Has anyone dumped Directv because of TiVo?

[MissyTX]

I used to have cable TV and it was horrible. The reception was bad and the thing went out almost every week. I would call to get it fixed and was told I had to be home between 8am and 5pm for the service person to come. It was such a headache. I dropped cable and got Directv. Other then the fact that it goes out in bad weather, I have loved having Directv. I got my TiVo box when I got Diretv in the year 2000. I also bought the lifetime membership for my Tivo Box. Now it seems if I want to upgrade my TiVo I will have to switch to cable tv. My mother got a Directv DVR and she hates it. I think I am more loyal to TiVo then Directv, but I sure hated the problems I had with the cable company. Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did? Our cable company is Time Warner and honestly I have not heard anything good about them.

[ClemSole]

I dumped my Tivo for the DirecTV DVR and will never go back. The DVR is so much better with HD and other features the Tivo's can't come close.

[stevel]

I would never go back to cable - the cable system here is horrible. I have both the TiVo-powered and DirecTV DVRs and find them different - that's all. The DirecTV DVRs work fine for me and, nowadays, have more standard features than the TiVo models.

[TonyTheTiger]

I also don't have a cable option, so whilst the D*DVR may not be TiVo, it's all I have. I've just had to get a replacement HR21 replaced and it was DOA, so they sent another one (all without cost) and finally I have one that works. I got a $125 instant credit and $10 off a month for 6 months for the inconvenience, so at least they are prepared to compansate when things go wrong (if you know how to deal with them).

Would I prefer to have a TiVo-based box? Absolutely! But it's the only way I can get the HD content I want.

[rlj5242]

As a person who uses a series 1 DirecTivo, an HR10-250 (HD DirecTivo) and an HR20-100 (HD DirecTV DVR), I don't really understand what the complaints are about the DirecTV DVRs. It has everything the Tivo ones have except suggestions. I only used that to determine how much disk space was left. On the HR2x series it is displayed at the bottom of the List screen.

I will soon take advantage of the additional features of the HR2x series like On Demand and streaming audio as soon as I connect it to my network.

-Robert

[RS4]

I used to have cable TV and it was horrible. The reception was bad and the thing went out almost every week. I would call to get it fixed and was told I had to be home between 8am and 5pm for the service person to come. It was such a headache. I dropped cable and got Directv. Other then the fact that it goes out in bad weather, I have loved having Directv. I got my TiVo box when I got Diretv in the year 2000. I also bought the lifetime membership for my Tivo Box. Now it seems if I want to upgrade my TiVo I will have to switch to cable tv. My mother got a Directv DVR and she hates it. I think I am more loyal to TiVo then Directv, but I sure hated the problems I had with the cable company. Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did? Our cable company is Time Warner and honestly I have not heard anything good about them.


Yes, I went back to cable after having been a Direct client for 13 years. The Tivo box is superior to the D* house brand. I especially like all of the features that D* never allowed us to have. Just so a little research and find out for instance how many awards the D* dvr has won compared to the Tivo.

I got a Tivo HD and was planning on testing it for 30 days. My cable company charged me $17.99 to come out with the M-card. The test only lasted 3 days before I canceled D*. D* did not allow me to test their equipment at home, and I'm not about to sign up for something for 2 years without some real hands-on time, not what you can get in a store.

I have lots of HD and the SD is superior to D*, so I am quite happy. I also found that I could upgrade the speed of my cable broadband connection, pay the Tivo costs, and still pay the same price I had been paying before.

My suggestion is to try the Tivo HD before committing to D*. It might not cost you too much and in the end, you may be glad you did. If you don't then you can always use the D* box.

[Dnamertz]

The DirecTV DVRs work fine for me and, nowadays, have more standard features than the TiVo models.

Such as?

[Rodney]

I use both TiVo's and the D* dvr's. If I had my druthers, I would only use TiVo.
Why?
The channel guide is not as good (personal opinion)
I cannot mark/unmark Channels I Get
I miss wishlists
No dual tuner buffer
I HATE not being able to turn off the PIP in the guide! With football starting, this is really going to annoy me!

Just my thoughts.

[cram501]

I left D* for cable and the Tivo played a part but D* played a bigger one. I had been a customer of D* for over 12 years.

I left D* for cable for a number of reason. I was not going to pay money up front to rent their new HD-DVR, I didn't want a new 2 year commitment without trying the device, and the lack of DLB concerned me (I use DLB a lot). This doesn't count their downturn in customer service which is what used to separate them from the other cable companies. Comcast is available and FIOS will be soon so I wanted to leave my options open

I just don't believe I got my money's worth out of the original HR10-250 and I didn't want to put more money down for another box. If they would have swapped my boxes out for free, I probably would have stayed. Unfortunately, that only became available when I cancelled my service. At that point I had 2 Tivo HD's and had made my decision. This is just TV, I don't want to play the CS roulette game.

[20TIL6]

Had DTV for 13+ years, DTV/TiVo units for nearly half of those. Left when DTV dumped TiVo.

Like you, when I left cable for DTV, the difference was night and day. The picture quality I had with cable (again back in the early 90's) had me thinking that my TV was going bad. But then I hooked up DTV and the picture quality was stunningly better.

During the following several years, I absolutely believed that I would NEVER go back to cable. Why would I? DTV was giving me excellent service, picture quality, stable signal, and TiVo! But just like DTV represented a significant change from cable, TiVo represented an even bigger change. And when DTV broke their relationship with TiVo, they forced a decision upon me that I really thought I'd never face: Do I go back to cable to keep TiVo?

The thing that annoys me about the whole DTV decision to drop TiVo is this: I was a long time customer, a good DTV customer. I kept a top-tier package year after year, and I ordered Sunday Ticket every season and the College package too. When the DTV/Tivo units came out, I bought one ($400). And I bought lifetime service too ($250 at that time). Sometime after that, I activated two more DTV/TiVo units in my home. I got my Mother, my Mother-in-law, my Father-in-law, and more than a couple of friends hooked up with DTV and DTV/TiVo units. It was a wonderful setup, why not share what I was enjoying?

So given all that, couldn't DTV send out a simple survey to a customer like me? Like, "Hey, we are thinking about dropping TiVo and developing our own DVR. Do you think that would be a good idea? Would you be OK with that?"

But they never asked. Didn't seem to care how I, a loyal and happy customer, would feel about something like that.

So, I canceled DTV service. Bought two TiVo S3 units, and called up Comcast. Since then I have added three TiVo HD units. So that is five TiVo DVRs, all with cablecards, all hooked up to OTA antenna and Comcast.

In a nutshell, we are very happy to still have TiVo. The picture quality is equal to what we were getting with DTV. We have not had any significant service interruptions (I would equate any interruptions to those storm situations with DTV, very rare). Very early on, I was experiencing picture tiling, but that was resolved. I think cable companies have had to make adjustments with their management of signals due to cablecards. I was having this problem on a cablecard TV as well (no TiVo). But again, things have been very good, very stable for quite a while now.

There are features that I now have that I did not have before with the DTV/TiVo units. The biggest thing is the network connection on the S3 and HD units. Through this I get stuff like multi-room viewing, TiVoToGo, TiVoComeBack, Amazon Unbox, YouTube, TiVoCast, Rhapsody, ...... the list is quite long. So in addition to having again all the stuff that makes a TiVo a TiVo, I ended up with even more features.

So having said all that, it's not nearly as scary as you might think... going back to cable. But I hear ya'. I was there and made the decision I thought I would never make. Cable and these new TiVo units are doing quite nicely for us.

Now honestly, there is one thing I still miss about DTV, and that is Sunday Ticket. I think the agreement between DTV and the NFL will be up for renewing in 2010. I really hope cable gets in on that. As long as DTV has that exclusively, they would still have a shot at getting me back, but ONLY if they offered TiVo again. But even at that, I've been spoiled by some of those features I mentioned above... so even if they brought TiVo back, I would pay careful attention to what I might be giving up.

Good luck with your decision. Whatever you do, try to accomplish it without a commitment. Or at least, get a period of time where you can try things out before being locked in. I think that is what RS4 was able to do, and it worked out for him.

Forgot to mention: if TWC is still a concern, check to see if Verizon FiOS is available in your area. You can use a TiVo S3 or TiVo HD with FiOS just like you can with cable. And I think that FiOS service is ranked number one, ahead of DTV.

[CuriousMark]

Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did? Our cable company is Time Warner and honestly I have not heard anything good about them.
I too plan on switching back to cable when I get a High Def TV, probably next year. The only thing that would keep me with DirecTV would be a full featured High Def TiVo for DTV if it becomes available by that time. The TiVo interface is my connection to Television, the pipe behind it really doesn't matter much to me.

[shibby191]

Nope. Content and price is much more important to me then the GUI of a DVR.

[MissyTX]

Had DTV for 13+ years, DTV/TiVo units for nearly half of those. Left when DTV dumped TiVo.

Like you, when I left cable for DTV, the difference was night and day. The picture quality I had with cable (again back in the early 90's) had me thinking that my TV was going bad. But then I hooked up DTV and the picture quality was stunningly better.

During the following several years, I absolutely believed that I would NEVER go back to cable. Why would I? DTV was giving me excellent service, picture quality, stable signal, and TiVo! But just like DTV represented a significant change from cable, TiVo represented an even bigger change. And when DTV broke their relationship with TiVo, they forced a decision upon me that I really thought I'd never face: Do I go back to cable to keep TiVo?

The thing that annoys me about the whole DTV decision to drop TiVo is this: I was a long time customer, a good DTV customer. I kept a top-tier package year after year, and I ordered Sunday Ticket every season and the College package too. When the DTV/Tivo units came out, I bought one ($400). And I bought lifetime service too ($250 at that time). Sometime after that, I activated two more DTV/TiVo units in my home. I got my Mother, my Mother-in-law, my Father-in-law, and more than a couple of friends hooked up with DTV and DTV/TiVo units. It was a wonderful setup, why not share what I was enjoying?

So given all that, couldn't DTV send out a simple survey to a customer like me? Like, "Hey, we are thinking about dropping TiVo and developing our own DVR. Do you think that would be a good idea? Would you be OK with that?"

But they never asked. Didn't seem to care how I, a loyal and happy customer, would feel about something like that.

So, I canceled DTV service. Bought two TiVo S3 units, and called up Comcast. Since then I have added three TiVo HD units. So that is five TiVo DVRs, all with cablecards, all hooked up to OTA antenna and Comcast.

In a nutshell, we are very happy to still have TiVo. The picture quality is equal to what we were getting with DTV. We have not had any significant service interruptions (I would equate any interruptions to those storm situations with DTV, very rare). Very early on, I was experiencing picture tiling, but that was resolved. I think cable companies have had to make adjustments with their management of signals due to cablecards. I was having this problem on a cablecard TV as well (no TiVo). But again, things have been very good, very stable for quite a while now.

