Comparing the DVRs?

zonker asks: "We are getting hooked up with Dish Network Satellite TV this weekend and opted to go with one of their PVR (personal video recorder) plans. I started wondering if anyone has done any technical reviews or comparisons of the video quality (not just features) of the various digital video recorders out there (TiVo, DishPVR, ReplayTV, etc.). I am curious mostly about recorded video quality compared to the source video. All of them make claims to have various recording 'speeds' like VCR's. VCR's analog output is predictable (fuzzy recording with bits of static here and there, worse when signal quality is bad). However digital recorders have varying levels of pixelization. I was curious which ones fared the best and if anyone has comments on either systems?"

Comments

Tivo Forum & Tivo FAQ

[cowboy junkie]

Personally, what sold me on Tivo when I got it a year and a half ago was the great community at the AVS Tivo Forum. More info than you could ever want and a very supportive bunch for all kinds of questions. The Tivo FAQ is a good place to get answers to the basic questions first, though.

It does all that!

[Otto]

1) You can select to record programs by searching by name, but it only searched within a limited horizon of programming (the week or so for which it has the guide). If not found, it can be recorded. For example, you couldn't ask it to record "Mission to Mars" whenever it comes on next.

Sure you can. Make a Title Wishlist for MISSION MARS and set it to auto-record. Done. That is the point of Wishlists, to record matching type things. Wishlists are in the 2.0 and up software, so if you just bought the Standalone unit, it'll only have 1.3 on there. It'll upgrade after it dials in a few times.

2) You can't ask it to record programs matching criteria like a particular actor, or keyword in title etc.

Again, use Wishlists. The possible wishlists are: Actor, Director, Keyword, Title (keyword but only in the title), and Genre.

3) Once a program has been selected for recording, you can't change the record quality without cancelling it, finding it again via search, channel guide or whatever, and re-selecting to record it.

Huh? Go to the ToDo List, find the show you want to change, hit select, then go to the "options" screen on that show. Change all the settings for that recording you like, including the quality.

4) It takes 2-4 hours to process and index the program guide after making a call to TiVo! (what on earth is it doing?)

Indexing the new data into it's database. However, this does tell me you have 1.3 software and not 2.0. The newer 2.0 software indexes in the background.

5) There are a few subtle bugs in the menu display software that sometimes cause display artifacts (rarely though).

Mostly fixed in 2.0 and up (2.5 is out now).

6) If you have a partial recording of something that you are also currently recording, it doesn't distinguish between the two - so you can delete the partial until the current recording it complete

Huh? I fail to understand this one, but all recordings are treated separately. If you record something and then it doesn't finish so you record it again later, those are separate and treated separately.

7) Sometimes the GUI is slow to respond (I assume the CPU is busy - just evert so slightly underpowered to do everything it needs. Although the record/playback seems to get highest priority - I've noticed no artifacts there)

Yes, it it a tad slow to respond at times. This was improved, but not fixed, in 2.0 and up.

In short, wait until you download the new software before passing judgement. The new software is tremendous compared to 1.3. It'll download 2.5 for you in under a week or two of first setting it up.

Quality made simple

[Otto]

The three big ones for Dish based setups (DirecTivo's, UltimateTV's, and DishPVR's) all record the actual digital stream coming from the satellite. No encoding is done in the unit, so what you see on the feed is what you get on the recording. This doesn't mean there's no artifacts, it means that the artifacts will be the same as if you were watching it "live".

The other two major ones (Tivo standalone units, ReplayTV) are mostly comparable in picture quality.

Tivo has 4 picture quality settings, that range the spectrum pretty well, with "Best" being very close to live, and "Basic" being about VCR quality, but slightly sharper. Replay has 3 quality settings, I believe, and they are mostly the same as Tivo, picture wise.

Audio wise, it seems as if the Replay lowers the bitrate on the audio as well as the video in the lower quality settings, but this may be untrue or a rumor. Tivo definitely uses the same audio quality regardless of the quality setting. It sounds pretty good and I've not noticed any weirdness on Tivo audio except for some loss on the rear channel on Dolby Pro-Logic signals from time to time. Neither unit can record Dolby Digital, while the Dish/DTV-based units can and have digital outputs as well.