once again TWC vs. D*

[tothemax]

A dude I work with just got his TWC HD/tivo box. It can record 20 hours of hd programming or 40 hours of regular programming. Please someone tell me why I am staying with D*. I have always been against TWC but you can't argue with the on demand and the equipment???Can you???:confused:

[jkane]

Because the TW DVR is NOT a TiVo!  Does it have dynamic season passes and wishlists?

The feed is not really 100% digital.

The number of channels is much less (although probably irrelevent based on which you would watch.)

Cable companies had the monopoly for too many years and never cared until there was compitition.  This is too little way too late.

[Gregg Lengling]

If I were to buy a new TV then I would have only one choice....buy the 94 series of Toshibas so I could use their Symbio...16 hours of HD or 80 hours of SD and it has TIVO like features and no monthly charge.  Allows you to record OTA or Digital Cable.

[summerfun]

Originally posted by jkane
Because the TW DVR is NOT a TiVo!  Does it have dynamic season passes and wishlists?
.

TWC does not have wishlist. Not sure if I care. But it does have season pass as far as I understand what season pass is.

DVR can choose any show to record any time, any day, any channel, new or rerun, start early, end late or any combination of above. If a show changes regular time or day or channel, the programming follows the show.

Please explain how this is different from TIVO season pass?

I think the biggest weakness of TWC is the ability to search for a program. You can only search by the first letter of the title. TIVO has TWC beat there.

[tothemax]

If you wanted to go that route you might as well buy the RCA Scenium drs7000n. It is a dvd player / DVR unit. It also allows you store dvd movies, music, and photos to it;s hard drive. The DVR portion also does not have a monthly fee.

[gparris]

The TWC DVR has been very good for the most part and I have 3 of them, one for each HDTV set.
summerfun is right by that, with the exception of the complete spelling of the title, which Tivo has this feature, the TWC HD DVR is wonderful and there are no long setups, purchase of equipment or phone jacks to concern yourself about.
You also have a picture-in-picture feature Tivo does not have that I, for one, have taken to as a useful feature.
All you have to do is either have TWC deliver one to your house for an easy install or you can pick one up at the local TWC office.
Then you plug it one cable line into a cable jack and the outlet plug for power, let it boot up and you are HD recording!:)
As for so-called digital vs analogue on those 2-99 channels, of which there are only 60-70 left on their system, it depends on what you like to watch. If you watch network, chances are it will be the NBC, CBS, PBS, ABC or FOX in HD and you get them with the most basic of service. If you watch some other "cable" type channels, they very well could be already in the digital realm like Discovery HD, too.
It depends on what you watch.
I have seen the high-compressed D* images on my neighbours' HDTVs and see very little difference in the TWC analogue versions of Sci-Fi and USA lately, so if this is "digital" on D*, don't let your move to TWC for the HD DVR recordings stop you.
Those TV sets other forum members mention are nice, but they don't offer the ease of the TWC HD DVR or the picture-in-picture option or "I-Control" you get with TWC, either...but that is something you will have to wrestle with as it is your choice, no one else's... but since you asked....!;)

[mhz40]

Originally posted by jkane
Cable companies had the monopoly for too many years and never cared until there was compitition.  This is too little way too late.

Sorry, I have to start off with a few off-topic points to this anemic off-topic response...
It was the cable companies that developed the market in the first place.  For better or for worse, without cable, there wouldn't have been a pay-tv market for satellite startups to go after.
During the first 25 years or so of cable, most systems were very small and locally owned... thus no huge amounts of capital were available.  Increasing bandwidth and plowing in more cable is how cable grew at the time.
It was the mid 80's when much consolidation occurred.  During this time, systems were bought, sold and traded like Chicklets.  For many years, 'big cable monopolies' were paying down the debt acquired from this activity.  Some interpret this as 'not caring', others on Wall Street may have viewed it differently (rest assure, your D* companies care what The Street thinks about them too...).
During the past 6-8 years, cable has completely upgraded all their plant to hybrid fiber-coax systems aggressively deployed new technologies including mpeg; two-way services like hi-speed data and phone; as well as video-on-demand.  They have also deployed SD & HD DVR's and have delved heavily into HD, including the soon-to-be-released HD VOD service.  Clearly, this is not 'too little, too late'... since many technologies used today simply weren't around in the mid-80's.

Getting back on-topic:
In reality, both options lead to what we all want ... decent programming choices.  The choice is simply up to the individual.  IMHO, monthly fees are so close; it isn't worth the effort to figure the difference.
If I had D* and some serious money invested in receivers etc... I'd probably stick with it until something blew up on me... then it would be time to re-analyze the options out there.  Who knows, by then D* could have 80 HD channels and cable would have only 20...my decision would be easy.
However, if I wanted HD-DVR right now, I'd switch and save hundreds of bucks out-of-pocket by not buying an HD Tivo.

[PWFD81]

I have also looked at making the change to TWC from DTV.  I live up here in Port Washington and do not have a antenna on my home.  Not going to happen.  This makes some OTA MKE networks hard to get.  Some not at all.  We watch a lot of TV in our home and the 2-100 not in digital with TWC is a real big deal to me.  I have friends that have TWC and channle 3 is TBS.  The quality is sooo bad it looks like you need to adjust a antenna.  For this reason I find it's better to stay with a Sat company for the all digital images.  Everything looks good in HD but we are not at the point where everything we watch is in HD.  TBS, SCI FI, USA and many others are not in digital.   I don't want to watch my TV with any grain in it.  If TWC could get this issue fixed they may have something for all of us.

T

[borghe]

between wishlists, inability to search, and the fact that I have 63 hours of HD storage, that is enough for me to stick with D*.

I won't even get into the fact that I have caller id through my Tivo as well as video extraction of HD and SD shows.

If you really don't care and just want an overglorified VCR (ok, I kid...), the DVR will do just fine for you. If you want far and away the best without any question, HD-Tivo is the only box that can claim that title. as simple as that.

20 hours of HD.. yikes.. I would have that filled up in like 3 days..

[PWFD81]

yea, but $1000 for HD Tivo!  No thanks!!

TWC offers ony 20 hours of HD DVR but 7.95 per month.

[tothemax]

I do get a bit discouraged with D* sometimes though. Expecially when I read the post about having money invested in D* equipment. Is that how it is? I am in so deep with equipment that it would be foolish to switch to TWC. That sucks!. Also, my friend has the same tv as I do except it's a 46" instead of 55" like mine and his 2-100 channels look pretty good. I am not going to make the switch to TWC anytime soon but my mind gets closer to the change with every day that passes. $650-$1000 sure is alot to spend for HD-tivo

[borghe]

$7.95 plus $8.95 for the service (my service is waived with the premium package and if I have multiple receivers the Tivo is still only $5/month).

Not saying TWC will cost you $1000 anytime soon... but it will cost a few hundred dollars in a very short time that could easily be used to justify going with a better product. not to mention 20 hours.. let's not kid ourselves.. you guys are ok with it because you have no other choice... but 20 hours sucks...

just my 2¢

[Mags]

My HDTIvo does not have caller ID - how does yours do it?

[borghe]

it is hacked. the HD Tivo's modem is caller id capable.. you just need a program running on it like YAC or elseed to get the CID information and display it on the screen.

it is awesome

but your tivo needs to be hacked with bare minimum killhdinitrd. you technically could get away without needing anything beyond that (i.e. no network hardware) but it is much eaiser to do with telnet/network access to your Tivo.

[Mags]

I do consider myself computer literate... and I didn't understand I darn thing you said