Anyone upgraded their DirecTV Tivo to a DirecTV DVR?

[Matt Meiser]

I'm going to call DirecTV and try to get them to keep me from switching to Dish which would cost us pretty much exactly the same as we currently pay, but give us access to the DVR on two TV's instead of just 1. I'm wondering if I should tell them I want new equipment as part of the deal to get me to stay? I've read that the newer DVR's are faster than Tivo, and it looks like DirecTV won't give Tivo to new customers so I would assume it is a dying part of their service, despite the fact they are supposedly adding some new features in January to Tivo. Our equipment is about 3 years old now.

[Gary Keedwell]

Can't really contribute much Matt because I went from VCR to DVR, nothing in between. :D I really like it though. It sure beats labeling the VCR tapes and spending endless hours FForwarding and rewinding. ;) If my father was still alive....he wouldn't believe this stuff!!!

Gary K. PS. I have Comcast

[Mitchell Andrus]

I went from DirectTv Tivo to Fios DVR. Tivo is much much better than the DVR built into my box. I miss Tivo's menus and logic for getting around and the new one is sloppy. Misses controls, menus are not as well organized...

Test drive one in a store to see if you'll be happy with the controls.

[John Shuk]

I went from Directv tivo to the new DVR for HD. It is nice but tivo unit was nicer. I beat them up a bit on the phone and they made some concessions. If you aren't looking for HD I think you can do even more to get a price break.

[Clay Crocker]

I have had DirecTV w/ Tivo for about five years. Last year when I bought a new house I added a DirecTV DVR for the den, all I can say is that the DirecTV DVR is a pile of junk compared to my Tivo unit. Eventually we will all lose our DirecTV w/ Tivo (I think DirecTV has an agreement to support Tivo users until 2009), but hold out as long as you can. This is my personal experience w/ the DirecTV DVR:

1. There is no way to toggle between the two tuners, if you are an experienced Tivo user you will understand how important this feature is.

2. The FF and RW is unusable. With Tivo you FF through comercials until you begin to see the program you were watching come back on, you hit play and the Tivo backs up the required number of seconds to compensate for the delay between your brain and your finger. With the new DVR it skips ahead a minute or more depending on how fast you were fast forwarding. Then when you try to rewind the same thing happens in reverse! In the end you just watch the commercials because you can't get it to land where the show resumes.:mad:

3. Software is unstable. DVR locks up about once a week. The only remedy is to power the unit down completly and reboot.

4. Sometimes scheduled recordings do not record....for no reason at all.

5. Guides are not as user friendly as Tivo.

6. You have to lease the new DVR, I own my Tivo.

I have been on some Tivo forums and read posts from hundreds of former Tivo users that have had the same experince. When my DirecTV Tivo dies I will probably have to switch to cable so that I can use Tivo, or just quit watching TV. Sorry about the rant, but IMO DirecTV has taken an almost perfect consumer product and ruined it.

Clay

[Denny Rice]

I got rid of our "cable" about 2 yrs ago and purchased the Dish Network DVR package. All I can say is my VCR makes a nice "paperweight" now. I would not get rid of my DVR for anything, I love it. I now have a DVD recorder set up with the DVR to make copies of the shows I want to record.

[Curt Harms]

I have had DirecTV w/ Tivo for about five years. Last year when I bought a new house I added a DirecTV DVR for the den, all I can say is that the DirecTV DVR is a pile of junk compared to my Tivo unit. Eventually we will all lose our DirecTV w/ Tivo (I think DirecTV has an agreement to support Tivo users until 2009), but hold out as long as you can. This is my personal experience w/ the DirecTV DVR:

1. There is no way to toggle between the two tuners, if you are an experienced Tivo user you will understand how important this feature is.

2. The FF and RW is unusable. With Tivo you FF through comercials until you begin to see the program you were watching come back on, you hit play and the Tivo backs up the required number of seconds to compensate for the delay between your brain and your finger. With the new DVR it skips ahead a minute or more depending on how fast you were fast forwarding. Then when you try to rewind the same thing happens in reverse! In the end you just watch the commercials because you can't get it to land where the show resumes.:mad:

3. Software is unstable. DVR locks up about once a week. The only remedy is to power the unit down completly and reboot.

4. Sometimes scheduled recordings do not record....for no reason at all.

5. Guides are not as user friendly as Tivo.

6. You have to lease the new DVR, I own my Tivo.

I have been on some Tivo forums and read posts from hundreds of former Tivo users that have had the same experince. When my DirecTV Tivo dies I will probably have to switch to cable so that I can use Tivo, or just quit watching TV. Sorry about the rant, but IMO DirecTV has taken an almost perfect consumer product and ruined it.

Clay

I haven't had a Tivo unit so I can't compare them to the current DirecTV offering. We do have a Replay TV unit which still works fine with a new hard drive. The Replay unit is not and will never be HD capable, however. We have a new DirecTV DVR with 2 built-in HD tuners. You CAN buy it, but it's $199 to "lease" it vs. around $700 to buy it. With the changing standards and technology, leasing may not be a bad deal, the "trade in" is less expensive. I believe DirecTV recently came out with a new generation of DVR's. Perhaps the new ones are less buggy, I had seen a lot of complaints about the DirecTV DVR's but we can't complain.

I suspect that DirecTV has gone to leasing primarily to control piracy on HD broadcasts. I don't like it but it's a proprietary system, as I suspect the digital cable setups are.

HTH

Curt

[Leigh Costello]

We went from standard satellite to 2-line Directv DVR. Love the options, but as stated before, Tivo seems to be so much better. Friends of ours have the TiVo setup thru their cable provider, much nicer.

And lately, Directv has been having "Guide" issues - i.e. Scrubs at 8:30, but it is actually "The Office" and other incorrect listings. Very frustrating.

[Pat Germain]

Great info! I switched from Dish Network to DirecTV HD last year. I really dislike DirectTV menus and functions. They pretty much stink.

I'd like to upgrade to a HD DVR. Is the Dish Network HD DVR a good product? Or, does Dish still use Tivo? Sounds like Tivo is the way to go. I'd also like to switch back to Dish Network.

[Chris Rosenberger]

Matt,
Do you have more than one receiver? If you do you can have more than one DVR at no added monthly cost.

[Matt Meiser]

Matt,
Do you have more than one receiver? If you do you can have more than one DVR at no added monthly cost.

I was thinking about that. The one thing I like about Dish's DVR is that you wouldn't have to set up the recording on both. If its recorded, I could watch it from either TV. Not that big a deal, but still...