Tivo or DishNetwork DVR???

[Anke]

I currently have DishNetwork DVR - so far I've been quite happy with it, but the modem broke - now they are charging me $5/month for programming updates. they're sending me a new DVR - however - it appears that I won't be able to copy the recorded movies on the old DVR to the new DVR - I was told to buy an external harddrive and copy the shows. Besides the cost of the external harddrive, Disknetwork would charge a one time fee $39.99 for this feature. That is so typical.

What I like about DVR with DN is that I can record 2 shows and watch another show at the same time.

Now I've been thinking to switch to Tivo, but know practically nothing about it. I googled many sites - but they are old - posting are between 2004 and 2007.

What are the pro's and con's between Dishnetwork DVR and Tivo?

 

[Highbar]

I wouldn't worry about the one time fee or the cost of picking up an external hard drive. If you get a Tivo not only do you have to buy the Tivo itself you also have to pay for the service, now you could do the one time lifetime thing but that's still like $400 ontop of the cost of the Tivo.

I just took a quick look at the Tivo website and the only one that works with satellite is the non-HD entry level one. So, if you have HD I wouldn't even think about getting a Tivo.

In my opinion Tivo was great when it came out because most companies didn't have a DVR but now everyone does. I wouldn't worry about going with the Tivo and just get the external hard drive, then you have a hard drive incase you need it too.

 

[Hi Ho]

I had a Tivo when I had basic cable. When I got a new TV I switched to Dish for HD and never looked back. TiVo was fine and FAR better than cable company DVR's but I like the Dish DVR better. You can actually record three things at once if you have an antenna connected. External hard drive functionality is superior to Tivo. Though there is a $30 one time fee, you can connect and disconnect drives as you please. With Tivo a drive must be paired to a particular Tivo unit and cannot be easily disconnected. That's not to mention the fact that Tivo boxes don't work with satellite. The only one that does is the standard definition series two and you have to connect it to a satellite box and use an IR blaster to change channels and it can record only one thing at a time in that conffiguration.

 

[Warpdrv]

Agreed.... I am extremely happy with the Dish DVR, and adding in the external HD was a nice blessing.... I could save some long time favorite HD movies for playback later - I especially like that for the HD concerts that are always on Sunday Evenings, lots of good material....

Shop around, but I was told to get one of these Fantom GreenDrive 1TB and it works great for less then $100 shipped
http://www.buy.com/prod/fantom-greendrive-1tb-usb-2-0-and-esata-external-hard-drive-2-year/q/loc/101/208503758.html

 

[allargon]

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily get that drive or anything else from buy.com, as they're quite shady. BTW, w/ the 722k DVR, you can record FOUR HD programs at once provided you use both antenna hookups. In fairness, most of the conflicts occur during primetime. So one can record "Chuck" and "Gossip Girl" in full bitrate OTA HD along with two HD programs from the satellite. AT&T U-verse can't even deliver four HD programs to an entire house at once.

 

[Hi Ho]

Check out Newegg.com for external drives. They have a Seagate 1TB drive for $119 with free shipping.

 

[Warpdrv]

Yeah, I wouldn't necessarily get that drive or anything else from buy.com, as they're quite shady

not sure how buy.com is shady, I've been using them for years with no troubles, but I only posted the link for the info on the drive, it was the first pic I found so that was what I used. I would trust anyone would be smart enough to shop around - like I stated in my first post

 

[cjsiv]

I'm very skeptical of cnet's reviews, but they have nothing but praise for the 722. I have it and love it. Seen some tivo at my buddy's along with his comcast dvr. My brother has Directv and his dvr is mediocre. The dishnetwork dvr is top notch in my opinion. Just consider this a bump in the road and move on. Also love turbohd bronze with dvr and locals for $39. Killer deal.