The Morning After: In Which My TiVo Dies, Yet Again

James,

Sorry about your TiVo. My series 3 is still working OK (knock on wood). Some friends swear by their Windows Media Center PC, but don’t you want to give the TiVo one more chance? It won’t hurt you this time, it swears…

Now that you have a hole in your viewing, any chance of a review of “Glenn Martin DDS” before it starts on the 17th? Would it help if I told you my sister was in it?

As for last night, the “Burn Notice” finale was a very strong episode, and a good resolution to this arc.

I am a very, very satisfied DirecTV customer since the dawn of (satellite TV) time. DirecTV’s first gen HD receivers were TiVo, but TiVo got too greedy (In DirecTV’s version of the story.) and DirecTV went with their own hardware and software. At first, the hardware was junk that failed in days, but their process to replace boxes worked smoothly, in contrast to your experience. Worse, the software was primitive. I missed TiVo’s software something fierce! But over about the first year, DirecTV fixed their hardware problems and brought their software up to speed. I hear they are going back to TiVo, but I don’t really care anymore.

I’ve tried to use the cable HD systems of friends and family. They are absolutely horrible! Like DirecTV, they did not want to pay for TiVo’s software, and their systems remain primitive, even worse than DirecTV’s Version 0.0.

Both DirecTV and the cable jerks have terrible remotes that they cannot pay more than $10 for. I use Logitech’s Harmony 880.

So, I advise that you get a hands-on, in depth test run with any cable provider’s box and software. In the meantime, get a replacement TiVo on the way.

Dave

Thanks for the sympathy. Nothing personal to sis, but I didn’t care for what I saw of DDS: (1) laughtrack disconcerting in a stop-motion animated show, (2) lack of actual laughtrack on my end. Good news: I may not have time to review anyway, at least before my vacation next week.

Yeah, the thing is, I have one Time Warner (not HD) DVR in my home office. And I know the software is atrocious. That said: (1) Only broke down once (this week actually) and was fixed in two days, whereas each TiVo replacement left me boxless for several days or over a week [waiting for replacement to ship] (2) if I hate the cable DVR, I can get rid of it and will have not paid any upfront price for the box for the privilege (my Tivo was $700, plus $14 a month for service).

If Tivo ends up replacing under warranty, I’ll take it, but at this point I couldn’t see paying out of pocket for a new one, much less advising anyone else to–even though when it works, the interface blows everything else away.

My HD box is dying now, too. The first time of three versions of Tivo I’ve had. It’s extremely annoying since I’m now going to lose everything on the box.

I’ve used Comcast’s DVR in the past and it is terrible compared to Tivo. The software is poor (when you delete a show in a “To-do list,” for example, it deletes that particular airing, but then it finds another of the exact same episode and records it). It doesn’t have “wishlists,” which I use a lot. It doesn’t have netflix streaming or Amazon downloads. And oddly it doesn’t let you jump back quickly to the beginning of the buffer period on the box. You can move backwards but not jump backwards. On the upside, the buffer is 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes, like the Tivo.

I’m sticking with Tivo while I can. I can’t imagine how long they are going to stay in business with all the cable companies pushing their own boxes, but for now, even this defective box is not turning me away.

My advice is this: the interface on the TIVO and the remote functionality are vastly superior to the cable company DVR.

But if my cable company DVR breaks I just call them up and get another one. This has happened once or maybe twice. You get used to the clunky mechanics (think of this as PC vs. TIVO as Mac).

The price and service and lack of cash outlay more than make up for the lack of elegance. I never thought I would ever take the cable company’s side on any argument, but here I go. And this is coming from a TIVO O.G.

ugh: bummer.

I am super brand loyal to TiVo mainly because of the great customer service experiences I’ve had – so I’m sorry you haven’t had a pleasant one. I’ve had two TiVos die on me in five years – both times after I moved, so I’m assuming something got knocked loose or we weren’t careful and it got dropped or something. After my first incident, I called and after the rep saw how long I had been a “loyal customer,” I ended up getting a replacement TiVo for only the price of shipping. The second time I just got a discount – but it was an upgrade from my previous one (a dual tuner instead of a single tuner) so I wasn’t complaining.

Hopefully they’ll get everything fixed for you!

I’ve never had a single problem with any cable-box DVR I’ve owned/rented, and nothing BUT problems with TiVo.

I will admit, though, that the cable DVR boxes require a bit more effort from you as a user to program….but other than that, they’re great.

The software for DVRs varies… even in the same company. Why on Earth is that the case? Time Warner can have great service one place and lousy another (note: they all do what they are supposed to do, i.e. tape the show, but the user interface can be terrible). And then they change it every six months or so. I’ve never understood why there isn’t one user interface that everyone that has TWC uses.

