My first 24 hours with Comcast + TiVo
Perhaps a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick will speed up the Comcast + Tivo interface.
(Credit: Matt Elliott/CNET Networks)As a New Englander, I live in Comcast country. Comcast has been slowly rolling out TiVo service, and yesterday I upgraded my Comcast DVR for Comcast + TiVo service. Though it should be as simple as Comcast pushing the new software to your existing cable box, the company dispatches a tech to your home for the installation. The tech will check your cable signal to ensure a trouble-free TiVo installation and subsequent user experience. And in my case, since I was using a two-year old Scientific Atlanta box, Comcast replaced it with a Motorola 3416 box.
The installation went smoothly. My cable signal's levels were found to be in acceptable ranges, and it took Comcast about 30 minutes to push the TiVo software to my new cable box. The tech told me that when Comcast first started rolling out TiVo service, installations took anywhere from a couple hours to a full day, but that they've gotten better at it to where an installation could be as quick as 10 minutes. When I asked him about customer response, he said he knew of only one subscriber who ditched TiVo to return to Comcast's DVR software--a little old lady with a poor signal in a nursing home. The cause? A green video screen--presumably interrupting episodes of Matlock.
The TiVo guide shows more channels on the screen than Comcast's own DVR and is blissfully free of ads, but it is painfully slow.
(Credit: Matt Elliott/CNET Networks)For the upgrade, I'll pay an additional $2.95 per month on top of my current $12.95 DVR charge, plus a one-time $16.95 installation fee.
After using Comcast + TiVo for a night, here are my initial likes and dislikes. Note that I've never been a TiVo subscriber and am comparing the service to the Comcast DVR it replaced.
Likes:
- The TiVo guide lists seven rows of channels instead of the four and an ad that you get with Comcast's guide.
- The guide indicates which shows are in HD (not all shows on HD channels are in HD).
- Fast-forward has the auto-back function so that when you are coming out of a commercial, you land at the start of your show. Time Warner's DVR service in New York worked the same way, and I missed this functionality with Comcast's DVR. Then again, I was able to reprogram a button on my old Comcast remote to act as a 30-second skip button--something I will look into for the Comcast TiVo remote.
- It was easy to program the TiVo remote to work with my Vizio plasma TV and Harman Kardon receiver. I didn't have to hunt online for the four-digit codes. The TiVo settings screen provided me one code for my TV, which worked. Of the handful of codes listed for my receiver, the third one did the trick.
- On Demand offerings are better organized and easier to search through.
- The new Motorola 3416 box reports a capacity of 158GB. I believe my old Scientific Atlanta box had an 80GB drive, so I won't need to delete shows after recording a few HD movies and/or sporting events.
Comcast's TiVo remote is very similar in form and function as a standard TiVo remote but includes A, B, C, and D buttons.
(Credit: Matt Elliott/CNET Networks)
Dislikes:
- The TiVo interface is sloooooow! There's a delay when bringing up the guide, followed then by a delay for the information to load. There's a delay when scrolling through the guide--page by page or channel by channel. There's a delay when changing the channel. There's an excruciatingly slow delay after you hit record--roughly 15 seconds before the command goes through. My channel-flipping ways may be severely curtailed.
- I had to watch the season finale of Lost last night in standard def, even though I set it to record on ABC HD. It seems that I'm not getting ABC HD at the moment--at least from the Manchester, NH, affiliate, which lists none of its shows as being available in HD. This may be specific to my area or home; the investigation is ongoing.
- When you hit the info button with Comcast's DVR service, the information was displayed along the bottom of the screen. With TiVo, the info screen is a large rectangle that takes up the entire upper half of the screen. I can't think of a worse place for it. And after you select a channel from the guide or simply change the channel, you'll need to hit Exit on your remote or sit through a long 10 seconds of this info screen. Annoying.
