Leaving Tivo for DirecTV??

[creativepart]

I've had a Tivo for a LONG time... I think we got our first one in 1997 or 1998. We replaced the series ones with series two Tivo about 18 months ago. We have two of them.

We have lifetime subs on both our Tivos as well.

We always used Dish Network with our Tivos and been pretty happy with everything.

Now that we've got a couple HD TVs we'd like to move to HD Sattilite and we're ticked off at Dish Network. So, we're thinking we'll move to DirectTV.

It seems the way to go is to dump our Tivos on Ebay to get our money out of them and the lifetime subs... and just get DirecTV DVRs and HD DVRs.

We'll probably make the move tomorrow because they've got a free HD DVR promo going that ends tomorrow.

We hate living without Tivo, but can't wait forever for the DirecTV/Tivo thing to start back up again.

Anybody have any words of wisdom here? Are we going to hate being without our Tivos? Am I missing some other option?

[dshinnick]

I'm in a somewhat similar situation and I've decided to wait until the new DirecTivo's come out. I'm guessing you'll regret having Directv's DVR once the new DTivo is released. It's due out, I think, in the first half of this year.

[TolloNodre]

Anybody have any words of wisdom here? Are we going to hate being without our Tivos? Am I missing some other option?

The only thing you'll miss is reliable recordings.

I had DirecTV but couldn't stand the blank recordings.

In fact, the HD-DVR forum over at DBSTalk.com used to have a sticky for users to report their blank recordings - to help the engineering team out.

I finally dumped them this summer to go back to Comcast and TiVo.

Here's a typical posting, a user complaining it wouldn't record any bowl games for him:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=148767

My favorite quote: "I've had all the usual problems, blank recordings, etc., but this is a first."


UPDATE: The other things I forgot to mention:
1) You're limited to 50 season passes on DirecTV DVRs.
2) No Dual Live Buffers on DirecTV DVRs.

[stevel]

I don't think I've ever seen a blank or missed recording on my HR21 and I've had it for more than a year. However, opinions vary. If you ask at dbstalk.com you'll get a different slant than if you ask here.

[pdxsam]

I never really had a problem with recordings on my HR-21 either. I just couldn't stand how slow the whole thing was. Flipping through the guide was painfully slow. Sometimes the FF and REW wouldn't catch right away.. then it would jitter. Searching is WAYYYY better on the TIVO.
One thing on the HR I DID like was the ability to tell the "Season Pass" what channels to record on. Being able to tell it to record whatever program on X Y and Z channel was nice.


I find my TIVOHD interface slow also... but the actual program mechanisms... FF and REW are snappy so that's the plus for me.

I wouldn't say you'll hate the HR series DVR but it will be a learning curve to figure it out.

[Ferrari_Fan]

I switched to DirectTV Plus DVR few days ago. Initially I had Charter and Series 2 Tivo. DirecTV DVR is no match for Tivo. Tivo's interface for program finding is more rich and functional than DirecTVs. DirecTV Plus DVR software is slow sometimes, it records shows, season pass, has online schedular, uner and large HDD. So, I am not that worried. It has recorded all scheduled shows so far. What I miss is transferring recorded shows to my Macbook. It was easy on Series 2 Tivo. Don't know how to do it on DirecTV Plus DVR.

[NickIN]

UPDATE: The other things I forgot to mention:
1) You're limited to 50 season passes on DirecTV DVRs.

I don't think I could watch that many shows. But anyway, I had a Series 2 TiVo and then the S3. About a year ago I switched to DirecTV because Brighthouse (my cable co) was putting all new HD channels on SDV and I didn't have the patience to wait around for the tuning adapter. I'll say that the HR-20 is no match for TiVo. But it's at least workable. Software updates have cured the blank recording issue for me. Of course the interface is nowhere near as enjoyable to use as the TiVo and I'll be buying 2 of the new TiVo boxes the minute they're available. But in the mean time I'm at least satisfied with the HR boxes.

[bigpuma]

The only thing you'll miss is reliable recordings.

I had DirecTV but couldn't stand the blank recordings.

In fact, the HD-DVR forum over at DBSTalk.com used to have a sticky for users to report their blank recordings - to help the engineering team out.

I finally dumped them this summer to go back to Comcast and TiVo.

Here's a typical posting, a user complaining it wouldn't record any bowl games for him:
http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=148767

My favorite quote: "I've had all the usual problems, blank recordings, etc., but this is a first."


UPDATE: The other things I forgot to mention:
1) You're limited to 50 season passes on DirecTV DVRs.
2) No Dual Live Buffers on DirecTV DVRs.


If you were to search this site for negatives about TiVo you would think TiVo had a lot of serious problems. I have had an HR20 for over 2 years and I had maybe 2 blank recordings early on but I haven't had a single problem since. The HR2x series is a good DVR if not a TiVO. Also at some point this year or perhaps next DirecTV will have a TiVo option for HD.

[pdxsam]

What I miss is transferring recorded shows to my Macbook. It was easy on Series 2 Tivo. Don't know how to do it on DirecTV Plus DVR.


You can't on the DirectTv DVR.

[TolloNodre]

If you were to search this site for negatives about TiVo you would think TiVo had a lot of serious problems. I have had an HR20 for over 2 years and I had maybe 2 blank recordings early on but I haven't had a single problem since. The HR2x series is a good DVR if not a TiVO. Also at some point this year or perhaps next DirecTV will have a TiVo option for HD.

If you want to classify a DVR that gives you blank recordings as 'good' - that's your business.

But for those of us that actually use and need a DVR it's unacceptable. Nothing more frustrating than coming home after a late shift to get a blank recording.

And of course internet forums are skewed with complaints. But look at the number of complaints of blank recordings here, compare it with the number over at DBSTalk or SatelliteGuys. Compare it with the Dish forums on those two sites. Dish and TiVo rarely get complaints about blank recordings. DirecTV gets a ton. There's a reason for that.