Do you have comcast "Ti-Faux"?

[kensjen]

Thanks Marisa for that hilarious name! :) We had planned to get Tivo for a holiday gift, then heard about the option through our cable company. Does anyone have this? How do you like it and how does it compare to Tivo? Pros and cons? I don't really know a lot about this stuff, but I just want to make sure it is really as good of deal as it sounds. If not, we'll just get the Tivo!
Thanks for any help!

[Marisa6826]

Our Ti-Faux ( :) ) is from Comcast. We thought about doing the real thing (they have them at Costco!), but figured that since the box from Comcast is free, we'd give it a shot. The Comcast one is $10/mo for the service.

It's OK, but not great. It's not very intuitive at all, and you can't do the "season pass" like the real thing. A season pass, as I understand it will automatically tape any new episode of a show regardless of what time it's on, so if, say ER is a repeat one week, it won't tape it unless you tell it to - only new epis. (I think that's how it works).

The real TiVo also holds many more hours than the Comcast one. I think ours is 30 hours. It's forever out of space between Oswald for Sophie and the Daily Show for Jonathan ;)

I know that last time I checked, there was a waiting list with Comcast. Last week our cable guy was here and he said to hold off on getting a second one (their CS said only one per household b/c of the wait and he said that was a load of crap - he routinely sees 3 or 4 in one house). He explained that this Ti-Faux is a first generation and it would only be getting better.

From what I understand, TiVo ( the real one) is supposed to be hooking up with Blockbuster Video. I think that's enough reason to stick it and wait :)

-m

[Mommy_Again]

We have Ti-Faux (love it!!!) through Adelphia Cable. As a former Tivo addict, I must say the cable version doesn't compare- the functionality is sooo inferior. But when we moved, we got free basic cable in our community so financially it made sense since ours was a Tivo/DirecTV combo (even though I bought a lifetime subscription to Tivo...grrr!)

Sometimes I get so mad and wonder how hard would it be for the cable company to buy a Tivo machine, hire someone away from Tivo Corp- and copy what they do?

But the cable version serves its purpose, honestly. Sometimes it doesnt tape things I tell it to, and the season pass feature is tempermental. But then I remind myself I only pay $25/month for cable, hbo and Ti-faux, and I'm OK with it.

[lukkykatt]

We have one through Comcast and it works pretty well. From what I understand, TiVo is more intuitive, but what we have meets our needs.

The one thing with the box that we have is that it works with digital cable. TiVo, I believe, only works with analog cable. So, that is one important difference.

My main complaint (and I keep meaning to write Comcast about this) is that if started watching a show after it began, so are behind in where it is on "live" tv - when the show ends, you are taken back to the begining - I find that very annoying. Also it doesn't suggest things that you might like based on what you have been taping - but that does not matter to me. Your 2 choices for taping the same show all the time are to only tape in the time slot you select, or that show at any time it is on - which opens you up to duplicates. But, Comcast is always upgrading the software too.

[cchavez]

We have it too....through comcast. We never had Tivo so I can't compare. We have it through comcast b/c of the digital cable.

[missmelis01]

We have both. I bought Tivo for DH almost 4 years ago and we both fell in love with it. It was easy to use and the options were great. For example, you can choose a season pass, meaning you tell Tivo to record a particular show and no matter when it comes on, Tivo will record it week after week.

In January, Comcast introduced the Ti-faux option in our area and was running a special (free box and only $5/month) so we ordered it for our second TV. The Comcast option is not bad, but not as easy to use or intuitive as Tivo. And it is lacking some of the functionality Tivo has, e.g. the season pass option.

The Tivo display is also much better, but if you didn't have Tivo to compare against, the Comcast display would be fine.

The Tivo service is $12.99 per month. Also, your Tivo must be hooked up to a phone line, so that's something to consider. In our living room, we had to run the phone wire under the carpet.

Let me know if you have specific questions about each.

HTH!