Current Crop Of HDTV Recorders Compared

rbrander links to this "nice review of all the HDTV Recorders from the Washington Post: DirecTV's based on the TiVo wins for best interface, but Dish Network's gets a few nods. There's also a nice swipe ('...spectacularly stupid decision') at JVC's for allowing only (copy-protected) Firewire input to the one HDTV tape recorder on the market."

What about PC-based HDTV recorders?

[Frac]

I've recently built myself a nice HTPC with two tuners (Hauppauge PVR-250), and I'm quite happy with it. I intend to move onto HDTV capture cards once the most popular PVR software packages (SageTV, Beyond TV) supports it.

Does anyone know what the state of the HDTV capture cards for PC looks like right now? Obviously, hardware encoding and picture quality is key...

What about the SA8000HD

[Blahzay]

Didn't the title say the review was of ALL the HD recorders available? The Scientific Atlanta 8000HD may not be the best, but it certainly works.

FireWire

[daveschroeder]

FireWire wasn't a stupid decision...it was 5C-protected (copy-protected) FireWire that was a stupid decision.

FireWire was probably the best promise of device interconnectivity to ever exist in recent years. But it has been crippled by several things:

1. Content providers/TV/movie/Hollywood's deathly fear of being able to easily interconnect all devices, including computing equipment, via one perfect, digital connection.

2. A bit due to Apple's early ridiculous licensing and logo requirements to use the "FireWire" name. FireWire is the name that would have taken IEEE-1394 the furthest, but thanks to the early bungling, we're now stuck with "FireWire", "DV", "i.Link", "IEEE-1394", "1394"...what's that sir? Oh, yes, they're all really the same thing.

Imagine having ALL of your entertainment equipment, including your computer, connected digitally via one, simple FireWire cable each, all daisy-chained off one another. All able to control one another when necessary, sending meta-data and device control commands, as well as audio, video, and other data over the wire. No ridiculous bundles of cabling. Everything plug and play. Everything "just works". Even Wireless FireWire (yes, there's a spec). (And yes, FireWire has the bandwidth necessary to handle all this and more.)

That was the promise of FireWire. Instead, we're stuck with final output formats like DVI, and HDCP-protected HDMI, 5C FireWire that virtually nothing supports, and the coming Broadcast Flag.

Oh well. :-(

Don't buy a DVR, rent it!

[AGTiny]

I have a Motorola DCT-6208, the model I think they are referring to in this article that Comcast offers.

Even though the hard drive is only 80GB, and the interface sucks, the thing is virtually free and I don't have to worry about it breaking, hard drive failing, or the eventual obsolescence in less than a year. Anyone shelling out $1000 for the satellite models is a sucker IMO.

I used to be a DirecTV customer and bought a RCA DTC-100 HD tuner on Ebay for $400. I was able to turn around and resell it on Ebay for $350 2 years later, but only because I sold it before the crop of DVRs came out, and because it was a high-demand model. Now, if you are stuck with an obsolete HD Tivo in a year or two, you are pretty much screwed because the new models will be so much better no one will want an older model. Maybe you can sell it to your grandmother though for $100. :)

With cable though, I can keep getting a better box for virtually nothing. The new Motorola DCT-6412 with two tuners and 120GB hard drive is right around the corner, and I will just have to call and setup an appointment to have the tech come in and swap it out.

Re:Washington Post likes TiVo?

[smackjer]

Get the lifetime subscription. It's worth it, and you can think of it as part of the hardware cost. Plus, if you decide to sell your box you can expect to recoup the lifetime subscription cost as it transfers with the box.

As far as "phoning home", how else could it get the program listings and software upgrades? Tivo Series 2 supports broadband, if access to a landline is an issue.

I have yet to meet a Tivo user who isn't happy they bought a Tivo.

HDTivo in the guest bathroom

[swb]

They'll have HDTivos in all those secondary rooms (guest bedroom, kitchen, etc) of their house.

I agree with your larger point, though -- the cable company provided box is a huge defense against obsolence, repair, and overpriced periodic subscription fees (or "lifetime" gambles).

It's one of the reasons that Tivo is in a tough spot; people who need a cable box will find the cable provided box to be an automatic "yes", given that it's little or no extra cost and zero integration effort as is required with a Tivo.

Tivo's salvation *may* be the new cable-card standard, which would give a standalone Tivo access to the same digital bitstream as the cable company provided boxes, enabling stuff like multi-channel recording and HD recording far simpler (since you just store the bitsream off the line, not re-encoding the actual picture).

I've been told that the cable companies really don't like being in the hardware business. While it seems like easy money, in many urban areas the losses and repairs have to make it a break-even deal at best.

Looking for an OS X solution to view via FireWire

[5n3ak3rp1mp]

I have one of the new Motorola HD-DVR boxes that Comcast puts out, and a handy-dandy new Dual 2.5ghz G5 with 30" cinema (don't hate me, I just sold my primary residence and took a little profit, is all...). I'm able to connect the two boxes via FireWire and record (through a couple of clunky apps out there) the packetized MPEG2 stream to a disk file, and play it back with VLC... but all I want to be able to do is VIEW the cablebox signal via the FireWire connection and use the 30" cinema display as an HD screen, avoiding the cost of a separate (redundant hardware!) HDTV... It already has a PVR so I don't need to record.

Does ANYONE know of anything out there (or that will be out there) that will accomplish this?