Comcast Motorola DVR or TIVO

[Steve Mackay]

I'm moving and our new home owners association has comcast cable. I can get the digital classic service for $9.99. I'm moving from Dish Network and a DVR 522 which I love. So the question should I just use the Motorola DVR that comcast offers or go with the TIVO.

The Dish 522 has 2 receivers in 1. I have one connected to my bedroom and one to the living room. I can record 2 shows while watching 2 previously recorded shows. Anything I record on the bedroom receiver I can watch in the living room. It's handy I don't have to change rooms to watch something I've recorded. I can control both DVR's from either room also.

I understand that Comcast DVR's can't talk to eachother so I'm already leaning to Tivo. I hear Tivo's can talk to eachother. So if I buy 2 tivo's then can I watch something I recorded on tivo 1 on the second tivo in a different room.

How do they talk to eachother? How long will it take to transfer a show from Tivo 1 to Tivo 2? I assume it does it through my DSL or Cable internet. If so will it reduce the bandwidth for my computer if my wife is transferring TV shows between tivo units?

Lets say I have Tivo 1 recording a show but I have a conflict in the schedule and have 2 shows scheduled for the same time. Will the Tivo realize this, call up my second Tivo unit and tell it to record the second show?

Also can I control Tivo unit 2 from Tivo unit 1? i.e. I'm watching TV in the livingroom (Tivo 1) and I realize I want to record something else on a different channel can I use my controller for Tivo 1 to tell Tivo 2 in the bedroom to record the other show or do I have to get off my fat ass and hike to the bedroom to set up the second Tivo?

Hmmm for all it's troubles at the start of the Dishnetwork 522 it certainly has ended up being a great unit. It can do everything I've just asked about Tivo here. I wish I could take my 522 with me!

Cheers

Steve

 

[rad]

Since cable companies are moving more and more channels to the digital tier you're probably going to end up having to use a cable STB along with your Tivo. When I was trying that a couple of years ago with Replay DVR's it was REALLY a pain changing channels since you had to tell the Replay what channel you wanted then the Replay had to tell the cable box to change channels, VERY SLOW. Also, since the Tivo needs to encode the signal into MPEG2 (that's already after the cable STB has uncompressed the digital channel) the PQ even at the highest/best quality setting suffered a bit. Lastly, if you use the cable companies STB they will record any DD 5.1 audio which the Tivo won't do.

On thing to keep in mind, Tivo and Comcast have a deal where they're supposed to put the Tivo interface on the Motorola box sometime next year. So you might just want to wait and not spend the money on purchasing standalone Tivo's now and see how that works out for you.