DVR

I got a free offer of Digital Video Recorder from Comcast. They told me I can have it free for one year and they will charge me $9.00 per month after that, that is if I wish to keep it after one year. I took up the offer!!

It has been working for the past few days. It is not all I expected but it is not a complete disappointment either. I am able to record some of my favorite shows and play it back when I am free. Also it helps when my wife is cooking with the exhaust on, I can record the show and play it back later when the exhaust is not running. My wife likes Everybody Loves Raymond and she was unable to watch it regularly until the DVR came along. Also I can start watching the show 15 minutes after it begins and fast forward the commercials.

Now the "not so good" part! With a Tivo unlike a comcast DVR you get suggestions for shows. Tivo profiles the show you set it to record and starts automatically recording shows it thinks you might like!! With the abundance of television channel I think it would be a cool tool.

Also I find the user interface not that intuitive. There are many menus to go through to set it to record a show. The user interface does not take that long to learn though. But it feels tedious to navigate it.

So would I keep it after an year? I doubt it. At $9.00 it is pretty expensive. I think for a fancy VCR it is ridiculous to pay $9.00. If I want a DVR that badly I would rather go with a Tivo. After all it is only $3.00 extra per month.

Also some softwares for windows Vista in time might have this capability(who knows may be it is there today!!). Already if you have a TV tuner you can watch television on your computer. You can record shows too. It is only a matter of time(may be it is already there) when there would be a wireless way to "playback" your recorded shows from the computer to the TV(via may be a set top box that interfaces the wireless transmission from the computer to something the TV can understand). Also if they let me control the show with a remote control rather than a computer mouse I don't see the need for a Comcast DVR!!!