Seattle, WA - Comcast - Page 30

The recent stuff I've seen on the 6208 indicates, seasons pass capability of course it will recored HD at it broadcasted bit rate, it will record 5.1 audio and playback 5.1 audio. And works directly with your MSO's cable guide service. So to me sounds like it will be equal to Tivo/Replay aside from the intial box's being single tuner.

I'm quite excited to see this box and what it can do myself but then again I PVR with my computer right now and never really did like TIVO/Replay, I've never seen the use in paying 15 bux/month just to have a 2nd on EPG, especially since my PC TV Tuner has a free EPG and Functions similarily to TIVO/Replay.

As a lifetime subscriber, I do not pay a monthly fee for my DirecTiVo SERVICE, but I do pay $5/month each for added STBs. With the DirecTiVos we get 2 tuners in a box for $5/month. For non-lifetime customers, the DirecTiVo service fee is only $5/month for any quantity of DirecTiVo's on the same DirecTV account.

The stand-alone TiVo box does not have a DirecTV tuner inside, but does have an analog tuner that can be used with analog cable or OTA antenna reception. It can also be used with external STBs. The stand-alone TiVo service charge (not related to DirecTV) is $13/month for each box.

Both of our DirecTiVos are able to record and playback Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and both are connected optically to our A/V receiver. We also use a channel modulator and remote control extenders to extend the DirecTiVos, an HD receiver and the DVD player to all other TVs in the house.

I might look at the PVR opportunities differently if I wasn't already "bought into" the DirecTiVo service for life. Perhaps a bigger issue would be with my wife and her total satisfaction with her DirecTiVo. There would have to be some huge improvements available for her to consider switching. If you asked her right now, she would ask why consider switching when everything works the way she wants it to already.

I don't think we are much different from other DirecTiVo owners. We have spoiled ourselves with the easy DirecTiVo timeshifting capabilities. We would never give it up willingly.

In our case we have an added benefit with DirecTV. When we travel in our RV we take a DirecTiVo and another STB with us and we still have the capabilities when we want them. The only drawback is losing the Seattle local channels if we travel outside the footprint of the DirecTV spot beam for the northwest.

As always, YMMV, but for us, the DirecTiVo solution can only be improved upon by the HD DirecTiVo when it becomes available.

From someone who just went from UTV with two tuners to one with TIVO let me tell you that second tuner is a big deal, especially if you have kids. The HDTV feature is nice, but it wouldn't be worth giving up the other turner imho.

Tom:

You must have gone from a 2-tuner UTV with DirecTV service to a 1-tuner stand-alone TiVo unit. Why did you make that change? For the TiVo series 2 features like HMO? Just wondering.

I switched from DirecTV to cable for a lot of different reasons (better HDTV, easier/cheaper with lots of TVs, better programming, etc.) I do miss the UTV unit however.

Actually, I also switched from a DirecTivo unit (2.5 years user) to HD cable.

My reason: I moved to a wooded area and satellite was problematic to setup (for HD capability, I would have needed 3 poles and cut 5-8 trees, >$1000 setup) . So I relunctantly called Comcast, but I setup my HTPC with SnapStream software for my PVR solution, which in my opinion doesn't necessarilly have all the bells and whistles that Tivo software has, but defintely has a simple and attractive UI and it's $69 MSRP with no monthly fees! After getting used to it, I'm pretty happy with it.

I even gave ReplayTV a shot, but returned it within 48 hours. I've read that Tivo users can't get used to ReplayTV and vice-versa, and that's what my personal experience was. Also, I definitely didn't like the 5+ seconds lag between cable channels... though I heard my unit was probably defective.

Dave: while you were lucky to take advantage of the lifetime subscription, it's not available anymore for DirecTivo units and it's now $299 for standalones! Is it true that if you upgrade (for example to the HD DirecTivo), you won't be able to transfer your subscription? I heard about that, and it scared me out of the lifetime subscription.

