switched from hr10-250 to HD Tivo + comcast -> sucess story!

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Hi, just thought I would share this success story. I've gotten a lot of useful info here so wanted to share a positive tivo experience. I've had tivo for the past five years. For the past few years I've had a Directivo hr10-250 which has been great. No comparison though to my new S3 and HDT w/ comcast.

I decided to go w/ one of each just in case I ran into the hdt pixelation issues. I got an s3 for the home theatre in the living room, connected to my Sony KDF-55XS955 RPTV, and a Tivo HD for the sony bravia flatscrren in the bedroom (both w/ upgraded hdd's from weaknees) .

Called comcast and set up an cablecard install date. Comcast (Boston area) showed early and set up both tivos relatively fast. Both seemed to work. Only catch, the installer couldn't figure out what I meant about an m-card. I had the tenth conversation of "no, I know cable cards don't go up and down, multistreem means it will work w/ 2 tuners". He put a single stream card in the first slot and configured it, so then had to add a second card. It's possible the second card is multi stream because the settings screen in tivo says s-card (or something like that) next to the first card, and nothing next to the other card.

After the guy left, I noticed that the second tuner on the s3 was having major pixelation. Fortunately I had the guy's cell number from when he called to say he could come early. He came right back and swapped out the bad cable card. After that everything worked perfectly (except for the fact that I'm paying for a second card in the HDT box).

So far, comcast HD blows away Directv HD. I use OTA for locals which seems to be the best. Comcast has a much better selection of HD channels, and I actually get all of them because it doesn't matter w/ cable that I have a big tree blocking a satellite. The quality of HD seems to be better too. Even the food network in HD looks amazing. I swear that HBO and Showtime look a lot better on comcast than Directv. Not to mention I also now have stars and cinemax.

Also, I love being able to use tivo as a media client for music and pictures stored on my desktop in the basement. I even like amazon unbox for stuff that I don't care that it's not in HD. I think the sony RPTV I have is particularly good at making SD look really good. Better than some flatscreens I've seen...

Oh, and no pixelation issues on the THD, guess I should have gone w/ two of them :-(