Tivo vs. HR20 Again

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Heck, you're just no fun anymore. I was a late bloomer -- I passed on the Commodore, and although I'd love a MacAir, my wife thinks it costs too much. I did use one Mac at work, but have never owned one. The first PC I really seriously considered was the original IBM PC. Cost $5000 with two floppy drives and 64K of ram, "color" monitor, and a printer. I passed and eventually bought a Gateway 386sx for about the same price in 1987.

 

/rofl - what pie in the sky cable company are you subscribing to? Directv here is 30 percent cheaper for 80 percent more content. Sorry but content is a lot more critical then some device for recording shows. The HR2X's I am runing now are a lot more reliable then the HR10's that I got rid of and the one that is still in my system. the only TIVO based directv reciever that I have that has been somewhat trouble free is the Panasonic that is in the kids room, and that is SD only, but it is starting to caused headache's. Have a distinct feeling the protection plan will be replacing that unit shortly for me also

 

Maybe where you are... but I haven't had any cable that's been better or even close to DirecTv's offerings And I have had experience with a few.

 

I would have to consider that a valid POV, but the content question really comes down to personal choice. IOW, if cable or FIOS or whoever has the content you want, then they are just as good as DTV. But with 130 HD channels and as Steve says "[DTV] leaves cable in the dust", yours is not a widely-held opinion while his probably is, even though both are valid. For the average consumer, odds are DTV is going to have a better choice of what they want, simply because there is more to choose from.

Of course if cable DOES have what you want, that reopens Tivo as an option, which is a good thing, except that the HR2x is really not mediocre by comparison anymore, which is quickly becoming another widely-held opinion.

My strategy for moving to the HR2x was "when there is HD content I can't get with the HR10, I might give it a try". That was blown out of the water early by the fact that one of my HR10's blew up, but I probably still would have made the choice by mid-spring (rather than in December) as that is when the content question was answered for me.

 

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How many awards has the D* dvr's won? I see Tivo just got another one from PC World.

All D* has going for it at the moment is the supposed number of HD channels. That means they have many niche channels that a few people may watch, but can probably do without.

My guess is however that many folks who are using cable are like me. I have plenty of HD video - usually 20 - 25 shows sitting in my HD folder at any point in time, so the argument of 'content' is rapidly disappearing for a whole lot of viewers.

The quality of the SD channels on my cable system is so good compared to D* that many times we don't even notice the difference. I find we don't even need to change our TV to the SD setup like we used to do when we were with D*.

As for pricing, I'm paying less (including Tivo) total charges then I did before I switched from D* and all without a commitment. I could even save more by signing up for a year and also by adding more services. Imagine that, actually getting something of value for signing on for a longer term - what a novel idea.

So, I ended up staying with the award-winning Tivo, getting tons of HD, vastly improved SD, plus other stuff from the internet, all for a lesser price without any comittment.

 

Your incorrect guess is just that, a guess, and is not supported by any of the facts, just by your unwaveringly-consistent pattern of delusional wishful thinking. If you actually want the facts (oh, that's right, you're scared to death of the facts), go to www.whereishd.com and it is plainly evident that DTV still leads by a mile in core HD channels offered, well outpacing cable, FiOS and DISH. They probably do also have more niche channels, but they are still the clear way-out-front leaders in core HD channels as well.

The fact that DISH just had a major HD sat blow up and that changing cable plant infrastructure takes a lot of time indicates that this is not at all "quickly" changing. DTV will probably be significantly in the lead for some time. Denial is not your friend, and not just a river in Egypt. You are just going to have to accept the way things really are.

You imply that Tivo has won awards before, which I have never seen any evidence of, although that would not surprise me, as it is the gold standard and has been for the entire history of DVRs. But Tivo winning some nebulous award from a questionable source does not invalidate the quality of the HD DVR whatsoever, not even comparitively speaking, which is ALSO what DTV has going for themselves.

And not everyone agrees that Tivo is the be-all and end-all. There are fervent Replay, UTV, and even DISHPro supporters that greatly prefer those earlier platforms over Tivo. CNet considers Tivo a second-tier DVR. You can look that fact up, also.

 

TiVo won an Emmy. I've seen it.

 

Awards from magazines and 50 cents will purchase you a cup of coffee in some parts of the world. they tend to hand them out to the highest bidder.

Granted you maybe paying less for the unit and cable charges but the quality of content and availablity of content for your providers lags greatly why bother having HD when you have little or nothing to record?

Only reason you would be saving if you sign up for more services is a little thing called bundling - they discount you for paying them more money for more services, not because you have a tivo.

Again you venture a opinion - you feel you are getting something of value - now can you quatify that value - is it the value in the belovedTivo or in the content? Almost hase to be the Tivo as the precieved value, have seen their HD channel lineup and personally I find it lacking alot of the basic HD channels that myself and my family watch, but this is a personal opinion and not meant to relfect anyone else thoughts.

 

Oh, now you are spinning to yourself now, too? There is NO SD anywhere that is as good as HD. Period.

What the hell does that mean? I don't change any setups for SD or HD channels for any source. What kind of crap TV do you have?

 

Hell, I've won Emmys (well, regional Emmys). I'm looking at one on my mantle right now (which proves the nebulousness of awards).

