To TIVO or not

[skhyatt]

I've had my series 2 tivo for about two weeks now. Nothing bad to say at all. Only thing is my wife and I are looking into possibly going with our cable CO's dvr and upgrading to digital cable at the same time. cable co is Comcast. Cost wise, it appears going with the cable co is the better deal, but I hear so much about tivo being better than anything. Any thoughts or feedback greatly appreciated as we need to decide if we want to keep the tivo or go with the cable dvr.

[Einselen]

I've had my series 2 tivo for about two weeks now. Nothing bad to say at all. Only thing is my wife and I are looking into possibly going with our cable CO's dvr and upgrading to digital cable at the same time. cable co is Comcast. Cost wise, it appears going with the cable co is the better deal, but I hear so much about tivo being better than anything. Any thoughts or feedback greatly appreciated as we need to decide if we want to keep the tivo or go with the cable dvr.

You have any friends that may have the cable company DVR that you can try out? Tivo does have 30 day cancelation policy. You still have about two weeks on that. You can always try out the cable company DVR for a few weeks and decide then. Maybe do a test where the same shows are set to record so you can know how easy it is to program, how reliable, quality, etc.

What series 2 do you have? Single Tuner, Dual Tuner? Upgrading to digital won't change much for the single tuner. The dual tuner can only record one digital channel at a time, but during that same time you can be watching or recording an analog channel. Dual will still be able to do two analog channels at the same time, but I am sure you already knew all of this.

[skhyatt]

we have the series 2 80 hour dual tuner model

[Einselen]

we have the series 2 80 hour dual tuner model

Like I said if you upgrade to digital you will only be able to record one digital station at the same time. For me my digital lineup is like 7 channels in my area (unless you pay extra for the pax). Look at what your lineup will be if you switch to digital and if it is a lot of channels you record from then you may have some conflicts, at this point though I don't think it will be a significant amount of channels at least not enought to rule out the Tivo completly.

[skhyatt]

You are correct for now, but Comcast is saying that beginning the 1st of the year, most channels will begin changing over to digital, until all of them will be. Sounds like at that point, we, as well as others will be forced to at least upgrade to the basic digital lineup.

[CrispyCritter]

You are correct for now, but Comcast is saying that beginning the 1st of the year, most channels will begin changing over to digital, until all of them will be. Sounds like at that point, we, as well as others will be forced to at least upgrade to the basic digital lineup.Not necessarily. Comcast just finished their changeover in our area - it just means they are sending out 2 copies of all those channels: one digital and one analog. They're not going to drop the analog for quite a long time; they haven't said when. That will be a dramatic change, since all TVs will then require a set top box or cablecard.

[skhyatt]

I agree with you. That is what I was told by Comcast, but I consider the source.

[Fraser+Dief]

Cost wise, it appears going with the cable co is the better deal, but I hear so much about tivo being better than anything. Any thoughts or feedback greatly appreciated as we need to decide if we want to keep the tivo or go with the cable dvr.

Unless the extra cash means nothing to you, save yourself the cash and the grief of dealing with whatever sledgehammer blow tivo delivers in the future by going with the cable dvr.

And I suspect you wouldn't have asked if the money was insignificant.

[goony]

Is DirecTV an option? If so, compare their programming pricing to Comcast.

You can still get used/refurb/NOS DirecTivos which are upgradable to larger hard drives, can add networked features (except for the R10 model) that give you pretty-close-to-SA-Tivo functions, dual tuners, 100% playback quality.

DirecTV DVR fee is $5.99/mo. for the entire account, not per-box. Thus, I am paying $1.50/mo. for each of my 4 DTivos (a comparison to SA Tivo costs).

I abandoned cable years ago because it was so unreliable in our area... huge ice storm a few years ago knocked out power and cable tv for days in my area; I was up and running in 20 minutes (thanks to generator and easy-to-melt-ice on the DirecTV dish).

