Customer Reviews

Philips HDR312 TiVo 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder

5 star:		(150)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(23)

 

 

TiVo's claim that they'll change the way you watch TV is completely true. Being able to pause or replay whatever you're currently watching to grab a snack, answer a call, etc. is great. You can't imagine how helpful it is to have almost two weeks of programming information available to pick and chose what to record for the next few days.

I'd recommend the 30hr unit over the 14hr if you can afford it. After you start searching the two week guide by program name, channel name, favorite channels, or by time of day you'll quickly find plenty of things you want to record.

DirecTV viewers will especially find this useful...it makes all those channels much more manageable, and I prefer the TiVo on-screen guide to the one my DSS box provided.

All of the TiVo menus are well thought out, attractive, and *very* easy to use. They include lots of cables - including S-Video, a phone jack splitter (nice touch), and other goodies so almost anyone will find everything they need to hook TiVo up right out of the box. The User's Guide is helpful too, for people who are a little less sure of themselves around stuff like this.

I picked TiVo over ReplayTV because of their close alliance with DirecTV (DirecTV has invested in them), and from reading other people's comments in newsgroups and other forums. After I spent about half an hour going through the program guide and giving various programs 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' ratings (one of the cooler features of TiVo), it came up with a whole bunch of other programs it suggested I might like.

I'm probably sounding like a company spokesperson, but I'm not, I'm just a *very* happy new user of TiVo!

I have spent the past 30 days evaluating both a ReplayTV and a Tivo personal digital recorder and this is a brief review of my experience.

If Tivo did not exist, I would probably tell you that ReplayTV was the coolest gadget that I have ever used. However, Tivo has done such a superior job designing their user interface and their remote control that there is no comparison between the two, Tivo is the hands down winner.

ReplayTV's major problem is that they have no sorting system to help you pick the shows that you might want to record. To find the shows that you want to record you must painfully sift through an on screen channel guide one time slot at a time. Tivo in comparison gives you numerous ways to choose shows that you might want to record. You can view the upcomming two weeks of programming in catagories such as Movies, Sports, by channel, or by show name. Tivo will even automatically record shows that it thinks you might like based on shows that you have rated with their thumbs up or thumbs down rating system. At first I was skeptical that I would like this feature, but after a week I found that I loved it. I would get home from work and get a whole list of programs that Tivo went out and recored by itself while I was sleeping and while I was at work.

With Tivo I can scan through hundreds of Movies on my premium channels and in minutes tell it to record all the ones that I want to record for the next two weeks. With ReplayTV it took me so long to do this that after the first few days I found myself only recording shows that were on a regular schedule, like Seinfeld or the X-Files.

ReplayTV basically has a frustrating user interface that forces you to constantly look at the remote control to do every simple task. With Tivo almost all of your options are on screen, so if your sitting in the dark while you are watching TV you don't have to strain your eyes on what button you need to push.

My ReplayTV seemed to often (at least once a day) have a playback glitch. The fast forward or rewind would get stuck and I would have to power the unit on and off to get it to stop.

One last thing, a major one for me, ReplayTV gives you no indication of where you are when you are watching a show. You can't tell if there is 10 minutes or an hour left. I was watching Shindler's List a few days ago and I found this extremely frustrating. With Tivo you get a very helpfull progress bar that appears on the bottom of the screen whenever you fast forward, rewind or press slow motion. (ReplayTV has no slow motion or single frame advance.)

I just returned my ReplayTV and Tivo 14 hour unit, I ordered a TIVO 30 hour unit. My advise is to buy a 30 hour unit, you will probably record everything in a higher quality setting, resulting in about half the recording time of either units advertised recording capacity.

