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December 10, 2004

How did you choose your PVR?

I have a PVR.  You have a PVR.  I know what made me buy mine, what made you pick yours over the other PVRs?  I'm specifically curious about features and pricing, although any factors you used in making your decision would be interesting.
-- George Hotelling

December 10, 2004 in DVR

Answers

I have an older Windows XP-MCE machine. However, its capabilities to get recorded media to my television near my really comfortable couch are severely limited. Thanks to Microsoft and Dell, I cannot upgrade to Windows MCE 05 to be able to do this (via a MC Extender).
So, even though I had thought I'd always travel down that route, I recently decided to rebel and buy a TiVo Series 2 box. Regardless of the pre-obituaries written recently, I made the right decision. The cost of the machine was not so high that I would feel like kicking myself if I replace in a couple of years (I'd probably just move it to a second TV). I mean, my iPod cost more and is already a generation or two out-dated. I'm not getting rid of it either.
Anyway, other than the price, TiVo had added the capability to get music and pictures on the television via a Wireless-B connection. When I thought about what I wanted to do, the choice seemed the correct one given the options, if not ideal. If TiVo ToGo ever comes around (I'm having my doubts, regardless of favorable court decisions), I'll really have the system I always wanted.
I know this a rather lengthy answer, but given the amount of time I thought about this, I can say I appreciate the question.

Posted by: Jason Coleman at Dec 10, 2004 11:40:05 AM

Jason, you caught something I missed from my question, so anyone reading this please feel free to comment on whether you would have made the same PVR choice knowing then what you know now.

Posted by: George Hotelling at Dec 10, 2004 12:03:07 PM

Purchased Toshiba TIVo standalone with basic service about a year ago. I didn't like the monthly subscription then and don't like it now. Have other solutions for TIVO ToGO so that solution perfectly fits my needs.

Posted by: Aldo Kocha at Dec 10, 2004 1:17:40 PM

Aldo - I don't like monthly either, which is why I went lifetime on all of my TiVos.

Jason - It looks like TiVoToGo will be out this month, barring some last minute disaster.

George - I started looking at DVRs in 2001. At the time that pretty much meant TiVo or ReplayTV. The pricing was similar, so it was really features. I made a list of the features of each unit that I thought I'd like, and I managed to play with both TiVo and RTV from some early adopters I know, and in the end I decided to buy TiVo.

ReplayTV had two big features going for it that TiVo didn't have - Commercial Advance (automatic commercial skipping) and Send Show (Internet Show Sharing). But I considered how important those features were to me, compared to the core features - the ability to setup and record what I wanted recorded. And TiVo's scheduling system just stomped RTV flat as far as I was concerned. I thought RTV's theme system, and the other method they had who's name escapes me at the moment, were overly complex, clunky, inflexible, and just plain poorly designed. While I found TiVo's Season Pass and Wishlist system, with priority management, To Do list, etc, was elegant and simple to use - and far more powerful. That right there was really enough - what is my prime purpose for having a DVR? Scheduling, recording, and watching shows. So that is the piece I'll be using the most, and therefore if I'm not happy with that piece nothing else matters.

RTV is a bit better now, they adopted some of TiVos featues when 5.x software came out, but I still think RTV's scheduling system is inferior to TiVo. And I would still buy a TiVo if making the decision again today - especially since RTV has dropped Commercial Advance and Send Show. Doubly so now that TiVo will have TiVoToGo, which will be an official way to move shows to a PC - as opposed to the unofficial DVArchive and QVision methods with RTV, the other advantage I felt RTV had.

And while RTV did some things first, I feel that TiVo has done many of them better - like photo support. With RTV you reserve part of the drive, making it unusable for recording, and have to move the photos to the drive. With TiVo you can view photos published from any TiVo Server on the net. TiVo has MP3 playback, which RTV promised and cancelled. RTV did web scheduling first, but they still have a big blackout window - about 24 hours, TiVo now has web scheduling and you can be as close as 15 minutes.

RTV fans like to harp on how RTV did some of these things first - but being first isn't always what's important, when someone else does it better no one cares who was first. There are other things about RTV that, as a developer, I just don't get. Like why does the call home conflict with recording? What do they have to do with each other? TiVo can multitask just fine - record a show, watch a show, transfer a show to/from another TiVo, and call the mothership all at the same time. No problem. RTV can also multitask for many things - record, watch, stream - so why something so odd?

RTV still has some features I'd like to see TiVo get - mainly cooperative scheduling. I'd like to see my multiple TiVos become a Borg collective. Let me schedule shows and if there is a conflict, they can sort out which one records it for me. RTV lets you manually do this when there is a conflict, assign a recording to another unit, but I think TiVo could do it better by doing it transparently.

The other thing is a web, or web service, interface. RTV has exposed a number of things via the network - scheduling recordings, seeing the recording list, upcoming recordings, etc. You can pretty much do anything you can do with the remote over the network. I'd like to see TiVo expose their interface via something like SOAP, so that 3rd parties can write network software that communicates with the TiVo.

