[zippy216]

I am thinking about dropping our comcast cble and additional Tivo subscription and changing to Dish network. The Dish network website is lacking in information abot their dvr service. Can anyone tell me if Dish is similar or not to Tivo, such as season Pass Manager?

 

[elbodude]

I am thinking about dropping our comcast cble and additional Tivo subscription and changing to Dish network. The Dish network website is lacking in information abot their dvr service. Can anyone tell me if Dish is similar or not to Tivo, such as season Pass Manager?

I used to have a DireTivo and now use Dish DVR. Dish DVR is the closest thing to a Tivo you will find. So close, in fact, they are being sued by Tivo. The weakest part of the Dish DVR is the search functions, but it is a great DVR none the less. The Dish Pass is not as user friendly as the Tivo season pass. It does the job, just takes time to get used to it.

 

[FastNOC]

You can set your timers (recordings) to record any of the future episodes of a series. Similar to a season pass.

You can also set the DVR to record any channel if an episode comes up. It's not quite as intuitive as the TiVO version, but they're very close.

You will be happy with the change, won't take much time at all until you're comfortable with it.

Ironically the thing I miss the most is the beeps so I know i did something

 

[zippy216]

My wife is absolutely in love with the season pass manager. We just added a second hd box and comcast is charging us 10.99 for the additional box. I am planning on adding a third hdtv which I will need a third box for. with an additional 10.99 fee. I think I can get 2 hddvr's (vip722's hopefully) and an hd box for the bedroom and run 4 televisions off the 3 boxes. I htink it will be cheaper than what I pay for comcast and tivo subscripions. not to mention I will get all channels in digital. As long as she can get past the difference in programming the dvr's that is.

 

[inkahauts]

DVRs all work with the same basic functions of being able to record series in a season pass manager type way... they all use slightly different names, and may finction slightly differently, but they will all accomplish the same things.... Just give yourself a week or two to adjust and you'll be fine. Frankly, from what I've read and used... You might find Dish or Directvs DVRs far better than any Tivo. I know I do.... and know others who feel the same way. Frankly, I think Tivo is overrated. And I can't imagine you not receiving better quality TV on cable than dish... for less money...

 

[kennedyj]

I'm a long time TiVo user who recently added Dish. I like the Dish 722 DVR, but there is a bit of a learning curve in the transition away from TiVo. The biggest obstacle is learning the button layout on the new remote. It's a bit intimidating coming from the comfort of the "peanut". Once you get past that, just remember two things:

Dish Timer = TiVo Season Pass
Dish Pass = TiVo WishList

Good Luck.

 

[jkane]

Dish doesn't have thumbs up and down. No automatic recording of stuff you didn't know about.

Dish is quite a bit "faster" in responding to remote clicks. TiVo has been getting slower with each new release. It used to be snappy. Not so much anymore.

Dish has better quality sound and video than the Series 2 which we have. I can't speak for one of the newer model TiVo's. Not sure if they have optical 5.1 surround or not.

Over all, they both have their strong points and bad points. Both are great and I like both. My wife likes the TiVo better. I like the 722 better. I like HD and surround sound. She likes reliability and ease of use.

 

[Taco Lover]

I'll echo what everyone else said, pretty much. I cam from DirecTiVos to Dish 622/722, and I don't miss TiVo at all.

Best thing to do, honestly, is to find someone or a retailer that can demo it for you.

 

[jkane]

I remembered one more this morning. Tivo seems to take less time changing channels between recordings. What I mean, is that Dish seems to cut off the first 20 seconds and the last 20 seconds of EVERY recording. Tivo only misses a couple of seconds. This is related to back to back recordings.

 

[slowmo]

Put it this way:

When I subscribed to cable and had upgraded to HD DVR service, I continued to keep my old SD Tivo connected / subscribed in order to use the wishlists and search functions just to identify programs that I would manually set to record using the crappy SA 8300 HD DVR provided by Charter cable. That's right - I paid a Tivo sub fee and a Charter DVR fee.

When we switched to Dish 2 years ago, I finally was able to turn off the old Tivo and we've been very satisfied with the functionality of the the 622.

As noted above, the 622 is not quite as slick as the traditional Tivo interface but it's dramatically better than the cable boxes and it basically gets the job done.

 

[Taco Lover]

I remembered one more this morning. Tivo seems to take less time changing channels between recordings. What I mean, is that Dish seems to cut off the first 20 seconds and the last 20 seconds of EVERY recording. Tivo only misses a couple of seconds. This is related to back to back recordings.

The default timer setting starts the recording 1 minute early and 1 minute late. You can adjust that too.

 

[jkane]

The default timer setting starts the recording 1 minute early and 1 minute late. You can adjust that too.

That was actually very irritating! With that set, you can't do back to back recordings at all if they are a minute longer than an hour! I set it to 0 minutes to disable that "feature". Just because they designed a slow buffer does not mean I want to not be able to record a show from 7-8 PM and then another show from 8-9 PM.

Yes, the 722 has two receivers and will handle that single event OK. But, if I want to record 2 shows back to back, then the extra minute required to get all the shows makes it impossible.

Likely a minor issue, but setting expectations here. If you watch a lot of shows back to back and have lot's of conflicts to deal with, you need more recorders from dish to do what TiVo does quite well.

 

[Jim5506]

The default is set that way because the networks are moving their start and stop times around so you will be encouraged to watch live instead of time shifting.

 

[kstuart]

That was actually very irritating! With that set, you can't do back to back recordings at all if they are a minute longer than an hour! I set it to 0 minutes to disable that "feature". Just because they designed a slow buffer does not mean I want to not be able to record a show from 7-8 PM and then another show from 8-9 PM.

Yes, the 722 has two receivers and will handle that single event OK. But, if I want to record 2 shows back to back, then the extra minute required to get all the shows makes it impossible.

Likely a minor issue, but setting expectations here. If you watch a lot of shows back to back and have lot's of conflicts to deal with, you need more recorders from dish to do what TiVo does quite well.

The 612/622/722 have two satellite tuners (and one OTA tuner as well). When you have back to back shows like Chuck and Heroes on NBC, you need to extend the end of the first show and the beginning of the second show. This makes it use one tuner for one show and one tuner for the other show. If there is another low priority event at the same time as the second show, then you need to extend the first show by 5 minutes. Any extension less than 5 minutes is deemed by the DVR to be less important than missing a show.

There are some stickies in the Forums here with more details and tricks about the DVRs.