So, I consider myself someone who is obsessive about his television viewing, but I had never gone the DSS route due to location restrictions. But after a recent move, I took the plunge and got the DirecTiVo package. I was using digital cable until then.

Some thoughts (for anyone interested):

DirecTV Cons:
Painfully slow channel changing
Goes out when it rains
$5.99/month for the Big Four and no WB or UPN
Channel order is haphazzard (Turner South is mixed in with Fox Sports channels ... all the silly stations like LOVE and WAM are in between HBO and Showtime ... ESPN and ESPN2 aren't next to each other ... news channels are scattered around ...)

DirecTV Pros:
More channels
More detailed Info on particular shows
Hmm ... that's about it. I don't really see the advantage yet; in fact it's more of a hassle. I got most of the features with my digital service.

TiVo Cons:
I only have one
Searching is a tad slow
TiVo Suggestions is incredibly annoying

TiVo Pros:
Too many to mention

Now that I have it, I see why everyone loves it so much, but I'm really disappointed in TiVo's ad campaign. Everytime I'd hear about it, I'd groan "whoop-de-do ... it's got a HD and a forward buffer. I still have to dump stuff to VHS if I want to save it, and who the hell EVER pauses live tv?" Well, what they don't explain, and why the service is worth the effort is this: TiVo doesn't start buffering data when you tell it to ... it starts when you change the channel. This difference is HUGE, and why they don't try to sell this aspect is beyond me - I would have bought one years ago had I known this.

I never sit around and think "let me pause this on the off chance that I'll miss something" ... that's just anal and crazy. The more likely scenario is that you get distracted and something completely unexpected happens that you want to go check out again. Since the buffer starts recording when the channel is changed, you just rewind that sucker and check it out again (or in slow mo or frame-by-frame).


Overall, I'm not that impressed with DirecTV. Since Broadband is the Devil, I'm stuck with it, but I was more impressed with BellSouth Americast's digital service. The two services are comparable, except DirecTV screws you on local channels and rain outages. TiVo on the other hand has sold me. So far, it's working like a charm, and I love it. I watch more TV than anyone I've ever known, and it's already proving an invaluable resource. Hopefully the dual tuner will make its way to the general public soon, else I'll have to go buy another one.

I'm not really sure why I made this post. I just know it was difficult for me to get information when I was looking to buy my system, so maybe someone is interested in my thoughts.

das

You see that is the whole thing with Tivo, I have been using it since April I think maybe March, I switched over because I could not get Speedvision on AT&T Cable here om SF.

So i had to get directv, well I thought why the hell not get the directivo unit, I mean to me it's one neat box, and it pretty much negates my need for a vcr, I record shows occasionally for one cable less friend.

Tivo is the cats pajamas, I would be so lost now if I did not have it, and the example you have given is perfect. Let's say you are watching something, and your wife s/o comes in and starts talking, you can pause it or rewind it to where it was as long as it is within the 60 minute window. Normally though it is me interrupting my wife...

The combo unit makes it really easy to record things, the season pass is tremendous, just set it and forget it. Tivo Suggestions are okay, I am not a huge fan of them, sometimes it goes crazy, after my last software downloaded it started to relearn my preferences again, I came home one day and it had recorded every variant of Judge Judy shows, all the judge ones.

I am a firm believer in this, and my parents are getting one for Christmas. It is simple to use, the fact that it downloads updated software from the system is a huge bonus.

And the dual-tuner feature rocks. I have seen it with my own 2 eyes on a friends setup.

I've wanted a TiVo or RePlay unit for a while, then I saw this -

http://www.dishdepot.com/Cart/descri...08.139.149.196

Dish Network 501 unit with a built-in digital recording system you DON'T pay to use FREE w/DIRECTV trade-in

I called and traded my 6-year-old Directv unit last week - my new Dish 501 should arrive tomorrow. Wooo-Hooo !

Das,

you may have a low signal strength. Channels changing should be fast and you should only get rain fade during very heavy thunderstorms.

the locals are additional because not all markets are available right now. These markets will gain these locals this year:

Atlanta WB
Austin WB
Baltimore UPN & WB
Birmingham UPN & WB
Boston WB
Cinn WB
Dallas WB
Denver WB
Greensboro WB
Houston WB
Indianapolis WB
KC WB
LA UPN
Miami WB
Milwaukee UPN & WB
Minneapolis UPN & WB
Nashville UPN
Orlando UPN
Philidelphia WB
Phoenix UPN & WB
Pitts WB
Portland UPN
Raleigh UPN & WB
San Antonio WB
San Diego WB
San Fran UPN
Seattle WB
Tampa WB
DC WB


The channels neighborhoods are supposed to be together. Espn, espn 2, espn news, espn classis, cnn sports illustrated are all in the low 200's...general entertainment runs in the high 200's, news and info are in 300's. HBO 501-507 Max 512-514, Starz 520-523 Encore 526-533 (the love and wam channels are part of encore), Show 537-541, TMC 542-543...

sports in 600's (Turner South is considered a sports network)

music in 800's.

Be glad you didn't get a Dishplayer is someone suggested...dishnetwork basically has about 1 million beta testers as their system is prone to bugs.

hope you enjoy your system!

My signal strength is typically in the mid 80s. After playing with things a bit, I'm finding that the slowness it part of the DirecTiVo receiver. I have since connected up a SAT-B55 in the same room, and it's changes the channels at a much more reasonable speed.

I was told January 2001 from DirecTV support, but it's really useless since WB lost it's good show to UPN. It'll be nice for watching Angel, but that's about it.

The general blocks are decent, but they've really missed the point. The local blocks should be in the 100s not sandwiched in the 300s between cable channels. The PPV should be in the 800s or 900s and out of the way (thanks to channel preferences, I can at least remove them myself). ESPN2 should be right next to ESPN. And Turner South is NOT a sports channel. I guess it's a holdover from SportsSouth, but it's still stupid to have it sitting amongst the FOX sports channels.

I did not realize LOVE and WAM etc were part of Encore until a few days ago, so that makes more sense now. Still the order should be HBO, MAX, SHO, others or HBO, SHO, MAX, others. The other channels are strictly movie channels, whereas HBO and Showtime have many original series.

Still, with these annoyances, I'm in love with this system. Damn them for not getting licenses for UPN and WB. Damn them to hell. But everything else is tolerable.

das

What they need to do is cram the music down to the 400's and then free up the 800's for the influx of new Local Market stations. They need to get their act together, there is a ton of stations that have gaps in between them.

Right now there are 26 channels in the 400 section, yet the # goes to 456?

In the 800's there are 47 Music Selections plus 1 Test Channel yet the # goes to 865.

Combine the 2 and you have 74 Channels in the 400 area and you just opened up 48 more channels


Basically all the areas except 100's, 700's, and 900's really have room. If they would consolidate some of the crap and keep it all lumped in their respective areas, it'd be a whole lot better viewing experience.

I pause live TV all the time. It really comes in handy when the phone rings, the food delivery comes, or you have to go to the bathroom.

It's one of the features that I love about the TiVo (Season Pass being the other)