Customer Reviews

Philips DSR6000R DIRECTV Receiver with TiVo Service

5 star:		(47)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(18)

 

 

For the record, let me just say that I have had a Tivo recorder since it was first made available to the public (mailorder only --- about a year and a half ago). This is a great machine and the software and services keep getting better and better!Now I have purchased the new DSR6000. From the other reviews you know about many of the great features and cool things you can do with Tivo.Now for a few things you may not know or should at least be aware of:1) This is not a Tivo Box. It is a DirecTV satellite receiver with Tivo. If you need cable or antenna inputs --- you can only view these sources --- NOT RECORD.2) With this unit you cannot set the recording quality ( the editorial above is in error ). The unit automatically varies the compression rate according to the type of material you are watching --- action movies require more space than a talk show. The picture quality is very good and it seems to be able to record more than my old tivo with a set compression rate.3) Guided setup is a breeze since all program guide information is downloaded from the satellite. Only the Network Showcases and Tivolution Magazine is retrieved via the phone line.4)WARNING: If you receive your local channels through DirecTV be aware that guide information of CBS and ABC are not being downloaded to the guide at this time. All you will see is "To Be Announced". DirecTV is aware of the problem (so they tell me) and are working to resolve it ASAP.5) There is "audio popping" that occurs at random. It usually seems to happen when moving from one menu screen to another.6) There are great new features such as Wishlists that let you find and autorecord programs based on keywords, directors, and actors.Also, the Season Pass just became alot smarter. Now you can tell it whether you want repeats or just first run and the maximum number of episodes you want to record in a week. There are many other additions/improvements -- to numeous to mention.IN CLOSING --- I just want to say this IS the next chapter in the Tivo revolution/evolution. This is a great machine with alot of new features. Remember this is new software for Tivo and there are still a few refinements that need to be made. If you can look beyond a few bugs (that will be corrected soon) --- come join the TIVOlution revolution!Thanks, I hope this helps.

I've had the DSR-6000 for a couple of weeks now, and I love it. As long as you think of it as not a Tivo, and more like the ultimate DirectTV receiver, you will be happy. It does everthing a standalone Tivo does, EXCEPT, you cannot record anything but DirectTV. No cable, no antenna, just the satellite. If you CAN get your local channels from DirectTV, you are set, run, don't walk, to get this receiver! If you get your locals from cable or an antenna, you are out of luck, you will still need a regular VCR to record ABC, NBC, FOX, WB, and CBS network programming. That said, your Tivo will work awesome on the hundreds of DirectTV channels. You can pause live TV, set it to record episodes of you favorite shows, movies with you favorite actors, movies with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound, etc. It holds up to 35 hours of shows you have told it to record in perfect digital quality, PLUS shows it thinks you might like based on the type of shows you have told it to record, or by giving it Thumbs Up and Thumbs Down on shows in the channel guide. So that is your choice, awesome convenience with the DirectTV channels, but no local channel recording. For me, I think it is worth it.

I own three tivos: a standalone, a Hughes GXCEBOT DirecTivo and now a Philips DSR6000. I have been pleased with all three models and love how Tivo lets me watch TV on my own schedule, not the networks'. For those who are switching from a regular Directv receiver or are new to satellite service altogether, a few caveats:

1) All three DirecTivos (Hughes, Philips, Sony) perform the same. The only differences are external - the Hughes and Sony are silver and the Sony has a control link to control Sony VCRs. So buy the one that fits best with your home theater system.

2) The DTivos currently (as of 12/01) in stores have software ver. 2.01; to use the two tuner functionality, you need only force a daily call (or two) after you finish the guided setup - the installation manual explains this simple process - and wa - la!! Ver. 2.5 will download and a new message from Tivo will tell you how to activate the dual tuner functions. No sweat!!

3) The DirecTivo online guide is slower than those of the regular Directv receivers. Don't worry, you'll get used to it and as you begin to use the Tivo more and more, find that you surf less and less. Alot of your TV viewing will be recordings the Tivo or you have made.

