Satellite television is one of the trends in the 21st century. It is a good thing that customers don’t have to buy anything to be able to watch shows at home since all of these are courtesy of the provider.

Aside from the satellite dish and the television, one of the other freebies is the digital video recorder. Both Dish Network and DirecTV has its own version. This will come in handy in saving those episodes that the person will surely miss when caught up with work.

DirecTV came out with this first in early 2004 called TiVo. There are plans to phase this out by the end of 2006 to give way to a newer model but customers can still get a unit from stores such as Costco. Dish Network recently launched its own version this year called the ViP622.

The digital video recorder from DirecTV is color black and measures 15 by 3.5 by 12 inches. The size of the version from Dish Network is not that different because it measures 16 by 3.5 by 13 inches and is shaped in a color silver box. Both can be controlled by using the remote or by simply touching the switches on the front panel of the unit.

The memory card of the Tivo can store up to 250GB of space that could store 30 hours of HDTV. The Dish Network ViP622 can hold 300 GB, which means it, can record more hours for the user to see when there is some free time.

Those who want to buy a DirecTV Tivo will find that this costs $549. Given that the technology of Dish Network is quite new, the customer will have to shell out a little more since this costs $699.

Can a person say that one version is better than the other? The answer here is yes. This is because DirecTivo is not able to do some of the things that Dish Network has in its unit.

For instance, the ViP622 is able to receive MPEG-4 feed which allows the user to also receive high definition channels that can be recorded simultaneously over the other. It has USB ports which allows a portable player to be attached to the unit.

The examples just mentioned is something the DirecTV Tivo cannot do. It also has a small memory capacity so the only way to record new shows will be to delete the old ones first.

It is really easy to tell which model is better than the other and for this round, Dish Network comes out on top. Perhaps when DirecTV is able to launch the new model late this year or early next, the competition in getting subscribers will be more intense than it is now.

But the consumer is not going to base the decision of which one to get based on the digital video recorder alone. This will also depend on the price and other things that comes with the package such as the number of channels that will be shown on the television screen.

Regardless of the satellite television provider chosen, the person will still have to call the company to sign a deal before the equipment can be installed in the home. If the customer wants to upgrade, this can also be done later on.

Go here to see how we compare Dish Network to DirecTV