Time Warner DVR

[OSUKid7]

Alright, I've done it. I'm gonna give up my Replay TV (5040) for the Time Warner DVR (also moving from analog cable to digital cable :)). Does anyone have a TW DVR? Anything I should know before I get it on Tuesday? Oh, and I saw there's a network port on it, but I've heard it's disabled. Is there anyway to activate that, and is there any software that can say, download video over the network? I've gotten quite attached to DVArchive for my ReplayTV in the last month. I'll miss that, but I know I'll love being able to record two shows at once. (Plus I'll finally have TechTV! :lol: )

[Suhit Gupta]

Sorry, I just read your post. Last week was crazy and that is why I was completely away from the site. Anyways, I am guessing you have already gotten your TW DVR. It is a nice unit, but you will notice right away that it is horribly slow. All the ports (USB and funky card reader in the front of the device) have been disabled AFAICT and I haven't found anyone to have hacked it yet. One of the most common problems/complaints about this device is that the hard drive crashes. This apparently is a big point of annoyance for the TWC technicians. Mine actually died two weeks ago. So I recommend that you transfer the data over to some other more reliable storage if you really want it.

Rumour is that the new Explorer will be out in Q4 this year which will be faster, there will be a bigger and faster HDD, and perhaps the ability to store the recording schedule of each box on a remote server. This way, if you box dies, you don't have to re-set up all your recording settings. I'll report more as I find things out.

Suhit

[OSUKid7]

Hmm...good to know. My box doesn't have any USB ports or the card reader. It has two (disabled) Firewire ports though I think. It doesn't seem terrible in the first day of operation, but I haven't done much yet.

I can tell you I already miss the commercial advance and 30-second skip from my Replay TV. I also miss the easy organization of shows and setup of season-recordings. With the TW DVR if you want to set a recording with special properties, you have to set it to record, then go into the "List" function and play around with the settings there. Not what I'd call easy. Now to teach my parents how to do this... :roll: they barely got the Replay TV lol. :lol:

Anyway, we'll see how it goes. I'll try to post a pic of the DVR by this weekend if I remember.

[Rikostan]

I have had one for close to a year now and we love it. No issues what so ever with it. I do not have anything to compare with though, because I have never used anthing like Tivo or Replay TV. I do have the card reader and USB ports on mine, but of course they are disabled. They just upgraded the software so you can hit one button to send the data to a VHS tape, I bet there is a way send it to a PC instead..

[Suhit Gupta]

I have had one for close to a year now and we love it. No issues what so ever with it. I do not have anything to compare with though, because I have never used anthing like Tivo or Replay TV. I do have the card reader and USB ports on mine, but of course they are disabled. They just upgraded the software so you can hit one button to send the data to a VHS tape, I bet there is a way send it to a PC instead..
How did they go about upgrading your software? Can you provide more details on this one button recording thing?

Suhit