Buckeye Cable to offer Whole House DVR

whole house DVR is pretty cool. One DVR box in one room and what appears to be normal boxes in other rooms. From any room you can record, watch, delete, etc.
I have it now with Direct TV, but have Buckeye internet.

Good lord - the cost for Cable is getting insane. I went to antenna about 4 years ago and can't imagine switching back until they go to an a la carte system. I refuse to pay for 100 channels when I will only use 20 at most. I would like to have the DIY shows and ESPN, and a handful of others. If they would give me that option, I would jump back on board in a second. Provided there was a substantial reduction in price from the norm.

I so agree with a la carte. I know Congress talked about making this happen a while back but I'm assuming it was magically tied up in committee.

AT&T unverse had this already 3 yrs ago. Sorry buckeye cable is lame and way behind. I'm so glad I was able to get uverse.

Interesting but a little frustrated with Buckeye. Called them a week ago to get my cable/internet moved to my new apartment. Quoted me ~$60 a month. Called Thursday and it went up to almost $100 /month without phone.

grumble grumble.

Planning to ditch cable again and just keep internet for $50-60 and just use Netflix like I use to.

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On topic though this would be a nice feature. Believe DirecTV has been doing this for a while so maybe it's an attempt to match a competitor.

Personally I'd love to see something like this mixed with slingbox, so you could potentially watch cable on your phone when away from home.

I miss Buckeye cable. I switched to direct tv because it is a little cheaper, but a mistake on my part. Calling direct tv is a joke and takes forever. I originally had ATT internet bundled with direct, that was a nightmare. Calling them required repeating your number several times, verifying your name, number, etc. several more times and waiting forever.
I miss Buckeye.

hockeyfan: have a sad but funny story for you. I use to have DirecTV a long time ago. It was constantly going in/out of service, not bad enough to ditch but annoying yet. Then on new years 2000 it went out as the ball dropped and I flipped.

To make the story short (after a year of tech support calls) the finally decide it's a bad card and send me a new one. They refused to give me anything for the year of bad service I was having and when the contract was up I ditched them.

Fast forward several years I get a letter and a check in the mail for around $100. I was a part of some class action lawsuit and that was my portion. Check thoroughly and the info was real, so cashed it.

My $0.02 on the subject.

I'm testing the whole house DVR system now and it works great. It uses the MOXI interface and the Media Gateway has six tuners, which I believe is more than AT&T. I've recorded 4 shows while watching "live" TV. I have three media players in my home. You can read more about it here, http://www.engadget.com/2012/02/25/moxi-whole-home-six-tuner-dvr-on-its-way-to-wow-customers/, and there is a picture of the Media Gateway unit. I cannot talk about pricing, but I know if you more than one DVR in your house, you'll save money by switching to the whole house DVR solution. Also, I'm able to stream movies, pictures, and music from my computer to the Media Gateway. Since the Media Gateway is also your cable modem (wireless router built-in) and if you have telephony service with caller ID, you'll get caller ID information on screen which is really nice.

I thought it was whole house VOD (video on demand) not DVR (digital video recording).

*, but I know if you have more...

@ckljy: We have whole house VOD now, but the whole house DVR will be launching soon.

Switched to antenna and Roku. Don't miss Cable or Dish network at all. Been able to watch everything I want or TV and or computer.

Thanks for the info, jashansen! Sounds like this will be perfect for us. Wonder if there will be a waiting list or anything.

We have two DVRs now, and do a lot of duplicate recordings now.

It would be great to be able to record more than two shows at a time. Our Sunday night TV lineup is getting pretty darn crowded.

I was just in the store today and asked about it.

They're in the testing phase right now but the clerk thought that it would be available in the next month or two. As jashansen said, there is one main box that controls your DVR, modem and phone (if you're buying all 3). A smaller box will be in other rooms that will communicate with it to watch any of your shows on any TV in the house.

Pricing on the main large box is no different than what you're paying now if you have DVR. She wasn't sure on the cost of the additional boxes.