4) The Philips DSR6000 runs hot!! (That's why I gave it four and not five stars). Don't stack it with another component and make sure you have adequate head and side room in any rack system you put it in. Otherwise, the fan will run continuously and might annoy you.

5) The DTivos, like the standalones (and unlike Ultimate TV) can be expanded to add additional hard disk storage. So, you can upgrade your 35 hour DTivo to 80 hours, 100 hours, 160 hours,... it's up to you. All you need is a little PC knowledge and some gall...

6)...you can only use the DTivos to record satellite TV; they won't work with cable or local broadcast TV (buy a standalone Tivo for that). But as of 12/27/01, nearly all your local channels are "must carry" for Directv. (Go to their website to see which locals you can get via the satellite).

A final piece of advice: if you're thinking about buying this product...read the FAQs and discussion threads - it may save you some frustration or disappointment if the product is not what you expected and will help you with any setup questions you may have, like "do I need a multiswitch and which one should I buy?" It's also a great way to pick up tips and tricks about how to make your Tivo viewing more pleasurable.

If you can't Tivo your life, then at least Tivo your television ;-) Good luck and enjoy!!

This is just a great product. I've had directv for a couple years, so I'm going to focus on what tivo added when I replaced my old receiver with this one:

(1) the ability to interrupt live programming without missing anything. Say you're watching a show, and you get a phone call. Just pause (it is always recording what you're watching), complete your call and then resume.

(2) No wrong tape/missing tape/wrong tape speed/over-record problems. A problem with VCR recording is making sure the tape is in and set up properly. It's a nuisance at best, and can cause the recording to mis-fire completely at worst.

(3) Leave town and record. If you need to leave town for a few days or a week, you can still record the shows you want without having to worry about tape capacity.

(4) Record by program rather than time/channel/code.

(5) Multiple search options for locating programs of interest. Title, description, cast names, category are all options. You can locate programs easily, two weeks in advance (no hunting through program grids).

(6) Season pass. Once you find a program of interest, if it is recurring, you can subscribe by "season-pass", which will record all the episodes of a show (and you can choose first-run only if you want) even if it changes time, day, or length.

(7) Watch-while-recording. If you are recording a show, you don't have to wait until it is over before you can start watching it. Suppose there is a show you want to watch that starts at 10:00. Just show up at 10:20, and you can start watching from the beginning, skip the commercials, and still finish at 11:00.

(8) Manage old recordings. If you've got a significant amount of back-logged recording, managing it with tape is a mess: which tapes have what on them, avoiding over-recording, finding the programs, etc. With this device, however, you have 35 hours available by title presented in a simple menu. To be sure, you can't permanently archive this way, but if you want to it will play to VCR for you - without your having to make sure you get clean, labeled tapes set up in real-time.

(9) Quality. Because you're capturing the over-the-air pre-compressed signal, the recorded version is as good as the live version. This is a significant advantage that this has over the standard tivo.

(10) Easy to set-up. I already had my dish set up, so this wasn't difficult - the only thing was that the regular directtv people don't know all the steps on transferring my account from my old receiver over to the tivo box, but they have dedicated support people who know what to do.

Overall, this is just a very wonderfully well thought-through product. There were quite a few times when I first got it when I thought of something that would be convenient if it would do for me, and each time there was a way to do it.

I was fortunate to get one of the first of these boxes. Compared to the stand alone TiVo, setup is a breeze. It takes about 20 minutes. The stand-alone takes 3-5 hours. Picture quality is perfect since the integrated receiver records the bitstream directly off the satellite instead of it being decoded by a separate receiver and re-encoded by TiVo. The DSR6000R also is the first TiVo to ship with the 2.0 software, which has many new features, such as Season Pass manager, . This unit also features two DirecTV tuners, which will allow you to watch 1 channel while recording another, when the feature is enabled. This unit also allows you to choose from the DirecTV guide or the TiVo guide, whichever you prefer.

