit. I did some research on it last nite and found that a lot of people are unhappy with it's picture quality as compared to a regular Tivo unit.

No surprise there. TiVo uses a pure digital signal for the best possible picture quality. But before permitting the copy to DVD, they must convert to analog (same quality as a VCR tape) just to avoid digital rights conflicts. Gotta pick yer poison.

Pioneer and Toshiba also make combo units w/ DVD-R and TiVo. Gotta pick yer price. The full list of possibilities is much too broad to publish here, but due to the DRM degradation I saw no benefit in a TiVo combo - chose a DVD-R separate from TiVo. (PM if anyone would like more info.)

Regardless of which you choose, watching a DVD copy will always be more practical afloat than trying to support a live stream, or supporting a TiVo drive on AC power.



Best about DTv-TiVo - you can chop out the 40% of commercials and see the remaining 60% of Fox Fair & Balanced News. (that's 40-40-20 - commercials, conservative, liberal)

[Mark Prouty]

Only Honest News

[Dimitri-2000X-Tampa]

Wow, you can get your 8 yr old to bed at 7:30, thats amazing. We are lucky to get ours in bed by 9:30 on a school night. They don't let us watch much TV anymore either.

I'm shopping for a new DVD/TV that I can use in the boat and the car. Just have a little 7 inch DVD at the moment. I have been looking at that 12inch Audiovox although it has mixed reviews. Has wireless headsets which is cool. Definitely need a TV for those Saturday/Sunday afternoons when trying to decide whether to sail or watch football. I guess I could get a TV card for a laptop too, that may be the way to go these days with the cost of laptops and their versatility. Tivo isn't of much use for football games IMO seeing as they are not so much fun to watch later.

[RandyMoon]

We have cable but it is not the feature rich set of options that cost you an arm and a leg. I do not spend all my time watching TV but when I do want to watch, I would like to see something worthwhile and not have to endlessly surf the channels for some rare glimpse of entertainment. But it is hard to find anything worth waching. Thank goodness for the SciFi, History and Discovery channels, and of course, this board.

So what is appealing about a DVR is that it can sit there 7x24 and save things you want to watch later. When you have the time to watch, there is a nice inventory of shows waiting for you to pick from. Watch on your own terms. And speed though pinhead commercials.

As far as TiVo goes, there was an article in the news a few weeks ago that TiVo is going to implement a sytem protocol in new hardware that allows Hollywood types to tag things you record with a date for auto-deletion. So TiVo is brilliant. They will collect $$$ from consumers to record things, and also collect $$$ from the entertainment industry to have some control of things you record.

Kinda makes the old VCR look good.

The cable TV industry's vision of the future for US viewers:

[RandyMoon]

Only Honest News

[Moe]

We sold the big screen, cancelled satellite, threw out the old 27" and now just have broadcast TV on a 9" TV to keep up with the news, primarily local. Even at that, it takes a conscious effort to turn it off. Our lives are a lot richer for it.