Washington Post on HDTV DVRs

I don't know why I missed this a few weeks ago when it first went up but the Washington Post tested out the current crop of HDTV recorders, including the Hughes HDTiVo, the Dish network's offering, and comcast's HD DVR box. The TiVo powered unit comes out on top as the easiest to operate but they mention the Dish Network's PiP features which sound pretty interesting.

They also point out that permanent archival isn't easy and just barely possible with a $800 D-VHS unit hooked via firewire to a Comcast HD DVR. It's great to hear a typical user ask for this very basic feature that I suspect will never make it into HDTV recorders. Hollywood and the TV networks are freaked at the prospects of perfect beyond-DVD quality recordings being saved by customers when they'd much rather resell you a show's series on DVD for $50 a couple years from now.

I suspect the war will continue between basic customer expectations of what they can do in their home, and what Hollywood studios will let the industry do. [thanks Thomas]

Comments

[Scott Johnson]

It looks like you have an accidental double-posting of this article.

[Sean Devine]

Comcast installed their HDTV DVR at my house last week and I posted a short review (with a photo) on my personal blog (link at bottom of comment). In short, I don't like it that much, though the price and HDTV recording capabilities are pretty nice. I just wish that Comcast cared about the user experience 1/10th as much as TiVo does.

http://devine.blogs.com/devine_thoughts/2004/09/quick_review_of.html

[Pheo]

I'm not sure I understand the utility of PiP when you can have a two-tuner PVR. If I want to watch two things at once (i.e., NFL football), I pause one when I catch up to live TV and watch the other one. The only weakness to this approach is that there are occasional "spoilers" that scroll across the screen before you have a chance to flip to the other game. Oh, I guess there is another weakness: it is hard to keep track of 3 games, but, sheesh, how much does a guy need?

[Paul]

I have a TiVo and the Comcast PVR sitting right next to each other and I use the TiVo for standard recording and the Comcast only for high definition. There is no comparison of the user interface. For example, when you go to the "list" on the comcast unit, you are always at the top whearas the TiVo puts you on the item you were last watching or the next item if you deleted it.

I can only get 6 to 8 shows in the Comcast unit and I noticed that the unit has Firewire on the back of it and I was wondering if an external hard disk can be attached for additional storage. I no longer believe in the use of tape even if it is high definition, and I have seen 160 GB hard disks for less than $75 which would allow me to triple my storage.

One other thing I noticed is that playback of the HD content on the Comcast unit is marred by the presence of a faint redish band that moves from right to left continuously while playing back. It is most annoying while playing back dark scenes. My Comcast unit is connected through the DVI connector. I am planning to look for this artifact in the component output, but have not performed the test yet.