One easy question before I make the leap

[Wanted]

I'm pretty sure I want to get a Tivo and get it working in New Zealand but I have a question first and I can't find it answered anywhere else. Can someone tell me if the Tivo can be changing channels on my cable box with the IR Blaster and recording stuff while I just browse around and view other recorded video?

Also the way I understand it (I have only been reading up for a day or two) a CacheCard is recommended to keep the Tivo running smoothly if you have a lot of video recorded. Around what point do you see the performance drop? is it around 40GB or 60GB or when? It may help me decide on the size of HDD I get.

Any help greatly appreciated.

edit: BTW I know that's not one question.

[Darren King]

Hi and welcome.

Can someone tell me if the Tivo can be changing channels on my cable box with the IR Blaster

Yes. This is what the IR Blaster is used for.

and recording stuff while I just browse around and view other recorded video?

Yes. You can watch pre-recorded video or start watching something already being recorded. You CANNOT be watching other live channels on your cable box while recording another channel however.

Also the way I understand it (I have only been reading up for a day or two) a CacheCard is recommended to keep the Tivo running smoothly if you have a lot of video recorded.

That's the theory.

Around what point do you see the performance drop? is it around 40GB or 60GB or when? It may help me decide on the size of HDD I get.

It's not related to HDD size. It's related to the amount of things you have recorded. You can have two or three 20+ hour recording and everything will be fine. Conversely you can have 50 or 60 1 hour recordings and things *may* start to slow down. I say may because I have one TiVo with 2x120GB hard disks and don't notice any significant lack of speed in bringing up the "now showing" (programs recorded) list.

And I wouldn't bother with anything under a 120GB drive given "sweet spot" for price/GB is at the 200GB mark. That is of course unless you have a few 40GB and 80GB drives laying around and only want to record 30-40 hours before the TiVo is full

Oh, and you may or may not know this, but you can use a cachecard WITHOUT any memory installed (ie just as an ethernet card) and add the RAM later with no need to alter any software.

[Wanted]

Thank you for your quick reply Darren. Sounds good, I believe i'll put an order in then.

[Darren King]

No probs. I also elaborated a little on my original post that you may have missed given you looked at it while I was editing

[Wanted]

Oh, and you may or may not know this, but you can use a cachecard WITHOUT any memory installed (ie just as an ethernet card) and add the RAM later with no need to alter any software.

I didn't know that but it's good to know. I still need to read up a bit on the whole swap file thing and which type of memory exactly is needed. I'll hold off that for now then and see how it goes. I just sent of an email to eksys anyway to see about getting a TiVo and a CacheCard so i'll shop around for the HDD in the meantime.

[Darren King]

Swap file? Take it from someone who sets up TiVo's all the time: Stick with what the how-to says on the OzTiVo website if you want to play with it, but personally I wouldn't bother with anything than the standard 127.