There are features that I now have that I did not have before with the DTV/TiVo units. The biggest thing is the network connection on the S3 and HD units. Through this I get stuff like multi-room viewing, TiVoToGo, TiVoComeBack, Amazon Unbox, YouTube, TiVoCast, Rhapsody, ...... the list is quite long. So in addition to having again all the stuff that makes a TiVo a TiVo, I ended up with even more features.

So having said all that, it's not nearly as scary as you might think... going back to cable. But I hear ya'. I was there and made the decision I thought I would never make. Cable and these new TiVo units are doing quite nicely for us.

Now honestly, there is one thing I still miss about DTV, and that is Sunday Ticket. I think the agreement between DTV and the NFL will be up for renewing in 2010. I really hope cable gets in on that. As long as DTV has that exclusively, they would still have a shot at getting me back, but ONLY if they offered TiVo again. But even at that, I've been spoiled by some of those features I mentioned above... so even if they brought TiVo back, I would pay careful attention to what I might be giving up.

Good luck with your decision. Whatever you do, try to accomplish it without a commitment. Or at least, get a period of time where you can try things out before being locked in. I think that is what RS4 was able to do, and it worked out for him.

Forgot to mention: if TWC is still a concern, check to see if Verizon FiOS is available in your area. You can use a TiVo S3 or TiVo HD with FiOS just like you can with cable. And I think that FiOS service is ranked number one, ahead of DTV.

I don't have the option of Fios. We have AT&T. I believe they will be installing something called Uverse. I am not sure if it is TiVo compatible or not. Thank you for your thoughts. I will be doing a lot of pondering.

[20TIL6]

Nope. Content and price is much more important to me then the GUI of a DVR.

If the GUI is the only difference to you, and you don't put a high value on the GUI and comparative ease of use (because that is what a GUI provides), then yes, I can see your point.

To me, there are additional differences, and the GUI is important. That's why I chose TiVo over DirecTV. DirecTV is a wonderful pipe for content. I just wish they had allowed me to search, consume, and manage that content the way I wanted. It's like having access to the Internet, but your ISP lets you use only one type of browser, one type of search engine. Nobody would stand for that, it's unacceptable.

[20TIL6]

I don't have the option of Fios. We have AT&T. I believe they will be installing something called Uverse. I am not sure if it is TiVo compatible or not. Thank you for your thoughts. I will be doing a lot of pondering.

I had U-verse for a few months. An old high school friend of mine works for AT&T in that division (Project Lightspeed). I tried it out.

Canceled it two weeks ago. It is not TiVo compatible, they have their own DVR, and I was disappointed with it. There are some real technical limitations with U-verse, and I can provide detail if you want. But in summary, it's a step backward in my opinion. The DVR is not very good, you can only have one in your home (and no multi-room viewing at this time), only one HD feed at a time (you can't watch two or more different HD shows on different TV's), and the picture quality is not as good. You can tell a difference.

If you decide against cable and TiVo, you would be better to stick with DTV and their DVR than going with U-verse.

[shibby191]

If the GUI is the only difference to you, and you don't put a high value on the GUI and comparative ease of use (because that is what a GUI provides), then yes, I can see your point.

GUI is always a personal preference. Had Tivo since 2000. DirecTV DVR for the past 2 years. Both are just as easy to use as the other, just different. There is nothing "hard" about the DirecTV DVR GUI as you seem to indicate. In fact in many areas it is easier/better to use, just as Tivo is easier/better in others.

To me, there are additional differences, and the GUI is important.

Sure there are differences. But the DirecTV DVR records my shows and I can play them back. Not quite sure what more I need. I can do some pretty advanced searches just fine. Wife also finds it just fine. But if I wanted I could also use the DirecTV DVR's network connection to stream Internet radio, watch You Tube, watch movies from my PC, play music or watch photos from my PC and a whole lot more but those aren't important to me at all. If that extra stuff is important to you and you feel Tivo does it better then by all means, that's why competition is good. Rock on.

[zalusky]

I went rabbit ears to Cable, to Dish, then to DTV, then back to Cable.
First off I don't believe in loyalty. I like having choices. I followed Tivo back to Cable to see what their full featured product is like and MRV.

DTV is catching up but DTV much like the cell providers really don't want you outside of their network. I think the future is broadband. I have an Apple TV for some movies and may switch to Netflix for downloading.

Paying $100+ to any of these guys for only a few channels is nuts. I can get basic and all the movies I want from Netflix and friends.

OnDemand from cable provides a much bigger resevoir then DTV can hope to provide.
Unless DTV gets bought by somebody like ATT, you have to party with an outsider to get broadband which is sort of funny because they dumped Tivo because they don't like partners.

The bottom line is you don't need a huge pipe if you can go SDV and broadband in a few years is the biggest SDV provider around.

ATT, Verizon, and Cable provide true interactive pipes. DTV doesn't.

Why lock yourself into a two year contract when in less than two years the options will be very different.

[magnus]

Use OTA and Dish Now (prepaid service). with a S3 and a S2 you can record on one box (the S2) and move it around.

Then you're not tied to contracts or any service other than Tivo. You can get a 40 day card and then just not buy one for a while if you feel like you're not going to get good enough value out of it.

I used to have cable TV and it was horrible. The reception was bad and the thing went out almost every week. I would call to get it fixed and was told I had to be home between 8am and 5pm for the service person to come. It was such a headache. I dropped cable and got Directv. Other then the fact that it goes out in bad weather, I have loved having Directv. I got my TiVo box when I got Diretv in the year 2000. I also bought the lifetime membership for my Tivo Box. Now it seems if I want to upgrade my TiVo I will have to switch to cable tv. My mother got a Directv DVR and she hates it. I think I am more loyal to TiVo then Directv, but I sure hated the problems I had with the cable company. Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did? Our cable company is Time Warner and honestly I have not heard anything good about them.

[20TIL6]

There is nothing "hard" about the DirecTV DVR GUI as you seem to indicate.

Absolutely was not my intent. If GUI's are not that important, then any easier use relative to one or the other would not matter either. That is what I meant. GUI for GUI sake.

[crofford]

On a scale of 1 - 10, my hate for DirecTV is about 20. It's a long story, and it started with me actually trying to give DTV even more money, but after 15 years I cancelled my service today. My knee-jerk reaction I assumed would be ok because I would just buy a couple of Tivo Series 3's and call up Cox and order the full boat. However, I now remember why my hate for cable companies is 100. It's a pain getting an answer from Cox in Phoenix about how much stuff costs, and they give different answers on cable cards. And now I've run across a thread in these forums about a major problem with TivoHD's, cable cards, and Cox in Phoenix. GRRRRR!

[magnus]

All I can say is OTA and Dish Now. That's the best way to go.

On a scale of 1 - 10, my hate for DirecTV is about 20. It's a long story, and it started with me actually trying to give DTV even more money, but after 15 years I cancelled my service today. My knee-jerk reaction I assumed would be ok because I would just buy a couple of Tivo Series 3's and call up Cox and order the full boat. However, I now remember why my hate for cable companies is 100. It's a pain getting an answer from Cox in Phoenix about how much stuff costs, and they give different answers on cable cards. And now I've run across a thread in these forums about a major problem with TivoHD's, cable cards, and Cox in Phoenix. GRRRRR!

[nrnoble]

I recently had DirectTV turned off (been with them since 1997) because I stopped watching it after buying Series 3 TiVo. I am with comcast and also have high speed Internet with them. They do an OK job so I am happy enough to stay with cable because I love my Series 3 TiVo.

Both are large companies and are going to be plagued with the support nightmares of not not knowing what the left hand is doing. It is roll of the dice each time you call, you might get a great person who knows his/her stuff, or a rookie who reads from a script, you never know. :)

[eric_n_dfw]

I'd been with DTV since 1999, had an HDVR2 DirecTivo since about 2001 here in the Euless area. Rock solid signal rarely lost sync with the satellite, usually only happening when it would hail. Loved the Tivo too, totally changed how we watch TV.

Last December, I suspended my DTV account and tried UVerse. I didn't have an HDTV so I cannot comment on it's quality, but SDTV quality was great and the DSL speeds a nice perk. The DVR, however, was TERRIBLE! The only thing nice about it was it had the functional equivalent of 4 tuners... but that's about it. No audible feedback to remote control button presses and very slow responses led to accidental double clicks all of the time. Many missed recordings for no apparent reason. One of the biggest annoyances was the lack of the "jump back" that most DVR's do when you hit play after fast forwarding through commercials. Also, the 30 second skip is almost useless because it takes almost as long as fast forwarding. I went back to DTV in January. To AT&T's credit, they have no commitment requirements AND they let me continue to use the UVerse DSL service at the same price as their standard, slower Yahoo!DSL plan.

Then, after buying an HD ready TV in May, when DTV said I would have to sign a 2 year commitment just to lease their HD DVR, I told them to take a hike and tried the Dish HD DVR. I used it until the end of July and decided to drop them as well due to a lot of dropped satellite signal and a general dissatisfaction with their DVR's user interface. Their DVR was responsive but setting up priorities and "Dish Pass'es" seemed cumbersome compared to Tivo. Probably just because I'm used to how Tivo does things.

I picked up a TivoHD and signed up with TimeWarner and, so far, am pretty happy. The DVR is great and the HD picture seems to be as good as I was getting with DishNetwork. OTA signal is exceptional when they're broadcasting 1080i too. (Olympics on channel 5HD look great)

I am a fan of Tivo suggestions and wishlists too, so I'm very glad to have them back.

[magnus]

It's not with the Tivo HD or S3 boxes. But it would work with a S2 from what I have read. You would have to use IR cables for that.

I don't have the option of Fios. We have AT&T. I believe they will be installing something called Uverse. I am not sure if it is TiVo compatible or not. Thank you for your thoughts. I will be doing a lot of pondering.

[magnus]

Same here. That's why I went OTA and Tivo (but having a DVR with SP and wishlists sure helps).

Nope. Content and price is much more important to me then the GUI of a DVR.

[eric_n_dfw]

... one last thing

If this is your first HD DVR, be aware that recording HD shows goes through hard drive space like gasoline through a 69 GTO! I had modified my DTV, upgrading it to a pair of 120gb drives so I was pretty spoiled with 200+ hours of storage space. (The 6 hour Olympics HD recordings are killing me!)

