Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion Home Theater Thinking abotu buying a DVR box

So I have been thinking about buying a DVR box of some type. If I can get one with a cable card reader I can save about $15 per month from my cable company and in addition to hopefully finding a dvr with a larger hard drive.

Any suggestions for DVR boxes?

I see that amazon has this Tivo box on sale for $470. Looks really nice. I would like to spend about half that much tho if possible.

No advice as mine is Bell ExpressVu. However, I will say that once you have one, you can never do without. I am now actually watching the 4-6 shows per week that I record instead of missing them and once you get used to skipping commercials, you get spoiled and can no longer watch live TV.

If I had to give one up, I'd give up my HD channels long before my DVR/PVR.

I would go for it. That's a great price considering it has the larger HD capacity. All DVRs are addictive, but the TiVo interface is the best / most user friendly.

My TiVo is my favorite part of the theater, and the one part of it I wouldn't want to give up!

Damn. Now I can't get the Tivo click-pop sound out of my head.

I'd get a regular TiVo HD and then an add on drive later on if you find the capacity isn't high enough.

I halfheartedly recommend the lifetime subscription. I would strongly recommend it, except for the fact that it costs $400 now.

TiVo/DVRs are my favorite tech development of the last ten years. Better than iPods, smart phones, GPS, everything. You'll love it.

One option could be to wait a few more months until digital cable tuner with CableCARD are available to regular DIY HTPC consumers. Recently at CEDIA EXPO 2009 was announced the lift of some restrictions like OEM BIOS requirement and DRM. So hopefully they should start to be available soon, though I have no idea how soon. You could try something like this in the meantime. I’ve been tempted to try it but decided to wait.



Everyone I’ve known that have a Tivo swear by it as the greatest thing ever, I don’t know, I’ve had DVRs and yeah they are great and all but come on, better than a cell phone or GPS?

I took an old computer, TV Tuner card and 320G Hard Drive and put it in an HTPC case. Installed Linux and MythTV. Voila.

Works great for me, and its its very user friendly but the install, set-up and troubleshooting (when things break) are for nerds only.

If you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them.

Thanks
snazzed

I have a httpc w/ Win7 MCE + HDHomeRun. It works well enough but it sucks not having channels like discovery, ESPN and CSN on HD. Configuration can get frustrating; Comcast is constantly moving channels around so I have to keep adding them manually every few weeks. Also, the WAF not as high as a DVR or tivo. I think once the CableCrd tuner issue gets sorted out and they become available, a htpc is best way to go. Right now, I going back to the Comcast DVR.

WAF was very good on the MythTV. The remote control and interface are very "appliance like" and not at all technical. I imagine it is similar to a TiVo, but I've never actually seen one.

For channel listings, you have to buy a subscription to an online listings service ($20/yr) and the MythTV PVR then grabs listings via internet. On the rare occasions that our channels have moved, they get automatically updated within 24 hours.

Apparently with the right Tuner card, MythTV will do HD (get a bigger hard Drive), but the setup is more involved.

Ok, thats my last post about it unless people have specific questions. Don't want to sound like a raving fanboy!

snazzed

I might add that I do have a DVR with my cable service, but it does not have enough storage space.

Also, Why on earth do you have to pay a monthly fee for tivo? Exactly what "service" are they providing for this fee?

Do all DVR's have a monthly fee? I was thinking that I could buy a unit and only pay $2 per month to my cable company for a cable card.

Ken, If I purchase the "regular" tivo HD box do I need to buy a special HD to upgrade capacity or will any HD do?

The service that you're paying for is TV listings. I recently found out that with Comcast's box, you can only record by time and date. WTH? With the TiVo, I've got wishlist searches (keywords, types of programs, whatever), season passes (record by program, whole season, with timing presets, etc.), and scheduling by program name. That's half the advantage of a DVR, to my mind.

Yeah, and that's where TiVo has anything else beat.

You can search keywords, or decide you want to automatically record every Hitchcock, even if it's on some obscure channel at 4am. I've had many times of remembering some old, obscure movie that I'd like to see again and, after entering the info, find that TiVo records it a couple of months later for me. It will also record programming that it thinks you will like based on past choices or how you "rate" programs.

True story that I've repeated here previously:

When I first set up my first TiVo, I had set it to record a few things overnight, as it was late and I was going to bed. I searched the guide and put in The Birdcage, another movie that I don't remember and another show that I don't remember anymore. I had the TiVo set to also record it's "suggestions".