But I love my DVR, it tapes my shows for me and that’s all I want it to do. Except better tuned fastforward and rewind, that would be nice.

I’m in Chicago with Comcast. I’ve had the same HD DVR for four years now and it has survived two moves (Comcast let me move the DVR rather than returning and getting a new one at the new place).

So, no complaints there (although I suspect the HD DVR’s successful functionality has been PURE BLIND LUCK). However, in recent months it has started to sound asthmatic and is doing some strange things, like deleting all of my “Series Recordings” (Comcast version of “Season Pass”?).

Here’s the catch: I haven’t called Comcast about these hiccups because Comcast customer service HAS to be ranked among the worst in the world- in any field- any technology- and industry- it’s awful, awful, awful.

Oh, the stories I could tell (like the service technician coming out only to tell me my building “isn’t wired for cable,”- in spite of the fact that the tenant who lived in my unit before me had Comcast- and then another technician coming out TWO WEEKS LATER to tell me the first guy didn’t know what he was talking about)

I’d rather do my own troubleshooting and put off calling Comcast until it dies altogether.

There’s a competitor to TiVo called Moxi. Same premise, you buy the box and then plug the cablecard into it. Unfortunately it is basically the same price as Tivo. One nice thing they have though is there’s a mini-box that’s half price you can get that will stream the main box’s recordings into another room. http://moxi.com/us/home.html. I haven’t used it, but here’s a review at Gizmodo: http://gizmodo.com/5231626/moxi-hd-review-beats-cable-but-it-aint-tivo. May want to check it out. I have a comcast DVR. It does the job, but obviously lacks the features of TiVo.

I’ve been happy with our Verizon Fios HD DVR, but I’ve never used a TiVo and therefore have nothing to compare the platform to. The one time we thought it was broken, customer service replaced it in no time (though it turned out it was a bad cable, not a bad box). The only other glitch is that, with a few shows, it doesn’t seem to be able to differentiate new from re-run, which means we always have a million episodes of Scrubs recorded. But I would guess that’s a problem with the menu coding rather than the box itself?

I think it’s worth pointing out that you bought a Tivo at maybe the highest price point it’s ever had at $700, when I imagine it was the only option for getting HD programs on a Tivo. These days a Tivo HD goes for $299 on Tivo’s site (Tivo HD isn’t identical to the Series 3 but is functionally the same).

I’m also curious, are they replacing your Series 3 with another Series 3? They don’t sell them new on their website anymore.

Why do you have an end-of-line Series 3 box instead of a TiVo HD? A box they’re still making and refining?

I’m a very loyal TiVo customer and I’ve used cable company DVRs before and just cannot imagine using one on purpose.

If you really like the TiVo interface but feel the hardware is lacking, I’d suggest building a HTPC and putting the TiVo software available from Nero on the box.

I’ve heard good things about the Moxi box, too, but again, you’re gonna be spending a lot up front.

Highest price point was $800, actually, but regardless, I’m into them for $700 now. I believe they are replacing it with an XL because no more Series 3 — but the last 2 times they replaced with Series 3s, even after they had stopped making them. You’d have to ask them why, I guess.

I used to have Comcast DVR service and went through 3 of them in 3 years. I moved and am on Time Warner’s DVR for the last several months and haven’t had any problems with it.

Like most everybody has said, you’ll probably find the user interface frustrating after Tivo but they do the job and you get a quick free replacement if they break.

I’ve been with Cablevision here in NJ for a couple of years. My HD DVR box broke when my cat jumped up on it and knocked it over. It was replaced within an hour. Have had a few times when everything stopped, and rebooting didn’t work. Have never waited more than 1/2 day for service and they are nice, really nice guys. Have the triple thingy, phone, fast line and cable. A little pricey, but works for us. Have never tried TIVO so probably don’t know what I’m missing, but feel okay with what I’ve got.

hmm, as a series 2 owner who has been wanting to upgrade from single tuner (I have a recordable dvd player also hooked up) i have been debating the upgrade, this makes me just want to keep going with old faithful until he dies…

I work at a company (WeaKnees.com) that does, among other things, TiVo repair. We were actually profiled years ago in Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/columnist/taylor/article/0,9565,456020,00.html

So we can fix almost any problem on almost any TiVo. In many cases, our repairs last a bit longer than swapping out a unit with a refurbished unit from TiVo. Your current unit, being a swap, may have had a used hard drive, and since hard drives cause the vast majority of DVR problems, using a new one (fewer hours, less wear, latest technology) should greatly increase the lifespan of the unit.

Thanks,

Michael

http://www.weaknees.com/