Consider your options for adding space to each of the HD DVR's in your buying decision:

TivoHD: only allows you to use the Western Digital "My DVR" 500GB eSATA drive (although a 1TB version should be out "any day now") No other brand will work without hacking the machine
Dish DVR: can use any USB drive but you have to pay them a one time fee to unlock that functionality (lame, in my opinion)
DirecTV DVR: I'm not sure, but I think it can use any USB drive and doesn't cost extra
UVerse DVR: As of when I used them, no support for adding a drive but I think it did have USB ports that could some day support it.

I'm debating waiting for the 1TB My DVR or hacking to max it out to 2TB with a new internal and external drive. :o)

[magnus]

I think I'd go internal only.

[rlj5242]

DirecTV DVR: I'm not sure, but I think it can use any USB drive and doesn't cost extra eSATA not USB. And most work. I don't think there is any limit other than how much you are willing to spend on the drives.

The downside for some is that it is not fully supported by D* yet. You have to go to DBS Talk to get support. Which in my opinion is much better than what you will get over the phone from a CSR.

-Robert

[eric_n_dfw]

eSATA not USB. And most work. I don't think there is any limit other than how much you are willing to spend on the drives.

The downside for some is that it is not fully supported by D* yet. You have to go to DBS Talk to get support. Which in my opinion is much better than what you will get over the phone from a CSR.

-Robert

Interesting.

I really wish DTV didn't have the silly 2 year commitment mandatory - I would have been willing to pay the same $49 I paid Dish to try their DVR out if they hadn't had that commitment.

[shibby191]

Same here. That's why I went OTA and Tivo (but having a DVR with SP and wishlists sure helps).

If I ever get a huge financial bind I'd probably do the same, OTA with Tivo and Netflix. But I do have to mention that the DirecTV DVR has season passes (called series links, exact same thing) and they have autorecord searches with advanced boolean search terms so you can recreate many of your wishlists. The biggest hangup for some people though is the 50 limit on series links/autorecords. That can certainly be a problem for some (it's not for me, I guess I just don't watch as much TV as I think I do).

Commitments don't bother me at all, where am I going to go? Charter? Please. :D I mean I certainly don't expect to switch within a year and after a year if I had to switch and dump DirecTV the early termination fee isn't really all that much left. Frankly the commitment just isn't that big a deal for me. In fact, my 2 yr commitment from my HR20 is done next month. ;)

[magnus]

It was just dollars and sense to me. I only watched about 5 of the 200+ channels I got. And while they say that the content is there.... it's really not. I think you can get what you want to watch from OTA and Dish Now (just turn it on when you want). How much do you watch of the local stations? I really found that the majority of what I wanted to watch... was on those channels.

There are a few channels that have other things I like to watch.
Sci-Fi and USA

But I can watch those programs through Unbox or Dish Now.


If I ever get a huge financial bind I'd probably do the same, OTA with Tivo and Netflix.

[Dnamertz]

The biggest hangup for some people though is the 50 limit on series links/autorecords.

50, are you serious? That would be a huge negative for me since I have over 100 currently (WOW, I watch too much TV).

[lrhorer]

I used to have cable TV and it was horrible. The reception was bad and the thing went out almost every week.
It's true every CATV system is different, even between different city franchises in a single MSO. With Satellite, however, there are only 2 providers in the U.S., so variations in service are essentially nil, other than weather related problems. Every time my sister has a serious rainstorm south of her house, her DirecTV signal dies, but maqny places in the country only have heavy rains very occasionaly. The quality of CATV services OTOH, is going to vary a lot depending on where one lives, and some CATV providers deliver much lower performacne.

That said, when was "used to"? The CATV MSOs have spent collectively more than $10 Billion in the last several years upgrading their plant. Most now employ a fiber backbone delivering service to nodes which each serve only between 400 and 1000 homes, limiting the total number of active devices between the headend (or hubsite) and the house to 4 or 5 amplifiers and 1 or 2 power supplies. Previously, a city like San Antonio had quite a few customers at the end of a cascade of nearly 30 amplifiers and 12 or more power supplies. Such a tree might feed as many as 40,000 customers. A failure in any one of those components would take everyone downstream of the component out of service. The rate of device failure in most systems on a per customer basis has dropped by more than a factor of 6, and in some cases a factor of more than 10. At the same time, the total cable attenuation in the longest cascades could easily exceed 550dB. Thermal variations could easily result in a change of more than 15dB in signal levels which had to be overcome by the electronics in the amplifiers. With up to 30 active devices per cascade with which to contend, degradation of the signal over time was a constant problem. Now with no more than 100 dB, perhaps much less, between the fiber node and the house, and with digital level management instead of analog, maintaining decent signal levels at the point of ingress to the house is much easier. Finally, the noise and distortion of the signals on a CATV plant increase with the number of amplifiers. For a flat signal spectrum and a constant signal level, noise increases as 10 times the base 10 logarithm of the number of amplifiers. This means contemporary CATV systems enjoy up to a 7.5 dB decrease in noise level compared to the same plant 10 years ago. Distortion, OTOH, increases as 20 times the logarithm of the number of amplifiers, so todays sysems enjoy as much as a 15 dB decrease in distortion. The news gets even better, however. Digital carriers are much less susceptible to noise than analog carriers. This being the case, CATV providers are able to set the levels of their digital carriers easily 10 or 15 dB lower than the analog carriers. The resultant 2 - 7 dB decrease in S/N for the digital carriers is not problematic, but since 3rd order distortion also goes up as 20 times the logarithm of the overall signal level, modern plants not only enjoy much fewer noise issues, they also enjoy much less distortion. Distortion tends to be much more of an enemy for digital carriers than noise.

I would call to get it fixed and was told I had to be home between 8am and 5pm for the service person to come.
I'll give you that. Many systems will allow a "check at pole" call, where the tech confirms the levels and PQ at the subscriber tap. Of course, many people's troubles are inside the house, but digital receivers and STBs being the norm now, rather than mechanical ones, the instance rate of troubles within the house has also dropped dramatically. Now about the most common call for problems past the subscriber tap is "dog / rat / squirrel / baby / electric saw chewed the cable".

Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did? Our cable company is Time Warner and honestly I have not heard anything good about them.
I used to work for the local CATV company before they became Time Warner Cable. I still have contacts within the organization. Most of the field personel worked very hard to try to maintain good quality signals to the customer, but sometimes it was an uphill battle. Some customers also had peculiar - but very real - intermittent problems, and nailing them down could really require a lot of persistence. Even the last several years I was with the company, they were taking significant - and expensive - steps to make their systems more reliable: moving to a fiber backbone instead of coaxial cable, installing battery backups on power supplies, limiting the number of customers per node, installing redundant paths to the hubsites, etc.

I moved to my new house in 2000, and in the first couple of years I had several trouble calls related to signal issues. Since then, I have had to call in less than once a year and not at all the last two years for signal issues. I can't guarantee you anything, of course, but you might find yourself less frustrated than before. I must admit, however, their customer service has gotten much worse in the last 10 years, but then there are very, very few companies whose technical support hasn't gotten far worse over the last decade. In the case of the CATV company, this is offset by fewer problems. YMMV, of course.

[lrhorer]

I dumped my Tivo for the DirecTV DVR and will never go back. The DVR is so much better with HD and other features the Tivo's can't come close.
This is just completely false. First of all, most CATV providers are delivering quite a few HD channels. Indeed, the local CATV company delivers a large number of HD channels in which I have no interest at all, and once the SDV issues is resolved, I will be quite content with my HD lineup. I'm fairly satisfied with it, now, but there are about 8 HD SDV channels I would like to receive that I cannot until the Tuning Adapter is available. In the mean time, I can live with the 9 locals, HBO, Starz, TNT, HDNet, HDNet Movies, MOJO, HDTheater, and Universal HD in high definition.

When it comes to features, the TiVo has it all over the competition. Here is a list of just a few features* exclusive or nearly so to the TiVo:

1. Wishlists with hyperfine target filters and boolean expressions
2. Multiple search utilities {by name, by time, by channel, etc} with target filters
3. Amazon Unbox videos
4. YouTube
5. Internet podcasts like Cranky Geeks, CNet.com, DL.TV, The New York Times, and dozens of others
6. Continually updated weather and traffic reports with maps and forecasts
7. Rhapsody Music subscriptions
8. Suggestions, so that it records features it thinks you may like based upon historical viewing habits and user voting
9. The ability to allow the user to play his own videos - HD or SD, music, and photos on the DVR (Galleon, pyTiVo, Harmonium, Tivo Desktop)
10. Multi-Room Viewing
11. TiVo to Go (Galleon and TiVo Desktop) and Come Back (Galleon, pyTiVo, and TiVo Desktop)
12. Internet based record scheduling
13. Burning recorded shows to DVD
14. Thumbs-Up scheduling
15. Online special announcements
16. Storage Expandability
17. Swivel Search
18. Game playing
19. TiVo KidZone
20. Fandango ticket listings and purchasing
21. Online lyrics lookup for music (Galleon)
22. Online album cover lookup for music (Galleon)
23. Displaying album covers embeded in .MP3 files (Harmonium)
24. Live views of the PC server desktop (Galleon)
25. View incoming e-mail (Galleon)
26. View Internet webcams and other live images (Galleon)
27. View RSS feeds (Galleon and TiVo Desktop)
28. Jabber Messenger Service (Galleon)
29. Local theater listings (Galleon)
30. Shoutcast (Galleon)
31. Share home videos (One True Media)
32. Watch music videos (Music Choice)
33. Steam videos to the TiVo (tivostream and HME for python)

Depending on which DirecTV receiver one has, some of these features may have somewhat similar, but generally inferior analogues on the D* DVR. Others have nothing even close on any DVR, if for no other reason than TiVo holds most of the DVR patents and copyrights, and other companies cannot duplicate them unless they want to risk a lawsuit.

* Items in parenthesis indicate availablity via 3rd party applications.

[lrhorer]

I would never go back to cable - the cable system here is horrible. I have both the TiVo-powered and DirecTV DVRs and find them different - that's all. The DirecTV DVRs work fine for me and, nowadays, have more standard features than the TiVo models.
That's because the agreement between TiVo and DirecTV fell apart quite some years ago. She's talking about a new TiVo and CATV, which means a Series III class unit. Only a very small fraction of the current features of the Series III units are available on a DirecTiVo without hacking, and event then most are not.

[lrhorer]

The DirecTV DVRs work fine for me and, nowadays, have more standard features than the TiVo models.

Such as?
Note the wording. I've seen lots of D* users word their posts this way. I can't quite say it is dishonest in all cases, after all this particular forum deals with DirecTiVos, and in some cases they are quite properly limiting their scope to units used with DirecTV service, but sometimes it's a sneaky debating ploy. In this case, the thread is clearly concerning the merits of a new TiVo with a CATV input versus a DVR with a satellite input. Comparing an HR2x with an HR10 is comparing newer technology with Manufacture Discontinued technology. Even in the case of an HR10, there are significant features enjoyed by the DirecTiVo not on the HR2x, but a comparison between the HR2x and the Series III, proper in this discussion, is a very different thing.