The next morning, those three things were recorded, as well as about 9 other shows. It only took me half a minute to realize that, coincidentally, the two shows I put in besides The Birdcage had prominent gay characters. The reason I was even aware of it was because almost all the other shows it recorded on it's own had a gay theme or prominent gay characters.

Yes, my TiVo, with it's limited knowledge of my preferences at this point, decided I was gay.

Seriously, though, the TiVo "guide" capability is what makes it so superior to a "dumb" DVR....

So now we know how to finish your new signature statement....

Kidding, of course. Not that there would be anything wrong with that........... (Some TV lines just never die.)

If you watch TV, get a Tivo. Period. It will change your relationship to television forever more. Seriously. I'd put Tivo right about up there about with the invention of the computer or the automobile. I don't know how we would survive without a DVR. Actually, yes I do, we'd either not watch any TV or we'd buy it from iTunes. But we'd never go back to the linear-TV-viewing model. Ever.



Heh. Like some languages that have clicks and whistles, our family language now includes the Tivo 'bee-boop' as part of our everyday vocabulary. If the remote holder forgets to fast forward when a commercial comes on? Someone will say.. 'hey! Bee-boop'. We're at someone else's home who doesn't have Tivo and commercials are on? My wife and I will look at eachother, make a 'bee-boop' noise and chuckle.

It's pretty sad.

Worse still, we don't even own a Tivo any more. We had one for several years before going to Dish Network due to problems with our cable company. Yes, Tivo technically works with satellite, but it's kind of a PITA to setup. So we use DN's DVR (vip 722). It's good, but not great. It's just sometimes a pain to use and set up. Nor is it as intuitive about recording things. It just isn't as smart nor as easy to use as Tivo. And that's after owning and using DN DVR's for 3+ years now.

Cable company DVR boxes are the same way. At least, the 2 or 3 that I've seen are. They function, but they lack the intuitiveness and glorious user interface that is the hallmark of a Tivo.

And that's why TiVo won't survive, Peter.

Indeed it is. #1 reason that other DVR's aren't as useful. After a couple of months of learning, our Tivo found dozens of shows and movies that we enjoyed. Shows that we otherwise had never heard of. Very useful.

And to a new user...

Yes, it can pick up on strange trends. For a while, my Tivo thought I enjoyed Nazis. I recorded a WWII documentary about Hitler. After that, for a short time it would occasionally record things related to Nazis, like a Jerry Springer skinhead episode. How lovely. But it's easy to correct (three thumbs down, or you can reset the suggestions). And it quickly learned that I wasn't really interested in all Nazi programming.

It only records 'suggested' material if the Tivo isn't doing anything else and it has the space to do so without losing any of your requested recordings. Or you can disable that feature all-together if you only want Tivo to record what you tell it to.

Now there's an interesting way to randomize your tv viewing.

I will kick and scream before a Tivo leaves my house. Yes, I have to deal w/ Comcast but in the SF Bay Area, I have no choice.

Granted it's aging hardware but the GUI is untouched. I know the latest Media Center is good and so are some of the features of UVerse and DirecTV's H10 or 20 (I forget), but Tivo's always been consistent. Pair that with Neftlix, Amazon Unbox, and as of today, Blockbuster on Demand, it is a very good streaming client.

Network your Tivo and the door opens. You can use Tivo Desktop on a PC to move the shows to your PC and then transcode them for your iPod/iPhone/Touch/AppleTV, Zune, etc. On a Mac, you can use the open source iTivo to do the same. Use pytivo and then you can stream your PC or Mac's media (photos/vids) to your Tivo. Network multiple Tivos and you can share shows between the boxes and not have to record shows in multiple places. I go a step further and pair it w/ a Slingbox and now I can see multiple Tivos when I'm on travel. No more channel surfing on the hotel TV.

There are a ton of references on how to upgrade your Tivo HDD on your own. Weaknees.com or DVRupgrade.com are good resources. I've taken bare drives and used InstantCake to format. Easy peasy.

There are apps on the iPhone so you can have a Wifi remote to control the Tivo. And it's FAST because you are using a network connection, not infrared commands. You can also use an iPhone app or web browser to program your Tivo when you're not home.

Try find all of these features on any other box. Yeah, maybe you can build it into homebrew Media PC (there's even a Mac Mini version), but it'll never be as good as a Tivo.

And no, I don't work for them.

