Comcast DVR or TiVo DVR?

[Goodsport]

Comparing Comcast's Motorola 6400 Series model DVR and TiVo's 40-hour Series2 model DVR, I've noted each unit's advantages over the other:


Comcast DVR:
It's a dual-tuner unit, as opposed to the single-tuner TiVo unit. In other words, I can record two different channels at the same time and switch between watching either one, or I can simply record one channel while watching another.
Ability to record HDTV (unlike the TiVo). Though I don't have an HDTV, perhaps one day I'll win the lottery and buy one.
Though both units have S-Video capability, the Comcast DVR is also optical-audio capable.
No need for a separate telephone connection.
It's a digital cable box and DVR all in one unit.
With Comcast's recently-revamped onscreen menu guide (which applies to most of its regular digital cable boxes as well as its DVR's), the TV program appears in the upper right-hand quarter of the screen even when searching through the onscreen menus.
30 hours of TV-quality recording capacity, as opposed to the TiVo's 11 hours of TV-quality (the TiVo's "Best Quality" option) recording capacity (the TiVo unit has several recording quality options, the "Best Quality" obviously being the best - the 40 hour listed capacity is for the TiVo's lowest quality option). However, various TiVo units have different capacities.
$9.95 per month addition to the cable bill, as opposed to the TiVo's $12.95 per month (not including your cable bill). No cost for the Comcast DVR box and remote themselves.


TiVo:
Onscreen program descriptions more detailed and informative.
The picture seems a bit more solid when rewinding and fast-forwarding, and you can jump ahead or behind in increments.
If you happen to move to a different residence, you can take your TiVo unit anywhere there's cable service, even if the new area doesn't yet offer cable DVR service.
Search options a bit more thorough.
Oftentimes, the TiVo unit gets extras like sneek previews and videos.
Easy to record saved programs onto VCR or DVD burner. I don't yet know if this is also true of the Comcast DVR.
Compatability between multiple TiVo units in the same household possible (though I believe that costs extra).


Did I miss any points for either unit (or both)? If so, feel free to add more. :)

So which one would you choose and why? :confused:


-G

[Dante]

I wieghed all the options between my local TW DVR and a Tivo and went with the DVR. I based it on the fact that I can record two shows at once. There are many occasions where I'd like to tape a game or show and my wife's got a show on at the same time.

If Tivo ever comes out with this feature, I know the DirecTV Tivo unit had it, I'd switch to Tivo. Until then I'll stick with the DVR.

[dark knight]

I think there are a number of threads on this topic on tivocommunity.com, but a few major differences:

-- Tivo can network with your home network and play your music on your PC/Mac (not AAC compatible though).
-- Tivo doesn't need a phone connection if you network it
-- Tivo can be programmed on-line (I'm not sure if Cable DVR's can or not).
-- Tivo's season pass is more sophisticated and doesn't copy multiple copies of the same show.
-- Tivo has a new feature, tivo-to-go, which enables you to transfer shows to your PC and burn it to a DVD.
-- Tivo can share programs among networked Tivos in your house.
-- Tivo has all kind of hacks such as adding hard drive space.
-- Tivo is more expensive upfront.

I can understand why people would want to save the money and go the Cable route, and the dual tuner feature is big (I actually have two Tivos), but I really love my Tivo - DVDRecorder all in one, although it seems that I use my DVD Recorder most often to record shows for friends who don't have Tivo.

[Kryptonite]

I'd honestly get the Comcast DVR. With the TiVo, you're adding another box to your TV, which would mean more wires, another remote, etc. Plus you'd have to connect it to that phone line or whatever as DK points out.

With the Comcast DVR, it's a replacement box, so you're adding nothing extra with no extra wires and no extra remotes, etc.

Plus you have that extra tuner. And if it breaks, you can get a free replacement. With the TiVo, if the warranty has expired then you might be out of luck. Plus, if there's a new Tivo (3 tuners, anyone??), then there'd be nothing to pay to upgrade. If you're not "technically advantaged", then obviously the cable installer can hook it up for you, make sure the connections are good, yada yada.

DVR - monthly fee
TiVo - monthly fee (or the lifetime fee) + purchase price


If it was me, i'd go with the DVR mainly because I wouldn't want that extra remote and another box on top of my TV (I already have three.)

[chad]

For cable users, I'd recommend the Comcast box. I have one and I like it quite a bit, and they have already upgraded the system significantly once. I expect them to continue to try to improve it, but as mentioned above there are some really nice features that you can get from TIVo now but not from Comcast. I'd rather have two tuners, though, and the ability to do HD (which I do).

