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Do you DIRECTV people have indemand?
- Thread starter Fatalah
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Fatalah said:
No but as a Tivo owner I recently went through a trial of what seemed to be in-demand lite... programming was pushed to my Tivo for Showtime IIRC, movies and such... I Think it changed every few weeks... I didn't bother with it so I'm not sure of all the details.... but it's definitely nothing near the amt of programming offer via the cable indemand services.
hmm.. indemand where they just throw a couple dozen random high profile mainstream shows/movies at me once a month, or Tivo where it records hundreds of shows automatically based on my viewing and recording habits without regard for what studio or channel the show belongs to.
case in point. my tivo records every episode of the simpsons it can possibly record. I never told it to. I simply tell it to record first run simpsons on Fox sunday nights and gave the show three thumbs up. just because of that it started recording all the syndicated episodes as well on two different local stations.
case in point 2. because of the simpsons settings it randomly records episodes of futurama and family guy, as well as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and South Park. Again I never told it to record any of those.
So as you can see, Tivo is like inDemand specifically tailored to your viewing habits. So does DirecTV have InDemand®? No. Does directv (with a Tivo DVR) have on-demand showings of random shows and movies that you don't have to specifically ask to record? Yes. Are you more likely to enjoy the on-demand content from DirecTV's Tivo than you are InDemand®? Absolutely.
do the math.
case in point. my tivo records every episode of the simpsons it can possibly record. I never told it to. I simply tell it to record first run simpsons on Fox sunday nights and gave the show three thumbs up. just because of that it started recording all the syndicated episodes as well on two different local stations.
case in point 2. because of the simpsons settings it randomly records episodes of futurama and family guy, as well as Aqua Teen Hunger Force and South Park. Again I never told it to record any of those.
So as you can see, Tivo is like inDemand specifically tailored to your viewing habits. So does DirecTV have InDemand®? No. Does directv (with a Tivo DVR) have on-demand showings of random shows and movies that you don't have to specifically ask to record? Yes. Are you more likely to enjoy the on-demand content from DirecTV's Tivo than you are InDemand®? Absolutely.
do the math.
Particle Physicist
between a quark and a baryon
tivo rocks.
TheDuce22 said:
Wow, way to back your blanket statement up with awesome facts. Both have their advantages. If you're into sports and/or want a great DVR, DirecTV's the way to go. If you hate contracts or like the On-Demand stuff, go the cable route. I've had Dish Network, DirecTV, and Time Warner Digital. Of the three, I much prefer DirecTV, but your mileage may vary. Personally, my love for my DirecTiVo borders on pornographic. I've tried the present Time Warner DVR, and I'll be nice and say little else.
DirecTV used to have Starz On Demand, which would download movies to your TiVo automatically, but that was nixed last month. It wasn't really anything to write home about anyway, but it was kinda nice while it lasted.
But yah, TiVo recording your favorite programs for you to watch later >>> limited selection of programming that only gets updated when the cable companies feel like it.
As far as the HD service, I'm hoping that will improve when the new Spaceway satellites actually go live, which is supposed to happen by the end of the year.
Nathan
But yah, TiVo recording your favorite programs for you to watch later >>> limited selection of programming that only gets updated when the cable companies feel like it.
As far as the HD service, I'm hoping that will improve when the new Spaceway satellites actually go live, which is supposed to happen by the end of the year.
Nathan
Marty Chinn
Member
I will never ever deal with Digital Cable again, it's such a fraud. Most of the channels are still analog while very few and mostly none of the major ones are digital. What a rip off.
To start with the samsung HD recievers they send you are peices of crap. I went through like 3 of them to get a working one. The one I have now still has issues. The guide flickers like crazy when I set it to output 1080i but my tv is fine with 1080i signals from any other source. The HD channels they offer for 12 bucks a month are garbage. The only way to get local HD channelswith direct tv, ABC FOX NBC CBS, is with an antenna. I never had time warner so i dont know about them but my experience with cox cable was awesome. It kicks the shit out of direct tv imo.
Marty Chinn
Member
TheDuce22 said:
That's not completely true. Some of the networks will let you get either the east or west coast feed. Others will if you can get a waiver.
TheDuce22 said:
I guess it depends where you live. Here in So. Cal its fucking pathetic that paying upwards of $80.00+ for internet and basic cable. I don't want to even add the cost of getting shitty channels I'll never watch or the fact you are renting the stupid cable box or whatever other charges they want to tack on
. I can't wait for Netflix to launch thier movie downloads and installation of fiber optics in my area then I can just ditch overpriced cable forever Cerebral Palsy
Banned
borghe said:
Yeah, because it is unheard of having On-Demand/iNDemand and a Tivo!? UNHEARD OF!
p.s. and there is a lot more than a couple dozen shows and movies available on On-Demand.
Cerebral Palsy said:
Far as I know, no cable service has a deal with TiVo. I may be wrong. While I hear Comcast offers a decent DVR, the one presently offered by Time Warner ain't exactly amazing. There is a difference when it comes to the world of DVRs. There's competing ones out that are getting nicer, but TiVo pretty much remains the gold standard at the moment.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
tedtropy said:
Then buy a Tivo if you don't like the Comcast/Time Warner/whoever DVR?
