Cable DVRs better than Tivo yet?

Mar 15, 2003
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We're moving soon (probably to time warner territory) and have been pretty annoyed with my Tivo Premiere as of late (online services don't work properly, slow hd menus, me using my appletv and airplay for functions beyond dvr features anyways) and am thinking I'll toss the tivo with the move.

Have cable company dvrs caught up yet? My gut is they have, but any reason to stick with tivo? I'll miss some of the idiosyncrasies, but most of the value added features of tivo aren't even working properly (with updates rare) so kicking it to the curb seems pretty tempting, but there must be a reason subscribers continue to stick by them...Right?

And to turn this into a useful thread (and not just me bitching), what's a modern tivo equivalent? I've tried Moxie and it had it's charms but was also too sluggish and crash happy. What's the best dvr out there? We're an OSX family (and I'm tired of overheating HTPCs and needing to have a mouse/keyboard on standby), and would consider computer add ons only if they're truly zero-maintanance.

Thanks!
 
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nsafreak

Diamond Member
Oct 16, 2001
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For the most part I would say no, they are not at least the ones that I have used in my Comcast service area (I'm a Dish customer for TV & Comcast for internet/phone) are downright primitive. Response times that are slow to be generous and interfaces that look like they were designed back in the 80s. It doesn't help that the largest hard drives I've seen in these units are 500GB with no option to add external hard drives for HD DVRs is pretty bad as well. The more technically apt folks still tend to build HTPCs using Ceton cards which I'm pretty sure you don't want to do since you must use Windows in order to use them. It may be possible to use the HD Homerun Prime instead however you may find that there are channels that you cannot access through OS X.

On the bright side HTPCs have gotten to be a lot lower maintenance for the most part and cable techs have started to pick up on how to activate the units properly (this of course will vary from area to area). They aren't zero maintenance and I'm not sure if they ever will be but they're less troublesome than they used to be.
 

Matt1970

Lifer
Mar 19, 2007
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Time Warner's Scientific Atlantic boxes were hit and miss. Mine was always very snappy with the menu but my mom's was always slow. My girlfriend had one as well that was great for a couple weeks after a reboot but then the menu slowed down. She now has 2 of the newer smaller boxes (one with DVR and one without) and they are both pretty snappy.