If you've been waiting, now is the time to jump in. This is the best TiVo unit yet.

Integrating the DirecTV and TiVo units provides extra power and functionality. It's a match made in heaven. The digital signal is spooled directly from the satellite dish to the TiVo hard disk for recordings that are always as good as a live broadcast, and no worries about quality settings either. Both DirecTV-style and TiVo-style program listings are available, and TiVo's Record button works on either type to set up recordings for the future (as do the Thumbs Up and Down buttons). That said, there are a few missing features even with the powerful TiVo 2.0 software. For example, the Season Pass function still records repeats of shows that are aired multiple times a day (e.g., a Season Pass to "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" will get you three copies a day of the same episode) - even when you tell it just to record first runs. This is especially annoying on cable stations that tend to repeat the same program several times in a day or week. (The workaround is the same as for TiVo 1.x: manually make a repeating schedule by time/channel. Blargh.) There's still no way to set default options for recording programs; I'd like to have it always pad the start and end times by a minute, for instance, without having to specify that for every program I record. As another reviewer has pointed out, the second tuner in the box is basically good for nothing at this point, although when it's enabled it should allow you to record two programs at once, or watch one channel while recording another. And, inexplicably, the only way to turn the unit "off" (it's never really turned off, it will record programs for you in what it calls "standby" mode - turning it off just tells the receiver you're not there anymore, so it should feel free to switch the tuner to whatever channel is necessary to make recordings without warning you first) involves EIGHT button presses! That's just dumb. There are other oddities too, such as separate mailboxes for messages from DirecTV and TiVo services. No reason an integrated unit shouldn't have have all the messages in one place. Even with these foibles, though, this device is a miracle and will change how you watch television. Especially if you live in an area where DirecTV carries your local channels. Best of all, the issues I've noted are all software and can be addressed by updates, which are downloaded automatically.

Never before have I purchased an item that has improved something as simple as watching TV as much as this box has.

Everyone I know has a VCR with about a dozen unmarked video tapes next to it, with various shows on them from various times. Even if you remember that you had something on tape, it's a mystery as to which tape it was on, and where on that tape it is located.

Have you ever needed to set up the VCR before work to tape something because you weren't going to be home in time? Invariably, the stack of video tapes that you have (unmarked of course) are all in various states of being used, so you can't use one of them, and the one you do find doesn't have enough recording time left on it.

Most of the times, it is just too inconvenient to record something, so you would rather miss the show than deal with the hassle of recording it.

That was our life before we bought this DirecTV/Tivo combo box.

This unit is designed to store the signal as it's broadcast from DirecTV, so the quality is the same as it is with watching it live. No recording speeds that trade off time for picture quality, like a VCR or even stand-alone PVR's. This isn't a deficiency, it's a feature (and one of the reasons I bought a combo box).

You can record up to 35 hours of programming (less if you watch high-bandwidth programs, like Pay-Per-View), so recording space isn't an issue. That's more than 17 video tapes if you use the highest quality SP speed on your VCR, and if you use the 6-hour EP mode on your VCR for maximum recording time, you would still need 6 video tapes to equal the recording time of the DSR6000.

And if you need more storage space, there are ways to increase the storage if you are technically savvy. You can also send it to an upgrade service that will increase the storage for you.

The integration of the Tivo features with the DirecTV receiver is the key feature, in my opinion. It gives you the ultimate level of control over your viewing habits, and if you get local channels over the satellite (like I do), you'll never use your VCR again. If you don't have DirecTV, or if you can't/won't get local channels on the satellite, I recommend checking out the stand-alone TiVo.

With the recent free software upgrade, we now have the ability to record two shows at once, all while watching a third show that was already recorded. Additional minor features were added, all at no additional cost.

Once you get used to the ability to see a listing of shows that you've recorded, select shows to record from easy-to-understand menus, and the convenience of Season Passes which pick up every episode of your favorite shows without any extra work on your part, you'll be hooked, too.