But fun ideas aside, I think what anyone should do is decide what capabilities are important to them, and then find the product that best fills that. That could be TiVo, it could be ReplayTV, it could be a Media Center PC - whatever. But there is no one answer for everyone.

Posted by: MegaZone at Dec 10, 2004 3:32:01 PM

I chose ReplayTV in 1999 and haven't regretted my decision since. In fact I've purchased 2 additional units since then (5040 and 5504).

I’ve stuck with Replay because its feature set and capabilities are what I wanted and I find its UI more usable than TiVo. Yes, I wish it did some things like TiVo, but overall I prefer the Replay UI and feature set.

I really like that; Replay has a built in and enabled Ethernet. This allows me to stream seamlessly across replays, lets me to record across my network attached replays, I can copy MY content from my replays to my personal computer (using DVArchive), and I can view content from my network on my replays (using DVArchive).

While TiVoToGo is interesting, I’m not interested in the DRM that goes along with it. MP3 on my tv, no thanks I’ve got something else for that.

MegaZone has some great points, but I’m sticking with Replay as I think DNNA now has Replay on the right path.

Posted by: BadHoy at Dec 10, 2004 3:53:32 PM

I began looking at TiVo and Replay in the summer of 2000. The final choice of TiVo was up to my wife. She was not interested, in "Another Video Player" but I convinced her that the TiVo was a steal at $300, which was less than half what I paid for a DVD player in early 1998. I neglected to mention the $250 lifetime service fee.

Now she is hooked. We have the original Philip's 30hr unit and a pair of DirecTiVo units.

Posted by: Michael at Dec 11, 2004 8:54:50 AM

I have a Scientific Atlanta 8300. I looked at Tivo, but didn't want to make a mistake so signed up for the DVR from COX. $9.99 a month with no up front investment. (self install, just swap for the cable box) Has dual tuners, no phone or internet connection needed to keep the guide up to date. (would have been a wiring hassle with a Tivo). No investment allows me to upgrade to HD when I need it. Wish I could have got features like web interface and built in DVD burner. But it will do for now.

Posted by: Joel Reeves at Dec 14, 2004 8:27:14 AM

I too was faced with the Tivo - Replay TV conundrum, and actually bought a Tivo first. The reason I returned it? My wife and I lived in an apartment, and did not have a home telephone. We use cell phones, and still do even now in our townhouse (landline is just not worth the expense, especially with free mobile to mobile and rollover minutes). Replay TV had the ethernet port, and so Replay TV it was! I have not regretted the decision. Even now I can comfortably put it anywhere in my home because I have it hooked to a wireless bridge for my network, and it works perfectly. I also, fortunately, got a Replay with commercial advance, and it still works perfectly to this day.
The only problem I have now is that I want to convert to a HD TV, and Replay has yet to announce a HD DVR, so I will probably delay my purchase until they release one, and hopefully one with dual tuners as well. From everything I have read I don't think I will be going with the Comcast Motorola HD DVR, I just love the functionality, and interface of the Replay TV too much!

Posted by: Michael at Dec 16, 2004 1:51:20 PM

we had directv tivo since last june. it worked fine, and the interface was a major plus. however, i was tired of not utilizing my lcd projectors HD capabilities, so i decided to get digital cable with free HD. unfortunately, cablevision's (NY) dvr is no tivo. the interface is more complex, and there's no season pass feature. also, the dvr will record multiple copies of the same programming episode. directv makes you purchase additional hardware (receiver and dish $349)plus pay 10.99/month for HD. cable includes HD channels at no extra charge, and the dvr (scientific atlanta) records in HD also. none of the previous posts even mentioned tivo's lack of a component or dvi/hdmi connection for HD tv. replay tv has component outputs, so that might influence my decision if i go back to satelite. since cable calls me a 'winback' (previous cable customer who returns) they offered incentives to come back that i found too good to pass up. they even lowered my broadband $20/month for a year!

Posted by: Steve at Jan 7, 2005 7:25:42 PM

Have both Tivo (standalone with directv) and the Explorer 8300 (HD PVR from TimeWarner).

Got the 8300 because I wanted HD + PVR and the cable route was too cheap to ignore.

Boy is the cable pvr a total piece of crap. The hardware is fine (HD output is stunning), but the software & remote are wretched. Perhaps if I wasn't a tivo user I wouldn't mind... but boy! Does this thing make me appreciate my tivo.

It is so bad that I'm thinking I may shell out the $1000 for the Directv/tivo HD HR10-250 and toss this cable thing. Or I may just buy another stand alone tivo to use for SD and just use the cable box for HD content.

I want my HD tivo with cable card today!

Posted by: Zed at Jan 19, 2005 11:00:32 AM

I agonized over this decision for a long while... finally deciding to go with my cable company's (TimeWarner) SA 8000 for 9 bucks/month. Economically, it really can't be beat. Not only am I paying less money, but as the hardware is essentially rented, if anything goes wrong with it, I get a new unit. Plus as new SD models are introduced, I will be able to "upgrade" the hardware (since I've had digital TV, 3 newer models of the basic box were released and I was able to upgrade each time). FYI, they also offer the 8300 with a good selection of HD channels for the same price as SD (i.e. no extra cost for the channels or the dvr service or the HD capable 8300).