 

Well, Tony, I have to take issue technically with that one, but your point that the assertion that he "can't tell the difference" is both outrageous and ludicrous is still well taken. There is bad HD that doesn't really rate up there with excellent SD, but it's extremely rare and certainly not the norm for any cable system or DBS system anywhere in the free world.

Two examples: If the video of the 2004 Olympics were simply converted to SD before being compressed into the pixellated mess NBC brought us (barring the losses that SD normally faces getting from point A to point B) I would have much rather seen the pristine SD copy. Better luck next week, NBC, but your lack of improvements in HD sports coverage since 2004 doesn't present much hope that the 2008 games will fare any better.

Regardless of the value of the content itself, a really good DVD copy of "Charlies Angels" (first movie that comes to mind that had really-great SD production values--thanks McG) also looks much better than any HD episode ever broadcast of "The West Wing".

I think you have to consider who is claiming that they can't tell the difference.

 

BTW, one huge advantage of the TiVo is Kidzone.

Apparently DirecTV's parental controls are horrible. From DBStalk...

 

How is that of any advantage at all if I have no kids? It means they wasted a lot of energy on features I don't need instead of features and stability I do need. That sounds like a disadvantage.

 

It isn't.

Did the op post that he had no kids?

 

No, he didn't. He also didn't post :

"BTW, one huge advantage of the TiVo is Kidzone.".

Could it be that this is what Tyrone responded to. (I mean, just because he quoted it in his response, why would we think that?)

 

Is it not obvious that KIDzone would only be an advantage if you have KIDS?

We're comparing features of two DVR's. I really didn't think people would think Kidzone is a huge advantage for adults with no kids....

 

Adam, I would completely agree with you that for them, it is. But your post did not say or qualify that it was for them, it said it was a "huge advantage", which implies that it must be so for everybody. It's not.

I'm not saying that every post must qualify every instance or disclaim when not applicable, but once a post is made it is not just for the OP, it becomes "community" property (hehe...get the pun?) for all of us, and I guess my post was really just a passive-aggressive way of pointing out how arrogant it might be to assume that Kidzone was a "huge advantage" to everyone when really, to me, it's a huge waste of resources that might have been targeted into better features or even stability. One could also arrogantly say that one "huge advantage" of the HD DVR was that they didn't put a lot of resources towards parental controls and instead put that energy towards something useful (for me, of course).

You made a good point, I made a point. Maybe they aren't quite congruent with each other. I'm sorry if mine was not the height of politeness. That's just kind of the way this forum and most others work, and what the word "forum" implies. But really, it's all good.

You have your POV, I have mine. Both are valid. But I apologize for messing with you when all you were trying to do was help the rest of us. Your heart was in the right place, while mine probably wasn't. My bad. I'm a work in progress.

Peace,

Ty

 

I was forced into making the transition to the HR20-700 and everytime I use it I miss my TiVo. They forced me to make the change when they turned on the Mpeg4 and I wanted more HD. TIme Warner has a really poor package here and Dish, well are the still in business?

So what do I miss? Favorites!!!! Despite all of D's hype this dumb machine has no idea what I like and does find programs for me. Dual buffers you bet. Don't give me the nonsense about putting both tuners into record first. I just want to make a quick change and then get back to where I was. And the annoyance of having my machine freeze up while watching an OTA recording is not much fun.

Is the HR20 junk? Not quite, I like being able to check schedules and what I have in my List and still being able to watch the show I started. But as for the schedule list, it is not as nice as TiVo's and the remote is not nearly as responive to say nothing about the lousy layout of the buttons. Yeah I could get a universal one for $100 plus but why should I have to?

Oh yeah and did I mention that despite promises by the D agent that I would see no additional committment I am now locked in for another 18 mos.

But one thing I do feel is abandoned by TiVo since they refuse to make a Series 3 that can handle an HDMI source let alone an external SD input.
If the had one I could get a D HD receiver and record their programming in HD. Maybe I's only have one channel recorded at a time but I'd prefer the interface and remote!

 

I like Tivo. I have one for cable but I don't like it more than my HR2x's (in fact even though I would like dual buffers, I actually like the HR2x's better than Tivo...the HD Tivo is a bit balky in normal operation).

I say all that to let you know that I am not a Tivo basher nor a Tivo lover when I say that it is difficult to blame Tivo for not making a DVR that would process HDMI. For one thing, it is a huge technical challenge. For another, I seriously doubt they would get it past the folks who have to approve such devices. If they insisted on putting HDMI input onto the Tivo, you would probably have no HD Tivo at all.

Oh, and if they did develop one, you would need TWO tuners to create dual buffers. So you wouldn't really get that anyway.

 

Maybe for some people... Granted it has way more sports and HD feeds than my local cable, but both have all the channels I use and cable is dramatically cheaper. I would save $72/month if (or when) I converted to cable with the comparable (again less HD and I don't subscribe to the premium sports) programming, and that price is inclusive of getting their (admittedly lame) DVR's. If I got a a pair of Series 3's instead it would eat into that margin but not most of it.

Not looking to get into a new agrument over which is better but just clarifying that price is a definite disadvantage for DirecTV in some markets.