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October 14, 2004

HD DVR options for Cable Customers?

The vast majority of america's tech community has the same question: I am a cable customer today, and want to use HD services from the cable company WITH DVR capabilities. What can I do?

Details: Comcast keeps delaying their own Motorolla DVR boxes, and the early units are getting poor reviews. Tivo hasn't (won't?) come out with an "open format" HD DVR to plug into the back of a cable box. Panasonic, Sony, and a bunch of small vendors are pitching HD DVR's (many with MSFT's new Media Center OS), but it's unclear if the cable companies block all, some, or none of these from supporting HD recording?

I'm in the middle of a massive home media center upgrade, and am totally frozen right now because of this -- I don't want to switch to Direct TV because they don't have local HD signals, Comcast isn't going to solve this soon because their DVR isn't close to TIVO quality, and the open format strong brand-name HD DVR's don't seem to work with cable. What is my best option?
-- Byron Deeter

October 14, 2004 in Comcast, DVR, TV & HDTV

Answers

I'm in exactly the same boat - hopefully someone knows the solution!

Posted by: Josh at Oct 14, 2004 2:59:32 PM

As far as I know, you're kind of screwed for now. The only option for you is to wait for Comcast to do a HD DVR in your area, as they won't likely open up their HDTV spec to allow companies making capture cards to tailor hardware to it. They have a monopoly and will likely use it to their advantage.

I've heard talk of cable HDTV converging on an single standard, but I doubt it comes to light anytime soon.

It'd be nice if Comcast realized they were losing customers over this and keeping current customers in the dark, and instead maybe worked with TiVo to do a standalone HDTV recorder that could work with their systems.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Oct 14, 2004 3:09:16 PM

The cable companies have to allow recording of digital cable, including HD, under CableCARD. It is part of the FCC ruling, and all cable companies must support it as of last July (July 2004).

The problem right now is no one is making a CableCARD DVR. There is at least one 'sidecar' DVR I've seen which connects to a CableCARD enabled TV - I think it was Toshiba. You have to have one of their TVs and the DVR is basically an add-on.

Sony has announced a standalone CableCARD DVR using the free TVGuide/Gemstar EPG for later this year.

TiVo has stated they are also interested in CableCARD. It has been mentioned by their executives during their financial conference calls, and if you look at the FCC rule making it includes a few comments from TiVo made during the process. Most interesting are those where TiVo argues that dual tuner support (being allowed to have two CableCARD tuners) is important for a DVR.

Posted by: MegaZone at Oct 14, 2004 5:26:54 PM

If you're in Canada, you can get this:
http://www.shaw.ca/Tmplt.asp?pageID=651
(Scroll down to the bottom of the page to see the HDTV PVR)

Posted by: Rob Davidson at Oct 14, 2004 9:14:36 PM

I had the same dilemma and decided to just bite the bullet and get a Comcast HD-DVR. Its interface is sloppy and sluggish, but being able to record HD programs makes up for it. Plus there doesn't seem to be as much picture quality loss as there is with TiVo. TiVo is easily the better DVR, but if you're dying for HD, I think the Comcast DVR (at 10 bucks a month) is worth it until something better comes along.

Posted by: cmonks at Oct 15, 2004 2:10:39 PM

I found an old post I made about the FCC ruling with links: http://www.livejournal.com/community/tivolovers/18183.html

Posted by: MegaZone at Oct 19, 2004 10:04:22 PM

DirecTV may not offer local HD channels now (except via an OTA antenna, which works fine for me), but they are launching two new satellites early next year specifically to broadcast local HD channels. So hopefully by mid-year, they will offer most local HD channels. I think DirecTV with Tivo is fantastic.

Posted by: Dean Samos at Oct 25, 2004 11:44:07 AM

Too bad it's owned by Nazis.

Posted by: Meir McGonigal at Feb 4, 2005 10:18:58 PM

Dish network offers hd-dvr service on there 942 model.Cheapest all digital service in america.

Posted by: joe` at Jul 26, 2005 6:10:54 PM

Call 1-877-rawsaw4 to order hd-dvr service.

Posted by: joe at Jul 26, 2005 6:12:52 PM

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