does anyone have a cablevision DVR?

Subject: Re: does anyone have a cablevision DVR?

jgregorie wrote: i really want to get one.


unfortunitly i cant get service from time warner in my building and ive heard from friends who have TW that there DVR is awesome.

do any of you have one and how do you like it?

I have it and LOVE IT! I am officially a tv addict. Now I can record everything I miss when I am at work or out with friends. I catch up on everything during the days on Saturday and Sunday (no wonder why I can't finish cleaning the house).

I use cablevision and it works great...

apollonia666 wrote: How much more does it cost? I have the "triple play" package with phone, Internet, and cable and would love to add DVR if it's not a whole lot more.

I think it costs me about $10-12 per month. I have to check my bill

I just checked my bill - its $9.95 a month

We have an HD DVR. We had a few equipment issues actually getting the HD box, which has been typical of our experience with Cablevision in general, but now that it's up and running, I love it.

I wavered a bit on the decision to get it, thinking it would encourage me to watch more tv, but I find the opposite is true. I record the few things that I want to watch and never sit around channel surfing anymore.

Best feature - even if you're not recording, you can freeze live tv and backtrack. So if you catch a show in progress and decide you want to watch, it's a snap to go back to the beginning.

I had it and HATED it. It is one step above a VCR. If a good user interface is important to you, then I suggest getting TiVo. You will you have the ability to record two shows at once with the Series2, you can easily program a show off the guide, by watching the show, by entering the title or keywords. It has a search engine, which a DVR doesn't have.

If you're at work and someone tells you 24 is starting tonight and it's your favorite show but you forgot to set it to automatically record, you can get on tivo.com and set it to record from there, up until an hour before it starts. If you have a PC at home, you can download recorded shows to your desktop.

You can also have Tivo automatically record suggestions, a feature that is based on your recording habits and how you rate shows. The remote control has "thumbs up" and "thumbs down" buttons on it. These recordings offer up some interesting finds and the more you rate, the better it gets at finding stuff you may like. Oh, and the remote control is probably one of the best designed remotes out there.

Then there's how i can create a "wish list" based on anything I want: actor, director, keywords, etc, for a show that's not even on or in the guide yet. If I want to see any show that my favorite musician, Tori Amos, is on, then I add her as a keyword and set the tivo to record anything that has her name in a program description. Also, I wanted to catch the premiere of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" and heard about this show ages ago. So I added the terms to my wishlist and I forgot about it until it popped up on my list as recorded.

OH, and I went to tivo.com and selected the "guru guide" to record every pilot coming up on the networks so I could check them out without having to remember title/time/channel.

Tivo created the whole "time-shifting" thing, so you can pause live tv, etc.

I think Tivo is great, obviously and I am head over heels in love with this product. If you don't know much about the service, take a peek around tivo.com. The service isn't that much more than what Cablevision offers and if you pre-pay, it comes down to $10 a month.

Wow, doublediamond, you have taken how I think about watching tv to an entirely new level! I need a moment to digest all of those options.

Poot, that is a great feature. I assume you mean that you can decide to record any show you've been watching from whatever point you started to view it, right?

poot wrote: Yup - you can... with a catch, and this is what makes it only a decent feature: You have to have been tuned to that channel for the duration of the program. Meaning that you can't just cruise around and come on something midway through and decide to record it, or rewind, what have you. But, if you have been tuned to a specific channel, you can basically control anything served up.

oh no! is that how tivo is, too?

I need something psychic ...

They also made a point of giving me driving directions, even after I assured them I had no car and that I'd just Google Maps, etc. So then they told me the busses.

Nice, but um.

Alafairnadia,

Tivo comes closest to providing the features you're looking for, but at a way higher price. Cablevision's DVR has it's quirks and isn't as feature rich, but it's an easier/faster install. If you want tivo you have to pay for the box and then pay them a seperate per month bill for the service (on top of what you already pay for cable). Cablevision charges you an extra $10 or so per month without requiring an upfront investment in the hardware. Which means if the box melts down you can have it replaced for free. It also means that if you buy a high def TV next year you can get the high def upgrade without paying Tivo another $700 or so for the latest box.

With Cablevision's box, you won't be able to type in rugby and it won't read your mind about liking both versions of iron chef, but recording stuff is still pretty easy. Find one episode of Iron Chef, hit record, choose record all episodes or record first run only (so you don't see the same episode a million times). Then do the same with Iron Chef America. Is it a little more involved? Yes. But once it's set up you'll never have to think about it again.

(In the interest of fair disclosure the company I work for is owned by Cablevision, but the amount of HD boxes they move means exactly zip to me - I'm in a totally different business)

so I called cablevision today and they are sending me a dvr box in 3-5 days. then I can send back the old box. I'm so psyched. I'm going to deliberately underprogram it so I don't get screwed on vacay weekend after next.

I'm really enjoying the cablevision dvr. it's not awesome, i'm sure, but I have never experienced tivo so I don't know the difference. all I know is that I get to watch buffy that was on at 7 a.m. and csi from 9 pm and survivor, etc.

Another vote for DVR. I had heard that TiVO had all sorts of extra bells and whistles, but you actually have to buy the thing. And I had a terrible experience buying a Phillips TiVO box for my dad when TiVO was still pretty new. It busted; we sent it to be fixed. It came back, didn't work. My dad mothballed it. And then I tried to reconnect it this Christmas only to find out Phillips isn't in the business any more and TiVO doesn't touch the hardware side. And you can't transfer their license to a different box. So the lifetime license we bought was good for all of about four months. Besides, when I got an HD TV this winter, upgrading was just a matter of going to the Cablevision office and exchanging it; no additional purchase necessary.

So... yes TiVO is cooler. But DVR is much less problematic. And does everything I really want it to do anyways.

I kinda still have the old box - I'm supposed to send it back but I'm so incapable of doing the mundane things.