According to http://www.scribd.com/doc/29053079/TiVo-Premiere-Review it will record NTSC. It just doesn't have the composite input jacks last seen on the S2DT.


I guess, I read the spec's too quickly. I'm even thinking of getting the Premiere also and I would put the TiVo HD on my lone 4221HD.

You can transfer recorded shows between TiVo's. Now that is pretty cool.

I have an old pc but the noise of the fans would drive anyone out of the room. The power consumption is likely bad too. The pc was bought in 2002 and it sits in my guest room right now. Occasionally company will turn it on and use it. It's useful for web surfing and emailing. It would need extensive upgrading to handle HD video I believe.

I was thinking of buying a Mac mini and creating a PVR out of it. Low power, quiet, less real estate too. Yet the TiVo does everything and does it well for likely a better price in the end. My big concern with the TiVo is it won't have the guide info of OTA channels. That would really be the big disadvantage. Earlier in this thread people talked about waiting a year or more for TiVo to add a station in the Toronto area. That's poor. So that's where I'm stuck right now.

I would likely buy the lifetime subscription. It would be cheaper if the machine outlives 2.5 years.

Thanks for the feedback. It really helps the decision making process.

From what I read quickly, the Premiere has only ATSC tuners. It does not have NTSC tuners but next year in Canada, that is not a problem.

I was thinking about building a HTPC but I found the hardware to cost the same as a Tivo HD even with the lifetime sub. You have to calculate all of the hardware, 2 tuner cards, hard disk, motherboard and etc.

A new factor for the green culture also ( if that is your cup of tea) is the Tivo takes much much less electricity then HTPC.
That's what I was calculating too.
The HD TiVo's (used Series 3) with lifetime are going for around $500.
I didn't want the headaches of maintaining yet another PC in our house and I knew that my wife would get frustrated using a PC for watching & recording - and so would I!
The motorola pvr was nice and simple to use, so I wanted something to replace it along the same lines.
Tivo support is excellent considering they don't make any money off me (yet anyway).
The other plus with Tivo (over the old pvr) is that I can transfer video back and forth over the network to a computer. So, if I want a show I can't get, I can d/l from the web, then send it to my Tivo.
I am know even able to watch mkv files sent via PyTiVo.
So it really is a media player as well.
For the price, you can't build a dual tuner PC with HDMI and 5.1 THX.

There's a vast difference in price between the THX and the regular Premiere TiVo units. I realize the remote is better and the hard drive bigger too.

Can't you add extra hard drives?

I use a Harmony remote so the nicer remote means nothing.

Doesn't THX have to be on the receiver too? I don't think mine has it, but there's an upgrade to add it I believe.

Right now I'm thinking about the lower cost premiere unless someone here knows a huge reason to go with the premium premiere.

Without hacking, you can only add the specific Western Digital MyDVR drives.

You can replace the stock drive with almost any drive. You can hack the stock drive to add nearly any eSATA drive.

THX is just a certification of certain specifications, not a format it supports.
It is certified to be part of a complete THX certified HT system.

The only practical reason to go with the XL is the stock recording capacity.

Ahhh. That's what I was kind of thinking. Although I thought for some reason you could plug an external hard drive in.

It would be nice to have the ability to increase the storage capacity. I'm never fond of hacking. If all it means is installing a new HD into the machine it might not be so bad. If it voids the warranty, that's no good.

I believe there is a company in the US (mentioned in this thread that ships to Canada) that sells Tivo with upgraded storage. They may also upgrade units they haven't sold....worth checking out...

Thanks for the tip Jase. I'll likely just drive to Ogdensburg NY as it's close to here.

Ahhh. That's what I was kind of thinking. Although I thought for some reason you could plug an external hard drive in.


You can, withough hacking, only the supported WD MyDVR drives, or with haking nearly any eSATA drive or SATA drive in a compatible eSATA case. They connect with eSATA. I maybe should have made that a bit clearer.

They do not support USB drive expansion if that is what you are thinking.
Some Bell and FTA receivers do that, but not TiVo.

Interesting. How does the external MyDVR drive connect to the TiVo if it doesn't use USB?

I just found out that you cannot get TiVos in Ogdensburg. I couldn't even find a place that carries them in Massena. It looks like the closest place is Watertown. That's a 2 hour 20 minute drive from here. Yuck. There is a company that will ship TiVos to anywhere in the US for free, but they only accept US credit cards and US Paypal. I thought there was a recession in the US. I'm surprised at how hard it is to purchase something like this. So on Saturday I'll likely make a day trip out of it.

I couldn't even find a place that carries them in Massena

I got my TivoHD at Sears in Massena.

I called them yesterday and they said they don't sell them. Was it a long time ago when you bought yours? Thanks for letting me know. I will call them again.

I bought my S2DT (several years ago) via US Amazon using a canadian CC and had it shipped to a US address.

I called them yesterday and they said they don't sell them. Was it a long time ago when you bought yours? Thanks for letting me know. I will call them again.

I got it in Feb 2009. Check on their website, if they don't have it on the website, I dough it they will sell it right now.

BestBuy USA has them on their website.

I called Sears back and although these TiVos are available on their website, but the Massena store said they stopped carrying them completely. The cable company in that area doesn't support TiVo so sales were low.

I'm driving to Best Buy USA tomorrow. The closest one to Ottawa is Watertown. It's a 2.5 hour drive. I'll just make a day trip out of it and maybe buy new shoes too.

Interesting. How does the external MyDVR drive connect to the TiVo if it doesn't use USB?


As I said, it uses eSATA. Mind you, that is on the Series 3/4 HD models only, which I think you are missing, or maybe I am just assuming because this is the ATSC forum.

Series 2s can only be upgraded by internally adding a/replacing the internal IDE HDD.

My setup:
Shaw Direct satellite
FTA satellite set to the satellite with RTV and G19.
The RTV channel is supposedly national east/west.
A Series 2 TiVo, older single tuner model that does support DTV boxes.

I have it currently set for a Niagara Falls postal code, which for OTA it gets WGRZDT-3, which is their own RTV schedule, not the National one I get on FTA.
The Detroit RTV affilate also has their own schedule.

What I want is a Canadian Eastern time zone postal code that has the full Shaw Direct eastern lineup (Classic), and an OTA lineup that has the RTV National schedule I get on FTA satellite.

A little help please?

Well I picked up the TiVo yesterday and hooked it up. When signing up I chose my address including postal code. I didn't even have to use a US zip at all. It quickly scanned my over-the-air stations and added the UHF and VHF channels including SUN TV. I was so happy to see the guide for SUN. It works perfectly for ota in this region. In the end I think it's much better than building a pvr from scratch. It uses less power, has a ton of bells and whistles, is very quiet, and easy to use. I find it has better functionality than the Bell PVRs. So I'm very pleased and may buy another in a year or so for my bedroom. The other nice thing is you can share recorded shows on your Mac, PC, or through another TiVo in the house.

I forgot to mention the one problem I did encounter with the TiVo Premiere was with the HDMI. It works when it starts to boot up, but then goes black and the only way to watch it is with component cables.

Has anyone else experienced this? I haven't tried directly connecting it to my tv. It's going through my Denon receiver. I hope it's not another HDCP issue. What a farce the entire HDCP is.

Yep, it sounds like an HDMI handshake issue. Run it right into the TV as a test to confirm, though.