Okay, I am a Tivo owner who wants to start finally using the digital vcr function of my ATI card. As other TIVO owners would know, Tivo can change the channels on their DVR's via a serial cable between the Tivo and the Satellite box directly. Much more convenient than setting up timers to do this.

Question: Is anyone aware of a product to do this using the PC? Are there DirecTV receivers which allow more than 8-10 timers to be defined? The TIVO is great, and I have really enjoyed it, but since I archive much of what I record, it would make more sence for me to use my MMC software in the firstplace (using the VCD template)

I suppose I could hook the serial cable up to the PC, set it for 9600 baud, 8,n,1 and have Tivo change channels (watching the characters I get on the terminal emulation on the PC)... Create batch files on the PC to send those codes to the DTV box over serial...assign those batch files to events in Windows... Kinda time consuming just to change a channel, don't you think?

Any other ideas?

Thanks!
TJD