I've been using the Tivo Series 3 for some time now, and I have to agree with just about everything the original poster said. Tivo is not a bad product, but, overall, Dish DVR's (especially the ViP's, but including the 522 & 625) are superior. However, to be fair Tivo does have a few things I like:
1. The menus do look prettier with the colors and the movement of the searchlights and light bulbs flashing.
2. Tivo broadband content is MUCH farther along with MUCH better content available for download including moves and TV shows from Amazon.com, a really huge selection. Quite a lot of FREE content available. I've season passed a few of the FREE broadband content and enjoy viewing them when they are downloaded. The downloads are very efficient and the PQ is surprisingly good. The box can do several things at once without any noticeable glitches and seems sufficiently powered.
3. OTA PQ is slightly superior. This is the THX certified Series 3, and this noticeable superior PQ, even when compared to Tivo HD has been documented on the web. Tivo OTA on the Series 3 does look noticeably superior to OTA on the 722 (222 looks better than 722).
4. The display has red record lights for each tuner and displays the title of the show on the box. I LOVE THIS FEATURE. It is nice to know what is REALLY recording as I have had to turn the TV on to check this on Dish DVR's. Dish, Please add this feature. It is GREAT!
5. The Series 3 black remote. It has a nice low level back light and the buttons "click" and is over all better constructed and more solid than the Dish remotes, however, Dish remotes are still more intuitive and easier to operate because the same buttons are used for more than one function.
6. Channel logos. Not a deal breaker, but nice to see the logs instead of looking at the 5 letter abbreviation.
However, the above just isn't enough to choose a Tivo over a Dish ViP DVR. Here are the things I don't like (or miss--I still subscribe to Dish using ViP 722) on the Tivo Series3"
1. No Picture-in-picture. You can jump between the two tuners, but that's it. I shouldn't have to explain the great advantages of picture-in-picture, so I won't
2. Swapping between tuners will always reset the other tuner to LIVE TV. In other words, if you are watching tuner one delayed and switch to tuner 2, when you switch back to tuner 1 it will have advanced to live--or dumped the the delayed portion. I depend on the Dish DVR's continuing to play in the delayed mode even when swapping tuners.
3. No picture and sound in the menus. Man I HATE the loss of that feature. How annoying to check on your planned recording and lose the pic and sound.
4. Access to menus, sub menus and options are more cumbersome than Dish DVR's. You HAVE to scroll your way down (no numbers for quick access to sub menus), then scroll right, then scroll down, then scroll, right, ooops! Scroll left, to go back, then scroll down again, then scroll right--you get the idea.
5. More confusing, inadequate, DVR recordings list ("Now Playing") and timer list display. In general all Tivo menus are cumbersome compared to Dish DVR's, but even the information displayed on a single page is not nearly what you get on the Dish DVR, and it is easier on Dish to dig deeper if necessary.
6. Both Live and Grid guide are less intuitive and not as good as Dish EPG. They much to be desired. The Tivo Grid guide is really TV Guide's much hated EPG. Dish EPG is more intuitive and you can do more from there than with Tivo.
7. Only a 30 minute buffer for each tuner. Dish has a one-hour buffer for each tuner.
8. Can't create your own label for OTA digitals. Tivo only displays OTA's as DT2, DT3, etc. with main call letters. The nice thing on Dish is that I can rename 4.4 KNBC as USpt for Universal Sports or any other service name.
9. No display of space time remaining on HDD. This is a big pain as the Tivo will frighten you with icons warning that the show you just recorded will be erased VERY soon. I guess I don't mind holding recordings until I manually delete them, but I need to know how much time is left so I know what to get rid of or release from protection.
10. Horribly inferior external HDD solution. Let's not address all the Tivo hacks out there, there is officially only ONE external HDD that Tivo officilly supports: the WD 500GB My DVR expander with the eSATA as the only connection. You are limited to ONE and ONLY ONE external HDD that will be "married" to that one box--forever! It is designed to be connected to that one DVR AT ALL TIMES, not even powered off. If you attempt to disconnect the external HDD you will be warned that all content will no longer be accessible. There are some solutions should you experience a power failure, but once you physically disconnect the external HDD, you've lost all your recordings on it. You are welcome to reconnect it, but it will load as a new external HDD with no recordings on it. So, no spanning recordings over as many external HDD's as you wish, like on Dish with its more reasonable restriction of only moving between boxes on the same account. On the up side, the recordings on the external HDD are integrated with all the recordings on the internal HDD, so there is no having to access the external HDD separately. All recordings on both drives are integrated on the same "Now Playing" DVR recordings list.
11. Monthly fee. This is the big deal breaker and now that the TR-50 (now the My Pal DVR--is that not the new name?) will soon be available, bye bye monthly fee.
I'm not picking on Tivo, but their time of superiority died quite some time ago. Surprisingly it is the once sparse Dish Network (always the ugly sister through the 1990's of the what were more slick Direct TV and Tivo) that now reigns supreme with its better design, better features, better intuitiveness, and greater capacity and good external HDD solution that puts the ViP series at the top, just as CNET affirms as their editor's choice.
I'm dying for reviews of the 722K and the My TV Pal DVR, from others on this board, I mean. I hope this all was of interest.
