DirectTivo gets their channel lineups through the satelite, no phone line needed for the Tivo stuff.

DirectTV is NOT bi-directional. That's why they are having so many problems with people hacking their own cards (until recently anyway but that's another story).

Normal tivo needs regular updates for all your channel lineups and sometimes software updates, a phoneline IS needed since as of now they don't transmit data through your cable or TV programs.

And just to clear something up: Tivo DOES NOT send any information back to anybody.

Tivo is now just about as hacked by people as the empeg is and any attempt on their part to sneak this in would be discovered very quickly. It works the same way as Windows Update which, for example, can determine what updates you need without sending any info to Microsoft.

The people behind Tivo are very cool BTW and understand they have more to loose than to gain by trying to pull something like this. Ultimate TV on the other hand hasn't made clear what their plans are in this area.

-D


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reg. #10798 - blue 40gig MK2 #764