ej (v6b)

I’ve had a TiVo for years now. As a matter of fact, I think I’ve “sold” about as many TiVo’s as Best Buy over since I’ve had one. TiVo, in my opinion, is the best thing to happen to TV since cable!

Lately, my trusty Series 2 TiVo has been showing it’s age…it’s a single tuner, 40 hour DVR. I bought it for about $100 in March 2004 and I paid for the lifetime service plan. For about $300 bucks, I (rightly!) figured that in the long run, it would be cheaper than $12.95 per month. When Suzan and I got married in 2005, the TiVo took it’s place in our family’s entertainment center and has been working great. Lately, however, TiVo has been having some “issues.” The video often skips and jumps, and the TiVo doesn’t respond to the remote (we call it the ka-danker after the sound TiVo makes!). Also, the single tuner doesn’t allow us to record two shows at once, or even to record one and watch another. Alex and I have a few shows we like to watch, while Suzan and the kiddies have a couple of other shows that they like to watch, so someone always ended up watching their shows on the bedroom TV.

A couple of weeks ago TiVo really started acting up…to the point that I had finally had enough. I went to Cox and upgraded to Digital Cable with a DVR. After signing a contract for 1 year of service for cable and 1 year for internet, the “upgrade” only ended up costing me about $6.00 per month more than I was paying. Why did I decide to go with Cox? Well, several reasons, but mainly the fact that a new, dual tuner TiVo HD was $300, with another $300 for the lifetime service. Plus…I figured that in the short-term Cox was easier and didn’t keep me from upgrading my TiVo later.

After having the Cox DVR for a couple of weeks now and comparing the two I decided to post my thoughts.

Ok…the long list will have to wait!  I’m posting this today, so here’s the short version:

The interface on the TiVo is vastly superior to the user interface on the Cox DVR.

Pricing is much better for the Cox DVR than for TiVo.

It all comes down to balancing act.  Right now, for the short term, the Cox DVR stays because it is cheaper!

Later!