Some say that they don't watch enough TV to make such a purchase worth it. I say that if you watch any TV at all, doesn't it make sense to watch it on your time schedule, instead of the networks? My parents often don't get to watch TV until later at night, and not much is on at 11pm. The TiVo gives them the ability to tell it what to record for them, and they can watch it when they're ready.

Owning a TiVo is an experience that's difficult to describe, because it changes your viewing habits for the better. You may find yourself watching more TV, but nonetheless, it's what you want to watch, when you want to watch it.

I had my philips DSR 6000R for six months and loved it - I don't know how I ever lived without TIVO in my life. My partner and I are Buffy, Angel, Sopranos, Six feet under, and The Wire addicts and without TIVO we'd have to wait for everything to come on on DVD to watch them -- we love it!

That said however, the warranty and quality of this particular product is NOT WORTH YOUR HARD EARNED CONSUMER DOLLARS! Our unit simply stopped working this week (won't power on) and we come to find out that the warranty is only 90 days!!! 90 days for an electronics product? Obviously philps knows there are problems with the manufacturing. SO - in order to fix the unit, they want me to pay $$$ plus shipping and handling (both ways). Unacceptable in my opinion. I called directTV and Tivo and they were actually kind enough to offer me credit towards my account in the amount it would cost to buy a new or used direct-tv/tivo receiver. KUDOS!! TO DirectTV and TIVO for cusotmer serivce, but shame on philips. I'm certainly NOT buying another philips receiver as a result of this. Maybe I'll find the same thing with the other brands, but I've a feeling SONY at least handles the customer support side of things a little smoother!

PS -- Also had problems with my Philips universal remote recently and had similar problems with their repairs dept. I think its simply Philips does not know how to run a customer care center. But thats' just my H[onest]O[pinion].

This recorder is everything that all the reviewers say it is with one big exception. The new digital audio for Dolby Digital 5.1 sound does not work at this time. I hooked up my new DSR6000 to my system and plugged it into my Yamaha DSP-A1 (which is hooked up to eight speakers) for total surround sound and got intermittent sound. After a few hours of trying to correct the problem, I decided I had a bad unit and returned it for another one. Guess what? The same thing with the new second unit. Now a call to TiVo was in order. First of all, I must say they were right up front about the problem, stating that the software fix for this was about three months away. Well, the reason I waited so long to buy this unit was because originally it could not record in digital sound. So it was quite a bummer when I found out it didn't work and would have to wait months to have the problem addressed. I think some of the editorial reviews should have done a little more research when they discussed how nice it was to have digital audio. Also, you can't leave the optical audio cable attached or the intermittent sound will continue. You are obliged to hope that the company can and will fix the problem expeditiously. I also suggested (to no avail, so far), that they send mail to their customers addressing this problem.

Well, I've had this unit for a month and definitely cannot live without it. There are a few quirks that I had to get used to, however. I list these quirks in order of annoyance.

1. The channel surfing is very slow. I have owned 32 bit RCA receivers and you could channel surf with pretty much no delay between channels. There is an agonizingly long delay between channels with the Philips box. I have since gotten used to using the TiVo channel guide (not the DirecTV channel guide) to surf. It works pretty well.

2. The modem is very finicky. If you are planning on using this unit with a wireless phone jack, good luck. I have used my RCA units with a wireless jack for years, no problem. I actually set up the Philips box with the wireless jack and used it for about a week and then... poof, it didn't work anymore. Tech support told me (off the record) that the modems are very susceptible to line noise. So, I had to run a phone line to the TV. It now works fine.

3. The unit runs hot. I had this box inside an entertainment center behind a glass door. The system info screen said the internal temp. ran between 48C-52C (118F-125F). Well above the recommended operating temp. If you have the same setup you may want to think about relocating the box. I have.

There are few more very minor issues with this product not worth mentioning because as I stated in the title, "I love my TiVo!" This product is so cool that I am very willing to put up with its little quirks.