Many Options - Your Recommendation? Want to Record HD via Charter Cable or Satellite

[Professor]

Greetings! I am purchasing a Sony KDF60WF655 for my family room and want to include HDTV via cable (Charter Cable in my area) or satellite (Direct, Dish, Voom) that permits me to record (HDD or DVD burner?) both SDTV and HD programs. Am I guilty of wishful thinking? Money is a secondary issue, good-quality recording is my primary concern.

I have spent days reading all the posts and still find myself unable to sort through all the options and make a decision. So, if you were me what would you do? Thanks for sharing your experience/expertise with me.

The Professor

[Paul Bigelow]

I'm quite happy with TWC cable. HD looks good and HD can be recorded. The local franchise seems to be concerned with providing a quality product (especially with HD).

If it were me, I'd try cable first, before investing too much in the satellite services.

Paul

[Professor]

Thanks, Paul... I appreciate hearing from you. Glad you like your cable system. I lean towards cable, at least to start. We'll see.

No other suggestions from anyone else?

[Chris Gerhard]

I have DirecTV and like it but I would start with cable if a good deal is available. It would be easy to disconnect cable and switch to DirecTV or Dish if you don't like it. The biggest negative when comparing cable to DirecTV is the DirecTV equipment is much better. Cable companies have nothing to compare with TiVo and the other HD receivers from DirecTV are also very good in my opinion. Cable will offer much lower cost equipment and may offer better programming packages but that varies from market to market.

Chris

[plasmamaniac]

I love my Directv with my HR10-250 HD Tivo. In fact, I am going to buy another HD Tivo and have it upgraded as my current one with a 300 gig HD for a total of 550 gig or 70 hours of HD. Tivo is so easy to use I just love it and I miss it when I go on vacation and have to use a regular TV and remote.

[alinski]

I am just north of you in Rancho Cucamonga. I have Charter HDTV service with the SA-8000HD DVR cable box. Following channels in HD:

HD Net
HD Net Movies
Discovery HD
ESPN HD
HBO HD (for HBO subscribers)
Showtime HD (for Showtime subscribers)
FOX HD
ABC HD
NBC HD
FOX Sports Net (when Lakers/Clippers are on only)

I've only had HD via cable so I can't compare to Voom, satellite or OTA. The HD picture quality is real nice on my 50" RPTV. I am using DVI from TV to DVR. Used to connect via component but found DVI to have much better PQ for me.

My only real complaint is the relatively small size of the drive in the DVR (80GB I believe). This only allows ~ 20 hrs of HD content total or ~ 80 hrs of SD content total. The interface is not as user friendly as TIVO but it is functional and easy to find and auto record shows. You may want to look into a separate DVD-Recorder if you want to archive.

Hope this helps, alinski...