I'm now a two TiVo family! Iput my model 112 in my bedroomand hooked up my model 312 tomy living room televison.My new 312 looks identical to the112 but does weigh a few morepounds.I now have enough storage capacity to record just about everything I'd wantto see that comes out of thecable company's wire!The onlythings I watch live anymoreare news and sports.I use my312 to record mostly movies and documentaries.I use my112 in the bedroom to recordStar Trek and 20/20.I lovewatching an episode of Trekevery night before slumbering.The 312 is everything the 112is but double the recordingcapacity. Be warned that thisis not really a 30 hour unit!The lowest record quality (basic) will yield 30 hours ofrecording but the quality stinks! Basic quality is best-suited for recording radio! The three higher video qualities designated medium,high,and best all look goodon my 32 inch TV.I use mostlymedium and high,so my "30 hourunit" gives me 14 to 18 hoursof space.The big model,312,isvery-much the one to get ifyou want to grab movies offpremium channels,like I do.If you have a big projectionTV,you might want to use "best" video quality for movies.You would stille get9 hours of space with the 312.The small unit would only hold4 hours at "best" quality,noteven enough space for two longmovies.I have a Super VHS VCRand TiVo equals or surpassesit in every respect.The onlything I use it for is to duba program off TiVo that I wantto keep,ocassionally.I no longer care what time showsor movies run in.Networkschedules are irrelevant to me.TiVo puts me in charge.TiVo comes with more cablesthan any other audio/videodevice I've ever bought.There's no way you'llhave to run to the store fora cable.S-video,RCA type,IRblaster,serial (to controlsattelite or cable box),50feet of telephone wire,justabout anything you might need,it's included!Buy TiVo if youwant to grab all the bestprograming off your TV serviceand watch it at your convience.Buy the big unit,model 312,if you need space torecord movies.If all you wantto do is record a few shortshows a week buy the littleunit,model 112.If you're anaudio vidiot like me buy both!Take control of your TV withTiVo, you'll be glad you did!

Both are light years ahead of VCRs, both have ups and downs, either will change your idea of how television is watched. They both pause live TV, find and record your favorite shows without the hassles that tapes create. They both allow you to pay service costs up front (actually Replay _requires_ it), and if you do they both cost the same.

Tivo advantages: Suggestions. You give shows you like or don't like up to three thumbs up or thumbs down, and Tivo will look for things that match those preferences. Note that your preference information is never shared with Tivo Inc. It never leaves your house, the box makes the suggestions itself.

Recording by date, time, and channel. Useful for lengthy shows you only want a part of, events that may run past the scheduled end time.

Replay advantage: Theme areas which will record things based on keywords or actors. Tivo doesn't yet have this, but will by at least Halloween, probably sooner. As with Replay, software upgrades for Tivo are done automatically during the nightly call so existing Tivo owners will get it free.

Where Replay scared me off was it's labyrinth of complex scheduling and show retention rules and it's disk management, which essentially chops up the disk into separate areas for each show. If you make the shows "guaranteed" (which does not actually guarantee the show will record), those areas won't share space with each other, even if they aren't using it. For "non-guaranteed" shows space is shared, but no warning about schedule conflicts is given so you never really know what's going to be recorded. Even Replay doesn't know if a show will pass all the tests until moments before it's on, so it can't tell you in advance. Think that Frasier "show" area will catch double episodes? Nope, show areas only catch one showing per day. NBC shows Frasier at 8:00 one night instead of 9, but you're covered, right? Nope, show areas won't find a show if it moves more than one slot away from it's normal time. So you use a "Theme" area for Frasier instead of a "Show" area, another way to do automatic recordings. Set it for an hours worth of programming and you're set! Double episodes, hour long episodes, no problem, right? Except that theme areas grab shows from every channel on the dial, and your UPN affiliate shows two syndicated episodes of Frasier every night (this isn't hypothetical, mine does), so your Frasier theme area gets those too. So what, you say, they'll just get overwritten when the prime-time episodes run? Nope. Replay theme areas won't throw away a show until it's a day old, so when Frasier comes on NBC at 9:00, Replay finds the hour-long Frasier area already full of shows it can't delete yet so it doesn't record _any_ prime time episodes, even if there is space somewhere on the disk. The solution is to up the Frasier area to two hours so it can hold both the syndicated episodes you don't want and any hour long or double episodes you do. You actually have to manage and allocate space yourself, and to do it effectively you have to be aware of when channels you don't care about show episodes you don't want since they can prevent Replay from recording or keeping what you _do_ want. Even VCRs don't demand that much care and feeding.