After one day, I'm not sure I'll keep TiVo because of how slow it runs. Comcast's DVR often got tripped up where it would pause and then rifle through the 18 commands that I had entered in frustration on the remote. But those instances happened only occasionally, and the software was much more responsive than what I've experienced thus far with TiVo. I hope Comcast will soon roll out a service update that speeds up TiVo.
In the meantime, I'll continue to poke around Comcast + TiVo service and report back with my findings. And I'll find an answer for why ABC HD isn't coming through.
I'm just down the road in Nashua and have had TiVo for years and Comcast for longer. I think most of your likes and dislikes may be due to your being new to TiVo, however, I've never used the Comcast DVR service. Yes, TiVo is slow, but you get used to it and if you watch most everything after it's been Tivo'd, I'm not sure the speed is a problem.
OK, my question is, what is the value added for the extra $2.95/month over the combined TiVo ($12.95/mo) and Comcast HD (Gazillion/month) that I currently pay. Are there added functions? Wazzup with the combo vs. separates?
To enable the 30 second skip:
1. Start playing any recording.
2. During playback press:
Select - Play - Select - 3 - 0
Select
3. You should hear 3 bongs (if you don't have TiVo sounds disabled), and your done.
Your "skip to the beginning/end" button (the arrow pointing to a line) is now a 30 second skip button. During FF or Rev, the button will still "skip to tick."
To turn the feature off, repeat the 3 steps.
Greg
I would say your dislikes are longstanding issues with TiVo from the beginning. There are times when the lag after pressing record is a few seconds (this is the best I can remember), but often it is much longer. I would argue though that the TiVo software is much more sophisticated (TiVo suggested recordings) than its competitors and this may go to explain some of the delay. That?s one thing I do like about the DirecTV DVR is that there is absolutely no delay.
But in my opinion the better usability, functionality, and GUI make the TiVo a far better device. Even my wife, who for the first 30 days or so thought the original TiVo we bought was an utter waste of money, wishes we had the HD TiVo in our family room instead of the DirecTV DVR. At the time the TiVo box was $700 and the DirecTV was free.
I?m curious to see what you think in 30 days?.
The channel display in the picture is NOT the normal Tivo interface. In fact, that looks absolutely terrible compared to what the standard interface looks like.
I found it quite odd that they're putting this software on a Motorolla box? This is probably why it is having issues, it's not a real Tivo. I would ask them to install an actual Tivo HD box and live in bliss like the rest of us. I wouldn't accept anything less.
The ComcastTivo bonus is there isn't an upfront cost like the Tivo HD units...thus possibly saving you a few hundred dollars. I think this is what will draw in many people.
The long delays you report are not on the 'real' Tivo units (despite the other comments), so if this stays the same for you..and isn't just a 'breaking-in' indexing data period....then this will be it's death. I guess the other benefit is that you can return it to Comcast if you don't like it....no year commitment.
I've haven't noticed much of a guide delay simply because it has been many times faster than the original Scientific Atanta guides.
You can hit left/right to change the size of the channel guide banner from small/big, or to make it go away early. Even the clear button can do it. You can also configure how long it stays on-screen too. This configuration grew somewhat organically so it feels really natural.
Why the hell can they not fix this. It is ridiculous that we should be expected to watch tv with that much of delay or having to wait 5 to 10 seconds before pressing the channel up button.
I don't think I will ever subscribe to Tivo when I can get a non-Tivo DVR. The fees are considerably less.
Someone above mentioned the issue of having a completely different hardware running the TiVo software, which is what I would guess the issue is. Cable boxes have traditionally had rather slow processors, and I would guess that Comcast-supplied TiVo boxes are no different. (They are free, after all, relative to a traditional TiVo box.) It's too bad that Comcast is trying to push the excellent TiVo service into a substandard box.
(sorry if i restated anything already said but I didnt have time to read all the comments.)
Hmm, as far as I know, Connecticut is in New England. Charter Communications and Cox Cable operate around here, too. I think Time Warner operates in other areas of New England.