Ok, more info for a friend. He'll probably lurk here to read the discussion. But he doesn't have an empeg so doubtful he'll join and post. He did agree that you guys had a good grip on this stuff.

Anyone have any details on TiVo2 and/or the possibility of DirecTiVo2 units hitting the market? How about quality comparisons or opinions between standalone TiVo and DirecTiVo?

I forwarded him the link to the last thread when I saw he was interested in some DTV receivers. The deal currently running on the site linked is better than what he was quoted elsewhere so he was ready to move on it. Now it sounds like TiVo2 will be coming very soon and he's questioning whether it would be a good idea to wait for that. Any opinions on that move?

Thanks guys.

Bruno

This is the only thing I've seen so far about it. No plans for a DTiVo as far as I know. Have your friend monitor the AVS TiVo Forum as well. It's almost the equivalent to the empeg BBS for TiVo.

davec is right. I read the AVS TiVo forums almost as much as this board. The Series 2 Tivos are likely going to have somewhere near 70 Hours capacity (80GB drives), USB ports, and PiP. The standalone Series2 is already out in the form of the AT&T Tivo, its just lacking the greater recording capacity and final software. There are many rumors floating around about what the Sony DirecTiVo (SAT-T80) will consist of, but it seems it will exist. You see, there has been talk about TiVo branding their own equipment now since they have built a name.

If your friend has DirecTV, it is imperative that he gets a DirecTiVo. You lose a lot of great functionality, integration, and picture quality when using a standalone with DirecTV.

Now it sounds like TiVo2 will be coming very soon

While I am a TiVo fanatic and proselytizer, I don't really keep up on the latest TiVo developments. So at the risk of exposing myself for the true dunderhead that I am... what is TiVo2? If it is a standalone dual-tuner TiVo, they can have my credit card numbers right now!

tanstaafl.

I think the end of your post is what is going to sum it up for him. I'll make sure he checks out the other forum as well.

Bruno

me too

If it is a standalone dual-tuner TiVo, they can have my credit card numbers right now!

It may be! The TiVo Store recently started carrying remotes with a PiP button on them. No current hardware supports PiP, so a series 2 product will. However, it is unknown whether it's for Standalone, DirecTiVo, or both.

While no current Tivo supports PiP using multiple tuners its quite likely that the PiP button on the new remote can also be used to monitor Play-back' and Live-TV at the same time with the current hardware.
[remember the current live-TV signal is ALWAYS being digitised and recorded to disk, so all you need for Live-TV PiP is to decimate & 'overlay' the current digitised video image image into a small window over the currently decoded playback stream - something I think the Tivo can do relatively easily now [or if not now, real soon now].

PiP using live-tv and current program being watch (from now showing) is a feature thats long been 'missing' from the current Tivo software (and often requested in the past) and now that Tivo software version 3.0 is nearer its quite likely that this will be what the PiP button is intended for at least initially.
Once the newer 2 tuner hardware is released then PiP can be used for that like 2 tuner TVs now.

Hmm, I like the idea of being able to watch the live TV last half-hour 'buffer' and in a window have the 'right-now' live-TV signal as a window on the top - that would be cool for live sports - no need to miss the action while you do a action replay of the previous piece of action.

What I would hope is that any PiP window can be moved around the screen, can be resized [from 1/16th to 1/9th, top maybe 1/4 of the screen] and can be swapped with the main picture quickly.

Now this is what a DVR is all about!

It's unlikely that the PiP button will ever be usable on the current TiVos regardless of software. Apparently, on DirecTiVos at least, the hardware cannot support decoding more than one MPEG stream at a time. That's what I heard a few months ago.

I guess you're right, but why did they sell DTivo models with two Tuners in them then, if thats the case?

I am sure the SA Tivos can support PiP with Live-TV [only].

Someone else suggested that PiP could be used for showing current TV image in a window while the menu is active.
Not sure how good that would be, but it might work.

I have two DirecTiVos with dual tuner enabled. It allows you to record and/or use trick play on two channels at once. You can also record two sources and watch something out of 'Now Playing' at the same time (triple tasking?).

Remeber, DirecTiVo, unlike standalone, doesn't encode anything so recording multiple streams is not that taxing on the CPU.

If your statement about DTivos being able to decode/playback two channels at once - then why do you say 'they will never do PiP as they cannot decode two channels at once, when thats exactly what your Tivo does now?

All PiP would need to do is to 'cut & paste' the second (decoded) channel into a sub-window of the first channel - thats not even a stream decoding issue, thats 'overlay' type operation - something the Tivo does now [albeit with static images only - ala OSD and menus].

I didn't say anything about playing back two channels at once. Trick play is the ability to pause and rewind live tv. However, you have to switch back and fourth between the tuners to do so. You cannot have two images (one from each tuner) on your TV at once.

i.e. You can pause the channel you're watching and switch to another channel on the other tuner. Then, when you switch back to your first tuner, it will still be paused where you left it.

At no time during this process is the unit decoding more than one signal. Yes, it is recording the unwatched tuner in the background but it is not decoding it.

Ah, I see your point.

Maybe DTivos can't do it then.
But a SA Tivo should be able to grab each 'digitised' frame from each picture (before its even encoded/recorded), then decimate [scale down smaller & throw away every 'n' pixels/lines] to make it a smaller image, then overlay this into the live 'output frame buffer' which is then output to the Video Out/Tuner Out on the SA Tivo.
Eveyr thing but the decimation and overlay is being done now by the SA Tivo, the only additional work it to decimate then copy (i.e. overlay) each decimated frame into the output frame buffer from the now-being played video stream.

This would give a simple PiP implementation but only because the SA hardware does the initial 'grab' of the live TV signal automatically on the fly now.

This would have a neat effect of allowing you to see the 'live' TV input with a delay of about 2 video frames (either 2/60 or 2/50 depending on TV standard) of the live signal arriving from the Tuner or Video in socket, while the normal 'encode/decode' process on Live-Tv takes about 2 seconds [i.e. normal 'live-TV' is really about 2 seconds behind reality].

Therefore you could see the instant live pictures overlayed into the delayed live TV signal (obviously if you paused Live-TV longer you would see the PiP window with live TV pictures with the playback signal delayed by the number of seconds/minutes from reality due to the live TV buffer on hard disk.

Like I said - a neat idea for live TV with lots of action you want to replay, while not missing the 'big picture' of whats happening now.

I don't need all the fancy stuff -- all I want is the ability to record two programs at the same time while watching a third program that was recorded previously.

Are you saying that a standalone TiVo will be for sale in the not too distant future that can do that?

tanstaafl.

Well, the new (yet to be released) Tivo2 (The *Next* Generation), will supposedly have a place where a second Tuner board can be connected.

If they build this feature into the new models, then yes, you will be able to probably record two programs and watch a third.

However, whether or not both Tuners are regular 'over the air' tuners is something I don't know [as opposed to one being a Dish/Satellite tuner].

Two Over the air tuners would require 2 video encoders - 1 for each Analogue video source.

I don't know the hardware specs on the new Tivos except that they are not PowerPc based anymore (unlike the original Tivo which was/is) and use different processors and [presumably] different encoder/decoder and would require different software from the current Tivo SA units - hence the probability of a PiP feature esp. as the new Tivo2 remotes have a button labelled for this purpose.
And of course the new Tivos come with 2 USB 'master' ports 'for future expansion' a bit like the HSX-109 does - like Ethernet and Keyboard etc.