HD DirecTivo pre-order

[borghe]

just the way the finances work out.....

I mean this thing IS $900!!!!!!!!

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by borghe
so by monday or tuesday of next week  I should finally have this HDTV wonder in my hands....

So, did you get it then??

[borghe]

heh.. I was just going to post here.. there was a screw up with billing (bank's fault) so after a couple of more delays (I am even more tired of hearing it than you guys), my unit is finally down in Oak Creek.... unfortunately they won't let me hold it down there (I work about 20 blocks from that branch) so first it must go up to Elm Grove then finally delivered to my house.. I am hoping against hope that it gets delivered today, however it is scheduled for tomorrow and I just can't see UPS going out of their way to get it to me that extra day in advance if they don't have to... :bang:

So to make a long story short (too late) I will WITHOUT QUESTION have this thing in my hands once I get off of work tomorrow.

Now for some additional good news, one company (9thTee) already has a hard drive bracket out for this. The bad news is that it looks like weaknees is coming out with a better bracket (that includes additional cooling) so I might just wait for his bracket before upgrading the unit....Either way I will likely buy the 250GB drive for the unit within the next two weeks and increase my recording capacity to over 60 hours HD (over 400 hours SD).

will post probably tomorrow night with pictures and stuff... if you guys are interested.

[gparris]

Take your time...but we want pictures and your experiences.

You will be the first in the forum with a HD Tivo
(or HD DVR, for that matter!)

Be patient installing it and let us know exactly what you hooked  it up to (TV, receiver/amp, cables,etc.) for comparison for anyone else here that buys one...thanks.

Good luck!:D

[borghe]

well, I can tell you now exactly how it will be hooked up...

My setup (as you will see in pictures) is a Mits 55819, a Denon AVR-3300, and a matched set of paradigm speakers (9seMkII's, a CC-300 center, and ADP-450 dipolar rears all with the same driver setup).

The Tivo will go directly to my TV.. I only have two component inputs on my stereo, so I leave them for the DVD player and switch the other one between the gamecube and Xbox.. currently my E86 is going directly to my TV, but that will be completely replaced by the HD Tivo.

So at this point my setup will just be an HD Tivo, DVD player, and game consoles hooked up to my receiver and then to the TV except for the Tivo which will go directly to the TV.

There is a laserdisc player in there also, but that is currently hooked up to my computer to pull Star Wars (original theatrical, not SE) off of laserdisc and on to DVD.

There used to be a VCR in there, but I have no idea where that ended up.. think at my brother's.

I will give you pictures but that is pretty much my setup (and for those video game nuts out there, yes there is a PS2 also, it just isn't hooked up through component because of the way Mistubishi does 480i component)

anyway, I will post pictures of the install and the service, as well as post pictures of the inside of the unit (taking it apart to do a virgin backup of the hard drive). I was hoping to upgrade it immediately but as I have said before in this thread, it might end up waiting two weeks or so...

can't wait.. finally don't have to set aside time to watch deadwood, the soprano's, and CSI in HD.....

actually if you want a funny story, this will be the first time in recent history that I will have been able to see CSI in HD. My visitation with my daughter has always included Thursday evenings, during which I have to have her back to her mother at 8:30 (don't worry guys, there are other days as well, but this is the only one relevant to the story). so anyway, I have to usually leave the house by ~8:20 or so, drop off and say a few words at her mom's, come back home, and usually don't get back till ~8:50-9:10. So I have never bothered with watching CSI in HD. I have watched it maybe like twice since I got my box two years ago. I just watch the SD version on Tivo after I get home from dropping her off... Now I will STILL be able to do that AND see it in HD......

will post in this thread tomorrow... like being a kid on x-mas eve....

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by borghe
There is a laserdisc player in there also, but that is currently hooked up to my computer to pull Star Wars (original theatrical, not SE) off of laserdisc and on to DVD.

Man, I need to get with you some time and buy you a beer.  I want to do the same thing with some of my laser disks.  I have quite an nice video editing suite at home and I keep on meaning to primarily to capture my old UK PAL disks and then run then through a nice software PAL to NTSC converter I have, burn then to DVD so that I can then watch my disks on my living room tely, as alas the only PAL capable TV is the house is now a 13in monitor used for video editing (sending my baby girl DVDs back to my folks in the UK

I had thought about copying some NTSC disks as well, such as the Star Wars box set I have (althought I thought this was due to come out on DVD towards the end of this year anyway) but I wanted to be able to capture the AC-3 sound track, but I do not have an RF modulator so I am unable to capture it in the PC.  How do you do this?  Or, do you just stick with the analog stereo output?

It would be great to get your feed back on this.