[Alan S]

Honestly, I thinks TiVo's days are numbered. Comcast is a hugh company with a large cash flow and can afford to sell their DVR at below cost to drive TiVo out of business.

Once TiVo is gone, expect to see the charge for that service rise faster that a .... ahh ... cable bill.



P.S. Don't have cable and haven't watched TV in about 3 weeks as of this posting. Doubt I'm missing anything though :)

[dark knight]

Honestly, I thinks TiVo's days are numbered. Comcast is a hugh company with a large cash flow and can afford to sell their DVR at below cost to drive TiVo out of business.



Anything can happen, but I don't think your opinion is very informed (or at least it doesn't sound like it). For example, Comcast's DVR doesn't cost anything and Tivo is being used by DirecTV.

[Alan S]

Anything can happen, but I don't think your opinion is very informed (or at least it doesn't sound like it). For example, Comcast's DVR doesn't cost anything and Tivo is being used by DirecTV.


I didn't have time for a long post before, but I think it is an informed opinion.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/investor/invsub/results/hilite.asp?Symbol=TIVO

Look at TiVo's earning's per share. It is all red. They have not had a profitable quarter in the past three years, and lost $0.75 per share on a $1.93 in revenue in the past 12 months.

In addition the revenue the past reporting quarter was $38 million vs. $42 million the year before, so their revenue is dropping. Comcast is copying their product idea and going to drive them off their network. What they will have left is DirectTV, but that might not be enough to sustain them.
TiVo might become like Netscape, in that they developed a fantastic new product that was ultimately copied by big competitors with deep pockets, and then driven out of business.

This thread comparing the features of Comcast DVR to TiVo is testimony to that. The question is can TiVo pick-up enough DirectTV customers to make up for the potential and real Comcast customers it will lose.

[dark knight]

Like I said, who knows - but they've been saying that when Tivo had 30,000 customers and there are people saying it now that Tivo has 3 million customers (http://www.techweb.com/wire/hardware/60402175).

[subsnerd]

As a long time tivo fan and current myth tv user I have to grudgingly advocate the comcast box for a couple reasons. The most significant is that the comcast box records the digital stream directly. This gives you HD, digital audio and the best standard definition picture. The tivo would have to record from your cable box's analog output; this entails a digital->analog conversion coming out of the cable box and analog->digital conversion going into the tivo. This sacrifices HD, digital audio and picture quality. Secondly, the tivo needs to tell the cable box to change the channel. Some cable boxes provide a serial interface that the tivo can use to send channel change messages but most often you have to use the tivo's IR emitter which immitates the cable box's remote to send channel changes. It's a clever hack but only about 95% accurate in my experience. Thirdly, even if the tivo supported 2 "tuners" (which means 2 A/D mpeg2 encoders which I believe are the most expensive components in the box) you'd need 2 cable tuners, each with their own IR emitter setup which is some ugly integration.

So, the cablecos have massive leverage over tivo because of these integration issues. There's hope that the FCC cablecard mandate will open up the cable service for proper integration. I hear that tivo is a year away from bringing a 2 tuner cablecard box to market because they're waiting on cablecos to settle on the next generation of the standard. It seems obvious that the cablecos will drag their feet on that. Tivo was able to work out a deal with DirecTV and the dtv integrated tivos are great (although the HD box is very expensive). Unfortunately, it appears that dtv wants to build their own DVRs. It's a shame because the tivo has an unparalleled "user experience", IMHO.

[ElJefe]

Unfortunately, it appears that dtv wants to build their own DVRs. It's a shame because the tivo has an unparalleled "user experience", IMHO.
DirecTV isn't about to get rid of their TiVo boxes any time soon. They know the following things about their TiVo boxes:

1. The churn rate for subscribers with the integrated TiVo boxes is just about zero. Once somebody becomes a DirecTV subscriber with an DirecTiVo, they stay DirecTV subscribers and continue to pay $40 a month continuiously.

2. DirecTiVo boxes do a great deal to attract new subscribers to DirecTV through incredibly great word-of-mouth.

3. DirecTiVos currently constitute roughly 25% of all new DirecTV units being subscribed.

Rupert Murdoch and his minions know that you don't mess with that sort of terrifically good customer satisfaction. But why is DirecTV looking to build their own DVR? Simple. No matter how great the customer satisfaction numbers are for DirecTiVo units, they're still paying a fee to TiVo on a continuing basis, based on the number of DirecTiVo subscribers. Even if the customer satisfaction numbers on the inhouse DVR isn't as good as for DirecTiVos, it's less money that they're paying out to a third party.