Sounds great!

@gamegrrl: Email support@bex.net and ask that you be put on the whole house DVR waiting list. Sent it from an @bex.net address or make sure to include your account number within the email.

Hopefully, it can handle multiple phone lines. Thanks for the info!

It has two telephony ports.

I'm so excited about this! According to Buckeye, having the whole house system will save us money over what we have now. And it has so many cool extra tech-geeky stuff that I'm all swoony.

A friend of mine is scheduled to get her whole house DVR boxes this Friday 3/30.

Fox News is out again, this morning.

I meant Business News. Fox Business News.

That's a feature, not a bug...

LOL SensorG!!!

So we are scheduled for whole house DVR installation tomorrow. Yay!

After reading gamegrrl's post I followed up on my waiting list request and they're installing this Thursday. Thanks!

FYI, they are still in beta testing phase and as such they're requiring a $25 install fee.

True. I forgot about that. They also told me that "your first month will be free". I don't know exactly what part of it will be free though: The hardware, perhaps?

They also verified that going with this to replace my two current DVR boxes will save me $7/month.

Congrats on the Thursday install, idinspired!

It's installed, and it's awesome!

gamegirl

Buckeye tells me that it is a whole new way to watch TV. As we are "old folks" is it easy to understand?

I guess it depends on how you roll, regardless of age. LOL! We're in our mid-50s and it's no problem. But we're geeks.

We're already seeing so many benefits to the system that we're amazed, and we've barely scratched the surface.

Looks like it's official now:
http://buckeyecablesystem.com/vod/wholehome/

We only have one tv in the house, did we get left behind somewhere?

Bedrooms are for fornication and sleeping.

I don't sleep very well, and it takes two (with energy) to fornicate.

Guess that's why I love my big, wall-mounted, adjustable HD flat screen in the bedroom.

:-)

I don't watch a lot of TV, but what I do watch is pretty much all from the DVR. (More efficient use of my limited TV time - fast forwarding commercials, etc.)

Of course, the DVR is hooked up to the big screen HDTV. Which means if my husband is watching something that he "must" watch on the big TV (i.e. - sports), I don't have access to anything that I've recorded.

I'm intrigued by this whole house DVR concept...

The average American home has 2.93 TVs.

(More TVs per household on average than people - the average American home has 2.54 people.)

Don't want to admit it but....we have 5 TV's, 3 VCR, 2 VCR DVD recorder-players and a DVR. And there are two 75 plus people in this home. My husband, 81, loves old movies, westerns, swashbuckling, etc. which I detest. WHich is why we got VCR in the first place.

I think I could handle change but worry about him. Keep me informed as I am eager to try it.

1 TV in family roon, 2 in 2 of our 4 bedrooms, 1 each in basement and sun porch. Sounds like all we do is watch the boob tube!

We have 3 TVs, plus a cable into the computer.

One in the family room, one in basement in front of the treadmill and one in our bedroom.

With no TV in the bedroom dbw, where do you and your wife watch porn? :)

LOL, jackie, then I don't feel so bad that we have 5 TVs for 4 people.

Honestly, we don't even really watch that much TV. 3 of the TVs very rarely get turned on. (One is for the XBox 360, and one is for the Wii. Those TVs are only turned on when someone is playing a game.)

I can go for days at a time without watching any TV at all.

Yeah the basement TV is for the man cave with a pool table. Keeps them from coming up and down the stairs. The sun room TV is only used in summer if big game on and we have company.

I also have internet with Buckeye. Love it!

gamegirl

The link you have goes to an ad for whole house VOD which I am not interested in. Shucks!

Ha I have a toddler who thinks our bedroom has an "open door" policy so wouldn't do much good anyway. We need a baby sitter most of the time for proper fornication!

I had a TV in my workshop in the basement but I found myself watching TV instead of working on projects so I traded it for a new soldering iron.

