Despite not having a whole lot of backload on our TiVo (thank you -- or not -- writers' strike), I did not have a valid or good comeback to Todd's "You're kidding me, right?" expression when I told him one of the things that I wanted to do this past weekend was to expand our HD TiVo's recording capacity via their "approved" My DVR Expander external drive. But having stuck with me for this long, he has learned that once something gets in my head there is little chance of shaking it loose and that resistance is pretty much futile.
According to their web site, our nearby Best Buy showed it was in stock... good news... but that didn't mean that we (let alone an employee!) would be able to find it! But after 5-10 minutes of searching... whoop, there it was! Just an FYI, after previous window shopping... I knew that, at least in our store, it is stocked over by the external/internal hard drives ... not by the TiVos.
It was quite easy to install. Just had to get the "right" order of plugging the eSATA and electrical cords in and re-powering up the TiVo... plus a little patience (not one of my virtues). The last step was to "follow the on-screen instructions"... but there were none... I re-started the TiVo again... still nothing... took a little break... but 2 minutes later, I was on the TiVo website and quickly panicked (one of my "virtues") that I didn't get the set-up screen shown. I headed back to the TiVo... popped the TiVo button... and guess what? The set-up screen! Followed the instructions... and it showed all of our new goodness!
Our original HD TiVo gave us 32 HD recording hours ... which now figures we have a 250GB internal hard drive. The external drive is 500GB... according to the info screen, our new capacity is 98 HD hours... and a snort-inducing 927 hours of standard definition! Though not sure what's inducing the snort... the 900+ hours or the idea of watching TV in standard definition... yes, we have pretty much morphed into HD snobs.
Back to the original question... why?
Well, HD programming takes up a lot of space! Even if you are recording a program on an HD channel and its not in what I call "full HD splendor," it seems to take up approximately 5x the space of the same program recorded on a SD channel. And while, yes I agree... 32 hours seems like more than enough time... free space still got dodgy from time to time. Right now, I am recording a lot of the Australian Open (thankfully in "full HD splendor" on ESPN2)... and a 2.5 hour block of tennis took up a whopping 20GB... and while the "watch it" turn-around time is quick... it still would have made me worry about older programming (i.e. even though their seasons have been long over, we're still watching October episodes of HBO's Tell Me You Love Me and Showtime's Weeds).
I know, I know. There are ways around it... "keep until I delete" on stuff like that... but it's certainly nice not to have to worry (yet another one of my "virtues") about it. While I certainly would have been content with doubling the space, no complaints about the extra space and time. And if you think I am nuts, I've read plenty of folks hooking up terabyte drives (of course, non-approved and "unsupported").
It will also be nice to be able to maintain a collection of HD movies recorded off HBO and Showtime to match whatever mood we happen to be in... movies were usually the first things to go if space was getting low. Also, our cable company recently informed us that at least a dozen new HD channels are coming on board in March... with many, many more by year's end (Great news! Though they conveniently did not mention what channels!)... but I'm guessing many of the same programs we currently watch, but taking up much more room.
Ok, I am pretty sure I haven't justified it... but then again, I guess I don't really have to!
While I'm eager to make with the dvr expansion, I'm eagerly waiting until they make a 1tb drive, for either the 500gb to come down, or to just buy the 1tb, as you said, hd content just takes up a lot of space.
Posted by: Aaron Ouellette | Monday, January 14, 2008 at 03:57 PM
Buckaroo and I were considering that too. I almost got it for him for Christmas, but one of my gadget blogs said Western Digital was coming out with a 1 TB edition sometime 1Q 2008. That's probably wayyy more space than we need, but I can wait.
Posted by: Scott-O-Rama | Monday, January 14, 2008 at 06:19 PM
Buckaroo pointed out to me just how snide my comment above sounded, so I want to apologize.
While I am jealous that you got the TiVo Expander, I certainly didn't mean to rain on your parade or be a catty bitch. I'm very happy for you guys, and I hope that this addition to your TiVo family will bring much joy. I plan on getting one myself someday, but probably not until 1) the strike is over, and 2) there are more HD channels available.
Sorry if my comment was unintentionally bitchy.
Posted by: Scott-O-Rama | Friday, January 18, 2008 at 02:57 PM
Oh yeah... forgot 3) I have more money!
Posted by: Scott-O-Rama | Friday, January 18, 2008 at 02:58 PM