Picture & Sound Quality Replay versus DirecTV Tivo?

A couple things to consider:


With the DirecTivo, you'll get something like 35 hours of recording that will be at the highest quality. With the Replay, you will get 30-35 hours at Medium quality (which, in my opinion, is hard to distinguish on the Replay from High depending on the content). However, you will get the choice of recording things at standard, medium, or high which may give you more storage time depending on your preferences.


Second, if you get any of your channels off of cable or antenna, you won't be able to record them on your DirecTiVo, it can only record off the satellite.


If you're going to be happy with either platform, and you get all the channels you want off the DirecTV, the DirecTiVo is a promising piece of equipment. My only gripe with it is that it is still more of a promise than a reality: like the second tuner which still isn't activated.. In the future, devices like this with embedded tuners are going to be the way to go.


I recently had to make this same decision. Weighing the fact that I still had local channels which were not on the DirecTV, and that I really liked the Replay system, I went with the 3060. I'm not saying Replay is better than TiVo, but I didn't want to sit around for the next year thinking "Replay does this particular thing better..."

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No one ever brought anything up with the second tuner in any of these discussions. Where do you come off calling the DirecTiVo a "promise" and not reality? Go down to your local circuit city -- you can buy one today. There are quite a few of us using them today.


You are correct, though regarding local channels. If you can't your locals through DirecTV, the DirecTiVo is probably not for you.


As far as picture quality goes - yes, you could record everything at medium quality (which is what I did on my older TiVo). But the original person said that picture quality was at the top of his list. Don't forget that you also get Dolby Digital with direcTiVo too.


So really it breaks down to this: if you already have DirecTV, and you get your locals through the satellite, the DirecTiVo unit is spectacular.

My, aren't we a little testy... Here's where I "get off"/


I said that the DirecTiVo was promising because it was supposed to have some cool features that no other PVR had, and the second tuner was to provide many of those features. However, as I understand, the second tuner is included in the DirecTiVo but the software is not yet supporting it. My gripe is that this is still a promise and not a reality right now.


If you read my post, you'd see that I was recommending the DirecTiVo for people with a certain setup which is becoming more common (now that DirecTV is adding a full lineup of locals to more and more cities, only more more in LA and I can get rid of my cable). But like every electronics owner, I look at the equipment out there and think "man, if it only did X, that would be really cool". Well, the DirecTiVo I think was supposed to do X, and it may still someday do X, but it doesn't today and that's disappointing. And those of us who thought they'd be plugging in a network of peripherals into their Replay's Firewire ports know that just because it looks like something is going to happen doesn't mean it will in the end.


In my opinion, the only real benefits to getting a DirecTiVo over a PVR/DBS receiver separate systems would be that :

1) you don't have to worry about the PVR controlling the receiver through IR, and

2) there's a better picture quality since you're not decoding and re-encoding the incoming stream.


Each user would need to decide which platform is better for them...


Please correct me if any of this is wrong.


[This message has been edited by jleavens (edited 11-02-2000).]

The major problem I have with the DirecTiVo is that the only input is DirecTV. If you get local via antenna or cable (which I do) you cannot watch/record the local stations.


The major plus (as stated previously) is that the DirecTV signal is recorded directly. Since this is VBR rather than MPEG (correct terms?) compression, more can be stored in the same space. Also, this apparently allows dolby 5.1 sound.


If I could have the extra input, I'd probably go for DirecTiVo. Without it, the 3060.


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Ken

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Yeah, I really think that's the crux of the matter. I'm sure the partnership with DirecTV required this (as Microsoft's Ultimately Vaporware TV will have the same issues). They have to make the box compelling enough to make you overlook that issue - and want to subscribe to locals. I think the two-tuner aspect of it, once enabled, will go a long way in that regard. I'll be real curious to see how Microsoft's box uses the second tuner.


I think this will become less of an issue once DirecTV gets its next satellite up in the spring (I think). It will be configured with spot beams, which will allow them to be much more efficient with their bandwidth, so they'll be able to put up all of the locals for the top 50-75 or so cities.


Having had a "regular" TiVo for a year, I knew that I very rarely recorded from anything other than the satellite, so it was a no brainer for me (especially once someone pointed out the pricing error at Circuit City's web site -- I got mine for $219!)

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I don't see how it's "better", except for the fact that you can record more programming at the higher quality levels. That's one advantage, for sure, but it's simply a matter of capacity. Is the 30 hour TiVo better than then 14 hour one? Sure, it holds more, but that doesn't necessarily make it better. Especially if the 30 hour one didn't record off my cable system that was my only provider of local channels.


I'd be interested in seeing some serious comparisons to the quality levels as well. As we all know, DirecTV has been known recently to strangle the bandwidth of its channel slots in order to squeeze increasingly more channels into the lineup. I'm curious to know where the line lays in terms of visible differences in the recording process.

No question about it, both Dish & DirecTV have really put too much into too little space in the last few years.


I can give you a really good way to test quality. I was watching Randy Moss make one of his patented catches a few weeks ago, and I wanted to replay it in frame-by-frame slo-mo (this is on my old TiVo). Even at "Best" quality, you can see blockiness. I suspect that the mpeg encoder has a lot of difficulty with the fans in the background (and, if I recall correctly, Replay & TiVo use the same Sony chip to do mpeg encoding, so these should have almost identical problems).