I'm not one of those people who think TV is the devil but any means, just not home enough to watch it.

I saw the jump in cable and am thinking about going to antenna on principle alone. At least for the summer. I like history and discovery but now they are reality channels and I have already seen the cajuns build the same gun three times and the same stuff get pawned four. I used to like weather channel, but that has become reality tv also. They don't even hit the "local on the 8s" consistently anymore. It would be kind of nice to stop putting $1,200 a year into the Pittsburgh economy.

Can someone please clarify: is this new, whole house system primarily for VOD service? Do you need a Buckeye DVR at every TV? Being fairly familiar with the Moxi system (now owned by Arris), I know they (Moxi) offered a "primary" DVR that would send the audio/video to each TV in your home that had a non-DVR Moxi "receiver" attached to it.

We don't use Buckeye's VOD service so that would not be an enticement for us.

http://www.youtube.com/user/BuckeyeCableSystem/videos

The new system works similarly to the Moxi... primary cable/phone/interwebs box, with satellite boxes for each TV. You can stop watching DVR'd programs at one set and pick up at another, just like the VOD content.

Additionally, for net users, the main box also has an integrated hub/switch which provides wireless and 4 RJ45's, eliminating the need for an external device.

Sorry,apparently the link I posted is no longer working for the info/instructional use of the new buckeye whole home solution.
In addition to prairieson description you also have the ability to share media from any of you DLNA capable devices on your home network. there are games and many other features as well.

Not to bump an old thread, but I want to thank everybody for the info in this thread. We're moving soon, and Buckeye offered to upgrade us to this system (and it somehow shaves $5 off our bill). Wanted to learn everything I could before I get my hands on it.

Gotta say that while the whole-home DVR is neat, I'm more psyched about the DLNA support. No more having to use my homebrew-enabled Wii to watch my MST3k collection!

Dontcha love it when something BETTER costs LESS?

I called today and all they could do was add me to the waiting list...

Never had cable. Got a new antenna last year to get better reception. I'm seriously considering the Roku box for whatever I can't stream for free over the net.

The Roku box is $$ well spent IMHO. There is a ton of programming available for free. Something for every interest and more channels are constantly being added.

If you buy one, go for the "high end" unit - it's $99 you won't regret spending. If you're a Costco member, they sometimes offer a package - the $99 unit, an HDMI cable and a 2 month trial subscription to Hulu Plus.

If I could just get a few of my cable channels via Roku, I'd dump cable for good..............

Thanks for the tip, foodie.

Probably a dumb question, but I'm not terribly familiar with Roku.

We currently stream Netflix through our Wii.

Is there worthwhile stuff on Roku that we wouldn't be able to stream through our Wii (or xBox 360)?

Have Buckeye upgrading me next Friday !!!

mom2 - I think the biggest advantages of using a Roku versus a Wii are the HD compatibility and the fact that the Roku is always on. The always on feature allows you to start a movie in a few seconds (near instant gratification) versus waiting for the Wii to boot and then loading the app. If you have a short attention span or are having a bad day, the Roku does a better job at connecting you quick.

Here is a list of the channels Roku offers:
http://www.roku.com/roku-channel-store

For any of you who connect to a VPN from your home system for work or whatever, there is an issue with the way tunneling is set up in the new system. They'll have to bring you a separate modem, then bridge to that so you can connect to your VPN.

Just wanted to give y'all a heads-up.

Thanks for the info gamegirl - I do exactly that.

You'll probably want to specifically talk to Bert in Tier 2 support, ultimately. It's not a widely known issue. And supposedly there IS a patch for the problem, but it won't be applied until the rest of the bundle of patches are ready to go.

It's a kludgy workaround, but it did get me going again. Thank heavens.

brainswell: Roku is a wonderful device. Bought one about 2 years ago after a couple people here recommended it. My whole family has one now. Made the transition to zero-cable easy.

$7.99 for instant on-demand movies vs $60+ when I'm never around for was a no brainer.

yup. we use the heck out of our roku
with an amazon prime account, hulu and netflix we have plenty of options.

