Comcast launches PVR

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Comcast launches PVR

In what could be another nail in the coffin of TiVo, Comcast is test marketing a PVR (that also includes video on demand features). As the nation's largest cable provider with over 21 million subscribers, if they launch this service nationwide, it may very well spell doom for TiVo, Replay, and other standalone PVR makers.

by Matt Haughey October 5, 2003 in News

Comments

Gah, why isn't TiVo competing *at all*? They have such incredible name recognition, why aren't they licensing their boxes to Comcast et al? I'd love to see an article about which companies are successfully licensing their PVR tech to the big cable companies and why they're successful at it while TiVo basically languishes in the consumer realm.

Posted by: brian w at Oct 6, 2003 10:20:41 AM

I have a feeling that TiVo is in fact shopping their system around for partnering, but I bet most of these large companies realize they can build their own systems cheaply and not have to give up profits as licensing fees.

Going into the future, if this sort of thing does in fact continue to take marketshare from TiVo, I bet TiVo starts using its patents on all the companies and services that copied their features.

Posted by: Matt Haughey at Oct 6, 2003 10:37:21 AM

As a Comcast (and TiVo) subscriber, I was looking for just this kind of information since I regularly experience the 'bad channel change' problem. But the offering described in the linked article doesn't seem to be a reasonable replacement for TiVo, starting with the store for 24 hours feature--I have month-old movies on my box and still hope to get to them! For me to switch, Comcast will need to offer a box that has everything TiVo has, including Season Pass and TiVo Suggests.

Posted by: BillSaysThis at Oct 7, 2003 10:50:00 AM

No, this is just Video on Demand (i.e. choose any show, pause/REW/FF it, keep it for 24 hrs if a paid show). In addition, Comcast is about to test true PVR (TiVo) capability in a box made by Motorola.

http://www.forbes.com/2003/11/17/1117comcaststratpinnacor.html

Posted by: RP at Nov 18, 2003 7:24:06 AM

How much will it cost extra to switch from
regular digital box that I have to new dvr
box comcast is offering.

Posted by: richard at Feb 28, 2004 5:03:27 PM

the box will be $5 more a month than your paying now if you have digital cable. The box has PVR capability (storage for as long as you want) as well as VOD. The box CAN even record HD broadcasts.

Posted by: tiredmike at Jul 8, 2004 2:20:03 PM

I just ordered the Comcast PVR from Comcast.com's website for $9.95 per month. It's getting installed next week. I live in NJ so Im not sure what other areas can get it. The funny thing is this:

A sales person at Best Buy told us we shouldnt buy a Tivo or a ReplayTV box since Comcast has them practically for free. No setup fee, just the monthly usage fee. They say it records 30 hours (but dont say what quality)

Posted by: JesusWasWellHung at Oct 15, 2004 6:16:21 PM

my pvr is just what i hope for it time saving!
picture is high find pictures hd is hot rewind same
replay but my Q? is how big hard drive?

Posted by: jesus at Feb 11, 2005 6:44:26 PM

the price is right $10.00 HD channels $10.00 for pvr
do it your self. the same as put cable box.
so go for it! "just do it"
what you got to lose $10.00. better then $200.00 to $399.00 !
this hottest thing out there!

Posted by: jesus at Feb 11, 2005 6:52:15 PM

From a woman's prospective, I thought I would not be able to enjoy the pvr or how to work it, but I love being able to watch high definition channels, especially my soap operas. I also am able to watch what I want when I want through the feature of the pvr system, so that deletes any conflict of interest between me and my husband.

Posted by: delshawn M. santiago at Feb 13, 2005 1:46:08 PM

I can`t record my show if it`s already started,on comcast my dvd,why?

Posted by: Debbie at Feb 14, 2005 5:19:18 PM

I can`t record on my dvd on comcast if the show has started any help?

Posted by: Debbie at Feb 14, 2005 5:20:52 PM

"Debbie at February 14, 2005 05:19 PM
I can`t record on my dvd on comcast if the show has started any help?"
[box 6412?]
Press Red Guide button. If your program is still on the guide move the curser on it so it turns colors.
Then press Record button.
Or while watching your channel press record button twice!! Info bar should pop up showing red button on it.