A Tivo "season pass" handles this neatly and simply. It only records from the specific channel you set it to, but it doesn't restrict the times or number of episodes that will be recorded and it doesn't restrict shows to sharing a tiny portion the disk, so you'll get long, double, or moved episodes (unless a moved or extra episode conflicts with something else - neither Tivo or Replay can record two things at once, so something won't get recorded if that happens). Tivos to-do list shows you everything it will record through it's 10 days of programming data, and because Tivo projects it's space requirements throughout those 10 days, it knows it advance when a new recording would exceed it's capacity, and offers to delete some shows earlier than planned or cancel the recording.

With Tivo you know what will be recorded, you know what effect additional recordings will have on Tivos spaces schedule, and recordings are kept as long as disk space permits. The Replay and Tivo forums at avsforum.com are an excellent source of information.

This is a great, revolutionary product. It's pretty much as great as everybody says. I've had mine for a couple of months now and have no major complaints. However, in case Tivo's reading, all my (minor) complaints follow:

Tivo comes with all kinds of hardware. Everything except a coax splitter which you need to buy if you want to continue using the tuner on your TV. (Which I think would be just about everybody because you have to do this if you want to watch live TV while Tivo's recording).

The Season Pass records all showings of a particular show no matter when or what channel it's on. However if you pick a show that's in syndication or a cable show that's repeated often, you'll get many more than you actually want. It'd be better if a Season Pass was only good for one channel and time period. Also be nice if it were smart enough to not record additional showings of the same episode. Another bad thing about this is that it will not allow you to create other Seasons Passes if it thinks it interferes with the first one. (Like say you only want a Seinfeld season pass for a 4pm showing but Seinfeld also runs at 9pm on some other channel; I can't set up a season pass for some other 9pm show without disrupting the first). Of course the way around this is to record by time but I think some improvements can be made.

When watching live TV, it keeps the last 30 minutes UNLESS you switch channels or a new show starts. This means that if I stop watching (without pausing) near the end of a show and a new show starts in the meantime, I'll have lost the ability to go back and watch the end of the show I was watching. I don't see why they blow away the last 30 minutes when a new show starts, particularly if it's on the same channel.

As other people mentioned, it'd have been nice to have a skip-forward feature so you could skip forward in increments of 30 seconds or something.

It'd be nice to have a menu option to have a less conspicuous play bar (or to put it at the top of the screen instead of the bottom). It covers up things like Who Wants to be a Millionaire questions until it times out and disappears.

Sometimes the sound loses its top frequencies such that it sounds like a bad speaker. S sounds sound like static. This might be a function of the broadcast but live TV doesn't sound that way.

It'd be great to have a VHS record list feature so you could record multiple programs to videotape all in one go. Sometimes I make tapes for my overseas friends and having to record one 1/2 hour program at a time is a pain in the rear.

When scrolling through program listings, it makes you wait a second before bringing up the next screen. It should be pre-loading each screen in advance so it doesn't have to waste this kind of time.

Due to program scheduling, many times it will miss the last 30 seconds or so of a broadcast (so you might miss that last joke while the credits are scrolling). It should give you an option where it will always record a couple of minutes before/after a program (if there isn't another program scheduled to be recorded immediately afterwards).

I guess that's about it. Don't let all this scare you away. It's an awesome product and now that I have it, I wouldn't watch TV any other way.

TiVo is absolutely the best electronics investment I have ever made, particularly in conjunction with my satellite dish. It has enhanced my TV viewing quality of life and enjoyment enormously (I own three of them now).

BEST FEATURES

1. TiVo suggestions. Based on what you record, and what you tell Tivo you like, the Tivo unit will search its programming database for similar programs, or movies with the same actors or directors. For example, I had thumbed up a couple of Hitchcock movies, and lo and behold, Tivo found a whole weekend long Hitchcock marathon I hadn't even known about. You can set up your Tivo to automatically record suggestions for you, or you can easily turn the function off, and just browse through the suggestions yourself and see what you want to record.

