I tried to break up with Tivo, I just couldn't do it. Thursday, May 08 2008
So I've had Tivo for about 2.5 years now. I bought the first generation Series 2 DVR and it's been absolutely wonderful. Last year I bought a gigantic HDTV in hopes that some day I could watch HDTV. Well, my HDTV dreams came to fruition last week when I got Comcast's HDTV/DVR cable box. I decided that I would put my Tivo aside and deal with what I thought was a slightly worse DVR in order to watch and record HDTV recordings (since the Series 2 can't record HD signals).
I got the Comcast HD/DVR home and hooked it up. After having the box pinged it was working and I switched to an HD channel and it was a nice 1080i format. After I fixed the projection tubes through the TV's interface ( I just moved and bouncing around in a truck puts them out of alignment ) the picture was great. Next I hit pause and paused the HDTV. Wonderful! I hit the "My DVR" button on the remote and was taken to an ugly blue screen with a little bit of information in it. I could live with that. Next I went to the program guide (which is leaps and bounds better than Comcast's default program guide, but still terribly ugly) and looked for a show to set a season pass for. I selected a show, hit record and went to recording options. The only options were to be record Daily, Weekly or M-F. Wait a minute, I thought. What if I have two shows that conflict? What if one week the network puts the show back 30 or 60 minutes? Will the DVR be able to accomodate and still record everything?
(For those of you not in-the-know, the Tivo performs what is called "conflict resolution" when there are conflicts between user-created recordings and season passes. If you have two shows that record at 8:00 on a Tuesday, but one is rerun on Saturday, Tivo will figure it out and automatically record the second show for you. That is program-based recording with conflict resolution. Another program-based recording feature is detecting a show that has been moved. For instance, if your favorite network plays a presidential address that pushes your show back 30 minutes, Tivo will see that your show has moved and react accordingly. Time-based recording does none of this and works only by time; i.e., the presidential address will be recorded instead of your show.)
After doing some research, the answer is simply "no". As I've already alluded to, there are two types of DVR: time-based and program-based. Time-based DVRs include Comcast, Time Warner, Dish Network, ReplayTV. Program-based DVRs include Tivo, DirectTV with Tivo. In other words, in order to have a DVR with "season pass" and conflict resolution, I need a Tivo. In order to have HD and DVR, I need a DirecTV satellite service. I'm still wary of satellite, but it appears as if the HD DirectTV receiver is no longer the $1000 it started out as, so I may keep that open as an option.
Anyway, the Comcast DVR was terrible and had zero features I wanted in a DVR (it didn't even tell you where in a recorded program you were, you'd have no idea how far you've progressed in the program - even a VCR has a timer) so I took it back. I switched back to simple digital cable (the HD channels weren't that excited, plus I still have a progressive scan DVD player and HD XBOX hookup, so I am taking advantage of the TV) and hooked up my Tivo again. I can't believe I thought I could do with another DVR. I hope my Tivo box doesn't get mad at me.
I got the Comcast HD/DVR home and hooked it up. After having the box pinged it was working and I switched to an HD channel and it was a nice 1080i format. After I fixed the projection tubes through the TV's interface ( I just moved and bouncing around in a truck puts them out of alignment ) the picture was great. Next I hit pause and paused the HDTV. Wonderful! I hit the "My DVR" button on the remote and was taken to an ugly blue screen with a little bit of information in it. I could live with that. Next I went to the program guide (which is leaps and bounds better than Comcast's default program guide, but still terribly ugly) and looked for a show to set a season pass for. I selected a show, hit record and went to recording options. The only options were to be record Daily, Weekly or M-F. Wait a minute, I thought. What if I have two shows that conflict? What if one week the network puts the show back 30 or 60 minutes? Will the DVR be able to accomodate and still record everything?
(For those of you not in-the-know, the Tivo performs what is called "conflict resolution" when there are conflicts between user-created recordings and season passes. If you have two shows that record at 8:00 on a Tuesday, but one is rerun on Saturday, Tivo will figure it out and automatically record the second show for you. That is program-based recording with conflict resolution. Another program-based recording feature is detecting a show that has been moved. For instance, if your favorite network plays a presidential address that pushes your show back 30 minutes, Tivo will see that your show has moved and react accordingly. Time-based recording does none of this and works only by time; i.e., the presidential address will be recorded instead of your show.)
After doing some research, the answer is simply "no". As I've already alluded to, there are two types of DVR: time-based and program-based. Time-based DVRs include Comcast, Time Warner, Dish Network, ReplayTV. Program-based DVRs include Tivo, DirectTV with Tivo. In other words, in order to have a DVR with "season pass" and conflict resolution, I need a Tivo. In order to have HD and DVR, I need a DirecTV satellite service. I'm still wary of satellite, but it appears as if the HD DirectTV receiver is no longer the $1000 it started out as, so I may keep that open as an option.
Anyway, the Comcast DVR was terrible and had zero features I wanted in a DVR (it didn't even tell you where in a recorded program you were, you'd have no idea how far you've progressed in the program - even a VCR has a timer) so I took it back. I switched back to simple digital cable (the HD channels weren't that excited, plus I still have a progressive scan DVD player and HD XBOX hookup, so I am taking advantage of the TV) and hooked up my Tivo again. I can't believe I thought I could do with another DVR. I hope my Tivo box doesn't get mad at me.
I take it back, apparently the DirctTV DVR/HD boxes are still $1000. I refuse to pay that much to watch TV. The highest I'd go, I think, is how much I paid for my Tivo for in the first place ($400 since it was the new model Series2).