Cheers
Kerry

[borghe]

I'm doing this star wars set because han should shoot first..

as for pulling in AC3, no, there is no easy way to do it from laserdisc... the ONLY way that I can think of is this:

run the AC3 from the LD player, to a demodulator, to a preamp, then take the 5.1 discrete analog outputs from the preamp and feed them into the computer a 3 stereo wave files. Then use an AC3 mixer (the hard to find Soft Encode, the AC3 encoder that comes with Scenarist, or possibly BeSweet) to mix those 6 channels into a 5.1 AC3 file. now there are soms caveats to this. first because you are recording the audio separate from the video, there is ALWAYS the concern of lip sync. that is compounded even further by the fact that you are flipping and changing discs.  for my project it isn't that bad because I am capturing the audio and video simultanesouly. I am capturing the audio commentary separately from the video, but it isn't scene specific and even if it were the cues are hardly as important on a commentary track. Also, obviously the AC3 signal was compressed once, and now you are recompressing it a second time.

Sounds like a lot of work, huh..... Well, the only reason I am doing this is because of Lucas' insistance on never releasing the original theatricals... I am not going to capture Aladdin, not going to capture Bambi, didn't bother with Lion King or Beauty and the Beast, didn't bother with Schindler's List.. I knew at some point and time all of these movies would end up on DVD, even the ones that aren't scheduled yet (Bambi and Aladdin and Schindler's List up to last year).

But the original theatricals of Star Wars will probably never make it to DVD or even HD-DVD.. when lucas goes around making comments like "Complete copies of those versions of the films don't even exist anymore," it doesn't inspire confidence that we'll see them..

the only thing that HAS happened since I started last year, is that the project has been put on temporary hold. Originally I was struggling like a fiend to put the movie and commentary on a DVD5... but with DVD9 recorders coming out later this month, I am instead shifting gears and recompressing the whole damn project to work with the new dual layer recorders...

whew, that went slightly off topic... hopefully it helped out some...

[kjnorman]

Originally posted by borghe
didn't bother with Schindler's List.. I knew at some point and time all of these movies would end up on DVD, even the ones that aren't scheduled yet (Bambi and Aladdin and Schindler's List up to last year).

I'm not sure if I read you correctly, it sounds like you think Schindler's list has not come out yet.  I'm sure I'm mistaken, but just in case, Schindler's List came out last month.  Took me by surprise to find it in BestBuy, but there it was so I got it.  Excelent film.

Originally posted by borghe
run the AC3 from the LD player, to a demodulator, to a preamp, then take the 5.1 discrete analog outputs from the preamp and feed them into the computer a 3 stereo wave files.

Sounds like too much hassle to me.  I was hoping that once the RF was modulated, that I would be able to feed it into my PC as a optical digital signal, but I guess the modulator would produce an electrical digital signal on coaxial so that wouldn't work then, unless it was passed though a coaxial/optical converter.  All of which would be adding money to the equation which I have not got...

Which has got me thinking....

My Yamaha DSP-A1 can take the RF in from the laserdisk player.  It also has a optical digital out for use with DAT/MD recorders and the like.  Time to check the manual....

Damn!  

There is a note in the manual that states:

DOLBY DIGITAL (AC-3) FR audio input signal cannot be recorded by a tape deck, MD recorder or VCR.  To record am LD source, the LD player must be connected to the optical digital audio input terminal and/or analog audio signal input terminals of this unit.

I guess that means that you still have to go the demodulator route.

Do you know if it is even possible to capture the raw dolby signal though the digital in on a computer?  

So way off topic now, but at least we are still in the "recording" forum. :rofl:

Kerry

[borghe]

no, I was referring to the fact that I hadn't even thought to capture any discs from LD to DVD... I only mentioned schindler's list because that was one that up until around last Nov we had no idea if/when it was coming out...

yes, it is a huge hassle to do.. and no, there is no way to feed ANY sort of recorder a dolby 5.1 signal... mind you I guarantee that is intentional. nope, you can write a dolby digital signal (DVD, 35mm optical audio, etc), but you can't record one...

back on topic though

I decided I could afford a 250GB drive.. compusa has them on sale this week for $159 with no rebate... so I picked that up.. my plans tomorrow are to

a) backup my virgin image (even before I activate it)
b) restore the image to the 250GB drive to make sure it works.
c) boot the original drive and make sure it works
d) get everything activated with directv
e) install the new 250GB drive as a second drive..

from what I've been reading on the Tivo boards this will give me roughly 427 hours of SD recording space and 63 hours of HD recording space... I'll take pictures of what the Tivo says my capacity will be before and after the upgrade.. unfortunately I haven't ordered a bracket yet (on my list of things to do) so in the meantime my case will be open and the drive sitting out.....

now if they would just figure out how to get ethernet and bash on this thing already.........