Does Tivo have staying power? Maybe, maybe not. But remember that this platform runs Linux. If Tivo dies, there's a HUGE dev community that'll keep this alive for a long time.

Moxi intro'ed their idea several years ago and tried to make it work. Much better in concept than Tivo. If you've never heard of them, then you now know how hard it is to compete against Tivo. Tivo's biggest hurdle is the carriers and their hesitance to support Cablecard.

What do you mean? Because it's tricky to set up a Tivo with a cable or satellite box? If so, I agree.

Tivo was stupid by not licensing their technology to DVR manufacturers. They have the best system. I'd glady pay an extra few bucks a month for a Tivo-based system. Things looked promising when DirecTV had a Tivo box (killer combo), but then they discontinued it.

And HD Tivo is problematic if you have a cable company that doesn't understand/provide cablecards. Mine doesn't/won't, and so HD-Tivo isn't even an option.

No, because people are settling for good enough.

CableCARD support is required by all cable companies by the FCC since July 1, 2007. You may want to have a word with them.

My problem with Tivo is the cost of upgrading--minimum $5-600 to almost replicate (sans extra drive space) what I have now. It's really too bad.

Oh yeah, in case my earlier post seemed to harsh, I'm clearly part of the problem, too: I haven't given them a cent since 2002.

The default DVR with my cable service (cox) comes wih the ability to search for shows to record by title/keyword, record entire series (on all channels or only a specific channel) record first runs only, repeats, ect. You can set how many episodes to keep on the DVR at one time, ect.

The main problem I have is that there just isn't enough space for HD shows.

Besides the space issue, I am not sure if I would really gain much by switching to a Tivo since it appears that I have much of the "Tivo-Like" recording options with my default DVR.

You don't have the cute little character or cute sounds, though....

Not to mention the pending lawsuits!

One option is to look for used Tivo boxes w/ existing lifetime subscriptions. Sometimes, you end up w/ the cost of the subscription and $100 to $200 for the box itself, not bad. One option is to buy an old Series 1 or 2 box w/ Lifetime and transfer the lifetime to a new box. Then you have 2 boxes and a lifetime service. However, it's not as useful now w/ the all digital switchover. You'd need to use that older Tivo w/ an external digital tuner. It's doable if you use the IR out on the Tivo.

Here's a good Tivo forum.

http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/index.php

Saw a few Tivos w/ lifetime on ebay.

I don't think you can transfer the lifetime to a new box. If you could, I'd be set.

There have been periods (as early as this past year IIRC) where Tivo charges a fee for you to transfer your lifetime to a new box. I would call Tivo and check. I couldn't google anything current but that doesn't mean it isn't possible.

Alternately, you can do what I do. I transferred a lifetime Tivo subscription to a Series 3 a few years ago when it first came out, from my HD DirecTivo. (Yes, I paid a lot but it was worth it.) Then I got a Series 2 DT for another room. I pay a secondary fee of about $5/mo IIRC for the 2nd Tivo because I already have lifetime. Yes, I pay another fee but my wife watches her shows on that and I record all my HD shows on mine. Everybody's happy. IF you can't do a transfer, you could keep the lifetime on your existing box and buy the cheapest Tivo HD you can find. Then pay the extra Tivo fee for the Tivo HD.

Cable cards on Comcast shouldn't be more than $1.70/mo. The CS reps won't tell you that but that is the fee for the card rental because you don't need the cable box anymore, which itself is $8/mo. With a Tivo HD, you only need one card if you get an M Series card, which Comcast does carry in the Bay Area.

Apparently my cable company has had an agreement with Tivo since 2006. I guess the DVR interface is basically like a tivo, without the cool sounds and cute little character.

"TiVo will make its digital video recorder service available to subscribers of Cox Communications, the fourth-largest cable television company in the United States. It further strengthens the position of the pioneering digital video recorder company in establishing partnerships with other service providers."

That would be a good option. That box is used parts of Boston but not many other places. Too bad.

The tech support guy from my cable company said that the model DVR I have has a port for a SATA hard drive. Their was supposedly a new firmware upgrade that was released (or should be released) that allows you to plug in an external drive for increased capacity. He said that they don't support that feature through tech support, so they couldn't help you get it going.

Perhaps some internet research is in order... I have a motorolla DCT3416 HD DVR box. If I can just add an external drive that would be great.

Google it...

Yup, will do. I preliminary search turned up a couple of message board posts on various sites but nothing too promising yet. I didn't have much time to search around so will look more today.

