Tivos Become Doorstops in 2009?

Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will
become useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

Also, I have the lifetime service contract which is marked "transfers
allowed" in the record on the Tivo website for my account. I didn't
notice this before, and assumed it was NOT transferable (perhaps they
mean only to a new box but not to a new owner, or to a..... well,
anyway...)

Ideally, I could get a new HD box and transfer it, but I assumed that
was with the X hundred-dollar "lifetime transfer" deal they had.

So... doorstop?

Mark

gmark shaped the electrons to say:
Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will
become useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

No, you're not. (And all TV does not go digital in 2009.)

Also, I have the lifetime service contract which is marked "transfers
allowed" in the record on the Tivo website for my account. I didn't
notice this before, and assumed it was NOT transferable (perhaps they
mean only to a new box but not to a new owner, or to a..... well,
anyway...)

That's *video transfers* - as in Multi-Room Viewing and TiVoToGo - not
Lifetime transfers.

Ideally, I could get a new HD box and transfer it, but I assumed that
was with the X hundred-dollar "lifetime transfer" deal they had.

Yeah, you couldn't taken the $199 lifetime transfer offer, but that's
gone now. Now you only have the $399 new lifetime subscription offer,
for a limited time.

So... doorstop?

No.

-MZ
--
megazone-at-megazone.org http://www.MegaZone.org/ Gweep, Geek, Human, me.
http://www.TiVoLovers.com/ http://www.Eyrie-Productions.com/ -- Hail Eris
"A little nonsense now and then, is relished by the wisest men" 508-852-2171

They will not become obsolete. Most cable co. will include analog for many
years after the 2009 change. Only OTA is mandated to change. If you have
the Tivos connected to cable you'll be fine.


"gmark" wrote in message
...
Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will
become useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

Also, I have the lifetime service contract which is marked "transfers
allowed" in the record on the Tivo website for my account. I didn't
notice this before, and assumed it was NOT transferable (perhaps they
mean only to a new box but not to a new owner, or to a..... well,
anyway...)

Ideally, I could get a new HD box and transfer it, but I assumed that
was with the X hundred-dollar "lifetime transfer" deal they had.

So... doorstop?

Mark

On 2007-11-20, gmark wrote:
Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will
become useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

No. Only those TiVos that are recording OTA (over the air) will be
affected. And even for those, you hopefully will be able to get a box
for the TiVo to control that will translate OTA digital to OTS analog.

Everything else will depend on your cable company. You might have to
have a cable box, and you might not.

Also, I have the lifetime service contract which is marked "transfers
allowed" in the record on the Tivo website for my account. I didn't
notice this before, and assumed it was NOT transferable (perhaps they
mean only to a new box but not to a new owner, or to a..... well,
anyway...)

No. Transfers here means you are allowed to transfer shows between
TiVos (MRV). You are not allowed to transfer a lifetime sub, except
under special TiVo offers that you generally have to pay for.

Chris

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 13:27:37 -0800, gmark wrote:

Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will become
useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

Not totally. Assuming you are talking about over the air TV, you can hook
a converter box to them and still use them. You'll need to use the ir
blaster or some other means to change the channels on the converter box.

Also, I have the lifetime service contract which is marked "transfers
allowed" in the record on the Tivo website for my account. I didn't
notice this before, and assumed it was NOT transferable (perhaps they
mean only to a new box but not to a new owner, or to a..... well,
anyway...)

Ideally, I could get a new HD box and transfer it, but I assumed that
was with the X hundred-dollar "lifetime transfer" deal they had.

So... doorstop?

Mark

Well, I dumped mine a few years ago in favor of ATSC digital TV. Wish I'd
done it sooner. There are lots of options out there. If you watch OTA TV,
there's none better than using a PC or multiple PC's networked. See links
below.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:49:48 -0500, GB wrote:

They will not become obsolete. Most cable co. will include analog for
many years after the 2009 change. Only OTA is mandated to change. If
you have the Tivos connected to cable you'll be fine.

They're obsolete now, but will still be useful for some time to come if
you don't mind using converter boxes. As for the cable co. providing
analog cable for years, I think you are dead wrong. They are scrambling
now to switch to digital for a very good reason. They can get 5 times as
many shows across the same bandwidth as analog by going digital. And of
course they can provide HD over digital in the same bandwidth as 1 analog
SD show. Analog over cable is almost dead now with them moving more shows
to digital every week. Face it, you haven't been able to buy a regular
Tivo new since early March of this year. So when Feb 2009 rolls around
they would have been discontinued for 2 years.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

Years is not a definate term. It is at lease two which I think is accurate.
Agreed this is the trend, but there are many cable co. out there that will
support anaog for many years because of the costs of conversion. The major
cable co. will switch faster since they already have the bandwidth and have
made the initial investment (fiber, etc) available. We'll see what happens.
I really think we'll see analog hang around for several years.

"Wes Newell" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:49:48 -0500, GB wrote:

They will not become obsolete. Most cable co. will include analog for
many years after the 2009 change. Only OTA is mandated to change. If
you have the Tivos connected to cable you'll be fine.

