DVR Review

TiVo or cable-company DVR?

We found the best digital video recorder (DVR) reviews at CNet.com and PC Magazine, where reviewers go into plenty of detail and do a good job of staying current on this rapidly evolving technology. CNet.com's editors consider performance, ease of setup, connectivity, design and features, frequently comparing DVRs to those tested earlier. Enthusiast websites and online communities (such as DBSTalk.com and TiVoLovers.com) offer commentary and user reviews that are surprisingly well detailed -- sometimes to the point of being overwhelming. (One review of a Dish Network DVR at DBSTalk.com is 44 pages long.)

Like Kleenex or Xerox, TiVo is a brand name that is often used as a generic term. However, TiVo is not the only DVR available. Many opt for a DVR from their cable or satellite TV provider. Cable DVRs (including those provided by the fiber-optic service providers such as Verizon Fios and AT&T U-verse) are always rented, and satellite TV DVRs usually are rentals as well. However, whether they are purchased or rented, DVRs almost always require paying a subscription fee.

Rather than record to videocassette tapes or recordable DVDs, DVRs -- sometimes also called personal video recorders -- record video to a hard-disk drive similar to those found in computers. Because of that, they offer several important advantages over a VCR or DVD recorder. One is their ability to pause live video; another is that they can "rewind" live video to create an instant replay on demand. Most DVRs offer some type of one-button "skip ahead" function that's conveniently timed to coincide with the length of a typical TV commercial, 30 seconds.

DVRs also can store much more video than either a VHS tape or a recordable DVD. The new TiVo HD XL (*Est. $600), for example, can hold almost 1,360 hours of standard-definition programming, or 150 hours of high-definition programming. The biggest drawback to DVRs is that archiving and sharing video is more difficult, though all let you output to a VCR or DVD recorder, and some will let you download video to an external hard drive.

Not long ago, TiVo was king of the DVRs, but its market advantage -- due to a staggeringly simple interface and cool extra features -- is slipping away now that cable and satellite providers offer much cheaper alternatives. For cable subscribers, renting a DVR from your provider eliminates the up-front expense of buying a TiVo unit. To use TiVo, in addition to buying the hardware, you'll need to pay a monthly, annual or life-of-the-unit subscription fee (*est. $12.95 monthly) to TiVo, plus pay your television provider for CableCards (*est. $2 to $5 each, monthly), two of which are required for dual-tuner operation. M-series (multistream) cards that can decode two or more streams of programming simultaneously have become available, but not all cable providers appear to be offering them.

In contrast, most cable companies will rent you a dual-tuner DVR box plus programming service for $18 or less per month, with no upfront fee. Every reviewer we found says that TiVo has superior functionality and a nicer interface, but it's impossible to ignore the price difference.

When it comes to satellite TV, things are much more clear cut: Though the standard-definition Series2 DT TiVo (*Est. $145 plus TiVo service) can be used with satellite systems, current high-definition TiVo DVRs, including TiVo HD (*Est. $230 plus TiVo service) and TiVo HD XL, cannot. Therefore, if you subscribe to HD satellite TV, the company-provided DVRs are your only alternative.

Recently, some Comcast subscribers have been afforded the opportunity to opt for company-provided DVRs powered by TiVo software. On paper, that would seem to be a perfect union for cable subscribers, but reports from the field indicate that the marriage has been less than happy.

For example, editor Matthew Elliot details his trials and tribulations with the Comcast/TiVo DVR on CNet.com's Crave blog. "After a slow start and troubling summer, our long regional nightmare is over," he writes. Slow response times were an annoyance, Elliot notes, but service reliability was the real deal killer in the end. Missed recordings along with frequent freezes, resets and other miscues led him to succumb to trade in his Comcast/TiVo DVR for a non-TiVo version. While the Comcast DVR has its own shortcomings, Elliot says switching back was the right call.