Dan from Wichita writes:

I would like to know the differences between DISH’s DVR’s and DIRECT’s DVR’s. Are there different versions/lengths of time they can record both within each site and against each other? I’ve seen somewhere that they can 100 minutes. That doesn’t sound very long to me. Are there other DVR’s/TIVO that can record longer times?

Dan,

From what I have heard, most people prefer Dish Networks DVR. I’ve used both and I tend to agree, although, back when DIRECTV was using TiVo (before they tried to build their own) I preferred the TiVo DVR. I’ve heard that they may be going back to TiVo.

As far as recording times, the bigger the hard drive the more you can record. HD content is much larger so less can be recorded in HD, but if you don’t have HD and get an HD DVR, you can record a lot more.

On Dish Network’s site, it describes how you can expand your storage with certain DVRs:

DISH Network customers with a DuoDVR™ ViP® 722 or 622 or Solo DVR ViP® 612 HD satellite receiver can now enjoy near limitless DVR storage with the addition of an external hard drive.

I do think it is kind of ridiculous that they charge a one time fee of $39.99 to activate your external storage option. That is just plain robbery!

I couldn’t find specifics on DIRECTV’s site about upgrading the storage on their DVRs, but I did find this blog where a DIRECTV customer was able to successfully expand his storage capacity on his DIRECTV DVR. It sounds as if there is NO fee for “activating” external storage for DIRECTV.

Hope this helps,
Dustin