[lrhorer]

So given all that, couldn't DTV send out a simple survey to a customer like me? Like, "Hey, we are thinking about dropping TiVo and developing our own DVR. Do you think that would be a good idea? Would you be OK with that?"
In fairness, the decision really had very little to do with customers, whether DirecTV wanted desperately to keep them happy, or not. In order to continue to sell DirecTV DVRs based upon TiVo's DVR software, they had to maintain the legal agreements with TiVo. Without them, they cannot deliver TiVo based DVRs to their customers. No one outside the TiVo and DirecTV senior management teams and legal counsels knows all the details, but in order to continue to deliver a TiVo based DVR, DirecTV would have to offer TiVo more concessions than they were willing to supply. It's not know whether TiVo wanted more or D* wanted less, or both, but the bottom line is when the TiVo / D* contract came up for renewal, the negotiations fell apart. Although it is quite possible D* preferred to manufacture a DVR under their own name in the first place, in the end they had no choice.

But they never asked. Didn't seem to care how I, a loyal and happy customer, would feel about something like that.
In a way, it didn't matter. Of course, if they felt they would lose more money in loyal TiVo customers who went to some other means of TV reception, they might have been willing to concede more to TiVo, but even then it might not have made a difference.

[lrhorer]

Nope. Content and price is much more important to me then the GUI of a DVR.
The content is largely the same, except of course for LAN and internet content, where the TiVo leaves the DirecTV DVRs in the dust. The GUI is largely inconsequential, with a few very important exceptions. It's the features of the TiVo which really make it shine. See above.

[lrhorer]

I don't have the option of Fios. We have AT&T. I believe they will be installing something called Uverse. I am not sure if it is TiVo compatible or not. Thank you for your thoughts. I will be doing a lot of pondering.
It's not compatible with TiVo. It's also pretty limited if you have more than one TV or a multi-tuner DVR. The service is delivered over a 100Mbps Ethernet line, so you can only watch or record one HD program at a time. There's also a limit to the number of SD programs which can be watched or recorded simultaneously. I'm not impressed with it.

[lrhorer]

Sure there are differences. But the DirecTV DVR records my shows and I can play them back.
Do you TELL the DirecTV DVR to record them, or does it know to do so without your telling it? More than 90% of the material recorded by my TiVos is recorded without my having to do do anything on an ongoing basis.

Not quite sure what more I need. I can do some pretty advanced searches just fine.
Although important, it's not just how advanced the searches are, it is how automatic and how effective. An example is every Humphrey Bogart movie which shows on any channel automatically gets recorded on one of my Tivos. I don't have to ever search for a Bogey movie. The TiVo already knows I want to record it. Every Clint Eastwood movie shown in High Definition will also record, but not any in SD. Again, I don't have to search for it, because the Wishlist has been in place ever since I got my first TiVo capable of receiving HD. When Iron Man finally comes to one of the cable channels in HD a year or so from now, it will automatically record, because I have a wishlist set up for HD & Movies & Iron Man. Ditto the third Mummy film with Brendan Frasier. I don't record every Alfred Hitchcock film or special that comes on, but I do know about them without searching because I have a non-recording wishlist specifying Alfred Hitchcock as a search criteria.

Wife also finds it just fine.
But she does have to look, doesn't she? Less than 10% of the things I want to and do record are things I have specifically selected. Some weeks, it's less than 1%. This last week, for example, I did not get a chance to turn on the TV except once, and that for only an hour and a half. I didn't search for anything at all. Yet my 3 TiVos purred away, recording dozens of series episodes, movies, and specials so that when I sit down, between my TiVos and my Video Server I have well over 2000 different programs from which to select, all but a few dozen of which I find fascinating. Any that I really like get sent to the video server to keep long term. Of course every DVR has something similar to TiVo's Season Pass, but Season Passes only make up about 20% or so of the material recorded, and since I discard many Season Pass re-runs, they make up an even lower percentage of the things we watch.

[lrhorer]

It's a pain getting an answer from Cox in Phoenix about how much stuff costs, and they give different answers on cable cards. And now I've run across a thread in these forums about a major problem with TivoHD's, cable cards, and Cox in Phoenix. GRRRRR!
You might consider taking the gripe posts anywhere on the internet with a grain of salt. I'm not guaranteeing you won't have problems, but no matter how vehement some members of the forum might be, it is not a gauge of how many people have problems versus how many do not.

[lrhorer]

... one last thing

If this is your first HD DVR, be aware that recording HD shows goes through hard drive space like gasoline through a 69 GTO!
True, but hard drives are cheap.

Consider your options for adding space to each of the HD DVR's in your buying decision:

TivoHD: only allows you to use the Western Digital "My DVR" 500GB eSATA drive (although a 1TB version should be out "any day now") No other brand will work without hacking the machine
Dish DVR: can use any USB drive but you have to pay them a one time fee to unlock that functionality (lame, in my opinion)
DirecTV DVR: I'm not sure, but I think it can use any USB drive and doesn't cost extra
UVerse DVR: As of when I used them, no support for adding a drive but I think it did have USB ports that could some day support it.

I'm debating waiting for the 1TB My DVR or hacking to max it out to 2TB with a new internal and external drive. :o)

I really would not call manually adding a drive to a TiVo "hacking" it. Hacking requires a great deal more understanding of the system, and TiVo hacks require a certain amount of ongoing maintenance. None of that is true of manual hard drive expansion. It requires removing the hard drive and running a simple utility, once. That's it.

That, and you missed a few:

A stock Series 3 TiVo can automatically add almost any SATA hard drive in an enclosure as an exteral drive - no drive removal required. Only the Tivo HD is limited to the My DVR Expander.
Companies like DVR Upgrade and Weaknees sell pre-upgraded TiVos with up to 1T of storage. Note adding an external drive of any sort to any Series III model TiVo with an upgraded internal drive requires a manual upgrade.
The internal drive of a TiVo can be replaced either in a manual upgrade or by purchasing a large TiVo drive - up to 1TB - from DVR Upgrade or Weaknees.
The soon to be available 1.5T and 2T SATA drives will allow even more expansion on a TiVoHD. (The limit on an S3 is 2.2TB. The limit on the THD is vastly higher.)

[shibby191]

Do you TELL the DirecTV DVR to record them, or does it know to do so without your telling it? More than 90% of the material recorded by my TiVos is recorded without my having to do do anything on an ongoing basis.


Ummm, yea.....I have series links (season passes) and a few autorecord searches. Set and forget.



But she does have to look, doesn't she?

Not sure what you mean. She sits down, hits the playlist and players her programs. Pretty simple.

Of course every DVR has something similar to TiVo's Season Pass, but Season Passes only make up about 20% or so of the material recorded, and since I discard many Season Pass re-runs, they make up an even lower percentage of the things we watch.

I think I remember you posting some similar stuff before. You need to remember that your super power use of Tivo wishlists and stuff is not that common. The way the vast majority of people, especially "Joe Sixpack" uses a DVR is they setup season passes for their shows and they watch them. Isn't any more complicated then that. And the vast majority of people don't know let alone don't care about all the online stuff. It's just fluff that they "don't get". Not saying it's not good features, but most people don't use 'em.

[shibby191]

The content is largely the same, except of course for LAN and internet content, where the TiVo leaves the DirecTV DVRs in the dust.

Perhaps. I know a couple months ago when Tivo made a big announcement that You Tube was coming to Tivo's soon I chuckled because you can already stream You Tube on the DirecTV DVRs and have been able to for nearly a year.

It's really simple. Pick something with the features, price and content that will make you happy. Doesn't matter what it is, there is no wrong answer.

[shibby191]

It's true every CATV system is different, even between different city franchises in a single MSO.

That said, when was "used to"? The CATV MSOs have spent collectively more than $10 Billion in the last several years upgrading their plant....

Yes, cable is widely different. And most of it stinks frankly from my personal experience around the state. Around here we have a Chater system which is probably the most advanced because they took over for Cablevision which was so bad Charter had to lay all new fiber everywhere. It's not bad although they don't have even a quarter of the HD channels Dish or DirecTV have.

A few Time Warner systems around. One is pretty advanced. One just got their first HD channels last year and they now have 8 total, and that includes the 4 locals. :rolleyes: The other TW system just went *digital* 2 years ago. No HD, no Internet, no nothing. Just mostly analog still.

Comcast the same way, one decently advanced system and 3 others that can barely spell HD let alone offer any selection.

[bengalfreak]

We just did the switch from DTV to cable last month. It lasted all of five days. The entire family hated it. To me a DVR without multi-room viewing is not a DVR worth having. So I bought extra DTivos off ebay in case any of the four of mine die.

[20TIL6]

We just did the switch from DTV to cable last month. It lasted all of five days. The entire family hated it. To me a DVR without multi-room viewing is not a DVR worth having. So I bought extra DTivos off ebay in case any of the four of mine die.

When you went to cable, what kind of DVR did you use?

I have S3 and HD units with cable and I have multi-room viewing. We use it all the time.

In fact, when I had DirecTV and DirecTV/TiVo's, we did NOT have multi-room viewing. It would have involved a Linux hack on the DTV/TiVo's to get the USB ports enabled and using wireless ethernet, right? Are you hacking your DTV/TiVo's to get MRV?

The S3 and HD units have MRV as a standard feature.

[magnus]

Of course he is. That's the only way MRV would work. :)


In fact, when I had DirecTV and DirecTV/TiVo's, we did NOT have multi-room viewing. It would have involved a Linux hack on the DTV/TiVo's to get the USB ports enabled and using wireless ethernet, right? Are you hacking your DTV/TiVo's to get MRV?

[magnus]

If the content was there and you had no other problems then.... why would you not have used a THD? That's the only way to do a true comparison. Then you would have MRV and a whole lot more.

Unlike D*, Tivo gives you 30 days to try the service out and return the box if you don't like it.

We just did the switch from DTV to cable last month. It lasted all of five days. The entire family hated it. To me a DVR without multi-room viewing is not a DVR worth having. So I bought extra DTivos off ebay in case any of the four of mine die.

[eric_n_dfw]

Unlike D*, Tivo gives you 30 days to try the service out and return the box if you don't like it.
Yep, something AT&T, Dish and Time Warner all give you in one way or another and the main reason I was unwilling to even try the DirecTV HD DVR. (Dish and TW do charge a $40-$50 install fee, though, if you don't do a commitment.)

BTW: If you buy the TivoHD at Costco, you've got even longer to return it.

