New house, new cable & internet - choices....

[Nikola Tesla]

TW Cable sucks...period.

Go with a dish. Directv for sports lovers, and DishNetwork for Movie lovers.

As for internet, go with Roadrunner.

[adlnc07]

Originally Posted by Nikola Tesla

TW Cable sucks...period.

Go with a dish. Directv for sports lovers, and DishNetwork for Movie lovers.

As for internet, go with Roadrunner.

Eh, I think Time Warner has it's good points - for example, if your house is prewired for cable, you can hook a TV up in every room and get basic cable without a box. Directv can be a real hassle with cabling, which is why I wind up with just one set connected (not that 1 person really needs more than 1 TV).

As for DVR's.. I've said it in other threads but I think the only one worth a darn is Tivo. Which reminds me of another plus for TWC - if you have a dual tuner Tivo you can record two channels at once. To do the same with SD Directv you need to find a used discontinued Directivo and get it added to your account (which is what I did, but it took hours on the phone with Directv to get it sorted out).

[hurricanedavid]

Packet8
I don't have direct experience with Packet8, but a guy I trusted at my old work used it for years. I'm seriously considering using it now that we've moved.

Time Warner DVR
We did the TW DVR thing for years. But here's what we've settled on. We bought a Tivo. Here's why:

• TW DVR requires you to have digital cable (last time I checked). Tivo does not. We didn't need all those channels, so we opted for basic cable, and the Tivo paid for itself in a few months. We could even downgrade to the super-basic cable for $15 and the Tivo would still work fine, recording our network shows.
• You take the box with you. We just moved to another apartment, and took our Tivo with us. Didn't need to mess with turn-in with Time Warner. Didn't need to worry about losing all the shows we'd recorded (or trying to watch them all before turn-in).
• Tivo has a much better user experience than TW DVR. It's easier to get around and do what you want to do. It's less buggy. More intuitive.
• You can set shows to record from anywhere in the world that has an internet connection. I can be at work and remember a show I want to record. I get on TiVo DVR: your ultimate source for entertainment - TiVo and I can set it up.
• You can put software on your computer that lets you download the shows from your Tivo to your computer. You can store them for later in an external hard drive (like that time you were on that episode of Cops), or burn them to a DVD, or whatever else. Similarly, this can be initiated from your Tivo as well: you could have a spare computer with a big hard drive and just select the show on your Tivo and tell it to transfer to the other computer. Now, more space is freed up on your Tivo!
• Your Tivo can be set up to play video and audio files from your computer. In other words, you can be watching TV, and then decide to watch a video on TV that is actually on your computer. Or browse a directory of Images like a slideshow, or play MP3 files over your TV.
• Monthly fees for Tivo are close to TW, so that's pretty much the same.
• If you buy another Tivo box, you do get discounted monthly rates, but the great thing is that the two boxes will talk to each other. If both are dual-tuner, then you could be recording 4 shows at once! Also, if you're in the bedroom and want to watch a show recorded by the Tivo in the Living Room, you can tell the BR Tivo to transfer it over to itself so that you can watch it in the bedroom.
• If you're really Tech-savvy, you might like the fact that your Tivo is just a Linux computer. You can take the drive out and tweak it, etc. Note: that does void the warranty I think. But there are many sites out there that tell you how to tweak your Tivo.