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Dilemma: TiVo or Dish Network DVR
I’ve decided to join the 21st century and watch TV when it’s convenient for me, not when the TV tells me to. The problem here is in deciding which route to go: TiVo or Dish Network DVR. There are pros and cons to each, and I can’t quite decide which way to go (I had gone 40gig TiVo, but I had to return it to Best Buy. Another story for another day.). Here are some pros and cons:
TiVo pros and cons:
- Pro: From all accounts I’ve heard, a better service — season pass, name based searching, programming your TiVo from online. The latter sounds really handy — I can tell my TiVo from work to record something I forgot to program, and it will.
- Pro: Export to computer with TiVo to Go. This is a huge plus — 40gigs or 80gigs of recording space will fly by quickly. It’d be great to be able to export to my computer and burn it to DVD.
- Pro: Install it myself. I don’t have to wait for the wacky schedules of anyone but my own.
- Con: Install it myself. I already did it once, and it was a pain in the toosh. Installing again (I had to return my unit) is not that appealing.
- Con: More expensive. $200ish receiver, dealing with rebates, and $12.95 per month vs. $50 install and $5.98 per month.
- Con: Single tuner. One show at a time.
Dish Network DVR pros and cons:
- Pro: The Dish people said I’d get a 625 model receiver. 100 gigs and two tuners, so you can record one show while watching another. Very nice.
- Pro: Cheaper. $50 install and $5.98 per month.
- Pro: Fewer boxes. It’s not a huge deal, but the DVR and Dish Network receiver are in one unit — saving some space.
- Pro: Someone else can worry about the installation.
- Con: The interface isn’t as good, from what I’ve heard. I like nice interfaces.
- Con: A big negative — transfering files from the DVR to PC for DVD burning is a pain.
- Con: Reading reports on the web of lots of hardware failures. Seems the consensus is the TiVo unit is a better manufactured unit.
Right now, I lean toward Dish. What would you do?
Tue March 14th, 2006 3:39 pm
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I have a Tivo DVR and would recommend it over the DISH unit because of the interface alone. The DISH interface is so hard to move around in and clunky that it makes to work to watch television. Just my 2 cents
I’m a huge TiVo fan. It’s the coolest thing since TV itself. I would recommend it highly.
My folks have a cable-company DVR with 2 tuners. They use the hell out of both of them, watching one thing and recording the competing program for later. My dad even starts watching the recorded program during the commercials of the live program. How much competing programming do you watch? Don’t forget about sports.
‘Net based programming for TiVo is cool. You need to ask yourself how forgetful you’re going to be. It would suck to have a DVR if you won’t be able to program it for the important stuff.
Do you want to DVD record to save space or to actually have DVD’s? The 100gig capacity of DISH means you won’t need to go through the clunky PC transfer process as often as a 40 or 80 gig TiVo.
Transferability - You can take your TiVo with you whereever you move to, right? DISH requires the DISH service. Will you be able to cancel DISH if you move out, or have enough $ saved to get a TiVo. (Because I guarantee once you have a DVR you’ll never want to go back.)
Do you know about changing quality settings? My parents’ DVR has a pretty low quality, and you can’t adjust it. Does TiVo or DISH let you change the resolution/compression for more space or better pictures?
That’s just what occurred to me. As long as your unit works, I think you’ll be very satisfied with whichever one you buy. It’s a neat technology.
Do you know about changing quality settings? My
parents’ DVR has a pretty low quality, and you can’t adjust it. Does TiVo or DISH let you change the resolution/compression for more space or better pictures?
Yes, the TiVo lets you set the quality to several levels (I believe they’re Basic, Medium, High, and Best). I pretty much record everything on Medium with no problems whatsoever. Occasionally, on Basic, you’ll notice some resolution issue in really busy or action-oriented sequences, but Medium seems to be just great.
This may be too late but sorry, I’ve been out of town.
1) Tivo rebate - I actually got mine! It was, I think, 3 months after I sent it in, but as you said on some other post here, that’s money I’d already written off, and presto! $150 in the mail. Sweet.
2) We currently have Tivo and DirecTV (got Tivo first, then had to get DirecTV b/c the cable here at the apt. complex S.U.C.K.E.D.), which is to say, we currently have DirecTV and the disconnected Tivo box sitting around looking lonely. As in, they didn’t work with each other. Maybe greater minds than this one can figure out how to convert YPbPr-or-whatever-it’s-called connections to “regular” Yellow/red/white connections, but not me. A pain in the ass.
3) Tivo is VERY friendly to navigate. And the noises it makes will make you giggle (BaD Radio).
4) Installation of Tivo is a bitch. When I took it back to the in-laws’ house to reconnect due to the compatibility issue in #2 above, I went through all the stupid steps and still it didn’t work. I think it’s the phone cords, but I fear the 2 moves of the box may have fucked the thing up, in which case, shitty engineering, my friend. Unfortunately, this was the day before we were going out of town, and I’ve only been back about 5 hours (and don’t want to spend them at the in-laws, thank you very much).
5) I never got around to setting up the web-based crap, but I intend to someday when I have a bunch of boxes that FREAKING WORK TOGETHER, and it’ll be cool, I just know it.
6) Unless you have an antenna to receive broadcast channels, you can’t record one show while watching another. Which leaves you dumping the rapidly-shittifying Grey’s Anatomy for the promising new HBO series, Big Love.
7) Dude, T.O.?!? What does the Hardline have to say about that mess?
Ahhh .. The great dilemma of our time… What is the best way to record TV…? Tivo or the DVR. I feel like I have been here before. Wait! I have I had the same problem. In short my own question was about HDTV. It was HD tivo vs HD dvr. I came to a simple answer. The HD dvr my cable company provide was way less expensive than the HD Tivo by leaps and bounds (at decision time the HDTV directv tivo was about 499.99). Since that time I have come to miss the bleep bleep bleep of tivo, the speed and accuracy of its recording. I miss it so much that I have since ordered a tivo to replace the less expensive cable company dvr. So if it’s between standard Tivo with the home media features and a standard cable or dish based DVR c’mon man you must be crazy. To put it simply Tivo is crack, plain Dvr’s are wack. I would like to thank Whitney Houston for the inspiration to write such a bad quote.
Man, you guys are great. Thanks for all the tips. I weighed everything and went TiVo. So far, so good!
Dish single (I do not know about the 2 tuner unit)is a pice of crap. They are having a system wide problem for about 4-6 months. They can not fix. They also want $119 to upgrade you to a 2 tuner system. I would have to pay them to fix THEIR
I have Dish Network, the installer said I could put recorded programs on DVD. I finally buy a DVD burner, attempt to set it up and after calling Customer Service, I’m told “Dish won’t allow this”. It has to be possible, but HOW?
Additionally, I spoke with an I.T. friend of mind ,and the way he circumvented the system, he took out the hard drive of the Dish Network DVR and replaced it with another without all their firewall, anti-hacking, rules built in and he was able to plug his DVR directly into his DVD burner. I have not tried this myself, try it, it may work.
It sucks that TiVo has single tuner..I would rather go with Dish DVR.