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  • TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

    Oceanic has been bombarding me with offers for their new DVR. Does anybody know, what features does it have in comparison to TiVo?

  • #2
    Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

    I wish I knew someone with one of Oceanic's DVR boxes, just so I could do a side-by-side comparison. Though I'd be biased.

    I'm totally addicted to our TiVo. We got the Home Media Option, linked it to the net via WiFi, upgraded to a billion hours (not really) by swapping out the hard drive... We haven't watched "live television" in ages. My kids now only watch stuff we pick out (from which they can easily choose), we can have our own "CSI" marathons, we can skip all the singing in "American Idol," and we can play our MP3s over our entertainment system.

    Those Oceanic DVR ads are everywhere. Meanwhile, we downgraded from digital to analog cable when our TiVo helped us realize 90 percent of what we care to watch is already available on basic.

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    • #3
      Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

      Originally posted by pzarquon
      I'm totally addicted to our TiVo. We got the Home Media Option, linked it to the net via WiFi, upgraded to a billion hours (not really) by swapping out the hard drive...
      Oooh. My inner geek just started drooling. I didn't know TiVos could use WiFi, I thought you had to have a modem connection. This makes it a much more interesting gadget to me, as I already have a WiFi access point on my home LAN. And how difficult is it to swap the hard drive compared to on a regular PC? Tell me more!

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      • #4
        Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

        Is the cost of TiVo a one time thing or does one need to pay monthly fee like Oceanic's DVR?

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        • #5
          Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

          Originally posted by Glen
          And how difficult is it to swap the hard drive compared to on a regular PC? Tell me more!
          If you go to Weaknees.com, they specialize in TiVo upgrades. They can sell you the actual upgraded TiVo (they're an authorized reseller), they can sell you the hard drive upgrade kit for you to do it yourself, and they can take your TiVo by mail, upgrade it for you, and mail it back. I'm pretty sure the process is as easy as doing it on your home PC, which I've done, but for some reason my upgrade from them wouldn't take, so I ended up shipping it to them and paying them to do it for me.

          And yeah, the TiVo at a minimum needs access to a phone line, but it also has an Ethernet port and it can either sit on your wired network, or your wireless one.

          Originally posted by helen
          Is the cost of TiVo a one time thing or does one need to pay monthly fee like Oceanic's DVR?
          There is a monthly fee if that's the way you want to go. We shelled out $300 to buy the "lifetime" subscription outright (the lifetime of the box, though, not the owner's lifetime!). The gamble is that we'll use the TiVo for more than two years, and that the company will last more than two years. We're more than halfway there, after which point the investment will have paid off.

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          • #6
            Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

            Originally posted by pzarquon
            And yeah, the TiVo at a minimum needs access to a phone line, but it also has an Ethernet port and it can either sit on your wired network, or your wireless one.
            So if I have an Ethernet connection for the thing, either wired or wireless, then do I still need to have a phone line connection as well? I'm hoping the answer is no.

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            • #7
              Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

              You're correct. TiVo needs to talk to the mother ship, but it needs either a phone line or 'net access, not both. Gonna buy one yet?

              I swear TiVo should have a referral program.

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              • #8
                Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                Tuesday's Honolulu Advertiser had an AP piece about TiVo and DVR.

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                • #9
                  Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                  As much as I hate Time Warner (Oceanic), the DVR is the better route than TiVO.

                  Tivo you have to pay a monthly charge and purchase a unit.

                  DVR you just pay the monthly charge and TW lends you the unit for free. I've had my DVR for a couple of months and I totally love it. Something like a microwave, you wonder how you functioned before you purchased it. Scan the tv guide, program what you want. Let the DVR record for you, and watch whenever you want.

                  If you currently have a digital cable box, you can swap it over the counter at Time Warner. Thats what I did. I suggest you try it out, give it a couple of weeks, and if you don't like it, swap the boxes back. And they'll pro-rate the charge.

                  And no, I don't work for TW.

                  Hope this helps!

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                  • #10
                    Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                    Originally posted by Glen Miyashiro
                    Oooh. My inner geek just started drooling. I didn't know TiVos could use WiFi, I thought you had to have a modem connection. This makes it a much more interesting gadget to me, as I already have a WiFi access point on my home LAN. And how difficult is it to swap the hard drive compared to on a regular PC? Tell me more!
                    It's pretty easy to replace the hard disk.

                    Since Tivo uses Linux, you can use many of the available tools online to add another drive or replace the hard drive with a larger one. Try this site

                    In fact, I highly recommend that you backup the Tivo's hard disk. As you know, this will be the component that will likely fail over time.

                    The MFS tools will just backup the Tivo's Linux OS, your season passes, ratings, etc, but not the media files that contain the shows. You can fit the backup on a CD. I think my Tivo image was 200 MB. In a pinch, when the drive fails, you can restore the backup to a new hard disk...and voila..back in business...
                    Last edited by 808_m3; August 7, 2004, 08:26 AM.

