DVR choices

With our recent move, my wife and I decided to go with Comcast’s cable tv/internet/phone bundle. With this, we opted to include the DVR. We had been using Tivo and for the most part, really liked it. We figured we’d give Comcast a trial spin and have decided not to go back to Tivo. Here are the factors that went into our decision to accecpt Comcast as our DVR tool (for now, anyway):

Comcast Cons:
1. Our DVR machine has serious performance issues. Very often (when it’s recording something, as far as I can tell) the playback controls are extremely sluggish. All the commands will stack up in the netherworld for about 15-20 seconds and then execute in quick succession.

2. After fast-forwarding or rewinding, hitting play doesn’t do the skip back a few seconds thing that Tivo does. That was really nice.

3. Our Comcast DVR schedule of shows to record has somehow decided that it will skip some numbers, repeat some number, and not let us reorder priorities. Our list of priorities is currently something like this, “1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 7, 10, 11, 12, 12, 14, etc.”. If we try to move 11 to a higher priority, it might let us move it up to 10, but no further. I’m guessing we need to reset the sucker and start from scratch. Maybe we need a firmware update?

4. The darned thing can’t tell if an episode to be recorded is the exact same episode that it already recorded. Even if we haven’t watched it yet and it’s still sitting there in our bin. Come on, how hard could this be to fix?

if (this_episode == an_episode_already_in_the_bin) then DO_NOT_RECORD;

I do not want to save 5 episodes of Globetrekker visits Ukraine.

5. No “boo-doop” audio cues. I liked those.

6. Our Tivo hardware was becoming outdated. We could have bought a new Tivo3, but those are pretty pricey.

7. I’m sure there are other issues that I’m overlooking. I’m very sure.

Comcast Pros:
1. Tells use how much drive space is currently used. I have no idea why our Tivo didn’t tell us this little, but so very reassuring piece of feedback.

2. We have the option for a series recording to record all episodes on any channel. This is particularly useful for the syndicated sitcoms that we like. We Tivo, we had to set a season pass for each individual channel, even for the same show.

3. Complete integration with the content source. This is the big one. There are so many advantages to this technical feature that I’m willing to forgive the multitude of usability flaws. Because the cable decoder is integrated in the DVR, there’s no delay as the Tivo IR-beams channel changes to the cable box. We get all sorts of On Demand content, much of which is free. We can record 2 premium channels simultaneously - this is impossible with a Tivo, even with 2 tuners, because there’s only 1 decoder. And that’s why we’re willing to put up with the Comcast DVR.