Also, what annoys me the most about owning a PVR is what 3 of my close friends experienced recently (two standalone Tivos and a ReplayTV). The harddrive of their unit died in just a little bit more than 2 years of usage. Not only they lost all their recorded programs, but had to pay major fees to get it fixed. While this is not a typical experience from what I know, the bottom line of this issue is that harddrives are not meant to be used 24/7 non-stop for years and will get more defects and eventually fail after a few years. While renting the unit won't be problem-free, it will aleviate the costs of replacement if you used the unit appropriately and the harddrive fails on you.

Finally, I don't know if somebody saw any HD PVR box with two tuners recording at the same time while playing back a pre-recorded show, but that sure seems impossible to me with the current technology. High-Def takes a large amount of bandwidth to record, multiply that by 2 (including the seeking times) and then add the decompression cycles and seeking time on the harddrive to read the 3rd steam for playback and that feels like frames will drop. Anybody saw that working?

Anyways, I just wanted to give my experience and opinions on the near-future solutions. And I hope both HD-DirecTivo and Mot 6208 will exceed all our expectations!

-eric

The bandwidth requirements should not strain modern hard drives, and there is no decompression cycle, as far as the hard drive is concerned, for playback of HD.

I pay monthly for my two DTivos, with no regrets. With a pricing model of $4.99/mo for all DTivo service, the math is different than if I had two SA units at $10/mo. My old, lifetime sub for my SA Tivo (now my sister's) paid off, but it does seem risky now-a-days, especially since the hard drive manufacturers have reduced their warranties to one year.

With that in mind, I think I'll be happy to lease a 6208, instead of buying. Of course, I'll also have to find a way to record more than 6 hours of HD. External drives had better be an option.

--Mike

I'll second that thought! I'll be VERY happy to rent a 6208, but if we're limited to an 80gig drive, that will be bad. Hopefully I'll be able to connect Firewire or USB2 to use the 680 gb I have available in my HTPC.

The 6208 is a single tuner unit, basically you have to watch what you record. Or record something and watch something previously recorded on the HDD.

The dual tuner DCT will be able to record & watch two seperate channels. I don't think it will be able to record two different channels while watching a previously recorded channel.

I seriously doubt you would be able to connect it to a PC. The documentation for the box says it's supposed to support the use of an external firewire hard drive. We just have to hope that Comcast gives us that option because I don't imagine 80 GB will hold much HD.

Its too bad these things are riveted closed I'd love to get into one up the memory since they just use SODIMM's and upgrade the hard drive with a nice quiet Seagate Baracuda 4, thats the only thing I really worry about with these is how loud the HDD's will be.

Jeremy

I am reserved in my enthusiasm about the ability of the 6208 to support external drives, since it does not mean that Comcast WILL support this feature. To be honest, I could see why they might not. It would probably increase the cost of supporting the box if they have to deal with customers that have problems with their unit due to broken or incorrectly configured external drives.

Let's hope.

--Mike

Is there confirmed information on the 6208 doing the 480i/p upconversion for SD material for component video output?

And if so, does anyone know if the quality will be better than on the 5100 (upconversion)...right now it's acceptable, but still lower quality than composite video out for the SD channels...but for convenience factors, I use the component upconversion.

Cheers,

Rich

Actually, I should expand on my desire for addition storage:

If I am limited to a 6-10 hours of HD recording, I will most likely keep my DirecTivos, and limit my Comcast service to a minimum, recording only HD network shows on the 6208, and all my other programming on the DTivos.

Perhaps I'm just hard to please, but if Comcast wants me to pay them for a broad variety of programming, they need to provide me with the means to record it all...for a several weeks.

--Mike

The lifetime applies to a continuous DirecTV account with a DirecTiVo, and, as I understand it, would continue when I ADD the HD DirecTiVo. I will not replace my 2 DirecTiVo SD units, I will just add the HD version. I don't know how DirecTV will charge for the HD DirecTiVo, but it should not affect my SD DirecTiVo lifetime service.

I realize that DirecTV no longer offers lifetime DirecTiVo service to new subscribers. Those of us who paid up front ($199 at the time I did) took some risk because, at that time, the lifetime service went with the original DirecTiVo box. Since then, DirecTV has changed from that TiVo-administered version of lifetime service to the current DirecTV version.

I am not trying to convince anyone to change, I am just sharing my personal situation and why it works better for me. In my case, the AT&T (later Comcast) cable TV service was down for days at a time.