[jjd]

I had been a DirecTV subscriber for about 10 years, with two different directivos -- on Philips and the last an HR10-250. When they dropped tivo, I switched to two TiVO S3s and Verizon FIOS. Picture quality is better than DirecTV and I get to keep my tivo UI.

[dswallow]

I dumped DirecTV for Cable and TiVo over a year and a half ago -- after having been a DirecTV subscriber since the very beginning. And I've been quite happy with the decision. It was the right time to do it, too. The TiVo/DirecTV choice debacle was certainly a big part of the decision, but it was significantly helped by Comcast's pricing with Internet and Telephone services as well. About the only thing that has any hope of getting me to consider changing again is when Verizon FIOS rolls out around here.

[nrc]

Perhaps. I know a couple months ago when Tivo made a big announcement that You Tube was coming to Tivo's soon I chuckled because you can already stream You Tube on the DirecTV DVRs and have been able to for nearly a year.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a third party add-on application running on a PC required to make YouTube available on DTV DVRs? TiVo had the ability to get YouTube through PC add-on software for quite some time prior to the YouTube announcement.

As nearly as I can tell from comments on the DTV forums, Internet content on DirecTV DVRs remains a geek novelty toy while anyone with a broadband connection can plug their TiVo HD or S3 in and enjoy seemless access to all YouTube content as well as a variety of other Internet sources.

You really can't dismiss TiVo's rich set of advanced features and options by citing "Joe Sixpack" on one hand and then tout DirecTV geek novelty toys on the other.

[nrc]

I switched from DirecTV to cable a year ago. TiVo availability was one big factor in that decision, but DirecTV's general decline was also a big consideration. Here's my laundry lists of top reasons for considering my cable options.

Loss of TiVo.
Declining SD and HD video quality caused loss of faith in commitment to quality.
Loss of choice in recievers.
Declining customer service.
Multiple debacles in new equipment introductions (R15, HR20) caused loss of faith in commitment to customer satisfaction.
Loss of option to purchase equipment.
Requirement for commitment with no guarantee of satisfaction.


When I originally switched to DirecTV in 1994 there were few, if any, cable companies that could compete with their quality, channel lineup, and price. Today that's changed and many households have cable options that are at least competitive with DirecTV.

I'm fortunate to live in an area with multiple cable options and one of those options (WOW) tops DirecTV on customer satisfaction in this region. So now I'm a happy WOW subscriber and the combination of WOW and TiVo S3 are giving me a better overall experience.

[shibby191]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't a third party add-on application running on a PC required to make YouTube available on DTV DVRs? TiVo had the ability to get YouTube through PC add-on software for quite some time prior to the YouTube announcement.

I believe you are correct. The DirecTV "Media Share" is similar to the media connectors in the Xbox 360 or PS3. It's there and then you can use any application you want on the PC/Mac/Linux/media server side to stream whatever you'd like. It's an open DLNA client/server so you can run any type server side software you'd like. Again, not saying it's good or bad, just stating it's there. DirecTV has also announced some sort of built in You Tube thing I guess similar to what Tivo will have. Just announced of course, who knows if it will actually get added.

And that DLNA client/server is making some interesting future MRV observations such as the PS3 right now can read the HR20 playlist and even list out all the recorded programs on it. Can't play it (yet) but it's interesting to see all the pieces starting to come together for MRV or some sort of whole house server that various clients can play back. Might be pretty cool if you could play your DirecTV recorded programs on a PS3 or 360 or Wii? Not saying that will happen but you never know. Should be an interesting next 6 months for this. :up:

You really can't dismiss TiVo's rich set of advanced features and options by citing "Joe Sixpack" on one hand and then tout DirecTV geek novelty toys on the other.

Totally agree. I don't dismiss Tivo's rich set. Both Tivo and DirecTV (and frankly any other DVRs) are geek novelty toys in terms of their broadband capability. Also not "touting" the DirecTV geek toys other then to just point out that they also have some, Tivo doesn't corner the market on such things.

Frankly I think the point was made earlier (or maybe another thread) the "unwashed masses" getting DVRs now have never used a Tivo and thus whatever DVR they get is great to them. Gotta remember that there are only about 4 million Tivo subs (and shrinking, mostly due to DirecTivo die off) in total while the DVR market is near 40 million. So that is about 10% of the market for Tivo which was probably over 90% just 5-6 years ago. We'll be generous and say maybe 15% of the DVR market has ever seen a real Tivo in action or ever owned one to know the difference. Again, doesn't say Tivo isn't the best, I'd honestly agree that Tivo is the best. BUT, just because they are the best doesn't mean that everything else is crap and that people that don't use a Tivo are "missing out". I think you'll find millions that are doing just fine with their "crappy" DVR thank you very much because it does what they want it to do, simply record programs and play them back. Honestly, that's all people really want. ;) Perhaps over time they'll "graduate" to something better. :)

I encourage people to go to cable and get Tivo if that will make them happy. Please, be happy, life is too short to feel like DirecTV is the great evil empire sucking the life out of you or something. :D

[magnus]

PS3 can play from other DLNA servers. I use it with a DNS-323 and it streams quite nicely. I would venture to guess that it has to do with the video being encrypted. So, I bet D* will not ever enable (or disable) the feature.

That is one feature that I wish my Tivo had.... the ability to play video from my DNS-323 would be great.

[shibby191]

PS3 can play from other DLNA servers. I use it with a DNS-323 and it streams quite nicely. I would venture to guess that it has to do with the video being encrypted. So, I bet D* will not ever enable (or disable) the feature.


I'm sure encryption is the issue currently, only the PC client allows viewing of programs off the D* DVRs currently. But what is encouraging is that D* is using open standards to develop the MRV and whole home server solutions which really opens up a lot of possibilities, including licensing agreements with many 3rd parties.

[bengalfreak]

When you went to cable, what kind of DVR did you use?

I have S3 and HD units with cable and I have multi-room viewing. We use it all the time.

In fact, when I had DirecTV and DirecTV/TiVo's, we did NOT have multi-room viewing. It would have involved a Linux hack on the DTV/TiVo's to get the USB ports enabled and using wireless ethernet, right? Are you hacking your DTV/TiVo's to get MRV?

The S3 and HD units have MRV as a standard feature.

Yup DTivos hacked. Its really quite painless these days with the zipper. We used cable DVR's and DT Tivos (non-HD). We hated both of them.

Oh, and you can go wired or wireless with hacked DTivos.

[bengalfreak]

If the content was there and you had no other problems then.... why would you not have used a THD? That's the only way to do a true comparison. Then you would have MRV and a whole lot more.

Because they are $200 a piece and I currently have a DTivo at every television (4 in all). I wasn't gonna plunk down $800 bucks.

[20TIL6]

Yup DTivos hacked. Its really quite painless these days with the zipper. We used cable DVR's and DT Tivos (non-HD). We hated both of them.

Oh, and you can go wired or wireless with hacked DTivos.

Are you hoping for perhaps that miracle of DirecTV and TiVo renewing things and coming out with an MPEG4 HD DTV/TiVo?

I'm not even making comment that something like that could happen, but do you see yourself eventually having to transition from DTV/TiVo to DTV HR2X if the above miracle never happens?

[Sea bass]

I dumped my Tivo for the DirecTV DVR and will never go back. The DVR is so much better with HD and other features the Tivo's can't come close.


I hate to agree but the DTV DVR is far better than Tivo. If DTV stayed with Tivo maybe this would not be the case.

My DTV Tivo is so dated, 35hrs recording, old channel logos, they just don't care anymore. Heck the Showcase is full of infomercials...anyone seen the Ped egg?? I use to be mad at DTV, now I am mad at Tivo. They could update a few things, they just don't care..what a disappointment for those who still have DTV Tivos and don't have the support.:mad:

[20TIL6]

I hate to agree but the DTV DVR is far better than Tivo. If DTV stayed with Tivo maybe this would not be the case.

My DTV Tivo is so dated, 35hrs recording, old channel logos, they just don't care anymore. Heck the Showcase is full of infomercials...anyone seen the Ped egg?? I use to be mad at DTV, now I am mad at Tivo. They could update a few things, they just don't care..what a disappointment for those who still have DTV Tivos and don't have the support.:mad:

I think your disappointment is misguided (pointed in the wrong direction). My opinion.

[shibby191]

I think your disappointment is misguided (pointed in the wrong direction). My opinion.

I would agree. Tivo can't do anything to the DirecTivo's without DirecTV contracting out to do it or their say so.

[magnus]

Ok, maybe next time.

Because they are $200 a piece and I currently have a DTivo at every television (4 in all). I wasn't gonna plunk down $800 bucks.

[mr.unnatural]

I had DirecTV for over 10 years and made the switch to FIOS about 18 months ago. I also have Comcast in my area but it will be a cold day in hell before i go back to them. In fact, I couldn't wait to dump Comcast wideband internet in favor of FIOS internet. I didn't make the switch entirely because of Tivo vs. the DirecTV DVR but it had a large bearing on my decision. FIOS definitely had a superior picture vs. DirecTV's mpeg2 HD lineup and they also had more HD channels at the time (this was before the mpeg4 sats went online). I was in a position where I had to decide to keep DirecTV and switch to their new HD DVRs or move to FIOS and get the S3 Tivo. The Verizon DVR wasn't even a consideration after seeing how inadequate it was. The HR20 from DTV was extremely buggy at this time and I wasn't ready to commit to a 2-year extension with a flaky DVR and no firm date when the mpeg4 sats would go active so I made the switch and never regretted it.

Here's what I consider the most important criteria when it comes to a DVR:

1. Upgradeability - must be able to increase the hard drive size (Tivo = yes; FIOS DVR = no; HR20 = not at the time)
2. Multiple DVR operation - must be able to use more than one DVR in the same room without interfering with the operation of additional DVRs (Tivo = yes; FIOS DVR = no; HR20 = not sure but I believe you can)
3. Ability to transfer videos to my PC (Tivo = yes; FIOS DVR = no; HR20 = no)
4. Ability to be modified for additional features (aka hacking; Tivo = yes; FIOS DVR = no; HR20 = no).

I don't use the majority of the bells and whistles that come with a Tivo but I have installed a few of my own. I just want a solid DVR that will religiously record what I tell it to without fail. I'd probably be perfectly content with the latest versions of the HR20 but it was sorely lacking at the time I made the switch to FIOS. Tivo is the only DVR currently available anywhere that meets all four of my main criteria so I chose a provider that allowed me to continue using a Tivo and also provide me with the best picture available. Note that some Tivos do not meet all of my criteria right out of the box (criteria No. 3) but have to be modified, hence criteria No. 4. No other DVR has the flexibility that a Tivo does. If it's lacking a feature, then it's probably available as a hack. With all other DVRs you have to wait and see if the manufacturer will decide to include it in a later software update, if ever.

