A couple of questions about the 10-250

[patlives]

First off thanks for all of the info and help that is contained in this forum!!
I have a 10-250 HD Tivo and a wide screen TV. My two questions: When I'm watching a SD program, am I better off watching the program with the vertical black bars, setting the tivo to full screen, or leaving the tivo as is and using stretch on my television? I am looking for the best picture possible. My other question is how many hours of SD programming can I record and how many hours of HD programming can I record? Also how can I tell how much room I have left on the hard drive? Thanks again for all of your help!!

 

[Plywodstatebum]

I would change the side bars to Gray instead of black but the picture is better not stretched I have noticed.
Not sure about the recording times.

 

[rmmrph]

It would most definitely depend on your display and what your are watching. Some TVs are better at streching content than others. You will have to try it, and see which you prefer.

 

[shugo77]

What kind of video cable are you using to connect your tivo to your tv?
I have my Tivo connected using DVI and when I do that, I lose the ability for my tv to control the stretching, and I have to let the Tivo control it.

 

[bubbers44]

Unless you like fat faces to fill your screen never use a stretch mode, grey vertical bars are my preference for SD viewing and my HD tivo does about 35 hrs HD or 200 hrs SD on the 250 GB hard drive.

 

[raymo721]

There is no way I know of to tell how much space is left on the hard drive.---Ray

 

[mrmageaux]

Set the picture up with the gray bars to the side and do not stretch the picture. The image will make your eyes bug out. For that matter, if you have the HD package, you should watch anything in HD before you subject yourself to SD tv. Start with Bikini Adventures on HDNet!

 

[newsposter]

pat here's the deal....this sounds stupid but do it, it works. I didn't do this at all for 3 years with my T60 (i was thinking what are these people telling me to do?) but after losing a week's worth of stuff on HDtivo because i forgot that HD uses up 8x the space as HD, I listened to them. Turn on your suggestions if you didn't already. What happens then is tivo will start to record stuff on its own. Suggestions are :

1. always at the bottom of the list when ordered by date
2. never interfere with any program that you intentionally have recorded
3. easily turned off 'live' simply by going to that channel and turning it (if you need the tuner for something else)
4. will give you an approximate amount of space left on your tivo. (explained next)

my rule of thumb is one page of suggestions (they are all SD as far as I can tell) is one HD program. This is far from perfect as some programs are 2 -3 hours and some are 1/2 hour. But you will make up your own system if you do this (and maybe even count the hours). So if you scroll down to the bottom of your now playing list and you see 2 full pages of programs, you can probably assume you have about 2 HD programs of space left.

There are things you need to figure out though - and you will see why this isn't a perfect way, but it's the best we have. For example, in addition to the stuff i just mentioned, suggestions will only record when suggestions are scheduled to record. Get that? For example, if i only show space for 2 HD programs of an hour, and only see 1 page of suggestions, that doesn't mean i dont have enough space. It may mean that between the time i erased my last program, HD or not, no suggestions may have been scheduled to record (thus filling up again the suggestion list). I hope you see what i'm saying but even if not, once you turn them on it will become evident what i mean as you study their fall off pattern.

As far as stretching, as stated above, it really matters what tv you have. I have a hitachi CRT and the 16/9 stretch works great. It's on all the time except when i'm watching OTA SD.

Thats another thing. Shows like survivor and apprectice (reality stuff) are never in HD but directvs quality is so poor for locals, i record the network stuff OTA in SD and dont mind the bars a bit. But keep in mind, ANY OTA will take up more space than SD over satellite. I use 8/1 ratio to be conservative. There are real numbers out there if you search for them.

Also beware of burn in on your tv (depending on technology) and if that's a factor, you can't watch 100% stuff with bars on or you will fry your screen.

one final word about space. If you get tired of not enough space, you can add drives. you can do it yourself by using software off the internet and buy your own drive or, for example, spend 200 bucks at weakness.com and get double the space you have now with simple directions and never touch a computer. I just did this myself and it's very easy. I had upgraded the long way before but got lazy so just spent the money for a premade drive.

if i was unclear on anything, ask again and i'll try to help

just hooked up my 2nd hdtivo so am having a ball with all this network HD