Oldskool: I haven't seen you sign onto the Playstation network in some time.. do you still use your ps3?

If anything, the downfall of Tivo and other similar products will be TV on Demand. Watch what you want, when you want, recorded or not.

This will depend on pay structures that are devised though. If providers begin charging by content (individual shows watched) verses subscriptions, it may change how much people decide they truly need to watch. This model is not good for advertisers without a yet uninvented cost recovery restructuring so therefore it is not good for networks, and so perhaps unlikely.

Currently, in Canada, the networks are at war, literally, with the cable companies. Cable wants to start charging extra money for the formerly free public stations. Of course, they don't intend to pay the public networks in turn so the public networks are advertising slogans like "Don't let cable companies make you pay twice!".

It will be interesting to see what the CRTC decides. Oh, and let's not forget the new proposed TV tax. Another uproar.

And they wonder why people are turning to the Internet to download free programming?

But broadcasting will be here for quite awhile. Here in the U.S., the NTSC will accept inferior standards to ensure that the new broadcasts are backwards-compatible, because of concern that citizens have their freedom of hearing speech.

On-demand downloads will, of course, keep becoming more popular, but as long as I own the TiVo anyway, I should still be able to time-shift for an awfully long time to come.

Like I did with Tuesdays posts.

That's what I need... a TiVo for forums....

Agreed and it's available already, online w/ services like Hulu, though I don't think Canada can use it. Hulu is quite good, though it's not exactly HD. But the average person doesn't really care.

Haven't been on in a while. I was actually using it for a while over the summber but mostly to watch my Netflix BR discs. I may get more play time if I decide to get Batman. I'm also considering DJ Hero, since I like many of the tracks. My problem is that I have GH on Wii, so I can't decide which platform to target w/ DJ Hero. I'm leaning towards PS3, mostly for sound quality.

I just found a couple web sites that broadcast live TV programming for free. Although not extremely good quality, I love the fact that I can watch almost any sports game on my computer for free. Heck, I can even get Leafs TV!!

Old Skool:

You should def. check out uncharted 2 on ps3 if you like 3rd person shooter/action games at all. It is an absolute blast. Most amazing game on PS3 to date in my opinion.

Man...what great reviews on Amazon. Just ordered it. Thanks!

Yeah, if you go to metacritic and look at the scores they have like 20 perfect 100's from various raters. I think the official game website says that the game has received 24 perfect scores to date. I don't know if I would call it "perfect", but it is definitely worthy of 60 bucks.

Got it yesterday via Amazon. I'll fire it up after the ALCS game tonight - couldn't play last night since I was at the Yankee Stadium enjoying the game.

BTW, make sure you call Tivo for a deal. If you call them directly, they will deal with you. Just hint at "boy..it's a lot more than I thought....." and they will work with you.

Hansang, If you decide to get into multiplayer (co-op or versus) let me know.

My PSN tag is Terzaghi83

When was that? And was it just DirecTV, or did Dish Network have a Tivo combo as well? The reason I ask is because I had Dish Network probably 7 years ago, and the DVR that came with it was absolutely outstanding! By far the best DVR I've ever had the pleasure of using. It was so good at finding shows with simple keyword searches, stored 100 hours worth of programing on its hard drive, prioritized your favorites, and was a smap to record things WHEN YOU WANTED it to record things. For example, I had it recording new episodes of 'The Daily Show' once per day. When I dropped Dish Network and went to cable, their DVR recorded 'The Daily Show' like 7 times per day, and there was no way to change that. Believe me I tried 'first run only', 'once daily', 'no repeats', etc... nothing worked, everyday I had 7 'Daily Shows' recorded without fail.

The Dish Network DVR I had behaved the way you guys are discribing Tivo (I've never experienced Tivo ever) box also. Like I set it up to record MotoGP racing, and a week later I checked my recordings and I had every motorcycle race that played on any channel at any time of day for that whole week in my recordings... I was blown away!!! Unfortunately that experience was short lived because back then anyway Dish Network was very unreliable during inclimate weather. As soon as a rain cloud popped up the tv went out without fail. It got so frusterating I switched back to cable within a few months.

But cable DVR's could never touch the user friendliness of that Dish Network DVR by a long shot. My parents just recently subscribed to Dish Network and I immediately told them, "you are going to LOVE their DVR"!!!!! I still miss it, and I don't even have cable, a DVR, or any of that stuff anymore. I watch all of my programing (the 'Daily Show', 'Survivor', 'Twilight Zone', 'MotoGP' and every basketball, football and hockey game I can get my hands on) over the internet. I would like to get a DVR to record that stuff though. But I wonder, can you just buy some software to turn your computer into a DVR??? Seems like it would be a no-brainer!

