DTiVO Software Question

[ds2ktj]

I was wondering if DirecTV might be realeasing the 6.X sfotware for everyone just to stop/ease the hacking. I was thinking that since they have 100% control over what they stream to our boxes that they may just decide to pull the plug on sending compatible guide data to the older units (much like they did whenthey tunred off the HU card stream). I'm not familiar enough with the TiVO database and guide structure/slicefiles to know if this is even possible.

Then again if they switched off that data they'd likely screwup all the owners of older series 1 units. Maybe that's why they have a big cheap pile of the R10 units.

[alldeadhomiez]

Wow, I didn't realize that hacking was costing them so much money. :rolleyes:

[ds2ktj]

LOL You would think so...but the spend millions upon millions with NDS on the new cards to make them unhackable and to redistribute them (I do not steal DTV sigal - I'ts not right to steal). But I guess they made most of that back by sending out letters to people threatining legal action in court to people who bought smart card programmers.

Anyhow..I thought it through more and I doubt they'd turn off the stream untill they start forcing people to trade in their old hardware if they want the new HD programming and their new idea of a DVR (8 Tuners in one box - 6 DTV and 2 ASTC all HD mpeg4 with the "thin" clients attached via ethernet in other rooms coming to you in 2007). I think it would be a good idea if it still has a tivo interface.

I would love an HD DirecTivo...but I cannot justify the $500-800 for something that will be obsolete and unable to recieve all the HD programming in 2 years. What do you think about DTV's switch to MPEG4 coming up in a couple years? Do the current HD TiVo support MPEG4 decoding in the chipset that they currently use?

Kinda a technical question since I don't even know what chipset they have on the board of the HD tivos (speaking of which I wonder if DTV has sent down the patch for my samsung HD-TV reciever that stopped getting audio the first of the year on ASTC channels due to the mpeg header changes.)

[AlphaWolf]

LOL You would think so...but the spend millions upon millions with NDS on the new cards to make them unhackable and to redistribute them (I do not steal DTV sigal - I'ts not right to steal).

Yes....they would do that in order to prevent people from watching their tv service without paying for it. However there isn't a whole lot of incentive for them to prevent people from modifying their tivos. Doing so doesn't exactly get you anything that you'd otherwise pay money for.

[Hanzo97]

Bring on the damn MPEG4 !!! I wanna see ALL programing in HiDef on my HDTV already.. hahahaha !!! :D

anyways, I believe that you still can use the current HDTivo's for SD (MPEG2) and OTA HD stuff. I don't think DTV will get rid of MPEG2, cuz that's a whole mess of IRD's and dtvio's that they will have to replace, or if they make me buy a newer one.. I'm going to be dumping DTV and moving over to Dish or Cable! But to answer your question, I believe we will have to replace our current HDTivo's for the newer one. Is DTV going to replace it, or do we have to buy a new one? Who knows :confused: .. we just have to wait and see... :cool:

[RavenStL]

Thin Clients accessing a "Master Server" seems like too many eggs in one basket to me.

So basically, I could have a single item fail and cause my ENTIRE house to lose signal. BAD idea.

RIght now, as long as what is on the roof works, I would only lose one at a time.

Seems like a bad idea, but maybe not. I dunno.

And who here had an ORiginal tivo drive running for 24 / 365 last for 2 years? Im talking the 40 gig maxtor. Everyones seem to die in less than two years.

[AlphaWolf]

Call me lucky but I have never in my entire lifetime had a hard disk that I own fail on me. I still have an old 120MB, first HDD I ever owned, and it works fine.

[RavenStL]

Well I will put myself in that category as I still have my old 120 gig WD Caviar's from my 386. Still works. noisy guy though.

I just bought Tivo's off ebay, all around 18 months old and they all have dead or failing Maxtors. That was my main point, a Tivo drive is apparently not as well treated IMO.

So will these Seagate go 5+ years? Time will tell. I just hope that if a Central DVR with thin clients has a single HD fail, thats it, the system is down. Just seems too risky for my blood.

[AlphaWolf]

Well I will put myself in that category as I still have my old 120 gig WD Caviar's from my 386. Still works. noisy guy though.

120 gig would be pretty big for a 386 :D

I just bought Tivo's off ebay, all around 18 months old and they all have dead or failing Maxtors. That was my main point, a Tivo drive is apparently not as well treated IMO.

None of mine have failed yet. Course I have sold two out of the four original S1 hard disks I had (I still have the tivos themselves though.) The remaining two are still running strong, I don't know what has become of the other two.