[bengalfreak]

Are you hoping for perhaps that miracle of DirecTV and TiVo renewing things and coming out with an MPEG4 HD DTV/TiVo?

I'm not even making comment that something like that could happen, but do you see yourself eventually having to transition from DTV/TiVo to DTV HR2X if the above miracle never happens?

I am in no hurry to go anywhere. HD sets are going to have to come down in cost a helluva lot more before I take that plunge. And, as long as I'm using SD equipment, I'm satisfied where I am. Currently I have a DTivo at every TV (4) in the house.

In order for me to go anywhere, someone is going to have to make an affordable HD DVR that includes multi room viewing. Having a DVR with MRV at every TV is just way too convenient to give up.

And no, I'm not under any delusion that Tivo and DTV are going to get back together. But no MRV is a deal breaker for me so I may be where I am for the foreseeable future.

[HiDefGator]

Here's what I consider the most important criteria when it comes to a DVR:

1. Upgradeability - must be able to increase the hard drive size (Tivo = yes; FIOS DVR = no; HR20 = not at the time)


Huh? The HR20 is the easiest of them all to upgrade the hard drive. It will even format the new drive for you.

[20TIL6]

Having a DVR with MRV at every TV is just way too convenient to give up.

Totally agree with you on that. When I had DirecTV and D/TiVo units, they were not hacked to enable networking. So I never knew what I was missing. But now that I have S3 and HD units (I know have Comcast and OTA), having MRV is huge. I could not be without it now. It's like when early on DirecTV and TiVo turned on that second tuner on my first SAT-T60. Up until then, I had been happy as a clam with just the single tuner, but then they flipped that switch and I had two tuners. MRV feels like that.

[lrhorer]

Ummm, yea.....I have series links (season passes) and a few autorecord searches. Set and forget.
Which is very elementary compared to the 9 distinct search engines in the TiVo. A Honda Civic and a Hummer are both 4 wheeled motorized vehicles capable of transporting a driver and passengers from point to point. The Civic is not difficult to drive, but while its putative fundamental purpose is similar to the hummer, it's functionality is not. There are many, many places a hummer can go a Civic cannot. It also makes driving in certain terrain and under certain conditions much easier than a Civic. It's not that the Hummer is easier to drive, it's that the Hummer is much more versatile. It's the same with the TiVo. It can do a lot of much more sophisticated things more readily than its competition, and also do them with a lot less human intervention.

Not sure what you mean. She sits down, hits the playlist and players her programs. Pretty simple.
You said, "She can find...", by which I took it to mean find them in the schedule in order to record them. If you mean she can find already recorded programs and play them back, then it would be a pretty pathetic DVR (like the Scientific Atlanta 8300HD running SARA software) which made it difficult to play back recorded programs. I'm talking about how much time and effort is required to select programs to record, and in particular to limit the number of interesting programs which are not recorded while minimizing the amount of time and trouble required of the viewer to obtain that end.

I think I remember you posting some similar stuff before. You need to remember that your super power use of Tivo wishlists and stuff is not that common.
How common is not the point. And "super power use" sounds like I am resorting to some complex, arcane, and difficult methods to obtain a result. The whole point is, I do quite the opposite. More often than not, I do nothing. The TiVo is intelligent enough, after just a little coaching, to record what I want without my having to figure out what's going to be on, or when. If I were to manually schedule all the recordings my Tivos do each week, I would have to spend the better part of a whole day each week just programming things to record. As it is, I may not even turn on the TV for a week or more.

The way the vast majority of people, especially "Joe Sixpack" uses a DVR is they setup season passes for their shows and they watch them.
The fundamental topic of the discussion is not, "What does the Average Joe do?", but rather "What are the features of the TiVo compared to other offerings, particularly the HR2x". Not everyone can afford a Hummer, or even wants one, but that it's features are much more extensive than the Civic is not in doubt.

Isn't any more complicated then that. And the vast majority of people don't know let alone don't care about all the online stuff. It's just fluff that they "don't get". Not saying it's not good features, but most people don't use 'em.
There is a great deal of it of which I don't make use, either. That's not the point. There are a number of things of which I do make use. For example, I like watching John Dvorak's Cranky Geeks program, and I sometimes enjoy CNET. On a DVR that cannot receive those things, I could not watch them. If the TiVo didn't figure out I like Golden Girls, M*A*S*H, Modern Marvels, Clint Eastwood films in high def, Bogart movies, Schwarzenaegger movies, Iron Man (when it comes out), Journey to the Center of the Earth (ditto), Scavenger Hunt (when someone finally shows it again), and so forth, then I would either miss recording them entirely or else have to spend a great deal of time finding them and setting the DVR to record them. As it is, whether it's tomorrow or two years from now, and no matter how obscure the channel or what time of day, the TiVo will find them and record them. What's the down side? What's the up side of not having those capabilities?

[lrhorer]

Huh? The HR20 is the easiest of them all to upgrade the hard drive. It will even format the new drive for you.
So does the TiVo. I don't know how easy it is on the HR-20, but on the TiVo all one has to do is shut down the TiVo, plug in the drive, and turn on the Tivo. It can't get much simpler than that.

[lrhorer]

A few Time Warner systems around. One is pretty advanced. One just got their first HD channels last year and they now have 8 total, and that includes the 4 locals. :rolleyes: The other TW system just went *digital* 2 years ago. No HD, no Internet, no nothing. Just mostly analog still.
Here in San Antonio the Time Warner Cable system currently has 67 HD channels, including about 10 VOD HD channels. Of the 67, I am only interested in 21, ad I can receive all but 8 of those 21. When the Tuning Adapters are delivered, I'll be able to get all 21, plus any others they turn up.

In addition to the 67 HD channels, they've also got just over 400 SD channels, 71 of which are analog.

[curiousgeorge]

Yep, I dumped DirecTV, even though I was a subscriber from the beginning. We even had east+west coast network feeds grandfathered in (which was the one thing that made it hard to let go).

Frankly, I liked DTV better as a service. They don't seem to play as many pricing games. I have to call Charter every 6-12 months (depending on promo) and threated to quit to get the latest "special" pricing. Non-special pricing is outrageous. I *do* however, love the faster internet speed. We have 10 meg internet service + digital cable + HD + all HBO channels for about $100/mo.

I told DTV that I was sorry to go, but when they kicked TiVo to the curb and made me choose, I preferred TiVO HD over DirecTV service. If they get their act together (as it seems they may now that Murdoch has exited at last) and bring back TiVo so Series 3 (i.e. non crippled TiVos) work, I'll probably go back, but for now, the cable experience has been completely worth it to keep the TiVo series 3 experience with MRV, TiVo to go, Youtube, and all the other features that the DTV boxes don't have or don't do well at all.

We're switching my mother in law off DTV TiVos to cable TiVo HDs later this year (or Series 3's if refurbs are still available, since I prefer them).

[mr.unnatural]

Huh? The HR20 is the easiest of them all to upgrade the hard drive. It will even format the new drive for you.
You will note that my response indicated that the drives in the HR20 could not be updated at the time I made the switch to FIOS over 18 months ago. That is, nobody had discovered a way to do it until several months later.

[shibby191]

You will note that my response indicated that the drives in the HR20 could not be updated at the time I made the switch to FIOS over 18 months ago. That is, nobody had discovered a way to do it until several months later.

Hmmm, it's never changed. Plug in an eSata drive and reboot. Been that way since a month after the HR20 was released nearly 2 years ago. Also you have always been able to crack it open (voiding the warrenty and lease agreement) and just replace the internal drive. That's worked since day one. But anyway, water under the bridge at this point...

[zalusky]

The other big reason I dumped DirecTV (Which I have said before) is CHOICE CHOICE.
Competition is good. I want HR20, I want TivoHD, and the more the merrier. It makes everyone better.

When DTV locked out the hardware vendors they stopped all that. Cable would do the same if they could and they try but at least their is some ability for choice.

How would feel if you went down to your local wireless store and they said Motorola thats all you get. No iPhone, no Blackberry, No LG, No Nokia just Motorola. It's bad for everybody.

I just had a U-Verse guy come a knocking and he agreed he would be pretty upset if he had no choice at the wireless store and I told him that's what your doing at the TV store. Ofcourse I also told him fiber to the node was amistake as well.

CHOICE also give's us better options in the broadband arena. DTV has no desire to let you get content outside of their network just like Verizon crippled bluetooth so you had to use their network to transmit data.


Cable and ATT and Verizon have a nice fat multi directional Pipe.
DTV has to partner with somebody get bi-directional capabilities.

[ZeoTiVo]

My DTV Tivo is so dated, 35hrs recording, old channel logos, they just don't care anymore. Heck the Showcase is full of infomercials...anyone seen the Ped egg?? I use to be mad at DTV, now I am mad at Tivo. They could update a few things, they just don't care..what a disappointment for those who still have DTV Tivos and don't have the support.:mad:

how in the world are you blaming TiVo when DirecTTV dropped adding any support for a directTiVo?? DirecTTV made their business decision and that is fine, no evil empire bias ffrom me. But TiVo can not change things on DirectTiVo's and indeed could not even add in features that ar already preent in the DirectTiVo code like network support at the direction of DirectTV

[eric_n_dfw]

...amending my prior "review" of my switch from DTV to TW:
Yesterday our signal strength dropped to the mid 40's and all of the digital channels (SD & HD) started having severe macro-blocking and sound clipping. (OTA HD is fine.)
After checking all cables, inside and out, and rebooting the TivoHD, I called TW. After a lot of rebooting and waiting for "resets" to my cable cards, they scheduled a truck roll - but it will be tomorrow afternoon before they can make it out! >:-(

I find it somewhat amusing that the cable companies' ads all make fun of the DSS services because of signal loss and then this happens. At least with the dish the loss is usually very short. (and, as I previously mentioned, I very rarely had any on DTV) I've only been with them for a month now; I sure hope this is a one-time occurrence!

Oh how I wish DTV would make up with Tivo!

[scottjf8]

I dumped my Tivo for the DirecTV DVR and will never go back. The DVR is so much better with HD and other features the Tivo's can't come close.

This

[hefe]

I've been with D* for about 14 years. But I consider it merely a matter of time before I switch to cable with TiVo. Makes me a bit sad, but I like the features of TiVo more than I dislike cable. And at this point, D* has nothing compelling to offer me to differentiate them from cable.

(I don't care about Sunday Ticket.)

[jlib]

...Has anyone here decided to go back to cable because you wanted a newer TiVo and was it worth it if you did?...I haven't looked back but my cable provider is Comcast and they have new fiber optic plant in my neighborhood and they also are my broadband provider. I think it would be worthwhile to to look at the cable card thread here dedicated to your provider. Then search for or request comments about the local service.

