Post by hurnik on Oct 17, 2004 16:10:33 GMT -5
Seems our local TW Albany chose the "poor man's" software for their DVR units. Even though they use the SA boxes, there are two different software vendors for the DVR.
Pioneer Passport
and
SARA (Scientific Atlanta Resident Application)
if you go visit the AVS forums or even Tivo Community, you will see that the Passport software is superior in virtually every way to the SARA software.
Some examples:
in SARA, let's say you are recording CSI (which we can't, thanks to stupid WRGB) at 9:00 p.m. Let's say at 9:30 p.m. you get home and decide to watch it from the "beginning". guess what? At 10:00 p.m. the SARA software will "kick" you out of your playback to the "live" TV. That way you get to "fast forward' through 30 minutes of what you just watched. Tivo of course doesn't do this. And neither does the Pioneer software. Scientific Atlanta has no plans to fix this "feature".
Some other examples:
Tivo has a feature called Season Pass where you can pick say, "record CSI, but only "first-run" episodes". SARA does not have this ability. It will happily record ALL episodes regardless of whether they are reruns or not. Pioneer software has a "first run" option just like the Tivo does.
And the list goes on.
So call up your local TW Albany office and ask them WHY they chose SARA (NYC and Middletown TW offices have chosen Passport) and ask them to switch to the Pioneer software.
$10/month for the unit it should at LEAST have features close to the $15/month Tivo. (Right now SARA is only SLIGHTLY ahead of a glorified VCR)
Pioneer Passport
and
SARA (Scientific Atlanta Resident Application)
if you go visit the AVS forums or even Tivo Community, you will see that the Passport software is superior in virtually every way to the SARA software.
Some examples:
in SARA, let's say you are recording CSI (which we can't, thanks to stupid WRGB) at 9:00 p.m. Let's say at 9:30 p.m. you get home and decide to watch it from the "beginning". guess what? At 10:00 p.m. the SARA software will "kick" you out of your playback to the "live" TV. That way you get to "fast forward' through 30 minutes of what you just watched. Tivo of course doesn't do this. And neither does the Pioneer software. Scientific Atlanta has no plans to fix this "feature".
Some other examples:
Tivo has a feature called Season Pass where you can pick say, "record CSI, but only "first-run" episodes". SARA does not have this ability. It will happily record ALL episodes regardless of whether they are reruns or not. Pioneer software has a "first run" option just like the Tivo does.
And the list goes on.
So call up your local TW Albany office and ask them WHY they chose SARA (NYC and Middletown TW offices have chosen Passport) and ask them to switch to the Pioneer software.
$10/month for the unit it should at LEAST have features close to the $15/month Tivo. (Right now SARA is only SLIGHTLY ahead of a glorified VCR)