Just out of curiosity, what time did you get home? I actually stayed awake the entire 13 despite the fact that we had a dinner party at our house earlier in the evening.

I was at game one which was a nine inning affair! But I was up for game two...what a game!!!!

I have tickets for game 2 for WS and can't wait!!

Sounds good! But I need some time to play/get used to it! I get shellacked in COD4 and that gets tiring!

The good thing about Uncharted2 is that there are various co-op modes that you can play online as well.

How do you go about getting world series tickets? Are they expensive?

The tension in these games is killing me! Augh!

Can't wait to see the Phils repeat! What an ending last night!!

As far as getting tickets goes, if you aren't a season ticket holder and didn't win the lottery, you are stuck with stubhub. Starting at about $600 for the cheap seats.

Proud season ticket holder. Actually, post season tickets are *cheaper* than regular season tickets (for the same seats).

As for the Phillies repeating....HAHAHAHAHA!

Looking forward to it.

Reviving this thread as I've had it with my cable company provided DVR's.

I like the idea of the lifetime subscription, but you sure pay for it...

I'm not sure if I should go with the Tivo Premiere or the Moxi. The Moxi has three tuners and if I go through the headache of adding more devices to my wired home network, I can buy two Moxi "Mates" that talk to the main Moxi unit. This would allow me to set up my three TV's and only have to get one cable card. This package costs $1000. That's painful. The cost for one Moxi is $600. http://www.moxi.com/us/offer.html?_cr=ppc|google|MOX:%20Moxi:%20USA|moxi&gclid=CPS_pZXNkaMCFQVvbAod_355ng

The Tivo Premier, with lifetime subscription is $700 for the basic machine or $900 for the XL. Then of course, I still need to do something for the other two TVs.

Does anyone have either of these machines, or done some research to determine the Pros/Cons?

Is Moxi a Tivo interface or something else?

Because if you're willing to try "something else", I'm still pretty darn happy with the service DirecTV has given me over the years. Are you too far north for satellite?

The Moxi is supposedly similar to Tivo. I have not seen either first hand.

I used to have Dishnet. Then HD rolled out and I would have had to put up a second dish, one 40" and one 60". I checked into DirectTV but their satellite could not be seen from my home do to my home town being surrounded by 3000' mountains. They may have service now, I should probably check into that.

Normally, cable has better signal quality than sat, but things have changed and that might not be the case anymore.

There is a big difference in WAF between Moxi and Tivo.

Let me attempt to define a WAF reaction scale for gadgets:
0 = sound of pump-action shotgun being loaded with intent to kill
1 = "Next time this thing doesn't work I am sending it to 'Will it blend'"
2 = "As long as you don't make me use it"
3 = No particular reaction
4 = A look of panic appears on her face when you suggest getting rid of it

I have a Tivo HD and I can attest that it is a level 4 device.

Based on some feedback from co-workers who tried the Moxi, I would guess that it is a level 1 or 2 device. It appealed to them (my male geek co-workers) initially because it has a slicker looking interface, but it fell apart in the usability department. At least one of the aforementioned co-workers now has a Tivo.

One other thing to think about, the lifetime subscription is probably tied to the hardware. So if there is something new, your contract will not transfer to the new hardware.

Another thing is cablecard support from your cable vendor. As more cable provider rolls out SDV, you'll need tuning adapters from your cable vendor. It will probably be a hassle for the next year or so (as everyone gets used to the rollout)

The best TV company/DVR package I’ve ever owned is Netflix and my DVD player. IMO anything worth watching comes out on DVD/BD and now as Netflix adds more streaming content a lot of old reruns are easily accessible. Add in TV.com and I can watch almost anything I want. I guess if I liked to watch a lot of live sports and didn’t want to do it at a sports bar TV might still be interesting but with the high cost and low utility value for me I just had mine disconnected and haven’t missed it once.

I like your rating scale Henry. Fortunately, my girlfriend doesn't mind living in sin and we are not married, and she doesn't give me crap.

Good to know about the Moxi troubles. I tend to get irritated with things that don't work.

I agree about the bliss of Netflix.

DTV used to have Tivo, but everybody in our house adapted pretty easily to "DTV Plus" instead.