TiVo dead in Australia!

Much to my annoyance, TiVo's are no longer being sold in Australia.

http://www.techau.tv/blog/tivo-no-longer-being-sold-in-australia/

Has anyone heard anything?
Or know where to get one?

 

they died on the shelf pretty much the time they were released , what with no sat/cable tv connection so only worked on FTA , and FTA having crap on it , and much cheaper pvr's on the market

 

There is a good reason that TiVo failed in Australia. Cable or satellite is not "needed" here like is is in the US.

 

Just build yourself a MythTV box and be happy. Has more features than TiVo too, and it's free.

 

So, just build a pc and install the required software to make a myth box?

 

All you need is a spare PC, some HDD space (1TB is a good start as HD programs chew up a fair bit of disk space), a copy of the MythTV software and one or more TV tuner devices (USB or PCI).

For a beginner I recommend you download and install the MythBuntu version of MythTV: http://www.mythbuntu.org

NOTE: MythTV is a Linux product. Assume that you will be dedicating the PC you are using to it as you will not be installing Windows. MythTV does present a DLNA server, however, so you can watch your recordings through Windows Media Player or even your PlayStation3 if you don't want to use the MythTV frontend.

For tuner hardware, I recommend the Sony PlayTV. It's a USB 2.0 device, has two physical tuners on board fed by one antenna lead, and will effectively allow you to record about 8 channels from two networks simultaneously (I/O bandwidth-permitting on your hard-drive - default MythTV setup is two channels per network), so you could have one tuner locked into the ABC recording ABC1, ABC2, ABC3 and ABC News 24 all at once while the other tuner is tuned into the Nine Network recording Nine and Go! simultaneously.

If you like how it all works, you can then look at getting a remote control for it to control it like any regular AV gear, such as the Hauppage MCE remote.

OCAU has a detailed hardware wiki for MythTV here: http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/MythTV_Hardware

OCAU also has a monster MythTV support thread here: http://forums.overclockers.com.au/showthread.php?t=564660

You can see what some members' MythTV setups are and look like here: http://www.overclockers.com.au/wiki/MythTV_OCAU_Member_Setups

 

Thats a shame OP ive had mine for 5 years now and still working fine. Wife loves it and cant watch TV without one.

 

A question re: tivo v myth tv.

I have been a tivo convert for about 4 years. I really like the way it is constantly recording the channel I watch and another channel. Does myth do this?

I also have foxtel and usenet so fta is becoming less important but for news and sport, fta and tivo can't be beat.

 

What the hell are you people finding on FTA that's worth the effort of recording????

 

So much this. I seriously can't even remember the last time I watched FTA.

 

Yep it does. You can pause and rewind live tv all while recording other channels in the background (providing you have enough tuners). Also, if you decide you want to keep the show you are watching you can press record and it will save it as a recording.

 

Some key features of MythTV:

• Can handle an unlimited number of tuners of any type as long as you can get an OS-level driver for it, eg: DVB-T, DVB-S, etc.
• Can multiplex easily. You don't just have one tuner per channel, you can record as many channels on the one network on one tuner as you have bandwidth for, eg: I have my own setup with 4 channels per tuner. Using three tuners I can record up to 12 channels from three different networks simultaneously.
• Can flag commercials. When watching a pre-recorded show, MythTV can skip the commercials for you automatically without any manual intervention.
• Has all the classic PVR features you expect such as showing you a visual TV guide map, padding out recordings early/late with a default number of minutes, pause and rewind live TV, etc.
• Allow you to schedule MythTV via your web browser, allowing you to open a port on your router so you can tell MythTV to record something for you while you are out.
• Can transcode programs after they are recorded and dump or upload them somewhere so that they are ready to copy directly onto your mobile phone or tablet to take with you on the train/bus to watch.
• Can playback downloaded movie content and includes the ability to automatically go to places like IMDB to download blurbs, running time and artwork to display.
• Is themeable - have a custom look to MythTV on every frontend in the house.
• Allows for as many frontends as you have IP addresses for - have one MythTV Backend server servicing a MythTV frontend in the lounge, kitchen, kids rooms, master bedroom, etc. Each frontend can watch live TV, pre-recorded TV or pre-downloaded movies at any time across the LAN. Each Frontend can schedule new shows to record too.
• Scheduling can do classic record at specific times, record at any time a show name appears in the TV guide, record at any time on one channel or multiple channels (eg: when the rights to a given show are given to another network). This easily allows you to automatically start recording the next season of a given show even though you have not specifically told MythTV to do so as it is simply recording anything with "this name" in the show title at any time it appears. In addition to this, re-runs can be excluded if there is a match on the episode description to a previosuly-recorded episode.
• Self-maintaining - when disk space is low, the oldest programs will be deleted to make new space. Only what is needed is deleted.
• Shows can be flagged for preservation (to never be deleted) - MythTV will never automatically delete that show to make space if disk space is running low. I've got shows recorded three years ago that look like they were recorded yesterday.
• Automatic conflict resolution - set priorities for shows so that one show that you don't mind missing occasionally will be sacrificed to dedicate the tuner to recording a more important show. By default all recordings have a priority of zero. Plus the value to make it more important, or minus it to make it less important. MythTV does the rest.
• Various plugins available to extend the general capability of MythTV.
• No DRM is applied to recordings. Everything saved to disk is as it was received on the antenna.
• Handles multiple audio streams and subtitles well, particularly in MKV's.

This list isn't exhaustive. Refer to the MythTV website or OCAU wiki for more detailed info.

A typical home topology:


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Pause live TV at any time:


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Typical PVR overlays with full program description when watching TV:


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Using MythWeb via your web browser to schedule programs to record:


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The same thing but inside the MythTV Frontend interface:


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The three cheap USB tuners I use to record full 1080i HD recordings on the back of my MythTV server (12 channels from three networks simultaneously):


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Get stats about your server at any time:


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One of the Atom-based PC's I use as a frontend. Can play 1080p video across the LAN without breaking a sweat:


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Manually switching to another tuner using a frontend PC (MythTV will tell you if that tuner is busy doing something such as recording a show before you switch it to another channel - by default scheduled recordings are setup on the first tuners and live TV is always shown on the last tuner to avoid conflicts) - manual switching is not required - this was just for demo purposes - just surf up and down through the available channels and hit enter on the one you want to watch now:


Click to view full size!

 

And this, ladies, is why we have sick beard

 

Yep! Between sickbeard and makemkv (I like uncompressed movies) I haven't watched fta for a very long time. Plex makes life even easier.

 

Seriously? You telling me cable programming is good? It bloody better be for the $100 a month required to watch pretty much anything in high definition. Then when you want to watch a new release movie they charge you for it! The same price as your local video store and they don't have the same costs! You have no idea how badly you are being ripped off. The only decent reason for cable is sport and documentaries. Good series are few and far between. I get the 25 or so channels, a lot of them in high def, at least 15 high quality drama's to choose from and I pay ZERO. The SNR on FTA is a shitload better than Cable in this country.

 

He's stealing shows bro.

I use FTA for sport.

 

Stealing is where it's at with Sickbeard/SAB/Plex - converted a whole house to never watching FTA and when we do, we can't get over the ad's haha

 

I use a healthy mixture of FTA, AUstar and sickbeard.



'sall good.

 

MythTV is a bitch to set up, tried a few times using it as a back end with XBMC but could never get it to work.

 

You must have done something almightily wrong then - MythTV is a breeze to setup!