Tivo vs. Time Warner Digital Cable DVR ....

[hellmas]

I hope this is being posted in the correct place.

My Toshiba SD-H400 dvd player/Tivo is on its way out. It is starting to freeze during playback, get pixelated sometimes with the audio continuing to play sometimes no audio at all. I assume the hard drive is going. I bought it as a refurbished unit 2 1/2 years ago for a good price off of eBay so I think I got my moneys worth out of it. I am now looking at my options as far as replacement.

I can get:
(1) a stand alone series2 dual tuner Tivo 180 hour for $169.99 + the monthly fee, bringing it to about $183.
(2) Or I can try to get another dvd/tivo unit.
(3) Or spring for the big bucks and get dvd recordable/tivo unit.
(4) My last choice is to get the Time Warner DVR for my digital cable. It would incur a monthly fee just like Tivo but I would not be paying for a service but renting the unit from Time Warner just like we do with the cable box. Actually it is built into the cable box so only 1 remote is needed.

My question here is does anyone have any experience with both Time Warners DVR & Tivo. Maybe someone here had one then switched to the other. If I talk to someone who has only had Tivo then Tivo is the best and vice versa for TW's DVR.

Is the functionality the same? Do they offer the same type of services? Season Passes and all that that I have now with Tivo Plus?

Thanks, John

[JimSpence]

Try this forum for info on HDTV recorders
http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/forumdisplay.php?f=42

[pkscout]

Originally Posted by hellmas

My question here is does anyone have any experience with both Time Warners DVR & Tivo. Maybe someone here had one then switched to the other. If I talk to someone who has only had Tivo then Tivo is the best and vice versa for TW's DVR.

Is the functionality the same? Do they offer the same type of services? Season Passes and all that that I have now with Tivo Plus?

Jim's link is a good one to get a general overview of other DVRs, but I've never seen a great deal of comparison to TiVo kind of threads. There are some here if you manage just the right search terms, but I thought I'd provide some perspective as someone who uses both (kind of). My wife and I are living on separate coasts. I have a TiVo S3 with me, but our DirecTV HDTiVo at her place just died, so we siwtched to TWC and got the 8300HD.

One thing you need to find out is which version of the software you're TWC area uses. There are three versions right now. SARA, Passport, and a few areas getting the new Navigator software. How the 8300HD compares to the TiVo depends a great deal on what software it runs. My wife is using Passport (TWC Raleigh, NC).

Her impression is that looking only at traditional DVR functionality, much of what the TiVo does the 8300HD does, but it's often very hard to find it. The 8300HD does do season passes, but it is much harder to find the show you want to record. It appears so far that it handles repeats like the TiVo does, but we aren't entirely sure if it handles conflicts in the same way (you can prioritize your season passes on it though, so I suspect it does). There is no wishlist functionality at all on the 8300HD.

On the hardware side, the 8300HD can store about 20 hours of HD recording, which is about a third less that the S3 30 hours. The 8300HD eSATA port is enabled in most areas, but it seems to be something of a crap shoot as to whether it works properly (one guy basically said only use it if you don't mind losing all the recordings on the external drive).

Overall my wife said the 8300HD has been fine. She misses the more intuitive TiVo interface, but she is adjusting.

If you already have cable, you might see about renting the TWC DVR for a month or so and try it. Then you can decide which way you want to go.

[BruceShultes]

I have a Time Warner SA8300HD, a DirecTV HR10-250 and a Tivo S3.

I started with the TW box, added the D* box to be able to watch my favorite baseball team's local broadcasts, and added the S3 because I found the HR10-250's Tivo based interface and options to be superior to the TW box.

For instance, if you want to watch all episodes of three different programs that occur at the same time, the TW box has no way to do it, while the Tivo boxes allows you to create Season Passes for each of the shows and prioritize them so that it can determine which two should be recorded first. It will then record the third if it is also broadcast at a different time when there are no conflicts.

The Tivo boxes also allow you to tell them whether or not you like a particular type of show. They can then use this data to record other similar shows that you may like under Suggestions.

Of course my TW box is running SARA software and those running Passport software seem to be better, but TW is starting to replace Passport with Navigator. From what I have read in the AVS forum, Navigator seems to be a step backward for anyone that has been running Passport.

[hellmas]

OK, thanks guys. Thats a lot to digest but so far I think it looks like Tivo is sightly ahead of the others with more or better functionality. Plus I am already used to it. Still not sure what to do though.

The link Jim gave above is about HD tv's does that still apply to my non-HD TV and Tivo set up?

[HiDefGator]

I certainly agree with the others that the Tivo solution is by far the best. If you are on the fence you can always try the cable company DVR for a month or two and then return it. If you go the Tivo route you are committed.

[randywalters]

Originally Posted by hellmas

OK, thanks guys. Thats a lot to digest but so far I think it looks like Tivo is sightly ahead of the others with more or better functionality. Plus I am already used to it. Still not sure what to do though.

The link Jim gave above is about HD tv's does that still apply to my non-HD TV and Tivo set up?

I've been using a pair of TWC SA8300HDs with Passport software for a few years and i actually prefer using the 8300HD than my S3 in many ways - mostly in how the 8300HD's guide and menus react WAY faster than the S3 which is painfully slow, and i can access menus and the guide and my list of recordings on the fly while watching live TV or a recording without losing my place in the buffer. And the S3 requires way more button presses to accomplish basically the same functions - and this has shown itself in that my MX-500 Remote's batteries have only lasted a month with the S3 now, where with the 8300HD they lasted almost 3 months.

Here's a thread comparing the S3 to a cable DVR with the Passport software if that's what you have:

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb...d.php?t=320184

Passport is way better than the SARA software, but it's all pretty much a moot point because soon TWC will be discontinuing both Passport and SARA nation-wide and replacing them with their own in-house NAVIGATOR software which by all accounts and reports absolutely sucks ass.

So if you have TWC, you will eventually be running the NAVIGATOR software sometime before summer hits and you will hate it. This is one of the biggest reasons i bought an S3.

Here's a few links about NAVIGATOR:

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?t=723830

http://journalstar.com/articles/2007...1679004395.txt

[hellmas]

Thanks Randy. That makes it an easier decision.