alvear.com

For anyone using a DVR and HD, it’s the classic dilemma: Do you use your cable or satellite provider’s DVR box or buy a Tivo? It’s like “Sophie’s Choice”.

On one hand, your cable provider offers a low cost DVR that works with HD content for just a few dollars a month–Comcast charges me about $5 per month. You also get just one box, rather than having to use a cable set-top and a separate DVR. Plus cable companies don’t charge you for buying the box; you usually rent the box for just a few dollars a month.

Going with Tivo means, higher initial cost of buying the HD DVR (about $600 to $800 for a Series 3 DVR).  It also means higher monthly costs–I pay about $20 per month for the Tivo service.

So lots of people are going through these issues when they upgrade to an HDTV and HD service. One blogger called “Dog Monster” wrote about this dilemma after deciding to go with a Comcast DVR, rather than buy an HD Tivo DVR.  And he writes that his frustrations with the Comcast DVR happened in less than one day of using it. He writes: “I loved watching television until I got my cablebox DVR.”

He goes on to list his 20 reasons why he decided to dump Comcast’s DVR and buy a new Tivo Series 3 box. Here’s the quick list:

1. Comcast DVR has no predictive fast-forward.
2. No Start From Beginning When Reaching the End of a Recording.
3. Not Recording Shows.
4. Searching for Shows is Clunky and Slow.
5. Finding Your Favorites Shows is Difficult.
6. The Cable Box Doesn’t Show the Time When Recording.
7. No Way of Knowing if A Show is Being Recorded.
8. Button Lag.
9. No Sound Effects like Tivo.
10. Not Intuitive Interface.
11. No Recommendations.
12. Recording Same Episode Multiple Times.
13. Doesn’t Know What Shows Are New.
14. Cannot Change Recording Quality.
15. Not Being Able to Exit the Play Timeline.
16. Doesn’t Warn About Conflicting Recordings.
17. Accidentally Recording SD Channel Rather than HD.
18. Comcast Doesn’t Group Shows Together Like Tivo.
19. Remote Control Is Not Easy to Use.
20. No Scheduling Shows Online.

Along with the points made here, I really miss the integration with the Internet for downloading photos, and other content (like RocketBoom) and the ability to save files on my computer with Tivo Desktop software. I must admit I am hitting my breaking point with Comcast’s DVR. I’ve been using it for about two months now (alongside my Series 2 Tivo for SD recordings) and have been very frustrated with it as well. Since I have multiple inputs on my HDTV set, I have both my Comcast DVR connected to watch and record HD content, and my Tivo for SD recordings and all my previously recorded shows.

But switching between the two is getting tedious. I want HD recording and Comcast’s DVR just isn’t giving me what I want out of an HD DVR.

It’s probably just a matter of time before I buy an HD Tivo and use it 100% of the time and drop Comcast’s DVR.

[tags] Tivo, Comcast, HD DVR, DVR, Comcast DVR, Series 2 Tivo [/tags]