Tivo Comparison with Ultimate TV

Buying a DVR is not an easy task now days and frequently frustration overpowers you, DVRs equipped with too many features and most of the time rather unnecessary features are the main miscreant for your frustration or confusion and then you mumble to yourself do I really want to surf the net on my TV? Of course a DVR is originally made to bring the comfort of program watching but the competition is unending.

Setup:

You need DIRECTV™ receiver along with ultimate TV services , a dual-LNB DIRECTV® satellite dish antenna and cables to connect the antenna to the receiver, subscription package of DIRECTV® and UltimateTV service and an optional wireless keyboard so that you can conveniently access the internet.

While setting of TiVo is simple as 1 2 3…all you need is to buy a TiVo unit, either series 1, 2 connect it with the telephone line and then feed the source signals from a

Cable box
Simple antenna.
Set Top Boxes

And now get ready for the show but if you are interested in DirecTV then buying a DirecTiVo is save you from extra hassles.

Multiple tuners

Ultimate TV offers dual tuner and for that purpose a dual LNB is also required, presently you can only record a single TV show with your series 1 and 2 TiVo units but you can record two programs simultaneously by using DirecTiVo or series 3 TiVo boxes.

Setup woes

To setup your ultimate TV you need fair patience and little expertise and no hindrances in between your dish and satellite signals, an always on telephone line and now activate your account and enjoy ultimate TV.

TiVo also require a telephone line but it can be replaced with the broadband internet connection thus sparing your telephone line.

Number of channels:

You can watch 225 channels by using ultimate TV but the choice of channels is virtually unlimited incase of TiVo. You can couple your TiVo unit with any Set Top Box or terrestrial antenna and catch as many channels as you desire.

Internet on TV

The internet on TV feature updates you on sports stats and movies rating before watching the movie and gives you the freedom to check you mails, chat rooms, discussion forum and website without leaving your couch…what else you require from your TV? And obviously its not for browsing purposes as it’s a limited 3hours/month offers but if you consider TV as a substitute of computer then you can get unlimited internet connectivity for 20$/ month.

Remote control features

Ultimate TV remote can control the ultimate TV, TV but it can not control the audio equipment but TiVo can control almost all varieties of audio system including TiVo box and television.

Reliability and safety

Here again TiVo is in the winning streak as crashes and frequent reboot is common with aging ultimate tuners.

Conclusion

Ultimate TV has certain advantages over TiVo like sleek user interface, 30 second quick jumps, automatic padding which helps to take care of sloppy network scheduling and time restricted recording but as compared to TiVo, the straight forward interface and control over “no repeat” rule and user friendly scheduling priorities are apple of ones eye along with various other features.