Question: Should I switch from the Cablevision Scientific Atlanta 8300HD to a Tivo DVR?
Posted on 14. Sep, 2009 by zevmo in Cable, DVR, Media Server
I am one of the lucky few who is trapped into Cablevision‘s service plan. Where I live in Northern NJ, we have lots of trees (Dish/DirecTV is out), and we are in a part of town that has no Verizon FiOS b/c of a crappy Englewood Central Office upgrade that has been taking forever. Alas, the Scientific Atlanta, now under Cisco, 8300HD box with Cablevision as the content provider, is my receiver of non-choice. Mind you, I could go with a Tivo, and I LOVED Tivo when I had it with DirecTV, but the prospect of spending the initial $299 will take some convincing. The bad performance of the Cablevison DVR, plus I am already paying a monthly service fee very similar to Tivo, the amount of convincing to switch is very little at this point.
The Interface of the 8300
Bo-ring. First, to say the 8300HD’s interface is outdated would be an understatement. The software is so poorly developed, it is depressing. I have also used the Brighthouse DVR software
, and while it has more features, and looks 5000x nicer than Cablevision’s software, the menu and settings functionality oddities were probably developed by outsourced engineering firms, and it shows. The need to have to do parent-tech-support is unappreciated, Brighthouse.
Anyway, back to the Cablevision implementation…
As a geek, I realize that what interests me doesn’t always jive with the interests of the layman. I accept that, and it’s OK. However, when designing certain products, you need to appeal to those who are a) early adopters, and b) willing to spend for services that the average person would have to be dragged into. For example, the boot process on these devices should have a status bar, indicating the time left for start-up- or have a built-in ‘press the A button for verbose mode’ type start-up indicator. You know, without having to go to the AVS forums to do it anyway.
The menus are flat, provide very little information, and are slow to respond if you want to quickly move from one channel’s information bar text to the next channel’s information bar text. And if you want to use the larger Guide, it does take an extraordinary amount of time to bring up the window. This may be b/c it has to reformat the current channel video into a small box in the upper right hand side of the guide. 
What would help is an ability to quickly tag certain programs for recording in this interface (individually or by season, for example), instead of trying to slowly slog through each and every option for each program (and after each having to re-search b/c it defaults you back to the current programming guide for the channel you are watching presently. It is not intuitive, to say the least.
DVR
This DVR has some qualities, it allows recording of two programs at once while watching a third, and the standard litany of recording options. But that isn’t why you are reading this ‘review / tirade’ , you want differences. The software package is plagued with the same dvr problems that most have, which are:
- Ability to adjust recording times based on program runover- example is 60 minutes during football season
- ‘Season passes’ not recording new shows (oddity)
- The 30 second Fast Forward (and over-fast forward compensation)
- Multi-room functionality
- Smart recording of programs (don’t record the same program twice)
The software is pretty dumb, although they have upgraded the ability to remember where you last left off in a recorded program, if you only watched part of it. That was a huge improvement. But it is just sad how Tivo runs circles around the basic DVR provided by Cablevision. Now, again, I haven’t used a Tivo since Series 1, so it might be even better now.
End thoughts
As far as what to do, I don’t know yet. It is very depressing that a company like Cisco would not demand more from the end costumer to give the software a look that doesn’t make the hardware seem inferior. I don’t know if Cisco yet realizes how important this marketspace is, but they had better get up to speed, quickly.
I have a couple of options. One would be spending a few hundred dollars to get a really great DVR (Tivo), but I am not sure if there is a next-gen media hub product right around the corner, so I am VERY hesitant. The Netflix capabilities are surely motivating, but I would like to see a device that has a twitter app built-in, or can stream iTunes or iPhoto libraries. My other option is going with Verizon FiOS, which should arrive in the next few months, and hope that their DVR’s have a better feature set. My problem is that we lose the local sports channels for the NJ Devils and the Mets (maybe it is for the best).
I wonder if Tivo has a beta-tester program out there. If they do, I would be willing to give a complete review of each device, and illustrate why paying for a Tivo would be well worth the presumed premium. The current 8300HD is severely lacking in the list of functionality and speed.
Without question, a new device and service is absolutley required.
