C|NET: Why My Cable DVR Stinks

[Brendan Goetz]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://news.com.com/Why+my+cable+DVR+stinks/2100-1033_3-6100047.html?tag=nefd.lede' target='_blank'>http://news.com.com/Why+my+cable+DVR+stinks/2100-1033_3-6100047.html?tag=nefd.lede</a><br /><br /></div><i>“While I love how the DVR changed my life--letting me watch my favorite shows whenever I want and fast-forward through commercials--I was in love with it only when it worked. Because when it didn't work, I wanted to throw the whole thing out my window. In a rush to give consumers more features, cable operators, satellite providers and phone companies are asking device makers to pack more complex capabilities into each box. Today, set-top boxes resemble a home PC more than they do a simple channel-changing cable box designed to do only three things: turn on, turn off, tune channels. Inevitably, these increasingly complicated devices are less reliable and harder to use than their predecessors.”</i><br /><br />I have the HD version of the box described in this article, and I have been mostly happy with it. A few times it has failed to record shows for me, for what appears to be no clear reason other than spite. I also have a media PC that I use fro watching DVDs and downloaded content. I appreciate the ease of use of my Time Warner box, but I prefer the freedom to manipulate the content with my media PC. I would love to take shows I’ve recorded and transfer them to my PSP and watch them on the subway. Does anyone know of an HDTV solution for recording shows on a PC off of cable or satellite? I’m about ready to ditch Time Warner for Dish anyway, because my cable reception is awful and they don’t seem to care.

[Jason Eaton]

To me the worst thing about my cable supplied DVR is the +1 minute or +2 minute factor. That is when the networks run the show slight off skew so it doesn't start or end when they say it does.

I can understand the odd over run because of an emergency or something but when there is no reason. Rrrrr.

It really urked me to miss the end of last seasons Battlestar Galatica when the cyclons show up on the planet after the truce, got right to the part when they walk in to the presidents ship and poof... dvr stops recording.

[stephman]

It really urked me to miss the end of last seasons Battlestar Galatica when the cyclons show up on the planet after the truce, got right to the part when they walk in to the presidents ship and poof... dvr stops recording.

Oooo, that's hurtful! Being a huge fan of BSG myself, I would have screamed bloody murder if my box did that on THAT episode!

I've had my HD DVR box from Cox here in CT stop recording in the middle of a show. The couple times that's happend was always around the same time, alittle after midnight. Weird. Then when I first got the box, it would display thick green lines on the screen on my tv. Then shut down. I would have to manually turn it back on. And as soon as I did, it would continue it's scheduled recording that was going on. That happend 2 SciFi fridays in a row, but never happend again.

[BulkHedd]

I've been going through this myself recently. I used to have a ReplayTV 5040, which I loved, but when I upgraded to a hi-def TV I decided to get rid of that and go with the cable co's hi-def DVR (Motorola 6412). The first unit seemed to work great. I never had a problem until I had had it for about 3 months. One day I woke up and the unit just would not fully boot up. The display kept flashing 88:88. So I traded it in and this box seems to lock up a lot. I have to unplug it and let it completely reboot. The other night I had it set to record "Eureka" on SciFi. It says it recorded the whole hour but about 45 minutes into it it will not play any further.
I love having dual tuners and HD capability but if it ultimately doesn't do what it's designed to do very well, what's the use?

Maybe I'll wait for Tivo Series 3.

[yada88]

The cables companies made a big mistake, and here's why. I just left DirecTV 2 months ago for Cable, Time Warner. With Directv, I had two Tivo Satellite boxes. They were great. Very few buttons, never a glitch, simple and easy to use. My parents were even able to use them, and that's saying something. Both of my parents set up their own shows to record, and had no problems watching them. At school I have a MCE PC. It's great, and the added level of problems, are made up for in flexibility and the pure geek factor of having Tivo at college on a PC you built. Now comes the Cable HD Dvrs. First off, on of my boxes sounds like a tin roof that's getting rained on. Anyone within 10 feet of it gets an earful. Next, the things do have problems, ie. they do crash. Okay. NOT something that should ever happen with a shipping home theatre product. It's okay on MCE because its windows after all, but you expect nothing but 100% uptime on consumer devices, and these boxes just don't cut it. Finally, the thing is ridiculously over complicated. No remote control ever needs three command buttons of A, B, and C. Tivo's scheme of just selecting the option you want and then hitting the enter button is the only way to go. I am an IT Manager, a geek, a technofile, along with many other titles, and i have to say I loathe to come home and use my cable DVR.It's awkward to use. It's terrible. (It's scientific atlanta in case anyone was wondering).

