TiVo Versus MCE Versus my Cable Company

[James Fee]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000509.html' target='_blank'>http://www.edbott.com/weblog/archives/000509.html</a><br /><br /></div><i>"These are rough times for a TiVo fanatic. The company and its groundbreaking box are getting squeezed into irrelevance. On the one side, cable companies offer their own DVR boxes, which may not be elegant but are easy and cheap. On the other side, you have PC-based solutions like Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, which do more than a TiVo and are improving by leaps and bounds every year. I’ve been thinking about this topic for the past month, after I received a weekly Circuits e-mail on the topic from David Pogue, a sharp and funny writer for the New York Times. Anyway, David’s thesis was that TiVo (the company) isn’t doomed, because TiVo (the gadget) is so refined and elegant and ingenious that nothing should be allowed to compete with it. And to prove it, he provides a laundry list of features that make the TiVo so hip it hurts. The list comes with a qualifier, of course: “I do realize that many rival boxes have some of these features. But none that I know of offers all of these them — and especially not in such an easy-to-use, brilliantly designed software package.” Well, it’s a very good list. And since I am in the enviable position of owning a Series 1 TiVo, two PCs running Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005, and a high-definition Explorer 8300HD digital video recorder from Scientific Atlanta, I thought it might be instructive to compare all three."</i><br /><br />Not surprisingly, Ed thinks that MCE is the pick of the three, but for ease of use, TiVo still rules. Until MCE is as easy to plug in and get working as TiVo (or any similar DVR), it won't be as popular. BUT, if you want/need more control, MCE is by far the better way to go.

[coreymcl]

First I should say I have 2 DirectTV Tivo's, One HiDef and the other is a standand one. Addiotnally, I have a Gateway 610 Media Center PC 2004 loaded as it will not work with 2005 although I have a copy of it.

The problem with MCE's are that they require a external box to work with Digital Cable or Stattelite. Or to use a little plug in front of your IR port to change the channel. Which I can not believe they made such a mistake here. This is a half a*s solution in my opinion. There should be a card to allow the singal to be decoded in the same box. For me my MCE gets turned on every Friday to record the new Battlestar Galatica so it can be moved to my Creative ZEN PMC. So far I have them all! :D

As for the DirectTV Tivo's. For reasons beyond my understanding. DirectTV choose NOT to include the TivoToGo features. Yes I know DirectTV will be coming out with their own box this summer. But why not allow people to use these features. This features would have sold more Tivo's for them as people could record on one box and move the video to say a bedroom to watch it.

With the Microsoft annoucement that they will be working with SBC on releasing a completitive system end of 2005, so you should say Mid 2006. This sounds like it will solve most of not all these other two solutions short comings.

While this post may seem like ramblings to some I am trying to make sure everybody knows they short comings of both solutions. Don't get me worng I would kill the person trying to take my Tivo and without my MCE I would have wasted $500 on the PMC. So I like them both. I truely hope this is hopeful to some.