[CraigHB]

I've been a DirecTV subscriber for a few years now. I'm not all that happy with it. I don't like all the equipmment required. The dish has 4 cables running from it and each DVR requires 2 of them. Running more than two TV sets requires a relatively expensive splitter. I can't tell you how many times I've lost reception due to heavy storm activity or had to go out in the middle of a snowstorm to wipe snow/ice off the dish. The picture quality isn't that good. I think it's because of the compression they use. If it weren't for the higher cost of cable, I'd switch back in a minute, especially now that DirecTV no longer offers TiVo.

[goony]

I've been a DirecTV subscriber for a few years now. I'm not all that happy with it. I don't like all the equipmment required. The dish has 4 cables running from it and each DVR requires 2 of them. Running more than two TV sets requires a relatively expensive splitter. Only 4 cables are required for some people; many locations (like mine) need only has 2 cables from the dish to the multiswitch. For me, a $10-$20 multiswitch (via eBay) will work; if you have 4 cables then the multiswitch might cost $5-$15 more than that.

I also consider 2 cables to the receiver/DVR to be simpler than having separate SA Tivo and cableco box. Some cableco users have now been able to eliminate the two boxes by using a dual-tuner (DT) SA Tivo or the S3 Tivo -w- cablecard.

I can't tell you how many times I've lost reception due to heavy storm activity or had to go out in the middle of a snowstorm to wipe snow/ice off the dish.I won't try to defend weather-related outages, except to say that a poorly installed/aligned dish is much more susceptable to weather outages - mine only conks out when there is a whopper of a thunderstorm to my southwest. In my location I only have a once-or-twice per year event that the snow sticks to the dish to the point of killing the signal. Since the kids are grown I now have the dish on a pole in the ground instead of the garage roof so that snow removal is a snap.

Again, if your cableco has good cableplant and maintenance then it may nearly never be out - that is not the case in my area - I once heard a cableco customer blame the frequent outages on "squirrel farts" :p . A few years ago during superbowl my neighbor was having a hissy about the "@#*&@#* cable being out" - I just shrugged and said mine is never out except for a few minutes at a time.

The picture quality isn't that good. I think it's because of the compression they use. Again, it depends on your viewpoint. I don't have that high-end of TV gear and I think the resulting picture is "as good as" the local cableco, except that the locals may have slightly less quality. Since I seldom watch the locals its no big deal for me. If you have some large-screen TVs then you indeed may conclude that the DirecTV SD picture isn't that good.

If it weren't for the higher cost of cable, I'd switch back in a minute, especially now that DirecTV no longer offers TiVo.In my area, cable would cost me a bit more than DirecTV.

My DirecTivos are working fine with DirecTV and will for a long time to come and DirecTV has yet to deny activating any used DTivos, so a Tivo-based integrated receiver/DVR is still a viable option with DirecTV.

[CraigHB]

Thanks for the discussion points.

I don't particularly care for my cable provider either so there's going to be a downside no matter who I go with. In my case, cable is very reliable, but customer service is poor and, as I stated previously, cost is higher.

As far as multiswitches, HD from D* requires a high bandwidth multi-switch which is relatively expensive. D* will install one free of cost if you have a need for it during installation. However, expansions done on your own accord are not covered.

In fair weather, I get signal strengths in the 80's and 90's so I don't think I have a mis-aligned dish problem. I get a lot of weather outages. I don't know why, but I do and it's a major drag.

The Standard Definition picture quality is fine on a standard TV. There's no discernable difference between it and cable. However, on my big screen HD TV, I can see compression artifacts.

DirecTiVos will work for quite a while. D* wants to get rid of them and they no longer provide them, but they will continue to be operational for at least a few years. The issue is mainly with High Definition TV. Since they are switching all HD broadcasts to a new compression standard (MPEG-2 to MPEG-4), eventually, HD service will only be available on the non-TiVo units that support it (i.e. DTV's HR20 DVR).