I love technology and gadgets.  I also love saving money wherever I can.  Unfortunately, these two passions rarely meet in the middle.  That was, until the TiVo Premiere was released at the end of March 2010.

I had been a customer of DirecTV for almost 10 years, but the rising costs, pitiful DVR hardware, lack of room-to-room sharing and inability to download TV shows or movies on my schedule was getting old.  We held on to the last DirecTV/TiVo box released by the company (HR10-250) as long as we could, but it was showing signs of failure.  By the middle of May, I had read a number of reviews on the new TiVo hardware (the Premiere and Premiere XL) and heard way too many “no official release date or hardware specifications” announcements from DirecTV on their upcoming release of a new DirecTV/TiVo box.  The time had come to take the plunge, so I put on my research hat and looked closely at my options as a TV fanatic.

Our HR10-250 Was Struggling to Hang On

After some serious research, I posted my findings in the article Cancel Your Cable/Satellite and Save Money While Adding Functionality.  In short, it seemed that completely canceling DirecTV and going with two Tivo Premiere units, along with OTA (over the air) HD antennas, would provide us with what we needed.  The upfront cost would be significant, but the savings would begin in just over a year and $56.42 a month would start going back into my bank account.

The Switch

The day after writing that article, I ordered our new TiVo Premieres (one of them an XL) and began preparations for their arrival.  I had convinced myself that TiVo was the way to go and pulled the trigger before I had time to talk myself out of it.  But before I could power up our new units and bask in the glory of the best DVR software on the planet, I had some work to do:

• A new HD antenna – each Premiere is capable of recording 2 HD shows at once from an OTA HD antenna, but I only had one.  I decided on the ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna (purchased from Amazon.com) and installed it in my attic.  Assembly was a bit of a hurdle, while installation only took a few minutes.  To run the signal from the antenna to the location for the new TiVo Premiere, I simply hijacked one of the existing DirecTV cables that was already run through the attic and walls.

My ClearStream4 HDTV Antenna - Attic Mounted

• CAT6 cabling – The new TiVo units are designed to communicate with one another and the internet.  While a wireless adapter is available (for an additional cost), I decided to save money and increase transfer speeds by running CAT6 Ethernet Cable (Networking Cable) from my router to the 2 locations where the TiVo units would be placed.  The Premieres do not have gigabit network adapters, so running the cheaper CAT5 cabling would have been fine, but I decided to look forward (just in case I needed the faster connection later).  This part of the project took me several hours and was a little frustrating, but well worth the effort in the long-run.

CAT6 Networking in my Attic

• Contact DirecTV – Canceling the existing service from DirecTV was an important step (so I didn’t pay for extra days), but I was a bit hesitant about the functionality of the new TiVo units with OTA HD signals and downloading TV shows, movies, etc. from the internet.  After all, I had never even laid eyes on a Premiere unit, much-less had a test drive.  Also, since TiVo offers a 30-day money back guarantee, I thought I better hold onto my DirecTV service until I was sure.  I didn’t call to cancel my service until a week after installing the new units and testing everything to my satisfaction.

The Units Arrive

Plugging in the proper cables and attaching the TiVo Premieres to their appropriate displays was so easy that it really doesn’t need a step-by-step explanation, so here are a few photos to describe my experience.

From Boxes to Welcome Screen

Reality

Continue reading in Part II and see the verdict on switching to TiVo Premiere without cable (see link below).  Spoiler alert, the switch was definitely worth the effort.

Link: Buh-Bye DirecTV, Hello TiVo – How I Ditched Cable – Part II

Related Articles:

Finding a Cable Alternative – Dumping DirecTV for TiVo (posted on KilltheCableBill.com)

Tags: Antenna, cat5, CAT6, DirecTV, ethernet, gigabit, HD, HR10-250, OTA, Premiere, preparation, TiVo

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 17th, 2010 at 9:41 am and is filed under TiVo & DVR Tech. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.