Reasons Why Buying a Tivo HD is Well Worth the Money Spent, Compared to Cablevisions DVR Box Cablevision DVR vs. Tivo HD

I'm a DVR pioneer. The very moment I found out about this fantastic technology for my TV viewing pleasures, I was one of the first on board to ordering my TIVO DVR. Although I was new to the entire concept, and setting up my TIVO was a royal pain in the rear, I honestly could not have been happier.

Having the ability to record all of my favorite shows, having the ability to fast forward, rewind, and pause live TV; I mean seriously, it does not get any more kosher than that.

Then one fine day I talked myself into buying an HDTV. Sweet delicious HDTV, with a full blow your eyes away 1080p. And why not? I spend most of my free time watching TV anyway, so why not fully amp up my viewing pleasures with an HDTV!?

After hooking up my new eye orgasm of a television, I realized that there was one problem, one very huge problem. My old school TIVO gave off some really horrible picture clarity. I bought the HDTV for the clarity, and with TIVO hooked up to it, things were not kosher at all, not even by a long shot.
I desperately wanted to get myself a TIVO HD DVR, but at the asking price that came to nearly the same jaw dropping price as the HDTV, I said 'heck no', and headed down to Cablevision to upgrade my digital cable box, to a digital HD DVR box.

After hooking it all up, immediately I hated the browsing menus, and the confusing recording options. However I got used to it, but after a year of owning Cablevisions box, I have jotted down all of the reasons why you should just spend the extra loot on a TIVO HD DVR, and why I will be adding one to my Christmas wish list this year.

1. If you set up your Cablevision DVR box to record your favorite show, sometimes it decides it does not want to. While you think that all of your Ghost Adventure episodes are being recorded, you come home to find that the box decided it did not want to record it, even though you set it up to do so.

2. For some bizarre reason my Cablevision box refuses to even acknowledge that FOX 5 is a channel. If you try to record something on this channel, expect to come home, hit play on your FOX 5 show, only to discover a pure black nothingness of a show.

3. My Cablevision DVR has been returned to Cablevision 4 times in just one year.

The first time they gave me a new DVR, which stopped working just a week after owning it.
The second box died a month later.

The third time Cablevision decided that it must have been something I was doing wrong, so they sent over a team of third party morons who set up the new box in the same manner I had set up previous boxes. The downside to this was a delicious service fee.

This box stopped working a few months later. The cycle is a non-stop pain in the butt. I had to demand the 4th box be brand new, and not a refurbished box, like all of the previous models were they had given me.

4. The channel guide menu only allows you to see ahead 1 week. With TIVO you could see what was playing for an entire month before it was even on, saving you time having to weed through the guide.

5. The Cablevision DVR will sometimes have a hiccup. These hiccups occur around once a month, where you will come home expecting to watch some TV, only to find that your Cable box is in BOOT mode. You have to wait a few long minutes for the box to fully load up. If the box had a hiccup, expect to have to add very single program you had on your record list, back onto the DVR again. Fun!

6. The pause button on the Cablevision DVR decides sometimes it does not want to let you pause it.

This in turn ends up becoming a frustrating button mashing, smashing good time.

7. The audio sometimes decides to just blip out. This is not an issue with my TV, as I have heard from others that their Cable DVR box does the same exact thing. The fix, is to shut off the cable box, and to turn it back on. Reason? Unknown.
 
In conclusion a Cablevison DVR is much cheaper, but it will function like a dollar store battery. You get what you pay for.
 
A Tivo HD in my opinion is the way to go. Tivo runs flawlessly, and you can guarantee that what you tell it to record, it will record!