James Chamberlin

I’ve been waiting for a Tivo for years and I finally got one this past week, along with a subscription to Charter’s HD tier of TV programming. I got the programming before the Tivo got here, but I still managed to enjoy a few days of HD programming.

Anyway, when I got the Tivo, I was unaware of the need for CableCard Decoders. I figured I could just use the HD cable box from Charter, but no, of course not. So a call to Charter got a cable guy out to the house this Friday afternoon. He was supposed to show up sometime in the afternoon, but no specific window was given… just “the afternoon”. He showed up ten minutes after noon, which was fine and I had the area around the Tivo all cleaned up and ready to go.

There’s an instruction sheet for the installer, but my installer didn’t use it so he didn’t understand why the card didn’t work immediately. Silly guy. So he called Charter and got it working within a few minutes but Charter screwed up.

In order to activate the CableCard, they had to remove the cable box from the account. And in doing so, they somehow managed to remove the HD service too. Just as he was ready to have me sign off on the work, I decided to check the channels and noticed the problem. He called Charter and learned of their mistake (not the installer’s, from what I understand).

I’ve been on a recording tear for the weekend, recording two dozen or so shows, most of which are HD. And the quality is superb. I wasn’t sure what to expect of Charter’s HD service, but I’m very happy with the quality of the picture and sound. And there is absolutely no loss in quality from the Tivo.

Tivo has been around for quite a while and I’m sure it has improved quite a bit since it’s early days. I really only have one major complaint with the Tivo and that is with the hard drive. A 160GB drive is laughable for recording HD television and/or movies. And Tivo is only offering one other HD model, the XL.

The 160GB model costs $300, while the 1TB model costs $600. That’s a $300 price difference! Aside from the hard drive size, the only difference in the two models is that the XL has THX certification. I don’t know how much this costs Tivo, but $600 is ridiculous in my opinion.

One of the things I like about the Tivo website is that the TV listings are much more accurate than the listings I can get on TitanTV and most other TV listings sites. Some of those other sites list channels I don’t even get, even though I’ve correctly selected my zip code and cable provider.

Also, Tivo’s website allows you to schedule a program remotely. One glaring feature that they are missing is the ability to see your Tivo’s “To Do List”. This is simply a list of programs the Tivo is set to record. I would like to be able to see what my Tivo has scheduled to record while I’m not physically able to be there.

Still, why I really wanted the Tivo is the Tivo Desktop feature which allows someone to backup the Tivo recordings to your PC. I absolutely love this feature and is principally why I have no interest in using Charter’s DVR. My only complaint with the feature is that the transferring/encoding of the file is painfully slow. An hour-long show takes more than an hour to transfer. It’s the re/encoding of the file that slows it down. The Tivo isn’t just doing a simple transfer, which would go quite fast since it’s using Ethernet. I wish this process could go a little faster, but it’s a minor complaint considering how happy I am with my purchase.

To anyone considering getting a Tivo with CableCards, make sure you know which cards you are getting. The customer service rep said that they only had one type of card and was absolutely clueless as to whether it was an M-Card or an S-Card. The Tivo has two tuners, making it capable of recording two programs at the same time.

The M-Card has the ability to decode two streams, while the S-Card can only decode one stream. I ended up getting an M-Card, much to my surprise. If you’re getting S-Cards, order two. If you don’t know what you’re going to get, order two anyway, just to be sure.

Also, make sure all of your channels are working before you let the technician go. I was on the ball about this, but I know some may not even think of it.

Now I just have to wait for Food Network to arrive in HD here. I don’t get that one. 🙁 I’m not recording any Food Network shows until I get them in HD so that I can compare quality.

Eric, I hope I answered your questions about my experience. I know you have Charter too, and I would recommend the Tivo and CableCards.

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