Direct TV HD tivo, any good?

Question

I been looking to upgrade to HD, my TV is HD ready. When i first got the TV (3 years ago) The direct TV HD Tivo box was extreamly buggy. are they better? and are there now local channels in high def, before the local channels were standard def.

one more question to ask, is ebay a o.k. place to get a Tivo box, because now Direct TV supplies thier DVR and i want the TiVo brand.

Answer 1

Tivo is working alone and you can log into their website for orders. I think e-bay would be fine as long as you get the right information about the equipment. My best suggestion would be to order a dvr for directv. It's better. Good luck!

Answer 2

Rick, I think you're right about the DirecTv DVR - I've tested it and it doesn't perform like a TiVo.

I had a TiVo HD for my DirecTv service for about a year and it worked great.  As DirecTv didn't offer the local channels in HD, I used an antenna to bring in those signals and it integrated well with the TiVo software.  If you can receive your local channels with a strong signal through an over the air antenna, it should work fine.

In a somewhat related thought, I switched from DircecTv to cable due to changes in the local channels.  DTV has started offering their locals in HD through a format called MP4.  The DirecTv TiVo is not compatible with MP4 signals, so DTV kept pushing me to "upgrade" to their inferior DVR to get the locals in HD.  Since this annoyed me and my local channels didn't always come in well through my HD antenna, I moved to cable and a new TiVo box.

As for eBay, you will find a great selection of new and used TiVo DVRs there.  If you check the seller's feedback score and percentage it should give you a good indication of their reliability.  I'd look for a positive feedback percentage over 99%.

You'll find a good selection of TiVo boxes sold on eBay and information at http://www.dvrspot.com.

Hope this helps...