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HD Tivo with cable card or Time Warner HDDVR?

B

Blayze

Diamond Member
I'm going to get my first HDTV soon, and I'm looking at adding a HDDVR to it.

The prices I've found for my area to add another box/DVR are...

Time Warner HDDVR with Remote is $12 a month (They charge for the remote), DVR service is another $6. So $18 total for Time Warner HDDVR

Tivo is around $13 a month, Time Warner cable card is $1.75 a month. So Tivo is cheaper, other than buying the Tivo.

Would it be worth it to pickup a HD Tivo, or is the Time Warner HDDVR better? How many cable cards will I need?
 
Ive never tried the TW hddvr, but i love my tivo hd. granted, i might be slightly biased since i got my tivo hd for cheap.
 
Originally posted by: Blayze
I'm going to get my first HDTV soon, and I'm looking at adding a HDDVR to it.

The prices I've found for my area to add another box/DVR are...

Time Warner HDDVR with Remote is $12 a month (They charge for the remote), DVR service is another $6. So $18 total for Time Warner HDDVR

Tivo is around $13 a month, Time Warner cable card is $1.75 a month. So Tivo is cheaper, other than buying the Tivo.

Would it be worth it to pickup a HD Tivo, or is the Time Warner HDDVR better? How many cable cards will I need?
Click to expand...

Its seems that in general the cable company HD DVRs are a bit lacking in features. I have a Motorola 3412 and while it does the job its supposed to do its rather lacking in hard drive space with only 120 gigabytes and it does not have anywhere near the level of extras that a Tivo has. The Tivo DVRs have their own little quirks and some may not like the interface. I've heard some people say that its the best interface they've ever used and others say its nothing too great. All comes down to preference. You're going to be paying a higher upfront cost if you get a Tivo HDDVR so you may want to factor that into your cost analysis. Also you will need 2 cablecards for your Tivo should you get one. Finally, the one thing that may not work properly with the Tivo is On Demand service if Time Warner has it in your area.
 
If you can afford it, go with the TiVo. Much more elegant solution. Quick note though, you will need two CableCards for every display / HD TiVo combination in the house. Also, you can still purchase TiVo For Life for a flat fee...which will end up saving you money ~4 years or so.
 
After reading some things one thing does concern me. Thats the SDV channels. I don't know what channels we have like that or if we have any at all. I'm worried if I went with Tivo I would be missing some channels (I know the on demand and ppv stuff would be gone) with the cable cards.

If I can get everything I will probably pickup the Tivo and the 2 cable cards. Should I call Time Warner and check first, or is there another way to see if the Tivo will work with all channels?
 
I have two HD-Tivo's. I am biased, have loved Tivo since our Series 2. And the people who have got Cable DVR's never have much nice to say about them. Friend of mine went through 3-4 motorola HD-DVRs from Comcast because they kept breaking.

I also love the fact you can store saved shows and movies on a server in the back room and stream the shows\movies back to the TiVo for future watching. There are a bunch of HD movies on HBO ect that cant be found on Blu-Ray or HD-DVD yet.

I suggest the Tivo. Amazon has them for about 240. But has had them on sale for as little as 180.
 
Originally posted by: RupTheKid
If you can afford it, go with the TiVo. Much more elegant solution. Quick note though, you will need two CableCards for every display / HD TiVo combination in the house. Also, you can still purchase TiVo For Life for a flat fee...which will end up saving you money ~4 years or so.
Click to expand...

The Series 3 units require 2x single stream cards. The HD-TiVO's can use a single multi stream card or 2xsingle stream. I suggest getting a multi stream card.
 
Originally posted by: Blayze
After reading some things one thing does concern me. Thats the SDV channels. I don't know what channels we have like that or if we have any at all. I'm worried if I went with Tivo I would be missing some channels (I know the on demand and ppv stuff would be gone) with the cable cards.

If I can get everything I will probably pickup the Tivo and the 2 cable cards. Should I call Time Warner and check first, or is there another way to see if the Tivo will work with all channels?
Click to expand...

You will get everything the cable company sends to the cable card. TiVo grabs the program information from your local area and updates the TiVo unit nightly with all the channel information.

The on demand stuff may play out a little later this year. There is supposed to be a dongle that will allow for two way communication from TiVo units via the cable card. This is a requirement due to cable companies using some kind of new system for delivering channels. I forgot the name but it basically sends multiple channels on the same frequency and the cable card grabs what it wants. Supposed to save bandwidth. But it requires two way communication to work. The unintended benefit of this is on demand should start working.
 
Originally posted by: Genx87
The unintended benefit of this is on demand should start working.
Click to expand...
This isn't going to fix on-demand. SDV uses a much, much simpler protocol. OCAP-enabled TiVOs will fix the on-demand problems, but those aren't due out for at least another year or two.
 
Ahh ok, thought I read somewhere the two communications was going to fix that issue.
For me it isnt a big deal either way. PPV was\is expensive imo.
 
I just got my 2nd HD Tivo hooked up this morning. It took comcast almost 2hrs because the tech didn't know how to install a cablecard. I was able to buy it from Tivo.com for $180. It's a refurb, but I'm going to upgrade the HD anyways so a shorter warranty doesn't bother me.

My only gripe w/ the Tivo is how it handles multi-room viewing. Tivo should have included a 10/100/1000ethernet port instead of a 10/100 port. Instead of simply streaming the shows it copies the show from Tivo A to Tivo B. You're able to watch the show while this happens, but you end up w/ a copy on each Tivo. On a side note, I can't multi-room anything recorded from Starz because it's copy protected. I'm not trying to steal shit, I just want to watch the movies on the TV of my choice.
 
I might wait until the "dongle" is released. From what I have read my local Time Warner has moved some of the HD channels to SDV, so I wouldn't be able to get them with a Tivo. Right now they only have single stream cards.

From looking at the TWC DVR and the Tivo I would really like to have the Tivo instead, I just don't want to miss out on any of the channels (Don't care about PPV, etc...).
 
Until they started putting cablecards in their DVRs, Time Warner's SA8300HD DVR was simply the best. Now it's slow as fuck just like Tivos. May as well go with the Tivo since it's cheaper and has more to offer.
 
Originally posted by: Dari
Until they started putting cablecards in their DVRs, Time Warner's SA8300HD DVR was simply the best. Now it's slow as fuck just like Tivos. May as well go with the Tivo since it's cheaper and has more to offer.
Click to expand...

I have to disagree with you. I went through 3 SA8300HD in one year before I gave up on them. My local TW had a butt ugly interface for them as well. It reminded me of all of Windows 95 display options.
 
I was reading the local thread for Brighthouse (TWC rebadge company) and all I saw was negativity about their new software for the DVRs. I believe it was called Gator. See if that is applicable in your market and read about it if so. That might make the decision an easy one.
 
I :heart: my TiVo HD, excellent interface and even better functionality. I do not know about Time Warner, but about a year ago when I tried Comcast's DVR... it was horrible compared to the TiVo.
 
If you can afford the up-front cost, there's no comparison. It's like Mercedes vs. Yugo.
 
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