At the end of the day, expect DirecTV to offer both DirecTiVos and the DVR that they develop inhouse. In other words, it's a diversification, not a replacement. In fact, you might even see a situation where DirecTV looks to stick it to DISH and the cable companies by offering their own DVR without a monthly fee as their "entry-level" DVR and the DirecTiVo (with a monthly fee) as the "premium" DVR.

[ElJefe]

Oh, to answer the initial question:

I've got a standalone Series 1 TiVo unit, which I bought when I still had DISH. No, it was not an integrated unit, but the fact that TiVo was (and is) so much better than just about any other DVR out there in terms of user interface and flexibility that it more than made up for the lack of integration.

And in fact, I came to look at the lack of integration as a positive, when I switched from DISH to DirecTV. All I had to do is run the guided setup again and that was that. All my existing programs remained and the unit just started recording off of a different box.

Although my standalone TiVo unit is now in the bedroom and is now the secondary unit in my house (behind the DirecTiVo in the den), I still wouldn't think of getting rid of it because of its flexibility, since I can use it with DirecTV or DISH or cable or antenna, and because of its capacity, which I expanded to around 160 hours.

[MikeLastort2]

I switched from DirecTV to Voom because I couldn't get a direct line of site to DirecTV's HDTV satellite - too many trees to get a decent signal.

As soon as I heard that Voom had been sold to Dish Network, I switched to Comcast cable and got their DVR box. I love the fact that it records HDTV programs as HDTV and that I can record two progams at the same time without having to have two coax lines run into the house.

[Foosinho]

I have one of the old Series 1 DirecTiVos, and Dustin is right - I will NEVER switch from DirecTV as long as that TiVo continues to work. I love it. I chose TiVo because, at the time, the software was head-n-shoulders above the competition. I bet the gap has closed, but the TiVo software is so excellent I have a hard time imagining that the alternatives measure up.

I intend to switch to MythTV some day, if just so I can get all the nifty "integrated" media features that would provide, but I'm not in any hurry as long as my hacked Series 1 DirecTiVo continues to function.

[Dante]

At the end of the day, expect DirecTV to offer both DirecTiVos and the DVR that they develop inhouse.

DirecTV's contract with TiVo runs out in 2007 and they've already stated that they will not renew it and will not offer any DirecTivo boxes after that. Starting in 2007 DirecTV will only offer their dvr box. Not sure if or how it will affect those that already have DirecTiVo already.

[ElJefe]

DirecTV's contract with TiVo runs out in 2007 and they've already stated that they will not renew it and will not offer any DirecTivo boxes after that. Starting in 2007 DirecTV will only offer their dvr box. Not sure if or how it will affect those that already have DirecTiVo already.
It's two years out. Why should I put any stock in what they're saying now?

When all is said and done, DirecTV knows that TiVo helps drive new subscriptions and helps to reduce churn. Meanwhile, they're currently selling a DirecTiVo units by the tens and hundreds of thousands. Sure, they'll put out press releases now to make TiVo sweat and to force a better licensing deal starting in 2007, but I remain somewhat less than convinced that when 2007 rolls around, they're going to completely drop TiVo.

If 2007 rolls around and DirecTV completely abandons TiVo, then I suppose you can resurrect this thread and laugh at me.

[Neubill]

...I switched to Comcast cable and got their DVR box. I love the fact that it records HDTV programs as HDTV and that I can record two progams at the same time without having to have two coax lines run into the house.

Swwwwweeeeeeeeeet!
During the last World Cup, I had both Charter and Dish Network so I could record all the matches. So when the next World Cup comes around, I can use this box and not miss matches, specifically when group play concludes as matches are played simultaneously?

[Foosinho]

With a dual-tuner PVR (I have the dual-tuner TiVo), during the World Cup you can record more than you can actually watch. No joke - since it was before I expanded my hard drive, I had to delete games on a daily basis during the group phase that I never got to watching.

[ElJefe]

With a dual-tuner PVR (I have the dual-tuner TiVo), during the World Cup you can record more than you can actually watch. No joke - since it was before I expanded my hard drive, I had to delete games on a daily basis during the group phase that I never got to watching.
After I expanded the HDs in my dual-tuner DirecTiVo and my standalone, I was able to record almost every single game off Direct Kick and not have to worry about running out of space.

It was glorious.

[Foosinho]

I expanded my drive, and since then I've got movies that have been on there for nearly 18 months that I haven't gotten to watching, and I'm not the least bit worried about running out of space. I've still got hours upon hours upon hours of suggestions.

I love the free preview weekends. I'm set to TiVo more than 10 movies I haven't seen this weekend during the Showtime preview.