The Apple TV device is similar to Roku... seems like not too many people know about it. You can stream Netflix, Hulu Plus plus any movie/tv show/music you own through iTunes. You can also rent stuff through iTunes.

Except that there isn't nearly as much free programming via Apple TV as there is via Roku.

Yeah, roku wins in the content department.

Glad to see Buckeye catching up to ATT, DirecTV, and Dish after a few years.

As for Roku, my BluRay player has all of the apps (Crackle, YouTube, Netflix, Hulu+, games, etc...) available, as does my Wii. I'd rather spend the money on a Slingbox or something similar.

For those of you who have had the new Buckeye whole home solution for a while, what do you think so far? Glad you went with it? Any regrets?

We've had it for a while now, and we really like it. As with anything new/different, it takes some getting used to, but the net result is massive improvement at a slightly lower price than we were paying before.

In regards to media devices Roku has no where near the content or ability of a boxee box. Add in all your apps, full web browsing, and if you don't know what navi-x is as an app you're missing out.

I had never heard of this. I looked it up, I don't really see the difference except that it web browses (I wish Roku did this). What else does it do? It's nearly 3x the cost of Roku.

yeah, the roku is dirt cheap and has a super easy / clean interface. plus the new models are smaller than a deck of cards. personally from an aesthetic point of view, the boxee is really ugly (not that that really matters) but i do agree not having web access through the roku is a bummer.

Why do you want a browser on your TV? WebTV failed miserably.

Now if you excuse me, just mentioning W**** has made my tech support PTSD flare up and I need to go take my medication, which comes in large bottles with the word "proof" on them.

Foodie - We've had the whole house system for a while now and we're definitely happy with it. The customization and variety of options is great and it's really convenient to watch DVR on any TV. I also love having the cable remote programmed so that the volume controls the receiver (as opposed to having to switch to the "audio" button to raise the volume, then switch back to "cable" on the old remote).

A couple little things that annoy me:
- lag time when scrolling through the menus.
- the layout of the remote
- the sound of the mother unit (louder than my PS3). I don't think I would find this as annoying if the installer hadn't made a big deal about how quiet it is. Sometimes the box isn't much quieter than my microwave.

idins.....

Call and tell them you want a unit without a fan. We had a DVR unit that sounded like a loud fan in our bedroom. Got rid of that one ASAP.

There is a DVR without a fan, but it has only a 120GB hard drive and is not a whole house DVR. My suggestion for the 'loud' media gateway is to put it in the basement or have it in the room where your computer is. We leave our PC on 24/7 and I have the gateway mounted vertically on the side of the desk. I don't hear it any louder than our PC.

idinspired, If your referring to the key tones while pressing remote, they are adjustable by accessing the settings through menu then select sound effects then high medium low or mute.

also in settings is a tab called tips. there you will find some shortcuts on the remote

Had a Buckeye repairman out yesterday (yes, Sunday morning - try to get that from AT&T, DISH or DirecTV) for an intermittent issue we've been having with pixelization, screen freezes and channel dropouts. I asked him about the whole house system and he said there have been numerous and varied issues with it. I suppose that is to be expected when something new is rolled out. His suggestion was for people to wait until they get the kinks worked out. I understand that but, IMHO, the more users who have it and put it through the paces, the more issues can be uncovered and fixed.

Thanks for the suggestions toddhuey, but my complaints on the remote is the overall layout of the buttons. I've had it for months and I still get frustrated when I hit the rewind button instead of the backwards arrow.

Foodie - we had the same issues with several previous boxes, which was why we pushed to get the new one. It definitely has issues and can get a little glitchy but it's far more reliable than the older boxes.