They're obsolete now, but will still be useful for some time to come if
you don't mind using converter boxes. As for the cable co. providing
analog cable for years, I think you are dead wrong. They are scrambling
now to switch to digital for a very good reason. They can get 5 times as
many shows across the same bandwidth as analog by going digital. And of
course they can provide HD over digital in the same bandwidth as 1 analog
SD show. Analog over cable is almost dead now with them moving more shows
to digital every week. Face it, you haven't been able to buy a regular
Tivo new since early March of this year. So when Feb 2009 rolls around
they would have been discontinued for 2 years.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

Wes, can you tell me why so many people in this group have issues with you?
Seems to me after reading many of your responses. it is quite biased. Not
trying to get into a ****ing match but so many of your opinions seem quite
anti-tivo. Everyone knows by your posts that you prefer Myth. Please let the
tivo experts answer tivo questions. And I know you had one etc. but many
things have changed since you may have owned one. By the way, I don't
consider myself an expert by any means. I do keep an open mind and like to
keep up by following this group.

Unfortunately, the way you word your responses have given you this
reputation. Many times you have very good and accurate information.
Problem is that when you develop this reputation many people discard the
good with the bad.

Please take this as constructive critisism as I certainly do not mean to
offend.


"Wes Newell" wrote in message
news:[email protected]
On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 16:49:48 -0500, GB wrote:

They will not become obsolete. Most cable co. will include analog for
many years after the 2009 change. Only OTA is mandated to change. If
you have the Tivos connected to cable you'll be fine.

They're obsolete now, but will still be useful for some time to come if
you don't mind using converter boxes. As for the cable co. providing
analog cable for years, I think you are dead wrong. They are scrambling
now to switch to digital for a very good reason. They can get 5 times as
many shows across the same bandwidth as analog by going digital. And of
course they can provide HD over digital in the same bandwidth as 1 analog
SD show. Analog over cable is almost dead now with them moving more shows
to digital every week. Face it, you haven't been able to buy a regular
Tivo new since early March of this year. So when Feb 2009 rolls around
they would have been discontinued for 2 years.

--
Want the ultimate in free OTA SD/HDTV Recorder? http://mythtv.org
My Tivo Experience http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/tivo.htm
Tivo HD/S3 compared http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/mythtivo.htm
AMD cpu help http://wesnewell.no-ip.com/cpu.php

Am I right in assuming that the series 1 or 2 Tivos (non-HD) will
become useless as of Feb. 2009, when all TV goes digital?

No. Only those TiVos that are recording OTA (over the air) will be
affected. And even for those, you hopefully will be able to get a box
for the TiVo to control that will translate OTA digital to OTS analog.

If you receive over-the-air, and you have a converter box that will
receive digital and output analog, your Tivo still isn't going to
be very useful unless it can change the channel on the converter
box. What are the chances of, say, a Series 1 Tivo being able to
emulate the remote control of a yet-to-be-designed converter box?
Are the remote-control codes for a Series 1 (to control other
devices) still updated?

If not, you'll have trouble even doing time-and-channel recording.
What you get is time-and-manually-set-channel. This, IMHO, is
somewhat less useful than a VCR. Oh, and your analog VCR will have
the same problem: not being able to control the channel.

Cable users might have the same problem, unless the cable box
converts *all* of the channels at once (or at least the unscrambled
ones). If it only converts the one channel it is set to, you're
in the same boat as the OTA users: the Tivo can't control the
channel. Test: can you NOW connect two different TV sets to the
SAME cable box (or the cable if there is no box), set the channel
differently on both TVs, and watch two different channels at once?
If you can do that now and you're currently getting digital channels,
you might not have a problem.

Everything else will depend on your cable company. You might have to
have a cable box, and you might not.

Oh, yes, there's also the issue of whether or not program guides for
digital channels will be made available to Tivos that can't directly
receive digital channels.

GB wrote:
Wes, can you tell me why so many people in this group have issues with you?
Seems to me after reading many of your responses. it is quite biased. Not
trying to get into a ****ing match but so many of your opinions seem quite
anti-tivo. Everyone knows by your posts that you prefer Myth. Please let the
tivo experts answer tivo questions. And I know you had one etc. but many
things have changed since you may have owned one. By the way, I don't
consider myself an expert by any means. I do keep an open mind and like to
keep up by following this group.

Unfortunately, the way you word your responses have given you this
reputation. Many times you have very good and accurate information.
Problem is that when you develop this reputation many people discard the
good with the bad.

Please take this as constructive critisism as I certainly do not mean to
offend.


I read the same messages as you. Most of the responses are based on
other posters not liking the response. But the question is "is the
answer accurate". If people "discard the good with the bad", they are
incredibly stupid and I would not lose a second of sleep over them. In a
world where it's "I read it on the internet", etc, it is even more
important. to separate what is from what simply is not. It is not
"anti-Tivo" to say the series 2 are "outmoded". They are and have been
for some time. It does not mean they are useless. It is also amazing you
think of your question as requiring a "Tivo expert". Being able to
create a season pass in 12 seconds will not affect FCC decrees or
influence the nation's cable providers, nor change your Tivo's capabilities.

Oh, and BTW the FCC requires that CABLE operators must supply the means
for older tvs to receive local content until 2012.