2. Tivo menus and search functions. So much better than going through a TV Guide or slogging through a satellite menu. Tivo keeps 10 days worth of programming information in its internal memory, so no waiting for the dish to upload the programming details, and you aren't forced to scroll slowly through an hour and a half worth of programming information at a time. If you want to know what's on two evenings from now at 8PM, click, click, click, and you're there. And that programming information is updated daily, so you have the most current information available. You can look at everything that's currently on, search for programs by name, look at all movies on for the next couple of hours, check out what's on next week, or check what's on your favorite channel tonight.

3. Digital recording. Tivo records programs digitally, on an internal hard drive. This means that if it is set on BEST picture quality, the recording is virtually the same quality as the original broadcast. Almost no loss of picture quality. Setting up recordings is easier than a VCR or even VCR plus, and you don't have to mess around looking for blank tapes, unless of course you want to download a recording onto videotape.

4. Time shifting. I almost never watch *live* TV anymore. I can record programs at original broadcast quality level and watch them hours or days later, and FF through a 3 minute commercial break in seconds. I can also start watching a program from the beginning while the Tivo continues to record the program. I can watch a program I've already recorded while I am recording a new one. You can virtually eliminate commercials from your TV viewing experience. You can't do that with a VCR!

5. Pause and Rewind of Live TV. If you walk in the room and hear the tail end of something that interests you, you can rewind the Tivo's memory up to 30 minutes to hear what you missed. If you have to leave the room to check on dinner or answer the phone, you can pause the screen up to 30 minutes and when you return, start up where you left off. For example, we caught a story we were interested in on the nightly news, rewound to the beginning of the story, put it on pause, got a videotape and downloaded the story onto tape for some relatives of ours.

6. Manual Setting of Recordings. Want to record a basketball game or a particular program, but your favorite show always starts a minute or two before the hour, or you're afraid the game will go into overtime? No problem. You can manually set recordings to start a little early or add an extra half hour onto the end. Only want to record Jay Leno or David Letterman's monologues, but not the rest of the program. Again, no problem, because you can set the Tivo to record in five minute increments starting and ending at whatever time you choose.

7. Season passes. You can designate specific programs as season passes. If you're a Voyager devotee, you can set a season pass for it, and it will record every new episode it finds for you (on that particular channel), regardless of when it comes on. If its on an hour later than usual, as long as the change was scheduled, Tivo will get it for you. If there's a 2 hour special, it will automatically record both hours. It will record it on Wednesday night for you, and if the same episode is broadcast on Saturday, and it already has it in its memory, it won't record the same program again.

If you love Frasier, but don't want to watch the re-runs, only current season programming, no problem there. Set a season pass for your NBC affiliate, and it will ignore all other channels, even those showing syndicated re-runs.

DRAWBACKS:

The set up is a time consuming process, particularly if you have cable or DBS with a lot of channels, but it is absolutely worth every minute of the time.

Some thought HDTV would change the world of TV but promise that is still left unfulfilled. I would argue that personalized TV, not higher definition, is really what will change the TV medium in the future. Why waste time being forced to watch what you have no interest in? Do you really want to see that ad with the guy going through the car wash in a tent in higher definition or would you rather just skip it altogether?

Like the Replay, TiVo is one of the first electronic devices that delivers on this promise. This is unlike any other component you have in your AV system and is lightyears of different from a cable/satellite control box since this is an actual computer, running a real OS, with a real hard drive. What does this mean to you? High quality recording, recommendations, personalized settings, automatically receive new features.

The configuration of the TiVo box was incredibly straightforward and easy so that even the most non-technical person you know can set it up. The only problem with setting up the TiVo is figuring out how to wire it up to all your other components. For the average consumer this won't be a problem since their setup is relatively standard and covered in the manual. However if you have TV, VCR, cable box, DVD, AV Receiver, etc. you will need to spend some time thinking about how to best run the wires.

The initial configuration takes about 20 minutes of your time and then it dials into TiVo to get your channel lineup and program guide. This is a short, one-time call that is followed by a 1 to 2 hour initial indexing of all the information to make it easy for you to find things. The time it takes to index is based upon the number of channels your TV/cable/satellite system supports so if you actually only use a small set of channels then the indexing is much faster.