No problems with ours. Took a while to get use to the new menus and remote functions, but I like it. Our main unit is in my computer room and the noise is not noticeable.
Especially love the ability to record/play in multiple rooms without restrictions

The repair person mentioned above said one of the biggest issues they are having is with wireless setups. Apparently, the wireless router for your home network is built into the media gateway. If you do not have LAN cable from the gateway box to your satellite TV's, the video is sent wirelessly from the gateway to the receiver boxes on each TV. He said that the wireless signal from the gateway box is pretty wimpy and a lot of people are having issues with it.

He also mentioned that many Netflix subscribers are having buffering issues.

Please don't misunderstand, I am in no way poo-pooing Buckeye's whole house system - I think it's great that they are offering it. I'm just passing along some things he mentioned that you would likely not hear about if you are considering this system. Good questions to ask along with reviewing what your home layout might be before you place an order for it.

Upso
Boxee advantages
1. Superior at playing music, video, and pictures off your home computer network.
2. Plays more video file types, which becomes important when you have access to the entire web.
3. Why web access? There is lots of content out there only available on sites and not through an app. It comes in handy often to be able to jump to a page to pull up a video. From Bloomberg livetv to the guest that wants to watch fox business news.
4. Not sure if roku airplays from iPhone and iPad but boxee does.
5. Web browser bookmarklet let's you bookmark stuff for later from your computer and add to your boxee que.
6. Not sure if roku supports rss feeds which I tend to watch several tv shows that are delivered in that manner.
7. Navi-x. Hands down best app that roku doesn't do. Far more content than Netflix and free.
8. In same interface live tv option with your hd over air.
9. You can turn on or off social media integration, post video to face book or twitter if you're into that.

I have an appletv I use for mirroring at work off an iPad. For content boxee is much better for home entertainment. Typing in on an appletv remote for something as quick as a YouTube search is a pain, but a breeze on a boxee remote due to full qwerty keyboard on back side.

I cut cable December 2010 thanks to boxee and haven't gone to a movie theater either except for the valentine just for the atmosphere.

Foodie - There is wireless in the gateway, but it does not use wireless to get to the players. The players use ethernet or the coax lines in the home to communicate to the gateway. The only way I can see you having a wireless player is to have it connect via an access point in your home (gateway wireless to your AP, wired to the player). This is something YOU would do not installed that way. You can control the wireless of the gateway by logging into it. You can even disable it (as I did) and run your own wireless router off the gateway.

smbfc: that is good info. Wireless video still has too many quirks IMHO.

UPSO

One more value of boxee vs Roku. Full web browser is important because you can get to things there may not be apps for.

Right now I'm watching the Lakers vs Thunder playoff game on tntdrama.com through boxee for free.

Noted! You win! ;)

A few people talked about a Roku box. I love mine. It's cheaper than cable, even with the capping fees. Heck, if it's only 10 dollars p/m, why do we need to upgrade? Just pay the 10 dollars. The next tier from 200 Gigs: 250 Gigs, which you'll get for that extra 10 dollars.

One major thing for the Roku, Cable shows FREE on the roku "private channels" (google that phrase to find those private/hidden channels).

I can easily watch Simpsons on "FOUR," rewatch Desperate Housewives (like I did last night at 630 PM on "four." See "Suits" on another private channel. The watching on private channels alone. PLUS, I DO NOT HAVE TO WATCH LOCAL DRAMACASTS OR OLD "BREAKING NEWS" REHASHES FROM THE OVER TRUMPED DRAMA (news) STATIONS HYPING DURING MY SHOWS. To me the Harrisburg stations show me less drama, on 1 Roku Private channel. That's my BIGGEST plus. No TV News DRAMA, from a non-news city!

I can watch overseas channels, lots of news, various cable shows, network shows, play games, etc... now that's great for 50 dollars a month!

Buckeye doesn't compare to the customization of what my needs are. The closest they get is prices.

Local is nice, provided I have a need for what they have. Sorry that my need was not provided in Buckeye's TV dept. They cover that need with internet... but that's dwindling with the caps.

Using my Roku, I get to 150 Gigs. So I might be close... but not over.