I think the cable-satellite competition will benefit all of us eventually. I have Comcast (former AT&T) cable modem service and it has worked very well for me. But their analog channels on their cable service still suffers from PQ problems, at least as delivered to my house.

I might consider Comcast HD service if I did not get great OTA HD reception with my $20 rooftop antenna. I realize that many folks in the Seattle area are not as lucky thanks to the many hills around here (one of which I live near the top of).

The best solution will vary for different people in different locations. From a DTV reception perspective, I am lucky to live where I do. Ironically, analog reception here is barely watchable. OTA HDTV and DirecTV enabled my escape from mediocre quality analog cable TV service.

As always, YMMV, or actually, yours WILL vary.

The 6208 is supposed to have improved performance in the SD upconversion and in HD.

Dave,

Totally agree with you about the benefits of the cable-satellite competition. I think 2004 will be a very interesting year for both DirecTV and ComCast customers that have HD capability.

-eric

Yes the 6208 supposedly has a better Video Chip.....Only time will tell.

And the functionality will not be any different from the current 5100 AFA the 480 override functions, ect.....

Sweet,

thanks to both of you for the replies.

Cheers,

rich

I believe that OTA recordings take roughly about 9 GBytes per hour. And that's only if the entire "bandwidth" is dedicated to a single channel. For those of you who don't know, in OTA terms, a channel can be divided into sub-channels. So for example, all of the KCTS PBS stations are on channel 9, and they're referenced as 9-1, 9-2, etc.

MyHD records the entire stream for a given channel. I believe this is because the entire channel+subchannels is transmitted as one "package", and it's easier for MyHD to write the whole thing to disk than to parse out the one that you really wanted. So in this scenario, I'm guaranteed that HD recordings will always take ~ 9GB/h, so an 80 GB HD equates to about 8 hours of HD-only programming - which is pathetic (which is why I have a 250 GB HD).

However, I'm assuming with cable things are a bit different. If I want to record something on one of the sub-channels of KCTS I'm assuming the PVR won't require that all of the other sub-channels be recorded along with it. Hard to say - maybe someone else can chime in.

In addition, you likely won't record only HD content. That will increase your recording time as well.

So the lower bound on recording time will probably be ~ 8 hours. The upper bound is harder to say. Maybe 15 to 20 hours???

Oh, and this is assuming that transmissions aren't recompressed in cable. OTA HD is already MPEG2 (I believe).

-Joe

Joe: Comcast does not compress the HD signal's though some programmers tend not to use the full 19.4mbps for 1080i (cough cough HBO!) so yes it does depend on content delivered, One beta tester I've seen post stated he got around 11.5 hours on his 6208. I'm not too worried about it since my first plans are to get a really big HDD and a firewire case and Voila! the "dvr from hell!" hehe

sooo..... You're saying that the firewire will be active and we will be able to pull recorded material off of the 6208????

I'm not saying anything just that I plan on adding a rather large HDD to mine when I get it. As to any other options ie DVHS etc, I cant say whether or not that will be an option. Heck I really cant even say that adding an HDD will be an option but its a happy thought.

Jeremy

Hey Comcast......one week till the NBA season starts. In case you forgot, Give me the damn NBATV allready! This is just stupid now.

Does anyone know if OTA is possible in the Edmonds area? Thinking of wiring for Directtv soon but Comcast is offering a fair bit of HD, does it include INHD? Their (Comcast) site doesn't give much info.
BTW if I cable with fibre what connectors are needed for the multiswitch and the D* receivers, hope this isn't out of line for this forum.

INHD1 & INHD2, 24-7

tluxon - I assume you have Comcast and hdtv. What locals do they carry and what is your opinion of the PQ? Had you looked at and rejected going to sat? I'm nosy but interested in your thoughts.

nodrog2: In Edmonds the following HD channels are available, KOMO-DT, KCTS-DT, ESPN-HD,HBO HD, SHO HD, INHD1, & INHD2. With more on the way.

They're supposed to be upgrading the on-screen graphics as well with the 6208.

What do you mean "cable with fibre"? Are you talking fiber optical cable......