The unit has dual tuners so it's capable of recording 2 shows at a time AND watching playback of a recorded one. My system has all the broadcast channels unscrambled, so I CAN watch a broadcast channel live while taping 2 other channels.

Sure the TiVo/Replay program guides and services are better, but what I got is adequate for my needs (i.e. I use the standard cable guide to pick what I want to record). Besides, I think that eventually, outfits like TiVo's only future is licensing their guide services to the cable giants (besides, two thirds of their customers were DirectTV and I read DirectTV just dropped them).

From the technology perspective, I was "upset" to find that the box is jiggered to only record at one speed. However, after a month of using it, I find I'm happy with that. Picture quality is superb, it literally is indistinguishable from "live" AND it records DolbyDigital 5.1 from my premium channels that provide such signals. Whatever the "speed" is, it's exactly what I'd use.

I thought the 80G drive, 35 hour recording time was too small. I even submitted a question here about adding a larger drive, but the gods here apparently didn't believe it worthy to be posted. However, after living with it, I think I would NOT want to add more capacity. It would only mean that it would take me way, way longer to actually watch everything I might have saved. This way, I DO have to actually watch (use) what I record to keep some headroom available (I'm running 20-25 hours of "unwatched stuff").

Part of my reasoning goes back to the tape days. The last unit I bought was a S-VHS and I went out and got a dozen 8 hour tapes. Before you know it I had over 80 hours of stuff taped... it's 5-6 years later now and I still have 50-60 hours of unwatched stuff. I COULD tell them I got a HD TV and they'd give me an 8300 with a larger drive. I COULD just use the 8300 for SD broadcasts, but for now I'm sticking with the 8000.

The only negative so far was that in the first week, the box crashed (actually, not the kernel, one of the daemons I suspect) 3 times or so. The first time it freaked me out because I was unable to access my list of recorded programs. The software reset didn't work. I was set to call them up to come change the box when I decided to do the old "pull the plug" routine. Worked like a charm, I was back in business with not a drop of recorded content actually lost. Since then, it hasn't happened again.

All in all, I'm still quite happy with the decision I made.

Posted by: Needy-in-NY at Jan 26, 2005 11:19:00 AM

I went with a HTPC and BeyondTV. I've been using it for about six months and I think it's great. My TV habits have completely changed. It's not quite Tivo, but way more useful. It didn't cost me much more than a DVD-R Tivo with lifetime service.

I'm able to skip commercials, have a 'season pass' type set up, edit video with a third party app (TMPGEnc MPEG Editor) and convert to divx (DrDivx) with no trouble. Unfortunately, the Divx encoding isn't automated. :( It even controls my cable box with a serial cable. I can share recordings over my network and watch them on my other computer with no fuss, or I can schedule recordings and download them remotely over the internet. If I want, to I can upgrade HDD drives for more recording time or add another tuner card to record two channels. I have my computer games on it and my entire music library ready to go too.

There are a few bugs with my system. I've discovered that if I want to keep things running snappy, I have to restart every few weeks or after playing something like Doom 3. On the plus side, it will record TV just fine while playing a game, which is great, but my frame rates drop through the floor in the game. It just can't multitask well while recording TV, but that might be solved with new technology down the road. If I just use it for DVR purposes and MP3 playing, it works just as it should.

The one thing I wouldn't have bought, now that I've been using it, is that Firefly remote. It's an RF remote, so I can't program it with my master IR remote. I find I use the keyboard and mouse instead anyway. (speaking of multitasking, that shitty Beyond Media software that runs the remote uses a ton of system resources. Avoid that thing!) I should have spent the money on a compact, wireless keyboard and mouse.

What is missing from my set up and I want to have eventually: HD recording and 5.1 audio.

Overall, I love my set up and went the HTPC route simply for the freedom to do what I want with my recorded stuff and the ability to easily upgrade or change DVR software as I want.

Posted by: MrBlank at Mar 14, 2005 10:13:15 PM

My neighbor's phone line was hit by a power surge from lightning and anything connected to their phone line was damaged in some way.

The DSL modem, the Tivo modem and the connections to their cable tv service.

They've since replaced the DSL and the Tivo and they left their old Tivo at the curb.

I now have that Tivo unit.

It is a 20 hour Tivo series one and was missing the remote and power cord.

My husband used the cord from the typewriter and someone from the internet gave us a spare remote. A relative loaned us an old external modem and we now have a working Tivo. It has since been upgraded with 300 hours worth of hard drives.

Since we use it for recording from a c-band/4dtv satellite dish instead of cable, it uses rca jacks which weren't affected by the power surge.

http://www.dmoz.org/Bookmarks/D/dianamo/Tivo/

Posted by: Diana at Jul 24, 2005 12:53:44 PM

Do NOT buy Dish PVR at this time. Two months ago, the "upgraded" the software, and now Dish PVR's reset/reboot - several times a week. You don't lose things on the disk, but if watching a program interactively - it is GONE.

Posted by: ron at Apr 26, 2007 5:40:55 PM

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