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                    • #11
                      Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                      I finally played with an Oceanic DVR over at Oceanic's HQ, and am pretty glad I went with TiVo -- as if I had a choice, since TiVo was around long before Time-Warner tried to enter the hardware space themselves.

                      TiVo's interface is more elegant, since they've had a multitude of revisions over the past several years to work out the kinks. A TiVo is your box, not a rented unit, which - for me - is preferable, and why I stick with basic cable: I don't like "renting" a box just to translate the signal, when I'm already paying for the signal.

                      TiVo supports multi-unit homes, and transfers between units (when my kids are in the living room, they can copy over their cartoons from the TiVo in the den). TiVo integrates with PCs to stream music or photo albums from my computer to the big-screen TV. And thanks to a recent FCC decision, TiVo-To-Go will allow me to send shows to friends over the Internet, get shows from them, and download all sorts of content from third-parties. So far, the sky remains the limit... and that's just out of the box.

                      For the tinkerer, a TiVo is a beautiful thing. You can tinker with its insides, upgrade its capacity, back it up, beef it up... if you're willing to do things TiVo would rather you not, you can extract the saved shows and save them on your PC or burn them to DVDs (of course, combo DVD-TiVo units exist to do this legally). Based on the open Linux OS, a TiVo truly is a computer, as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.

                      Since both TiVo and Oceanic's DVR require a subscription, but a TiVo box puts you in control, it seems like a simple decision. Just my humble opinion of course.

                      I liked the article linked above, though, about how all DVRs are being called TiVos, since they defined the space. It's like how folks call all MP3 players iPods even when they're not Apple iPods, or how folks called all portable cassette radio players Walkmans even when they weren't Sony's.

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                      • #12
                        Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                        One thing the Oceanic Time Warner Cable ads for the DVR
                        do not say is you have to pay additional $6.70 on top of
                        the $9.95 you pay to rent the DVR. The reason why is the
                        Scientific Atlanta DVR has the Digital Cable settop box
                        built into the DVR.

                        Thus this is the reason why I have held back renting the
                        DVR from Oceanic. There is no way I could justify paying
                        $16.65 + tax per month.
                        Check out my blog on Kona issues :
                        The Kona Blog

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                        • #13
                          Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                          Originally posted by pzarquon
                          Meanwhile, we downgraded from digital to analog cable when our TiVo helped us realize 90 percent of what we care to watch is already available on basic.
                          Well to be fair there is some things on Digital that you
                          cannot get on analog I like. For instance PPV is not available
                          on analog anymore and you cannot get iControl VOD movies.
                          Plus despite the mostly crappy channels on digital, there
                          is some I like and I cannot get them on analog [Encore and
                          most of the premium channels are only available on digital]
                          Thank goodness for the favorites option on the SA digital settop box.
                          Check out my blog on Kona issues :
                          The Kona Blog

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                          • #14
                            Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                            Originally posted by pzarquon
                            For the tinkerer, a TiVo is a beautiful thing. You can tinker with its insides, upgrade its capacity, back it up, beef it up... if you're willing to do things TiVo would rather you not, you can extract the saved shows and save them on your PC or burn them to DVDs (of course, combo DVD-TiVo units exist to do this legally). Based on the open Linux OS, a TiVo truly is a computer, as simple or as complicated as you want to make it.
                            Yup yup, certainly a lot of mods out there for Tivos. A buddy of mine purchased the network card kit to put his Tivo on the network. He sets the unit to download TV schedule data from the Internet, which eliminates the need for the modem. You can also setup at telnet or ftp server on Tivo to access and download TV programs.

                            One mod I'd like to see is to remove the 137 GB hard disk limitation on the existing Tivos. There are some hacks available, but I haven't messed with it too much..I'd rather wait until Tivo releases a new software revision to address that. Putting down 2 250 GB hard disks into Tivo sounds pretty cool, but I have to admit that's just A LOT of TV to store.

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                            • #15
                              Re: TiVo vs. Oceanic's DVR

                              Originally posted by pzarquon
                              TiVo supports multi-unit homes, and transfers between units (when my kids are in the living room, they can copy over their cartoons from the TiVo in the den). TiVo integrates with PCs to stream music or photo albums from my computer to the big-screen TV. And thanks to a recent FCC decision, TiVo-To-Go will allow me to send shows to friends over the Internet, get shows from them, and download all sorts of content from third-parties. So far, the sky remains the limit... and that's just out of the box.
                              So, if you have recorded a show on your TiVo, which is on your network, would you be able to watch the show from one of the PCs on your network? In my house we have more PCs than televisions, so this would be a really useful trick.

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