Where's the mistake? The cable companies should have just licensed the Tivo brand like DirecTV did. The easiest way to do this would be for Scientific Atlanta to buy Tivo. As we all surely remember, Tivo's been a very cheap company to buy, which prompted the Apple rumors a while back. The problem is misaligned incentives. Scientific atlanta doesn't care if it makes a good box, because no one else does, and their customers are cable companies, not end users.

The optimal solution as I see it is as follows. HD is the newest thing, it's what a company will be judged on, and right now the cable companies are failing. What needs to happen, is Tivo needs to RUSH to market it's tivo series 3 recorder. Tivo can push new features along the way via automatic downloads. The most important aspect of the launch must be HD, and simplicity. If Tivo were to launch next week, they would need to have a huge marketing campaign, and I do not doubt their ability to sell a lot of units. I, however, do not think they can sell enough to make a lot of money. So why do it? The people with HD DVRs now are the people on the cutting edge. These are people who will actually change their service for a better offering, whereas most people just pick something and stick with it for a decade or so. I think if Tivo launched a box now, the cable companies would be getting returned HD DVRs left and right. They make a lot of money off those boxes by charging monthly fees. I think enough people would change, that the cable companies would take notice and force Scientific Atlanta and the like to ink deals with Tivo to license at the very least their interface. This way, when everyone starts getting HD, it will be Tivo's they end up using.

That's just the play as I see it. Your thoughts are of course welcome.

[EscapePod]

In general, my Scientific Atlanta 8300 series box is great. What I don't understand is the statement that cable companies are in a rush to provide customers with features. Several of the desired features that come with the 8300 are grayed out (not accessible), eg. - Copy Program to VCR. When I checked, the Brighthouse (formerly Time-Warner) in my area said "we're not allowing that feature."

So, if I want to preserve something to tape (rather than fill my hard drive), I have to walk across the street where my friendly neighbor has the same box on Adelphia (soon to be Comcast) network. I ask him to record the program for me, and hand him my VCR to copy it.

Demanding more features due to competition, my butt :lol:

[Felix Torres]

So, if I want to preserve something to tape (rather than fill my hard drive), I have to walk across the street where my friendly neighbor has the same box on Adelphia (soon to be Comcast) network. I ask him to record the program for me, and hand him my VCR to copy it.


I have the 8300HD.
I have the HDMI output connected to my display and the composite output hooked up to the VCR.
When I want to copy a recording to tape, I just play it on the DVR and record it on the VCR. Don't even know or care if the copy-to-vcr function works...

The only time I've ever had any problems was last XMAS; I left the DVR to record a set of shows weekly while I was gone for several weeks. All recorded. But the episodes of one of the shows wouldn't play back right; all I got was a black screen unless I paused. Then the frozen frame would display properly. The shows ran in repeats a couple months later so I lost nothing. Odd, though; it never did it before, hasn't again.
I'm guessing an auto-update came through that messed it up and got fixed by another update, all while I was gone.

[EscapePod]

I have the 8300HD.
I have the HDMI output connected to my display and the composite output hooked up to the VCR.
When I want to copy a recording to tape, I just play it on the DVR and record it on the VCR. Don't even know or care if the copy-to-vcr function works...


You're absolutely correct Felix. That method does work OK. The only difference from "Copy to VCR" is that the method you describe copies anything that's on the screen when you start the DVR playback -- eg. the date, station, program info. But that's not necessarily a bad thing either.

[Magellan]

To record HDTV on a PC check out Beyond TV (www.snapstream.com). I use it to record dozens of shows per week, and it never misses one.