Phoenix
Member
tedtropy said:
Comcast both has a working deal with Tivo which will result in their own Tivo thingy next year and they have a dual receiver DVR which is actually pretty excellent IMO. While I do still own a Tivo and keep it hooked up, I think most users will not realize what they are missing by having the Comcast dual tuner offerings.
tedtropy said:
Comcast has a deal with TIVO but we won't see the fruits of that deal for another year or so IIRC.
Unfortunately our DirectTV service is so bad(have had antenna adjusted twice and yet service still goes out immediately in the rain) that I'm being forced to seriously considering going to Comcast for cable service and their DVR's.... I'm trying to hold out... but the missus is getting antsy...
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
When I used InDemand I thought it was a cheap knockoff of Tivo....InDemand is cool and all, but I used Tivo first...and ID just seemed way too limited and cheesey. Granted, it was about 4 months ago so maybe it's better now?
I'll take Tivo any day of the week.
- I can have it record any show for any reason at any time...x2 at once. Whether it be for director, actor, title, series, writer, producer, 1st run, re-run, remake ...anything. The number of options for defining your recordings is ridiculous.
- I can have all my shows organized into nice folders to browse at my leisure. Like for instance right now I have 18 episodes of The Tick, 7 Family Guy, etc
- Through DirectTV I get it for $4.95 too... ;P
I'll take Tivo any day of the week.
- I can have it record any show for any reason at any time...x2 at once. Whether it be for director, actor, title, series, writer, producer, 1st run, re-run, remake ...anything. The number of options for defining your recordings is ridiculous.
- I can have all my shows organized into nice folders to browse at my leisure. Like for instance right now I have 18 episodes of The Tick, 7 Family Guy, etc
- Through DirectTV I get it for $4.95 too... ;P
FrenchMovieTheme
Member
digital cable sucked nuts. the menus were slow, the "upper" channels had a weird pixelated look to them, and the service sucked.
directv has its problems (most i can fix as far as the service going out), but bottom line is it's highly superior, especially for sports fans.
duce you should be ashamed. wait until the eagles suck nuts (probably this year) and you can't catch them on national TV. then we'll see which is better... when you have to have sunday ticket in order to see your team play. of course you'd probably bandwagon onto another "winning" team anyways
directv has its problems (most i can fix as far as the service going out), but bottom line is it's highly superior, especially for sports fans.
duce you should be ashamed. wait until the eagles suck nuts (probably this year) and you can't catch them on national TV. then we'll see which is better... when you have to have sunday ticket in order to see your team play. of course you'd probably bandwagon onto another "winning" team anyways
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
FrenchMovieTheme said:
But you had Adelphia, right? :lol
Comcast has been great. It is waaaaay better than DirecTv imo. Only thing DTV has is the NFL Sunday Ticket... And I'm not switching for that. That is what friends are for.
distantmantra
Member
pj325is said:
Adult Swim OnDemand changes once a month, with the update coming very soon.
FrenchMovieTheme
Member
yeah i had adelphia so maybe that was the problem. but even when i lived with my parents we had charter, and it was average ( a lot better than adelphia).
i pay less per year with directv + sunday ticket than i did with adelphia with the same channel lineup (plus nfl network w/ directv!) by about $200
Stuggernaut
Grandma's Chippy
Basically I think any DVR system is better than on demand. It just reminded me of having the movie channels....limmited.
With a DVR you can watch anything that is on TV...
Granted...not whenever you want....it actually has to be being broadcast.
I like suprise Tivo recordings a lot though. Like putting in some movie or show that you want to see not knowing when it may be on (if ever lol) then one day you come home from work and boom...it's there because the tivo automatically recorded it when it was broadcast on any channel.
Just handy is all.
And don't even get me started on the king of all ripoff companies...Comcast.
At least in my area, they are *(&^@*^& expensive!! I'll stick with my $29 DirectTV
With a DVR you can watch anything that is on TV...
Granted...not whenever you want....it actually has to be being broadcast.
I like suprise Tivo recordings a lot though. Like putting in some movie or show that you want to see not knowing when it may be on (if ever lol) then one day you come home from work and boom...it's there because the tivo automatically recorded it when it was broadcast on any channel.
Just handy is all.
And don't even get me started on the king of all ripoff companies...Comcast.
At least in my area, they are *(&^@*^& expensive!! I'll stick with my $29 DirectTV
Cerebral Palsy said:
You can't just connect a stand-alone TiVo up to whatever cable/satellite service you have and expect it to function. Doesn't work that way. It has to integrate with whatever guide, compression/video standard, etc used by the provider. It's why DirecTV has to have a contract with TiVo.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
tedtropy said:
Uh, okay. I've used my first gen Tivo on multiple cable providers. Using it with Comcast right now. You might be right when it comes to DirecTv or Dish Network, but not when it comes to cable.
Cerebral Palsy
Banned
ManaByte said:
Yes, OnDemand is very nice. I enjoy both my Tivo and OnDemand. I always find stuff on OnDemand I want to watch that hasn't played in the last few days for my Tivo to record.