Note that all cable companies seem to have some difficulty getting cable cards set up in their system correctly so some initial patience is probably in order. Also, find out about the status of SDV in your area. But that's a whole other subject.

[adessmith]

I have a GREAT story about this. We have had analog cable with a series 2, our cable providers generic DVR (twice), DirecTivo, and cable with a TivoHD...

My wife and I purchased a Series 2 Tivo when we first got married. We had one of the old fuzzy looking rear projection TV's and the Tivo worked great with our cable provider.

Later, we got bit by the HDTV bug, and purchased an RCA Scenium HDTV (Which we ABSOLUTELY ADORE, by the way) and my first dissapointment was seeing the SD series 2 quality on that TV. We HAD to have a digital signal now, and we HAD to have some HD content.

Switch #1
So I sign up for digital cable with the HD package and recieve their generic DVR. Got home and hooked it up and the quality seemed to be really good... at first... but the more we used it the more we HATED the interface, the more we noticed some digital artifacting, and the more spontanious reboots we encountered.
After spending serveral "day's off from work" with the cable installer replacing lines and trying to correct the problem, I decide to check into D*TV. D*TV OFFERS A HD-TIVO!!!! HECK YEAH... HD & Tivo, what could be better?

Switch #2
D*TV guy comes out and installs our new equipment. We are back to LOVING the TV again, but the more we used it the more things we found we didnt like.
Tivo was ramping up thier home media features and I was left in the cold. Started noticing that the compression used on the HD stations caused artifacting durring fast action scenes. But, you know what... we still had Tivo!... I mean, a real Tivo! So we were relatively happy. But then that is when the pain started... We would come home only to find the D*Tivo had locked up sometime durring the day and we missed many of our recordings. This started happening more and more untill I decided I would have to contact D*TV for a replacement unit... WHAT??? NO TIVO? Why would I want D*TV if I cant have a Tivo brand DVR. That, afterall, was my primary reason for switching to D*TV. If I have to deal with a different DVR I might as well go back to cable. It was actually cheaper and I could get my locals in HD!!! American Idol in HD!!!!

Switch #3
Ok, so we are moving into a new home anyway... New home is 200 yards from a telephone company central office... and on top of that, they have switched to a different brand DVR. So we decide to try our luck with cable at our new home. On top of that, there is a new Tivo Out, the Series 3, which is HD capable... Too expensive for me right now, but it is an option in the future. So we "Put up" with the cable companies DVR for several months. It was "tollerable" but, we found ourselves still missing the familiarity of the tivo. The CableCard requierment goes into effect and I find out my cable company would now provide a cablecard if I had a compatible device. I keep looking on ebay, entering giveaways, etc, trying to get a series 3.

Switch #4
One day we are at Best Buy, and I see a TivoHD, and the price tag, well... that has got to be an error... Start talking to the sales person and this was not the series 3, it was a new "TivoHD", just came out a couple of days ago... He couldnt tell me the difference between it and the series 3, and infact it did say "series 3" on the box somewhere. Needless to say, we left that night with a TivoHD. I noticed imediately after hooking it up that the image quality was much better than the DVR we had been using. The cablecard installation went without a hitch and we absolutely LOVE it. I have been using the TivoHD from the time it came out and if It broke today I wouldn't blink about going out to buy a new one. (Possibly the new 1TB model though) I broke out the old series2 and reactivated it in our bedroom and connected them both to the network. We have also been ripping our collection of DVD's to a large HDD in a computer to be accessable via Tivo desktop for quite some time now, and it is KILLER! (especially now that I am using windows home server for the same task)

I cant imagine having to live without a tivo anymore. It has completely won us over in our house. Tivo is now our #1 consideration when it comes to our AV equipment and cable/sat provider.
If tivo ever goes out of business and our's stops working I think I'll just quit watching TV all together.

[lcda114]

I currently have two standard Directv/Tivos which I absolutly love and two DTV dvrs that are in my opinion, good. I had purchased a plasma and want to take advantage of the hd content. Needing an hd box right away and not being able to wait for the new HD Directv receiver with Tivo (http://www.tivo.com/mytivo/directv-signup.html) I had to order the box and installation from DTV. Can someone please confirm/clarify that the option to lease vs buy is that if I lease the DTV box I can return the old hd box and "upgrade" to the new HD Tivo receiver when released without breaking the 2 year commitment. The first cust svc rep told me that cost of buying would be over $700, which imho is bs when BestBuy has the hr22 for $200 so I'm not sure what to believe. Also, Rep #2 told me there is no guarantee that I will be getting the hr22, as they still have hr20&21 in stock but he will make a notation that I am requesting the newer model. Rep #1 fk'd up the order somehow and forgot to schedule my installation (but didn't forget to charge my acct for the equipment) so instead of a 2 week wait for installation we now have to wait over a month. Rep #2, however, is accomadating us by waiving the cost of the equipment for our "pain and suffering". For those of you that did upgraded to hd, did you have to give back your old box to the installer (I think I still have two RCA sat boxes from when I upgraded to Tivo? Thank you for your much needed input.

[stevel]

Accounts vary on whether an old box needed to be turned in. I certainly did not, but all my DTiVos were owned and not leased. Most people say that they simply refused to turn in the old box and the installer didn't care.

There is no way to predict what will happen when the new HD DTiVo comes out. Anything anyone says now is just a guess.

[eboydog]

I cancelled Directv this week and switched to cable; it was a matter of cost and features.

First it was Dtv dropping Tivo and then "patching" my DirecTivos to try to have some features that the real Tivo has, I bought a Tivo HD last week and I'm VERY impressed by the non-modified features of the real Tivo, I'm transferring home video and content to my new Tivo with out opening the vox and voiding a warrenty.


Cost - I have a large home and have 2 DTV receivers and 2 DirecTivos and are getting charged extra for each TV even though only the Directivo get's real use and those extra receiver fees were unnecessary.

Cost - Even though I have a monthly fee for the real Tivo, that's more than made up by dropping the extra receivers from Directv, those other TV's can pick up the regular channels on cable with out any extra charges.

Cost - between dropping DSL and Directv and going with a bundle from the cable co, I'm saving $75 a month and that's almost a tank of gas (I received a generous deal being a Directv customer as I'm getting premium channels Starz/HBO/Showtime for the next two years but without a service commitment for two year!).

I'm I happy? so far, There's no commitment to the cable company so I do have the option to back out and go back to DTv (the dishes aren't going down too soon), if the Tivo HD doesn't work as expected then i have 30 days to back out of it, all of this is unlike Directv as already mentioned in that if I wanted to "try" their inhouse HD DVR, their trial period is 2 years which will also be the time when they come back out with their DirecTivo HD but who really knows if that will happen, a lot can change in a year as there is nothing short of a couple press releases that DTV and Tivo are friends again.

Oh and by the way, the standard recordings on the real Tivo are SO much better, you really don't know how much the video on Directv is compressed; I have been SO tired of seeing dark shaded scenes on TV with blocky color changes.

[bengalfreak]

I did the same as you and went from DTV to cable. My switch lasted all of 5 days. My family hated the fact that they could only get channels 1-100 on the bedroom TV's. They also did not like the fact that similar stations were not grouped together in the guide. Currently I have a DTivo at every television (4 in all). We've become used to this convenience and doing the same thing with TivoHD's would be prohibitively expensive. So now we are back with DirecTV and have a newfound appreciation for the DTivos, limits and all.

[eboydog]

I will not be going back to Directv after dealing last night with their customer service.

Called in to arrange shutting off service as so far, cable is good (and as already mentioned, the picture quality on standard channels is better).

After 3-4 minutes of them attempting to get me to not discontinue service which included one year free of Starz and HBO, not to mention $20 off a month as the account was in excellant status with history of on time payments which was true, I turned the offer down.

THEN they told me that my outstanding bill would need to be payed within the next 7 days as I had no service commitment. I asked what the service commitment had to do with it and the CS person told me that if there was service commitment, I had 90 days to pay any outstanding charge?!?!?!?!? I asked what would happen if I didn't pay it and was then told, it doesn't matter, if you don't pay it within 6 days then we will make the payment for you.

My next reply was huh? (First I thought "they" would pay it!!) but was corrected as per the newer customer agreement, they hold the right to collect any outstanding debt at any time using any banking information they may have or had on file. Which then the service rep then began to rattle off my checking routing number and account info.

I explained that I would pay my bill as I have always done, on time, monthly and would pay the remainder of the amount owed within the next 30 days which the reply was, (almost exactly per quote) "No you will pay it with within the next 7 days".

Well that was the end of that call, this morning I have already made arrangement with my bank to refuse any ach charges from Directv (which they assured me, I wasn't the only one they have seen Directv doing this to).


I will pay my outstanding bill to Directv by the end of October and I will not have anything to do with them again.

Oh and not having digital boxes on the majority of the tv's is no big deal in my house, my cable co is very generous with carrying the majority of my family's viewed channels on lower channels and as with the Directv receivers, a couple hadn't been turned on in several months.

The Directivo boxes will be used for MRV which is fine as all my 6 year old cares about is Junkward wars, Mythbusters and Dirty Jobs so he get's his own Directivo MRV, my other kids are teenager and are not addicted to TV, if it's there they watch it, if it isn't then they don't. Mostly the Mrs. is the problem, she get's bent out of shape if she can't watch what she wants.......

[bengalfreak]

You do know that you can't use DTivos for MRV with a TivoHD don't you?

[Jebberwocky!]

Ignoring the argument whether the tivo or the DTV DVR is better (that all personal opinion - I like the HR20 better myself) the cost to go to cable with Tivo would be a deal killer.

I have 6 DVR's in use.

[bengalfreak]

Ignoring the argument whether the tivo or the DTV DVR is better (that all personal opinion - I like the HR20 better myself) the cost to go to cable with Tivo would be a deal killer.

I have 6 DVR's in use.

Not really, if you prepay for each Tivo, a year at a time, its $99 each year making them $8.33/mo. You are paying $4.99 for each DTivo plus a $5.99 (unless grandfathered) DVR service fee. It might cost you an extra $20 per mo. for the Tivos. In my experience, you can save that much from the cablecos. by bundling services or other deals. At least for the first year anyway. Not only that, but HD is free from my cableco.

[bengalfreak]

Oh and not having digital boxes on the majority of the tv's is no big deal in my house, my cable co is very generous with carrying the majority of my family's viewed channels on lower channels and as with the Directv receivers, a couple hadn't been turned on in several months.

