Why TiVo?

codespy said:

Some people do not care about WHDVR, HD, TVApps, etc.

I introduced a HDVR2 to my mom & dad .

Click to expand...

Those were the biggest POC receivers on the market.

Software was good, the Hardware had nothing but Hardrive failures, powersupply failures. They were know as the 1-2 year life span receiver.

I had 3 of them and all had power supply issues and 2 of them went to weaknees to get their failed hardrives replaced.

I have 5 tivo receivers sitting in my closet right now with Hardware issues.
3 Hughes HDVR2's
1 samsung sir 4040
2 HR10-250 tivos

None are in working order.
This was only from 2004-2007
3 years 6 faulty receivers back when 1 DVR was only in the house.:lol:

The Directv/ Tivo's were not reliable receivers

The Directv Hr20's may have been buggy with their software issues, but many people still have them today with no issue with the Hardware.

I can see why it took over 5 years for Directv want anything to do with Tivo again.

Obviously, different people care about different things. For my wife and me, the key things we prefer about TiVo are:

1) Trickplay - TiVo is just very responsive to the basic commands of Stop, Play, FF, Rew, etc. When you push a remote button, the unit responds immediately. It's very easy to cue up exactly the position you want (e.g., when skipping commercials). This is something I do ten times an hour every time I watch a TV show, so it is important to me. Although the newer DirecTV DVRs are better than they used to be, I believe they still lag on this key dimension.

2) Smooth fast-forward - The first and second FF speeds on TiVo seem continuous fast-motion, rather than just skipping from frame to frame. This has two important consequences. First, it combines with the command-responsiveness I mentioned in #1 to make it easy to cue up a particular point in the recording. Second, it allows one to use the slowest FF speed to watch (typically sports) at 3x speed while still seeing what's going on. I find this very useful when I need to get through a sporting event in much less time.

(FWIW, I suspect that the TiVo advantage on #1 and #2 must be caused by some fundamental (possibly patented) technology choice TiVo made, e.g., about how the data is stored. Otherwise, I would have thought the DirecTV DVR and other competitors would have caught up by now. Also, with the THR22, TiVo gets better performance out of the same hardware.)

3) Season Pass reliability - I have less confidence that this is still a TiVo advantage, but I believe that TiVo's are better at recording what you want without either a) missing episodes or b) recording too many episodes. All it takes is a few misses to make this an important feature.

4) Simplicity - The truth is that my wife (and many other spouses, I expect) likes the simplicity of the TiVo, and doesn't want to change. I don't really blame her.

Of these factors, #1 is really the most important to us.

There is no doubt that the THR22 has several severe feature/function limitations relative to the latest DirecTV DVRs. It's just that we don't care about them, and we do very much care about the things I've listed above.

rmmccann said:

As someone who has never used a TiVo unit before, I'm kind of curious as to why some people prefer them over the standard DVRs? I am guessing it's something to do with features and software maturity, but I was hoping someone could lend some insight as to why they like their TiVo unit more than the other DVR DirecTV offers.

Kind of wondering if it would be something I would like myself.

Click to expand...

I can't compare it to the DirecTV DVRs since I've never used one, but I'm in the middle of a DirecTV switchover from DISH now and here's why I've chosen the TiVo unit:

1) Interface familiarity is a huge bonus -- I've been using the same TiVo Series 1 unit for more than ten years, several upgrades, across two different cable providers and two different satellite providers

2) I've wanted an HD TiVo a long time

3) I have only one TV so whole-home/multi-room viewing is completely irrelevant to me

4) I don't purchase PPV

5) I don't use any online streaming sites other than an occasional YouTube

All in all I'm 100% satisfied with the TiVo I bought 10 years ago, but for the missing HD.

The LNB on the old dish went out again and my Series 1 has been having a lot of trouble downloading programming updates, so it was time to just take the plunge and go DirecTV now that the THR22 is available. Without the THR22 I would have had Dish repair the LNB and kept paying non-contract, non-discounted prices.

I've still got the old DirecTV TiVos, SD only, but with larger hard drives installed. I'm looking into the HR-34 and HR-24 to upgrade my system.

From what I've been able to tell talking with people on the 34 and the 24, these DVRs do not have two of the features I use most on my old (and I mean OLD) TiVos--Season Passes and Wish Lists. Season passes allow you to record all shows of a certain name on a specific channel, and allow you to specify if you want first run only, or reruns too, etc, and how many total shows to keep at most. Then if the show changes times, or they broadcast an extra show on a different day, the TiVo still records it. You control priority if there are conflicts through the Season Pass Manager.

Wish Lists allow you to search on Actor, Director, Category, Keyword or Title. It will search across ALL channels. You can have it auto-record these, or use it to find specific shows to watch. For instance, if you follow Boston College hockey, you could put in a wish list with a key word of Boston College and category of hockey, and it would show you all the upcoming shows (and again, you could have it auto record these). These searches are saved once you build them.

So those are 2 things I like a lot about TiVo. I always have plenty of shows to choose from, without doing any sorting through schedules manually to find what I want to record. From what I've been able to tell, these features are not available on standard DVRs (or at least the DirecTV units). I think it has to do with the patents TiVo has, and that have been upheld in court.

I HOPE I'm wrong about this, especially the season pass part, because I really would like to get one of the DirecTV HR-34s. I'd love the 5 tuners and HD capability, but would not like to have to manually look through the guide to find what I want to record.