The clearest example of pixelation caused by the encoding process was evident when the ball was high enough to have fans as a backdrop. The blockiness/pixels were very evident. I'll be curious to see how the DirecTiVo looks on similar plays this weekend.


I'll grant you that I watched most of my stuff on Medium quality when I had a regular TiVo, but it was painful to do any sort of slo motion when watching sports (I have Center Ice and Sunday Ticket).


I was surprised, though, to see how much of an improvement the picture quality was on everything.



No one mentioned the WORST feature of the DirecTivo --


You are STUCK forever with DirecTV -- and nobody I've talked to that has had DirecTV has stuck with it (two very good friends had it, and both switched to DishNet)... If that's what you want, OK -- but if you ever want to switch to DishNet or digital cable, you are stuck.


I don't think DD support is that much of an issue yet -- how many channels broadcast in DD 5.1? On digital cable it is non existant, and on satellite TV broadcasts, my understanding was that it is the exception to the rule. The "digital" digital cable channels I get are ALL DD 2.0 -- and it doesn't seem to make a difference whether I use the cable box to do the A/D conversion or a seperate DD ready A/V receiver. The cable runs are short and the Pro-logic decoder gives you the same 4 channels of audio...


As far as video quality goes, even satellite broadcast have problems the quality oftentimes is dependent upon the broadcast networks -- if image and audio are the biggest concerns, then stick to DVD.


Ciao


Joe

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I just want to clarify one thing here. Nobody ever said the first version of DirecTiVo would support dual tuners. In fact, it was made clear from the time dual tuners was mentioned long ago that it would definitely not. It was always known to be a future software update, and AFAIK the official advertising doesn't even mention it. I looked at the DirecTiVo info on the TiVo and DirecTV website and couldn't even find a reference to dual tuners. So they aren't using the future feature as a reason to buy it now (even though people on this board may be).

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Correct terms, incorrect comparison. VBR is an attribute of the signal, but it's still MPEG. Both TiVo and Replay use a FBR (fixed bit rate). This is to make sure that your capacity is predictable. VBR is simply a variable bit rate. Rather than limiting the bit rate, you allow the bit rate to increase and decrease based on the quality of the signal.

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While they may have required it, it's more likly simply economics. In order to record another signal, it would require an MPEG encoder chip. Since it doesn't need this for the DirecTV signal (it's already in a compressed digital format), they can save on each box by not including it.



Finally, ditto what ILoveMyTiVo said. The DirecTiVo was delivered as promised. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think there has been any promises from TiVo about any plans for the second tuner.


Many people on the TiVo forum have stated it's "future function" like fact, but it's generally pointed out that it's currently unsupported and no one knows what it might eventually do.



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"It's like living in the future."


[This message has been edited by an infinite number of monkeys (edited 10-24-2000).]

I've owned both for about a year. With a good satellite signal input (regular) TIVO has a slightly better picture than Replay, but not significantly so, and Replay is actually better on the economy setting. The difference between two satellite channels, or between a network signal and a local tape playback signal is larger in many cases than the difference between T and R. They are both still vastly superior to VHS or Cable TV. The excellent tuner in TIVO actually IMPROVES cable tv-quality signals...It may be the best tuner ever made, and it is at least the best I've ever seen, and by a long shot, but Replay is no slouch in this area either.


Since DirecTivo records the signal digitally before it is converted to analog (regular TIVO/Replay records even digital satellite signals only after they have been converted to analog, and then converts them back to digital for storage) there may be a real increase in quality. In this area DirecTIvo and TIVO are more different than they are similar...apples and oranges. Replay (and regular TIVO) must always first convert to analog.


If you record on lower quality settings the audio is not as good on Replay, in fact it is surprisingly bad. At the highest settings this is not a factor as they are pretty much identical.


IMHO the differences in quality should not be a deciding factor, as they are not great. There are, however, significant differences in price, features, theory of operation, difficulty of setup, extra fees (TIVO=$$$$), quality of the remote (TIVO's is inspired...Replay's just blows), program grid (Replay wins this one), and how well they handle on screen graphic displays (more of a factor than you might guess). You can't really go wrong with any of these products...I've not had the slightest twinge of buyer's remorse.

No brainer: Get DirecTiVo. *BUT* UltimateTV which apparently just came out (that's what I heard, not saw) is the same as DirecTiVo except it has the 30 second skip button, both tuners are active and you can RECORD from both of them!! Or you can watch one thing and record another! This is amazingly cool because my wife could record her soap and I'd still get to record Babylon 5. Also for football. The 10am game always runs past the start of the 1pm game and it drives me nuts. I'm thinking about getting a second unit just for this reason.


Of course, as people have said, the problem with both DirecTiVo and UltimateTV is that you can't record any antenna or cable. Of course the picture blows the others away, and the price is great because there is no MPEG encoder in the box.


Ultimate TV's page is www.ultimatetv.com


[This message has been edited by DeadEd (edited 11-03-2000).]