Gmaxx
06-22-2009, 08:28 PM
In a huge turn of events for me, I have been coaxed into leaving Directv by frequent rain fade and pressure from the better half to remove the ugly dish from the side of our house.
Enter Comcast. I hate Comcast. I got hosed by them for their high speed internet for a couple of years while waiting for Verizon to bring DSL to my house. I'm sure everyone knows the deal. You want HSI from Comcast without their TV service? That'll be $63 a month. :eek:
So I'm debating biting the bullet and dealing with Comcast in my wallet rather than missing shows when it rains. :mad: I'm also done with the ugly dish on the side of the house too, (well my wife is that part.) After doing a little research online and seeing a commercial or two about Tivo being on Comcast now I realize that my once huge savings over cable has gone the way of the dodo. Can it be possible that having Verizon phone service and 3Mb DSL and Directv can cost as much as Comcast's Premier pack? It sure is. It's about $20 cheaper for Comcast. :eek: No dish on the side of my house? Check. Cheaper every month even after the promo period? Check. 30Mb internet service? Check. TiVo? Check. :up:
I have had Directv and TiVo for about 10 years or so. I was hesitant to leave but the rains came when the Laker's and Magic were in OT in game 5 and I said that's it, I'm done with this.
Install day comes and I'm pleasantly surprised by how friendly and knowledgeable the installer is. He went over and above the call of duty. He replaced the line from the pole and everything in between my TV's. He checked signal strength at each TV. He made sure everthing worked and that I speed checked the internet to make sure I was happy before he left.
Now on to the Tivo's. Right out of the gate these boxes are not new (standard Comcast procedure) but they are quick. The installer prepared me for the fact that they were a little slow and buggy but I had already read that online so I was expecting this. But it didn't happen. I had a series two Directivo in my bedroom up until last Thursday. I know how slow these boxes can be. Start up a season pass, go make a sandwich, come back and hopefully its done. :eek: Not so with these ones. I've tried everything so far at least once. I've added about 10 Season Passes. Season Passes take about 10 seconds to finish. Enter the guide then switch to On Demand. Barely a hesitation. Page up and down in the guide take less than a second. The only place I've found that can take a second or two is advancing in the guide to later times. Perfectly acceptable though. The integration with the On Demand is seamless. Scrolling through the selections is easy and only occasionally is there a "please wait" message while it loads up the next screen. The longest I've seen that mesage is 2 seconds. This flies in the face of every other thing that I've read online and even what the installer told me. Some other complaints that I read about were the lack of a recently deleted folder, but there is one on there now. There are no networking features to speak of other than with On Demand programs, you can start in one room and finish in another. Also, when you watch an On Demand program it goes into a Saved On Demand folder where you can pick up and watch again without having to hunt for the program in the menus again. Shows you watch On Demand are in this folder on both TiVo's. Dual live buffers is another thing that was greatly missed on my HD DVR's from Directv. It is implemented well on these boxes. My favorite difference between the standard Comcast DVR and these TiVos's is in the guide. There are seven lines as compared to five in the standard box, and there are NO ads!
I'm sure that there are some issues that I've yet to find but as of this moment I have two HD ComTiVo's that are working well. There really is no comparison between a standard Comcast DVR and these boxes. If you are already on Comcast and don't want to lose On Demand, or pay the upfront fees for a "real" HD TiVo then it's a no brainer. Give it a try. If you don't have a good experience with it and they can't make it right, go back to the regular box. Thanks for reading. :)
Enter Comcast. I hate Comcast. I got hosed by them for their high speed internet for a couple of years while waiting for Verizon to bring DSL to my house. I'm sure everyone knows the deal. You want HSI from Comcast without their TV service? That'll be $63 a month. :eek:
So I'm debating biting the bullet and dealing with Comcast in my wallet rather than missing shows when it rains. :mad: I'm also done with the ugly dish on the side of the house too, (well my wife is that part.) After doing a little research online and seeing a commercial or two about Tivo being on Comcast now I realize that my once huge savings over cable has gone the way of the dodo. Can it be possible that having Verizon phone service and 3Mb DSL and Directv can cost as much as Comcast's Premier pack? It sure is. It's about $20 cheaper for Comcast. :eek: No dish on the side of my house? Check. Cheaper every month even after the promo period? Check. 30Mb internet service? Check. TiVo? Check. :up:
I have had Directv and TiVo for about 10 years or so. I was hesitant to leave but the rains came when the Laker's and Magic were in OT in game 5 and I said that's it, I'm done with this.
Install day comes and I'm pleasantly surprised by how friendly and knowledgeable the installer is. He went over and above the call of duty. He replaced the line from the pole and everything in between my TV's. He checked signal strength at each TV. He made sure everthing worked and that I speed checked the internet to make sure I was happy before he left.
Now on to the Tivo's. Right out of the gate these boxes are not new (standard Comcast procedure) but they are quick. The installer prepared me for the fact that they were a little slow and buggy but I had already read that online so I was expecting this. But it didn't happen. I had a series two Directivo in my bedroom up until last Thursday. I know how slow these boxes can be. Start up a season pass, go make a sandwich, come back and hopefully its done. :eek: Not so with these ones. I've tried everything so far at least once. I've added about 10 Season Passes. Season Passes take about 10 seconds to finish. Enter the guide then switch to On Demand. Barely a hesitation. Page up and down in the guide take less than a second. The only place I've found that can take a second or two is advancing in the guide to later times. Perfectly acceptable though. The integration with the On Demand is seamless. Scrolling through the selections is easy and only occasionally is there a "please wait" message while it loads up the next screen. The longest I've seen that mesage is 2 seconds. This flies in the face of every other thing that I've read online and even what the installer told me. Some other complaints that I read about were the lack of a recently deleted folder, but there is one on there now. There are no networking features to speak of other than with On Demand programs, you can start in one room and finish in another. Also, when you watch an On Demand program it goes into a Saved On Demand folder where you can pick up and watch again without having to hunt for the program in the menus again. Shows you watch On Demand are in this folder on both TiVo's. Dual live buffers is another thing that was greatly missed on my HD DVR's from Directv. It is implemented well on these boxes. My favorite difference between the standard Comcast DVR and these TiVos's is in the guide. There are seven lines as compared to five in the standard box, and there are NO ads!
I'm sure that there are some issues that I've yet to find but as of this moment I have two HD ComTiVo's that are working well. There really is no comparison between a standard Comcast DVR and these boxes. If you are already on Comcast and don't want to lose On Demand, or pay the upfront fees for a "real" HD TiVo then it's a no brainer. Give it a try. If you don't have a good experience with it and they can't make it right, go back to the regular box. Thanks for reading. :)