Skippa vs Tivo

[FMB]

I'm a long time fan of my TiVo, but it's randomly resetting itself and the hard drive is quite noisy. So I decided to bite the bullet and pre-ordered a Skippa.

I do have one question which I can't find the answer to. One of the best (and most frequently used) features of TiVo is the Live TV button. Each of the tuners has a 30 minute buffer. You can watch one channel, then hit the Live TV button to switch to the other tuner and rewind up to 30 minutes. Very useful for overlapping programs you don't necessarily want to record.

So, does the Skippa offer a similar feature? Is there a simple way to switch between the three tuners and rewind through the buffer on each?

[IanL-S]

My understanding is that Broadcom PVR SOC (system on chip) only support one recording slot for timeshift. The ones used by Topfield have 5 slots (four for recording and 1 for timeshift). The SOC used on the Skippa seems to have 6 recording slots (and presumably one timeshift slot).

Ian

[nis200sx]

The SOC used on the Skippa seems to have 6 recording slots (and presumably one timeshift slot).

The Australian TiVos only had 2 tuners. So if you are zapping between multiple channels, does the timeshift buffer contain all of those channel changes? If yes, then that is of limited value as you can't skip back beyond what you've already seen during your channel zapping. 

I believe the skippa can only timeshift 1 channel at a time (as most PVRs do). But in my experience, timeshifting (on any PVR) is risky as you can lose the timeshift buffer if you accidentally change channels or a recording starts that needs the tuner you were using to timeshift. I find that if what I am viewing is interesting enough to timeshift it is interesting enough to record, so I just skip back to the start of the show and press record. Then I can go ahead an timeshift another channel (and if it is interesting enough I'll record it too).

With the skippa being able to record 6 shows at once and timeshift a 7th there's plenty of flexibility to record the shows you may have timeshifted on a TiVo.

[FMB]

I understand what you're saying, but we became very skilled at using the buffers. There was no accidental channel changing, it was a well coordinated and deliberate process. For example, we may choose to watch House Rules which ends at 8:45 pm, but also want to watch NCIS which starts at 8:30. Rather than record NCIS, we would put the second tuner on 10 and watch House Rules on seven. When it finished, hit the LiveTV button and rewind NCIS back to the beginning. No need to record it.

I guess we're just going to have to change our habits and record everything. Our TiVo only has a 160gb hard drive, and we've never filled it, so having a 1tb drive in the Skippa will make it easier.

As long as you can actually watch a program while it's being recorded, that's fine. My dodgy LG PVR wouldn't let you watch a show until after it had finished recording.

[prl]

... As long as you can actually watch a program while it's being recorded, that's fine. ...

Speaking of which, I wonder when the ad skip data becomes available to the SKIPPA relative to when the program starts (or ends)?

[Dave at IceTV]

For example, we may choose to watch House Rules which ends at 8:45 pm, but also want to watch NCIS which starts at 8:30. Rather than record NCIS, we would put the second tuner on 10 and watch House Rules on seven. When it finished, hit the LiveTV button and rewind NCIS back to the beginning. No need to record it.

You can do the opposite on a skippa (and most other PVRs). e.g. Watch House Rules live or timeshifted, and let NCIS start recording in the background. Then when House Rules ends, or you've caught up to the end, switch to the NCIS channel and skip back to the start.

As long as you can actually watch a program while it's being recorded, that's fine. My dodgy LG PVR wouldn't let you watch a show until after it had finished recording.

Yes, that's called chaseplay (or chaserec) where you are timeshifting the show as it records. With skippa you can either switch to the channel being recorded and skip back to the start of the program, or start playing the file from the recordings list while it is recording.

If you chaseplay a show that is recording skippa won't auto skip the ads so you would use the manual skip buttons to skip past ad breaks.

If you let the show finish recording and let skippa process the file it will be able to auto-skip the ads when you play it. So you would generally want to watch a recorded show well after it has ended or the next day (except for live sport or the news).

[FMB]

As anyone with a TiVo would know, they can't be switched off or put in standby mode (short of turning them of at the wall). I suspect the main reason for this is the amount of time they take to boot up. When my TiVo decides to do a random reboot, it can (seemingly) take 10 minutes to finally get back up and running. Most of that time is spent with a message on screen saying "Almost there". No TiVo, you're not almost there, you're a long way off.

So, a two part question. Does the Skippa have a standby mode and if so, how long does it take to wake from standby/ restart?

[IanL-S]

If there has been a random reboot, there nay be a HDD ceck which extends the boot time - this happens with Topfield PVRs.

Ian

[Dave at IceTV]

Does the Skippa have a standby mode and if so, how long does it take to wake from standby/ restart?

The Skippa does have a standby mode but it only switches off the output to the TV. Because it is mostly on even in standby it turns fully on instantly.

If you turn it off at the power point or pull the power cable out then restore the power it takes about 90 seconds until it is fully on.