Can I use 7000/17 (no DTV service) with a new active Series2?

[Enduro]

Sorry for the long title but I wanted to be specific. I've been missing TiVo ever since I moved out of my old place and canceled DirecTV in favor of a cheap cable. Now, I want to buy a new Series2 unit for my humble home theater and I was wondering if I could use TiVo2Go with the old 7000? I know I wouldn't be able to watch live TV but could I send recorded shows to it? Is there any other functionality to it?

[stevel]

Nope. A DirecTiVo without satellite service is mostly a doorstop. It serves as a DirecTV receiver and that is all. DTiVos do not play with TiVoToGo and even if you hacked it to enable network options, you could not transfer shows to it (using mfs_ftp) without active service.

You can probably get $60 for it on eBay (judging by past auctions.)

[Enduro]

Thanks. That's pretty much what I feared when I couldn't find much info on this. I guess I'll have to take the Price Is Right where Bob Barker tells a woman he ought to kick her in the ankle off it and put it up for sale.

[cheer]

Originally Posted by stevel

Nope. A DirecTiVo without satellite service is mostly a doorstop. It serves as a DirecTV receiver and that is all. <snip> ...even if you hacked it to enable network options, you could not transfer shows to it (using mfs_ftp) without active service.

Not true. In fact, a DirecTivo sans sub can even act as a MRV station.

[stevel]

Really? Ok sorry for the misinformation.

[Smee]

Originally Posted by stevel

Nope. A DirecTiVo without satellite service is mostly a doorstop. It serves as a DirecTV receiver and that is all. DTiVos do not play with TiVoToGo and even if you hacked it to enable network options, you could not transfer shows to it (using mfs_ftp) without active service.

You can probably get $60 for it on eBay (judging by past auctions.)

I have two Dtivo that had their SAT 1 & 2 coax ports fried by lightning. I replaced them, but still use the two damaged units for MRV transfers. Works fine just fine in the kids room although it does complain every now and then that it can't find a sat signal.

Smee

[Enduro]

Great. So once I get the legit TiVo all I have to do is get USB to Ethernet for both and the illegit one will recognize the other? Is there any firmware that I'll need to get onto the old one in order to use TiVo2Go?

I just want to know what I'm getting for my money... All replies appreciated.

[captain_video]

You'll need to hack the S2 SA Tivo with the superpatch in order to use it for MRV with a hacked DTivo. You'll also get better picture quality from the videos if you use video extraction instead of TivoToGo.

[Jamie]

Originally Posted by captain_video

... You'll also get better picture quality from the videos if you use video extraction instead of TivoToGo.

Huh? TiVoToGo is video extraction. There may be faster ways than TTG, but there's no way to get better quality than a digital transfer.

[Enduro]

Superpatch must be installed on the older machine... What about the new one? I'm always nervous about hacking with something new and ruining my subscription (ala Xbox).

[captain_video]

Huh? TiVoToGo is video extraction.

I've never used TTG personally since I don't own a S2 SA Tivo but everything I've read about it indicates that the output is degraded. I don't believe it's a direct digital transfer like we do here at DDB. The .tivo files generated by TTG are slightly downrezzed IIRC. If TTG was outputting the original digital data then we'd have .ty files and not .tivo files. Tivo has it set up so you can't get an exact copy of the original digital data in order to get around any potential DMCA issues.

Superpatch must be installed on the older machine... What about the new one?

Superpatch must also be installed on the new machine in order for MRV transfers to work. If you had two S2 SA models you could transfer shows without having to hack either machine. An unhacked Tivo with normal MRV won't work with a hacked unit so they both need to be hacked to enable the transfers.

[cheer]

Originally Posted by captain_video

I've never used TTG personally since I don't own a S2 SA Tivo but everything I've read about it indicates that the output is degraded. I don't believe it's a direct digital transfer like we do here at DDB.

Incorrect -- it's a direct digital transfer.

The .tivo files generated by TTG are slightly downrezzed IIRC. If TTG was outputting the original digital data then we'd have .ty files and not .tivo files.

Don't confuse a container with a video format.

The .ty container is a concatination of the Tivo-native video chunks, created by (more or less) us. It's not an official format. The .tivo format is a different container (in order to support DRM) but has the same video data.

[captain_video]

Thanks. I stand corrected.

[Smee]

In any case, the Dtivo is good for archiving video and serving it. Every once in a while I'll also put a DVD video on it as well so the kids can stop bugging about "Daddy, can you put the DVD on again!!" which really drives me crazy. I'll compress the video to conserve some space with Videora then transfer it over with tivoserver. Real nice.

Smee