TiVo HD as a media player?

delen

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Join Date: Jan 2008

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#1

TiVo HD as a media player?

11-29-2009, 03:51 AM

Does a TiVo HD make sense as a standalone media player? By this I mean not hooking it up to TV programming except maybe for an ATSC antenna.

I have been impressed with all the Internet programming that's become available via TiVo. If you add the disk storage and great interface that comes with a standard TiVo, a low-end TiVo HD even compares well with other media players. And TiVo has been more aggressive than most vendors about adding new program sources and features. Does the TiVo have DLNA support to work with media servers such as Playon? Can it play media files on USB sticks and/or network fileservers supporting Samba? And if you don't take any TV programming, do you still have to pay the monthly or lifetime service fee for the TiVo to work (which would be a deal breaker)?
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WK-Michael

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Join Date: Nov 2006

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#2

11-29-2009, 10:02 AM

First, yes, to use it at all, you need monthly or lifetime service.

Next, we highly recommend using it the way you describe with good internet access and an OTA antenna. Several of us here use them exactly that way. In fact, we often see that the TiVo subscription combined with the free OTA, a Netflix account, and the occasional rental movie is far less expensive than a monthly cable bill, and gives as much or more content.

The TiVo can't read USB sticks or fileservers in most cases, but support for more and more networked media comes in every revision of the OS.

Been here a long time . . .
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