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TiVo vs Microsoft vs HDTV Cable
Thomas Hawk writes "Technology writer Ed Bott is out today with a great comparison piece where he compares the various feature sets of his TiVo, his Microsoft Media Center PC and his current HDTV cable DVR. It seems like all three have various nice features but all three also have negatives that you have to suffer through. A great read and strong comparison piece for anyone interested in DVR technology. Would love to see Ed or someone else expand on this piece and incorporate the current HDTV DirecTV TiVo, Comcast's Foundation box being rolled out in a pilot program in Washington State and MythTV."
Myth TV anyone?
Creative Demolition
I'm surprised that with a pretty significant market share, the reviewer didn't bother to mention the offerings from DishNetwork.
Generally, the main differences between the Dishnetwork 921/942 HD DVRs and the HD Tivo models is that the Tivo has better auto-recording features for picking stuff you want to set a timer for, while the Dish DVRs are much, much faster to use in terms of the program guide, etc...
What it really comes down to for most people is the exact HD content they can get from cable/Direc/Dish, etc... All the features in the world are useless without something to watch in HD.
I'm to the point where I rarely even look at non-HD channels in the channel guide, let alone want to watch them. On a 100" screen, it's just too painful to watch SD most of the time.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
http://www.tivo.com/4.3.hme.asp
I have a standalone tivo with tivo2go software and it is pretty neat. I really like the tivo interface, season passes....all works well. As I moved and dropped directv, I added comcast cable since they are also my ISP. I got a promotion for htdv and their new Motorola 6412 DVR. That box does record HD and supports dual recording via single coax cable connection. But the user interface and other tivo like features are not near as nice, plus the box seems to freeze up every so often (even when not recording). The thing that makes me appreciate my tivo is that I haven't seen tivo prevent me from recording or fast forwarding through a show. There are reports that comcast is doing just that, although I have not experienced it for myself.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
I've got one of these, and it does everything that the article mentions lacking in the products he used. I'm not sure if it goes weeks into the future with the guide, I've never tried. Oh, one thing it does not have is 30sec skip, but it has 3 or 4 levels of fast forward, and it accounts for human reaction time when hitting play. I always get exactly to the end of a commercial break, sometimes I get the last 5 or 10 secs of the commercial.
It has all of the Season Pass features of a Tivo, and all in all its a great device, plus its HD. Oh, it also has two tuners so I can watch and record a show at the same time. The equivalent media PC would cost much more than I pay for this device, and not be as good. A Tivo is close, but no HD. I was pleasantly surprised with this device.
HME applications run on home PCís or remote servers hosted by TiVo. At this time, HME applications cannot control any of the TiVo DVRís scheduling, recording, or video playback capabilities.
I've always heard that TiVo can fast forward through adverts, but I don't see how - unless you pre-record everything.
That is pretty much what you do. I don't have a Tivo. I use another PVR. I don't have time to watch the shows I schedule it to record, let alone something else that is on. If I do, however, I just tune in 10-20 minutes after the show starts and watch it from the buffer. I start at the beginning, skip all the commercials, and it ends the same time as it normally would.
Microsoft owns a big chunk of Comcast.
--
make install -not war
You either have to be watching something already recorded - or start watching something a few minutes after it's already started (rewind to the start of show... and ffwd through commercials)...
BlackNova Traders
Zoneminder is great, it even has a live CD so you can find out how your hardware will work without having to find a drive to install it on.
I've been using it for about a year and am very happy with it.
Two years ago I wrote a review comparing my Tivo to the Time Warner's Scientific Atlanta DVR. After three weeks I told TW to remove it immediately. I was amazed that anyone could fit that much suck into such a small box.
Looks like things haven't changed much since then.
Here's one source
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
It offers on-demand video, HD and recording multiple shows at the same time. The user interface is a joke. They recently changed the 'Movies' section to start off in the center of the on-demand listings so if you wanna scroll to the list of movies for the channels you already pay for you have to scroll for awhile. I find that VERY disappointing. It really is the worst UI i've ever encountered in a product. I'm not sure what they were thinking.
Well if you search the forum, you'll see that I recommend an nvidia geforce 440 or above. I've used one in each of my boxens without issue for well over a year.
Regards,
cesman
When the source is open, the possibilities are endless.
Illegal?
Not available maybe, but illegal? I'd be quite surprised.
No Comment.
Get HiDef support NOW!
They have it. It's been available for about a year now through DirecTV and it supports OTA broadcast. They can't provide it for cable companies because TiVo would have to support their individual formats and they all want to introduce their proprietary boxes.
Lower the cost of subscription.
They did. Additional TiVo cost less than the original. Lifetime service is still available and pays for itself in a few years. Then, there's no monthly charge.
Innovate dammit!
They have HD. They don't prevent people from adding larger drives. They have DVD recorders. They're opening the API. Meanwhile, they're building name recognition outside of the tech world. Give it some time.
get your head out of Hollywoods ass
Keeping off of Hollywood's radar has allowed them to survive where competitors have been sued into nonexistence.
From the article:
"Multiple tuners. Again, TiVo gives you one tuner per box, unless you're willing to pony up for the pricey DirecTiVo solution."
My DirectTVTivo Box has 2 Tuners, paid $99 for it, for 70 hours of Programming, no extra costs at all. Just needed to run a co-axial like from the Dish.
Moronic indeed.
Comment removed based on user account deletion