TiVo

Love the TiVo. Very nice implementation. The remote is great and feels wonderful in your hand. I purchased the low capacity model figuring I would put in a bigger hard drive at some point. I went two years on the original system. It worked just fine out of the box and though I was recording at the Medium quality (for most things) it worked just fine.

I even tried the 30 Second Skip hack to jump over commercials, but liked fast forwarding through the commercials better. You just can never tell how long the commercials will be and then after skipping over them into the show you have to back up.

December 2004 - Fan upgrade

I researched a bit and ended up ordering a SilenX 60mm 16dBA Fan through 3DCool.com (Item 91-1001).

Specifications:
Fan Dimensions: 60 x 60 x 25mm
Fan Input: 12V/1.2W
Fan Speed: 2400 RPM
Air Flow: 18 CFM
Noise Level: 16 dBA
Three Pin Connector
Four Pin Connector

I could have gotten a quieter one, but the quieter they are the less air they blow (12 dBA would have blown 13 CFM) and I figured this would be quieter than the original fan anyways, so I might as well get the the better airflow.

Installing it was mostly a snap. It came with vibration dampening mounts which are rubber and were kind of hard to install. I had trouble pushing the fan onto the rubber mounts and found it was easier to pull the rubber pin through (using needle nose pliers) to get a proper mount. There was a three pin connector off the fan to go on a two pin connector inside the TiVo, but it fit fine with part hanging off the side.

July 2005 - Hard Drive Upgrade

Original hard drive: Western Digital - WD400 - WD Performer 40GB - P/N: WD400AW-00DDK1

Additional hard drive: Maxtor DiamondMax 16 - 160 GB - ATA/133 HDD - QuickView - TLA: 4R160L00420P1

Recording Capacity Variable up to 41 Hours
Recording Capacity Variable up to 202 Hours

TidBITS Review: Upgrading the TiVo