Derek @ Jan 2nd 2007 12:32PM

I had a directivo and now have comcast. Can I count the ways in which my comcast dvr sucks? Well I'll do my best.

TiVo have nailed the UI whereas the comcast UI sucks in a thousand tiny ways. For example, when you scroll through a few days of the guide and hit "info". When you return it forgets where you were so you have to scroll again. Little things like that.

My Comcast will just ignore the remote for several seconds at a time. Maddening when trying to fast forward through the ads (since they removed the skip forward feature -- what moron decided on that? It doesn't make me watch ads it just pisses me off!)

Searching. TiVo can remember my searches so I can just repeat them periodically. Searches can do title, actor, genre, keyword (words in the description) or a combination thereof. Better yet TiVo can create wishlists to automatically record shows that match searches I've created. e.g. Record me all the shows that feature "lewis black" in the description.

TiVo suggestions. Tell Tivo what you like and dislike and it can fill unused space with automatically recorded suggestions. Found many a great show that way.

Season passes (series recordings) are intelligent. TiVo doesn't tie you to a specific time or channel, it'll record whenever and wherever. It also has a better grasp of what is and is not a repeat so you don't end up missing shows because the DVR was recording 50 repeats of a marathon.

Conflict resolution on TiVo was never a problem. On the comcast DVR it's a constant issue. It seems the comcast DVR insists on highlighting every fricking conflict and conflicts are made worse by the repeated recording issue above.

When setting up a series on the comcast system if there's a conflict the system freezes for anything up to a few minutes with zero indication of what it's doing. Then when it comes back it remembers every key you pressed often canceling what you were trying to achieve.

These are just off the top of my head. I don't keep a record of every way the comcast system irritates me. Also these are all with the basic DirecTiVo DVR. We didn't have access to kidzone or tivotogo or any of the other neat stuff.

Bottom line is that I've had a dish network dvr, a directv tivo and a comcast dvr and the tivo kicked ass. Until I used the tivo I didn't know what I was missing. Now I'm stuck with the comcast POS I'm pining for a real tivo.