Marty Chinn
Member
Cerebral Palsy said:
He's wrong to a degree, but the advantages DirecTivo has over a regular Tivo is that it records the actual data stream rather than decoding the DirecTV signal and then re-encoding it to record. Thus it's a perfect digital copy of your recording with no conversion at all. On top of that you gain the fact that you can record two different shows at once while watching a third. A normal Tivo cannot do this.
TheDuce22 said:
Wha? It's not the dish it's the # of ports you have on your.. what's the thing called... multiplexer? Even a basic dish (which is what we have the oldest circular one) can use a... I think we have an 8 port multiplexer or whatever the hell the thing is called... but yes it is true that you need to run two separate coax inputs to the two to get the dual tuner capability.
TheDuce22 said:
You don't need a special dish, just an additional coax line coming off of it if you want the dual-tuner support.
As for using a TiVo with cable, if it works, more power to you and I stand corrected, I just don't see how you can connect a digital cable coax into an over-the-shelf TiVo and it even know what to do with it. I can see it working with analog cable, but otherwise the TiVo wouldn't have the proper receiver.
ok, first off this is probably one of the best posts of this thread. the entire point behind VOD is that you can watch what you want (out of the selection they give you) when you want. The entire point of DVR is that you can watch WHATEVER you want, when you want. DVR largely makes VOD irrelevent. Oooh.. TMNT 2 is on Cinemax this month. If I REALLY wanted to watch TMNT 2, I would have set a wishlist for it on my DVR/Tivo.Mr Pockets said:
Second, DirecTivo > Tivo. DirecTivo has two tuners (any DirecTV dish can connect to it), can record two shows at the same time while watching a third, is more able to record suggestions (automatic recordings based on your habits), and records everything from DirecTV as a direct bitstream, including dolby digital audio. Tivo has the whole Tivo2Go and MRV, but that is IMHO not as big as two tuners and digital recording.
as far as HD channels on DirecTV, resolution is hardly an issue. People only know the resolution is lower because they examine the bitstream. It is amazing how many times on AVS you have people claiming "they did something. the picture is softer. it's HD Lite" only to have someone else examine the recording and say it was 1920x1080. What IS bad on D* is their overcompression, which they have no choice on until the second Spaceway sat gets launched. hopefully once Spaceway 2 gets launched they'll duplicate some of the HD from Ku/MPEG2 to Ka/MPEG4 and make it look better.
Also let's not forget that while everything I'm saying for DirecTV holds true nationwide, cable operators change from metro area to metro area. and because of deregulation, most people don't have a choice between multiple operators. in my area for example, TWC runs about 30% more for similar packages. You get everything on 2 or 3 TVs and you are looking at around $35 more than DirecTV. You guys talk about VOD? I have relatives who have cable. I have looked over the VOD. VOD in my area (includiing CN, AS, HBO, Max, etc) isn't that great. Again something that changes area to area.
It is impossible to lay a blanket statement that one is better than the other. What is possible to say is that in most cases, DirecTV is better than cable. In some cases though, there are certainly cable systems that are better than DirecTV.
you are correct. eventually VOD will go away. TWC in our area has already dramatically cut down the number of VOD offerings. Probably less than 50% from what they were 3 years ago. They will keep getting smaller also in markets where DVR penetration is growing dramatically.lexbubble said:
lexbubble said:
I think once IPTV really finds its legs and gets some standards working, we won't need TiVo or OnDemand services. You'll pay/donate for only the content you want and stop getting screwed over by paying for content you won't use. I think we're going to need some better bandwith solutions before that happens, but all in due time.
Fatalah
Member
This is what TimeWarner gave me in NYC.
Now shipping, the most powerful member of the Explorer family delivers a wide range of multiple interactive TV applications through a single set-top. The Explorer 8000 model couples interactive services like Web browsing, email, t-commerce, and VOD with digital video recording (DVR) capabilities that allow the cable subscriber to pause, rewind, fast forward, record, and re-play live analog and digital TV programs using a built-in hard drive. Because it has two tuners, this innovative set-top also enables subscribers to simultaneously view and record two channels of programming - and even watch a third pre-recorded program while two live programs are being recorded.
Fatalah said:
This is what TimeWarner gave me in NYC.
Now shipping, the most powerful member of the Explorer family delivers a wide range of multiple interactive TV applications through a single set-top. The Explorer 8000 model couples interactive services like Web browsing, email, t-commerce, and VOD with digital video recording (DVR) capabilities that allow the cable subscriber to pause, rewind, fast forward, record, and re-play live analog and digital TV programs using a built-in hard drive. Because it has two tuners, this innovative set-top also enables subscribers to simultaneously view and record two channels of programming - and even watch a third pre-recorded program while two live programs are being recorded.
TimeWarner: Bringing you today what the competition has been giving you for.. five years now?
And who the fuck wants to read e-mail on a TV screen? This thing isn't HDTV, so have fun reading flickering text at a stunning 480i resolution. Read 9pt text on GAF? I don't think so! There's a reason WebTV went outta business, folks.
Nathan
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