TiVo, a much-beloved technology with a precarious business position, may have a new lease on life, thanks to a new deal with the US’ #1 cable TV operator, Comcast. Under the deal, TiVo technology will power Comcast DVRs. Comcast and other cable firms have heretofore used shoddy TiVo knock-offs for their DVR offerings, so this new partnership should be of great benefit to both TiVo and Comcast customers.
Comcast charges $9.95 a month for their DVR Box, but then you ALSO need Digital Cable which at a minimum is $52.00
So, for me who uses Basic Cable (I’m not home that much) and pays about $25 for that, is $35 a month.
I’d rather buy a reconditioned TIVO for $99 (for the 80 hour version), and either buy a lifetime membership or pay the $13 a month to TIVO.
I can’t afford to pay over $100 a month for cable TV and Internet…
That’s ridiculous!
I’m looking at making one of my spare boxes with a TV Tuner Card and MythTV a DVR…
Whichever way I go, this deal won’t mean that much to me, as I won’t be getting a DVR from Comcast.
The big advantage of the DirecTV Tivo service is the dual tuners, which allows you to thwart TV program directors and record two shows that air simultaneously. I wonder if Comcast has any way of offering dual programming streams to compete with that? As for cost, the DirecTV Tivo service is like $6 (after you’ve bought the hardware for ~$99) on top of min $30-35 service. I agree, Al, a $100+ per month cable bill is a hard pill to swallow. The truth is, cable TV just keeps getting more expensive, seemingly without a commensurate improvement in service.
David – They _probably_ have a way. But the DirecTV/TiVo unit requires to input feeds (I have it and it is GREAT!!!). So if you only have one cable coming in (like most people) I don’t know how they will work that if at all.
All I can say is that once you have a two tuner TiVo and then going to one toner is like having somone steal a couple of wheels off your car so that you are trying to drive with just two. Not very nice at all.
With two tuners you can record two different shows while watching a pre-recorded show. Or watch one show live while recording another station.
It’s more than just rumor that DirecTV is coming out with their own non-TiVo DVR. I sent them a letter telling them that if they try to make me choose between DirecTV and TiVo, TiVo will win every time. I have no interest in another DVR no matter how great they say it is going to be.
I’ve got Comcast in Boston and have their Motorola DVR with dual tuners. I can record two things at once, watch something and record, etc.. The only thing that doesn’t work is PiP. It only takes one cable in. 120gig HDTV, every type of output.
that was a dumb move on their part.
Legitimate question – Does Motorola DVR have something like Season’s pass and KeyWords?
UltimateTV was an ultimate flop. That’s why the dropped it.
I’m in the Chicago suburbs and have a 2 tuner dvr
I had Comcast cable for my internet hookup for several years, which first started out as a partnership with @home, who went out of business.
Well, Comcast really should have allowed someone else to do the ISP stuff: they’re still just a cable TV company with having delusions of being an ISP. Who on earth would want to be forced to have Flash installed on a machine to look at your email over the web??? Yes, as stupid as it sounds, Comcast (as of the last time I used it) REQUIRED you to have Flash installed in order to access your email via their web interface. On top of that, it took them 3 years to finally get something that mostly worked for webmail, and they frequently (at least in Indianapolis) had times where their servers were down.
So, when things were running, the download speeds were usually great where I was at. However, I couldn’t count on anything to run at any time of the day. Granted, I didn’t have a business account with the theoretical advantages that would infer, but still…
So now, Comcast in their finite wisdom is embracing TiVo, and I hope TiVo keeps Comcast from ever controlling how their product works, because Comcast has proven they’re horrible at such things. Why else would they be partnering with TiVo in the first place???
You only need to have flash if you’re going to use your comcast email account, I assume. I wouldn’t recommend ever using your ISP’s email account, because you’ll end up losing your email address if you change ISPs. Get a gmail account and don’t worry! But that requiring flash thing is annoying, if you don’t want to or can’t have flash for some reason.
I’m on comcast for my cable modem, and I don’t have any complaints except that it’s a little more expensive than I’d like it to be. I pay about $50, when I’d prefer to pay more like $30, but I’d also prefer a new BMW for $5000.
Thanks TiVo, I always had faith in you. Traitors.
I have one to record HD and no, it doesn’t. It’s basically as dumb as a VCR. You can’t tell it to regularly record a specific show, you can only tell it to regularly record a certain channel/time…so if your show gets moved to another time slot or is only on irregularly, you’re screwed. For those not in the know, TiVo’s Season Pass feature tracks the actual show for you, so you never need to know when it comes on. Additionally, the MOT DVR does not feature a comprehensive keyword/genre/actor/director/etc search like TiVo does.
The only thing the Motorola DVR has going for it is the ability to record high definition stuff and that’s all. I can’t wait for TiVo to come out with their HD, CableCard 2.0 box in 2006.
H. Knight – Why do you think TiVo is being a traitor?
If you are talking about DirecTV/TiVo – that is DirecTV messing things up.
If you talking about them making a deal with cable companies. I can only assume you are on drugs. They have been trying to do this for a long time and want to have TiVo in everyone’s house just like every other company wanting everyone to use their products.
The Comcast dual tuner DVR DOES do season series recording. Works just like Tivo’s Season Pass.