Think Different About TiVo

So Replay TV does support the Mac?

Maybe a dumb question, but is playback on a computer possible with the ReplayTv? Couldn't find it on their site.

Hey Thom, Sounds like a good setup if you have an always on Mac; alas I am a Powerbook only family (though I dream of a Mac mini G5 some day...).

Thom. It seems that your link is not working. I get Sorry, invalid forum specified. Care to try to repost it? I have direcTivo. Too bad I never had to worry about tivo to go. :( -Marcus

I'm not saying it's for everybody, but if you want the most power and flexibility -- why not choose your *Mac* over either one? I've got two: one's a Mac mini-based setup which is capable of storing up to 50 hours of digital 1080i HD content (avg. 8GB/hr, 400 GB drive) and another's on an iMac G5 which can store upwards of 100 hours of analog content (like from cable, or when the digital recorder is already recording something else). Then, with an HD TV with an integrated digital tuner, we can watch something else entirely at the same time, or timeshift what's being recorded, complete with IR remote. See my url for my setup, as one example. Better yet, check out the Mac HTPC section of the AVS Forums, at: http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=115 There are a lot of different solutions you can choose, many of which focus either around recording the (FCC mandated) firewire output from cable boxes (using free software like Virtual DVHS from Apple's Firewire SDK), or the use of EyeTV (by ElGato) and similar devices. In either case, your storage time is only limited by how much free disk space you have, and you aren't prevented from upgrading (it doesn't void your warranty or anything.) You don't have to pay for a monthly subscription to get information that's freely available to you already (read the http://www.titantv.com/ signup page to see which Mac and PC devices it supports.) The developers and support staff are quite friendly and willing to troubleshoot and add new features. There are also ways in which devices like the IRTrans or ZephIR (USB to IR adapters) can be used to change channels on a cable or satellite set-top-box. (Then their analog output signals are recorded; not the best solution, but it's one of many options.) Ways in which digital audio can be output via S/PDIF to a receiver, even if your Mac doesn't have a built in TOSLink output (like M-Audio's Transit or Sonica Theater USB devices.) Ways to control devices with serial ports (USB to serial adapters), etc. To play the content back, you could either use your HD TV as a big monitor for your Mac (eg with a DVI or VGA/5-wire RGBHV input), you could get a signal converter that outputs component, or output S-Video or composite to a regular TV if you weren't worried about HD just yet. Or, special networked players are also available: ElGato's 'EyeHome' does okay, but does not support HD and the interface is weak. But their EyeConnect software's support of UPnP opens the door to many players, like... Roku, D-Link, Streamium, and I'm not sure about the IOdata AVLP2... but you get the point. Plug in a network cable, run a media server like EyeConnect on the Mac, and there you go. (Think SliMP3 / Squeezebox, but video+audio playback, in many cases also your music collection, iPhoto library, the movies you've got on your HD, etc.) There are downsides, like tying up your computer with TV type stuff; playback can hit my Mac mini's CPU pretty hard. (But then, that's why I got a dedicated mini as a HTPC.) There are potetially more peripherals and more wires, drivers etc. to work out and keep straight. And the overall costs can be higher. But there are *lots* of possibilities which can make doing this worth considering. For example: we just had a press conference at work, which was covered on the news. The department holding it asked us to record it for them, and put it on a DVD. I used the titantv site to 'remote schedule' recording the program, to be sure we wouldn't miss it, grabbed the pure digital MPEG2 stream off the air, edited out the commercials and burned a copy, then extracted just the specific clips where we were featured, and burned another DVD of those, using iDVD. They got handed the disc the next day. I'd encourage anyone with questions about using their Mac for recording/playback/serving media to check out the AVS Forum link I posted above and put questions there. HTH, Thom Brooks Chicago, IL