You also know that at some point after Feb. 2009, the broadcast of ANY channels in analog by your cable co. will probably go away. Cablecos are being squeezed for bandwidth as they try to keep up with DTV's HD offerings. Switched digital video is somewhat of a solution, but as more and more TV's become HD compatible, more and more signals pumped into a given nieghborhood will have to be HD. The cablecos can pick up a chunk of bandwidth by getting rid of analog signals all together. Some of the smaller cable providers have already done this. At the point when analog goes away, you will need a cable box at every television regardless.

[stevel]

You also know that at some point after Feb. 2009, the broadcast of ANY channels in analog by your cable co. will probably go away.

Many cable companies would like you to believe this, but it is not only wrong but a subject of a complaint to your state's attorney general office if you get told such a thing.

The February cutoff date applies to over-the-air broadcasts ONLY. Cable companies do not simply "relay" the OTA signal, they remodulate it onto the cable, often at different frequencies. There is absolutely NOTHING about the OTA analog cutoff that has an effect on cable companies, other than perhaps they have to buy a digital tuner for their head end location. (Many get direct feeds from broadcasters.)

It is true that cable companies want to push customers to an all-digital system. Not only does this free up bandwidth but it also brings in profit from the cable boxes most consumers would have to rent. Sadly, some cable companies are using the OTA cutover as an excuse to screw their customers - this is the subject of an article in this month's Consumer Reports.

[bengalfreak]

Okay, the reasoning might be wrong, but my message was spot on meaning that some/most/all cablecos. will stop transmitting a signal, sometime after Feb. 09, that can be received by a "cable ready" TV without some type of set top box.

And this has nothing to do with "screwing the customer". Cable needs the bandwidth pure and simple. And Consumer Reports, one of my favorite publications but also renowned for being anti-corporation to a fault, also doesn't acknowledge that most likely cable box rental rates will have to come down in order for the cablecos. to remain price competitive with DTV and Dish.

[stevel]

If you had removed reference to February, your note would have been fine. There is no connection between the analog OTA cutoff and what cable systems choose to do.

[eboydog]

Just as Stevel stated, I'm not concerned about the Feb. date as I'm not using the analog OTA on the majority of my TV's, just getting what the CableCo calls, basic cable; now if they decide to stop carrying X channel for what ever reason then I will lose X channel.

:) Now for BegalFreak, you are correct, you can't directly MRV from TivoHD to DirecTivos BUT you can do some fancy footwork inbetween with a PC and has a result (In theory of course) I can control what get's transfered to directly. I have a couple dedicated PC's on the basement that handle things rather well and I get an oversight/control on what the kids transfer back and forth, otherwise as in the past, I would start seeing all these season passes on the main Directivo for these MTV and G4 shows that my kids recorded.

I took my antennas down thise weekend and took all the DTV hardware including receivers, cables and muti-switch to the curb with a free sign attached, after 2 days it's still sitting there this morning, go figure.

I did have my cable cards go out of service this last weekend, it took a 10 minute call to find out that the installer hadn't closed the works order after the install and something cleared the authorization off the cards, I had no HD channels or movie channels. After repeating the serial number of the cards to tech support I was back in service in 10 minutes; After hearing all the horrer stories here, I was very impressed that the tech support was quick and good esp for Mediacomm!

[bengalfreak]

If you had removed reference to February, your note would have been fine. There is no connection between the analog OTA cutoff and what cable systems choose to do.

Actually there is since they are trying to use it as an excuse to justify getting rid of sending channels in the analog format.

[bengalfreak]

Just as Stevel stated, I'm not concerned about the Feb. date as I'm not using the analog OTA on the majority of my TV's, just getting what the CableCo calls, basic cable; now if they decide to stop carrying X channel for what ever reason then I will lose X channel.



I'm glad you understand how MRV works. What you don't seem to understand is that cablecos. are doing away with basic cable (at some point) to reclaim the bandwidth of the lower tier channels in order to have more HD content. As Stevel said, it has nothing to do with the Feb. date, the cablecos. are just using that as an excuse. Either way, at some point in the future, you will likely have to have a set top box for ANY cable content whatsoever.

[Jerry_K]

This latest fiasco with DirecTV crippling season passes on DirecTiVo, and now for some unexplained reason I have no MRV either.

If it is a DVR without MRV, it will not be in my home. I have four home theater setups, four with DirecTiVos and three with Series 3 Tivos. Many times I have to hunt for a unit that is not conflicting to get a special recorded. So our programs are spread all over the house. If I choose to be in one room or another, I want to be able to see any recorded program. We do not watch one second of Live TV.

I will be visiting our local cable provider to work out a deal next week. One more Series 3 for my Dad's HT room and whatever el cheapo receiver they will provide for his bedroom.

I fired off an email to DirecTV, I will see if they try to retain me.

[bengalfreak]

Your MRV problems have nothing to do with DirecTV. Mine is working fine.

[MyM3]

...The CATV MSOs have spent collectively more than $10 Billion in the last several years upgrading their plant. Most now employ a fiber backbone delivering service to nodes which each serve only between 400 and 1000 homes, limiting the total number of active devices between the headend (or hubsite) and the house to 4 or 5 amplifiers and 1 or 2 power supplies. Previously, a city like San Antonio had quite a few customers at the end of a cascade of nearly 30 amplifiers and 12 or more power supplies. Such a tree might feed as many as 40,000 customers. A failure in any one of those components would take everyone downstream of the component out of service. The rate of device failure in most systems on a per customer basis has dropped by more than a factor of 6, and in some cases a factor of more than 10. At the same time, the total cable attenuation in the longest cascades could easily exceed 550dB. Thermal variations could easily result in a change of more than 15dB in signal levels which had to be overcome by the electronics in the amplifiers. With up to 30 active devices per cascade with which to contend, degradation of the signal over time was a constant problem. Now with no more than 100 dB, perhaps much less, between the fiber node and the house, and with digital level management instead of analog, maintaining decent signal levels at the point of ingress to the house is much easier. Finally, the noise and distortion of the signals on a CATV plant increase with the number of amplifiers. For a flat signal spectrum and a constant signal level, noise increases as 10 times the base 10 logarithm of the number of amplifiers. This means contemporary CATV systems enjoy up to a 7.5 dB decrease in noise level compared to the same plant 10 years ago. Distortion, OTOH, increases as 20 times the logarithm of the number of amplifiers, so todays sysems enjoy as much as a 15 dB decrease in distortion. The news gets even better, however. Digital carriers are much less susceptible to noise than analog carriers. This being the case, CATV providers are able to set the levels of their digital carriers easily 10 or 15 dB lower than the analog carriers. The resultant 2 - 7 dB decrease in S/N for the digital carriers is not problematic, but since 3rd order distortion also goes up as 20 times the logarithm of the overall signal level, modern plants not only enjoy much fewer noise issues, they also enjoy much less distortion. Distortion tends to be much more of an enemy for digital carriers than noise.


I have loved every one of your posts in this thread but come on, admit it: You're Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory (http://www.cbs.com/primetime/big_bang_theory/), right?;)

http://seat42f.com/site/images/stories/tvshows/TheBigBangTheory/S0101/big-bang-theory-penny-sheldon-photo.jpg

[ogre1]

Loved my Directivos (SD then HD) for years. Switched to Fios + TivoHD a yr ago, as I was not into the sports packs & was hesitant to use the D* DVR. Am happy with the decision, esp since Fios added all the new HD channels w/in the last month. But, in retrospect, probably would've been fine if I stayed with D*, as I heard the DVR's not that bad.

[Jerry_K]

Your MRV problems have nothing to do with DirecTV. Mine is working fine.

Soon to be moot. Why all four would drop MRV simultaneously, but still see Tivo Desktop is beyond me. I got an email back from DirecTV, basically telling me to reboot the DirecTiVo units.

I called our local cable company, got pricing on full package with HD. It turns out I can save money and have real TiVo functionality throughout the house. It's really a no brainer since I will now have HD on other than locals.

Bye Bye DirecTV it was nice watching you.

[atlynch]

I left DTV for Comcast because I was not willing to sign up for two years to try out their DVR. Comcast has been fine.

-Drew

[bengalfreak]

Soon to be moot. Why all four would drop MRV simultaneously, but still see Tivo Desktop is beyond me. I got an email back from DirecTV, basically telling me to reboot the DirecTiVo units.

I called our local cable company, got pricing on full package with HD. It turns out I can save money and have real TiVo functionality throughout the house. It's really a no brainer since I will now have HD on other than locals.

Bye Bye DirecTV it was nice watching you.

Just so you know, many of the premium cable stations flag their content as non-transferable. Meaning that you will not be able to move them via TivoHD's newer MRV.

[Jerry_K]

Just so you know, many of the premium cable stations flag their content as non-transferable. Meaning that you will not be able to move them via TivoHD's newer MRV.

I know that is why I also have two fifty foot HDMI cables.

[bengalfreak]

I know that is why I also have two fifty foot HDMI cables.

Now there's a novel answer to a problem.:D Hope you like cable better than I did. I switched for exactly five days in July.

[rfransix]

Channel Plus modulators means All TiVos in All Rooms!


I use both TiVo's and the D* dvr's. If I had my druthers, I would only use TiVo.
Why?
The channel guide is not as good (personal opinion)
I cannot mark/unmark Channels I Get
I miss wishlists
No dual tuner buffer
I HATE not being able to turn off the PIP in the guide! With football starting, this is really going to annoy me!

Just my thoughts.

[skipw]

I'll be dumping DTV in the next month or so. I've been a long time loyal customer, and I'm not going to get pulled into a 2 year contract because they don't want to fix the issues with the D-Tivo units. Since there really is nothing to watch, I'll be going OTA receivers for the next year and save some money. Do we really need to pay $900 a year for 300 channels of nothing to watch? And Blockbuster will let me watch a rented movie for more than 24 hours.... who knew?

[rbrown3rd]

I have three DirecTivos. One of them is in my RV. That one needs to be mobile. The only thing appealing to me about switching from the DirecTV service to Tivo is the ability to download movies, view YouTube videos, and remotely manage my units when away from home.

This discussion does not answer the question that is the title of the thread unless I missed something after digging through all of the cable vs. satellite postings. What would I lose and what would I gain by switch from DirecTV to Tivo? Sounds to me like it would be a god awful experience to switch when my family is comfortable with the interface and the channels.

So, why should I switch?

[magnus]

That is all true. I purchased SA Tivos and Lifetime. They paid for themselves after one year of OTA only.

Now, I like OTA/Amazon/Jaman/CinemaNow/Netflix combination better than Directv ever was.

Since there really is nothing to watch, I'll be going OTA receivers for the next year and save some money. Do we really need to pay $900 a year for 300 channels of nothing to watch? And Blockbuster will let me watch a rented movie for more than 24 hours.... who knew?

[estuartie]

great posts, I was going to ask some of these questions but everything has been answered and I know which route I´m going to go - thanks a lot!!
Stu