I'm in the market to buy a television & need assistance.

[Seabiscuit36]

Mussa buy cables on

www.monoprice.com  Its cheap and good.

[phattymatty]

my tv was shipped today. should get it tuesday. cannot wait.

by the way, anything you ever wanted to know about that tv...

AVS Forum

[mussa]

Thanks for the links 

[Cerevant]

So, you've never hooked up your PC to a TiVo and gotten the red circle with an exclamation mark, aka: not allowed to download this?  Have you read articles about TiVo deleting shows 24 hours after they are recorded?  No...this isn't commonplace - yet.  But the media companies are much more concerned about HD because of the uncompromised quality.

Actually, no i havent, i put video from tivo onto my laptop or ipod every day of the week...and have never been told i couldnt download something from it.

Take a look at this.  I also saw the red !, but it was probably a "mistake" like the Simpsons event.  I suspect that it turns up more with shows recorded off of pay channels.

Still, for the most part, media companies don't care about recordings that are degraded (except for series 3 cable card, TiVo significantly degrades the picture quality, similar to a VCR).   I tried to make this point briefly, but since that doesn't seem to be sufficient for the geniuses around here, here is the long version:

As I said before, the meadia companies are throwing the gauntlet down for HD content - which is why I made the comment about a device that allows you to record HD.  You can only record HD over the air (ATSC) using such devices.  Unless you live in the middle of a city, that means rabbit ears. 

You can use a HD cable box to "record" shows using firewire, if the channel is unprotected.  In most cases, anything you pay extra for is protected.  The cable company can turn off that functionality any time they choose.

Some new TVs have cable card support - this allows the TV to tune digital cable channels (including HD).  There is no way to record from the TV.

The TiVo series 3 is the first (that I'm aware of) DVR that can use cable card.  This allows the TiVo to record digital cable directly (including HD), without a converter box.  However, the channels have the same restrictions as the cable company's box.  Most shows from pay channels have the copy once flag set - meaning you are allowed to record it, but you can't make a copy of the recording.  Unfortunately, the copy on the DVR is your one copy, and you won't be able to use TiVo ToGo or anything else to get a copy of it.

ATI and other companies are releasing cable card tuners for PCs this year that work with Windows Vista.  ATI has publicly stated that they can not and will not release these products for general sale, they will only be bundled in PCs that meet the full spec required by CableLabs.  This spec requires the same behaviors I've described for DVRs and other cable boxes.

Because something works today, does not mean it will work tomorrow or next week.  Also, results will vary from cable co to cable co - from region to region.  But know that these systems are designed to restrict or prevent copying on the cable company or broadcaster's say so.  That isn't to say there won't be hacks, but that isn't really in the scope of this for this forum.

[Wingspan]

Well I am not reading all of that.

But I will say, I will continue to take anything off the tivo and put it on my ipod or laptop whenever i want. And when the day comes that i cannot do that anymore...well that's tough shtein on me.

And I don't think I will be all that upset about it.

[Geowhizzer]

[PoopyfaceMcGee]

Did you get that out of a PARADE magazine or some shtein?

[Geowhizzer]

Did you get that out of a PARADE magazine or some shtein?

Nope.

[phattymatty]

i didn't realize anyone laughed at comics these days.

[phattymatty]

question.

i'm moving at the end of the month and am thinking about ditching comcast and going with direct tv.  for those that have it, what do you all pay per month for service?

[Wingspan]

question.

i'm moving at the end of the month and am thinking about ditching comcast and going with direct tv.  for those that have it, what do you all pay per month for service?

I have the PLUS HD DVR service, which is about $70/month....which is about 200 channels, 70 music stations...and 20 or so HD channels.

[phattymatty]

I have the PLUS HD DVR service, which is about $70/month....which is about 200 channels, 70 music stations...and 20 or so HD channels.

cool, thats what i was looking at.  they're running some nfl sunday ticket package right now too.  direct tv seems way more worth the money than comcast.

[Wingspan]

I've had it for 1.5 years now (the HD part, i've had directv for 5 years now)...the claim to be adding more HD channels by the winter.

The service is excellent.In 5+ years of directv, i've had maybe 10 outtages that have lasted about 10-15 minutes each that have been in really severe weather, that i probably should have even had the TV on during. 

[phattymatty]

I've had it for 1.5 years now (the HD part, i've had directv for 5 years now)...the claim to be adding more HD channels by the winter.

The service is excellent.In 5+ years of directv, i've had maybe 10 outtages that have lasted about 10-15 minutes each that have been in really severe weather, that i probably should have even had the TV on during. 

the only reason i've stuck with comcast is because of the internet bundle, but i really really hate them.  i figure now that i'm going to be in a condo i can steal my internet off one of the other units. 

[Geowhizzer]

I get outages pretty frequently during the summer storm season.  But, that could be because:

1.  I live in Florida
2.  My satellite equipment is nearly 10 years old (I first subscribed to DirecTV in 1998).

I really like it.  Even with my archaic televisions, the picture is much better with the satellite than it is with basic cable.