Friday, Comcast sent a tech out to swap out our HDTV cable box, for the new HDTV/DVR box. Since my big complaint about my TiVo Series 2 is that I can’t record HD in HD, I figured I’d give the Comcast box a try for a month or two, to see how it stacks up against the TiVo.

My first complaint – Comcast had to send a tech out to do the install… I would have preferred to just go into one of the local offices and swap hardware myself..I hate having to let the install techs play around with my stuff. According to the rep I ordered it from, its because the DVRs are so new to the area they are in limited supply. With that out of the way… read on for the actual review…

The user interface isn’t as nice as Tivo’s..but its useable, and I’d have to imagine that if you’d never had a Tivo before, it would be quite good, its a little sluggish but not to bad.

Two big wins over the TiVo box though… able to record in HDTV and its got Dual tuners..so if there are two shows on at the same time you can record one and watch one, or record them both. “live” TV stuff works like expected with no major differences between the TiVo and the Comcast. I prefer TiVo’s guide to Comcast’s because even with the upgraded software that the new boxes ship with Comcast STILL hasn’t managed to do what Dish Network and DirecTV have been doing for years now – indicating via the on-screen guide which channels you subscribe to and which ones you don’t. Other than that the “new” guide works just like the old guide, with one improvement – you can now see a tinier version of the channel you were watching when you switch to the guide.

Recording Quality – As to be expected its as good as the source, it is nice to be able to time-shift some of the HD programming, and be able to view it in HD.

Recording Capacity – Ehhh… here’s where this box really loses out. As of right now the system is estimating that its 56% full (which on its own, is a nice touch).. my problem with that? There is only 8.5 hours recorded! (and 2 hours of that, shouldn’t have recorded..but seems to be a bug in Comcast’s series recording setup). Of that 8.5, 2 hours are “normal” TV, the other 6.5 are HD…. which isn’t bad if you were to record HD one night, and watch it the next day or two..but, what happens if you go on vacation during sweeps week, and want to record all your favorite prime time shows (or a weeks worth of Jerry Springer?)…

Series Recording – The TiVo definitely has the edge here..in that… the TiVo season passes actually WORK. I mentioned above that the box recorded 2 hours of shows that it shouldn’t have… I set CSI up to record all first run episodes on our CBS-HD channel… and the box proceeded to record two episodes from 2001. Not reliable, the low storage capacity (with regards to HD) combined with the unreliable series recording, would make it difficult for me to rely on this box to ensure I don’t miss anything if I was out of town (as it is, I haven’t cancelled any of the Season Passes on the TiVo, I just changed them all to the non-HD channels)

I’m going to continue to play with it…but my initial impression is that unless you really, really, really need to record in HD… the TiVo still wins..its just…better. That said.. if TiVo were to release a multiple Tuner HD-Compatible unit today, Comcast would have a hard time getting people to use their boxes.. I know I’d scoop up a new TiVo…

I’ll post more after I’ve played with the Comcast box more extensively…consider this a ‘rough’ review