Posted by: Chuck at Feb 14, 2005 9:21:35 PM

The Comcast PVR sucks... the user interface is awful. It turns off if a show stops recording while you are watching a show. It always falls into some sort of MUTE mode if it turns on to record a scheduled show. Its computer processor is also painfully underpowered which causes it to lag in response to the fast-forward, play, pause, stop and rewind buttons. Frequently when I am fast forwarding through a show and hit the play button the fast-forward will not stop for 10 seconds or more... and as far as I can tell I'm stuck with this sorry device.

If I was aware of a Tivo device that I could replace the Comcast box, I'd buy it today and send that piece of crap back to Comcast. I've already tried returning them, but Comcast always sends me another box with the exact same problems. The device is flawed from extremely poor engineering and programming.

Posted by: David G at Nov 6, 2005 8:22:58 PM

The PVRs that most cable companies force on you really do suck, especially when compared to TiVo. Mine is a Motorola. It is so full of software bugs that I wonder if anyone actually tested the interface. Here are some major problems that would be simple to fix in software, yet I doubt they ever will:

- If the box turns itself on to record something, it turns itself OFF when it is done recording, EVEN IF YOU ARE WATCHING SOMETHING ELSE!!!

- If the box turns itself on to record something, it MUTES itself. If you use a universal remote with a receiver, you have to program the PVR mute buttom to unmute it. There is no option to change this behavior.

- Certain buttons take forever to register. Slow processor perhaps? When you confirm a DELETE, it takes 5-10 seconds. If you think it didn't catch and press it 2-3 times, it then keeps selecting the defaults from the next few menus afterwards. Ouch!

- There is no FAST fast-forward. If you want to move halfway through a 2-hour show, it takes about 5 minutes to get there. Doh!

- Serious flaws in the season pass ordering occur. It numbers the shows, and one of my numbers vanished, so it actually skips from #16 to #18. You can not move the precedence of any show past the missing #17, so all no shows will always be lower priority than the top #16 shows. WTF?

- The interface in general is clunky and hard to use. Everything takes twice as long as it should.

- There is little or no customization.

- The program data only goes out 3 days.

- You can't do season passes on your favorite sports teams. If you really like sports, get ready to go through a repetitive 10-minute recording setup EVERY 3 DAYS.

... I'm sure there are more I'm missing ...

Posted by: Kent D at Dec 1, 2005 11:51:43 PM

I have Comcast's HD PVR and TiVo -- I sure wish TiVo had their act together and would come out with a good HD box. They seem to be concentrating on everything I don't care about and ignoring what competitors are doing.

So I got the Comcast box for an extra few bucks a month (already had digital cable) and it does indeed record HD, and it's programmable "like TiVo." The software is horrible, as others have noted--if you've used TiVo it's quite amazing how great and stable TiVo is compared to Comcast, which is buggy, slow, very hard to use, and just plain stinks.
That being said, once you manage to go through the torture of setting up programs in the Comcast PVR, you can ignore the process in the future and it basically works, with the caveats that others have noted here.

Comcast's drive only holds 15 hours of HD programming, by the way. On the other hand, Comcast doesn't offer HD for a lot of the programs I care about--curse their suck. The Comcast box also has dual tuners, so you can record two programs at once.

I'd ditch this Comcast box in a second if they offered a new one with TiVo software, or if TiVo offered an HD box with a large hard drive (yes, I'd even pay for it up front; that's how bad the Comcast experience is).

BTW, Humax offers an HD TiVo experience, but they don't enable all of the wireless and home networking that standard TiVo boxes do--and since that's important to me they're not a choice. I use TiVo to broadcast my iTunes music all over the house (even though the experience isn't great, it's essentially free and is better than most other solutions I've seen).

Posted by: fooviusfoo at Dec 4, 2005 10:43:21 AM

Comcast launches PVR

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