I almost never watch live TV anymore as I usually just pick something that the TiVo has already recorded. At Best Quality there is no visual degredation of the signal by running the signal through the box even when watching live TV. The benefits of pausing, rewinding, etc. are just too good to miss out on. If you are trying to watch live TV you do pay a penalty of being about a second behind the actual broadcast...but who really cares about such a small time delay?

The TiVo will automatically record shows it thinks you will like. I have had mixed success with this. It has recorded some interesting shows for me. It has also recorded shows that it previously recorded and I explicitly deleted. Of course you can always negatively rate the show instead of deleting so it doesn't show up again but how that impacts your overall TiVo recommendations is unknown.

There is no guide that comes with the TiVo that tells you how to make optimal use of the thumbs up/thumbs down feature. You can give a show up to 3 thumbs up or thumbs down so you do have flexability but it is unclear what the difference between 1 thumbs up and two thumbs up are. The recommendations can certainly be improved but I think with more people using the service that these will only get better over time.

Another downside is that the interaction with Digital cable box is less than satisfactory. You change channels on TiVo and not all IR commands are received by cable box. This is mostly not TiVo's fault since the cable box does not properly queue IR commands. However TiVo should allow you to specify IR delays in some sort of advanced menu.

On the good side all the problems I have with the TiVo can be corrected by them through future software releases. The TiVo company has been great at responding to customers and focusing on solving the problems that gives the biggest win to the consumer.

All in all this is a really solid product for being an early entrant into personal TV technology. Even at this point I don't think I could live without the TiVo. Even though I don't watch much TV is has saved me significant time since I can fast forward through anything that is slow, boring, or advertistements and I don't have to worry about rushing home to watch shows in real time.

I've had my 30-hour TiVo now since last summer, and it just gets better and better. It's easy, the picture quality is great, and the content provided from the TiVo service is worth much more than the $199 lifetime fee. I've gotten to the point where I consider it a real pain to actually have to record a program on the VCR.

I got a sneak peak at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas of the newest version of the TiVo software, which is due to be downloaded to every subscriber free of charge this summer, and it takes the ease of use and flexibility factor to an even higher level. And with TiVo's partnerships with the pay cable folks, DirectTV, and now Blockbuster, this technology certainly looks poised to take off. Add to that Sony's announcement of a lower priced 30 hour machine, and it looks like it will get more affordable as well. I have this Philips unit, and it has performed without even a hickup since I set it up.

I started out about a year or so ago with a 14 hour Tivo unit and LOVED it. The problem was they lie about capacity... sort of. 14 hours or in the case of the 30 hour unit are really more like 6 hours and 11 hours with the recorder set to record at BEST quality... anything lower and the picture looks bad. I then paid Tivo to send me a new unit that had been upgraded to 3 hours.... Then that was still not enough time with the system set at best quality.

I finally found out I could upgrade the thing myself... so my recomendation is to get the cheapest on that you can and upgrade it. This VOIDS you tivo warrenty but hey we all like to live on the edge right :)

I now have a 117 hour Tivo because the company I used to upgrade my Tivo (http://www.digitalrecorder.tv/) added an 80GB disk and now instead of having to delete my recordings early or being more picky about what I record I can go nuts and record anything and everything. I even saw on one website (http://pvrhack.sonnik.com/tivo/tivoking.htm) a guy who has a 151+ hour Tivo.

Another good website for Tivo upgrade information is http://www.9thtee.com/tivoupgrades.htm. They have parts for sale and directions on how to upgrade your Tivo (The easiest is a 14 hour unit since you just add a "blessed" drive)

happy Tivoing and hack away!

PS If you can't tell I love this thing!

I buy every gadget that is available. 90% do not become part of my daily routine and are put in basement. I purchased TiVo not knowing what to expect. This device is the most amazing gadget to ever come around. If TiVo sudendly costed $10,000 and ours broke I would replace it without thinking twice. Once you watch TV through Tivo you never ever will go back. I don't watch much network TV and mostly watch financial stuff, MoneyLine, NBR, football game. With this device I watch these shows when I feel like it. I never miss them. I watch the football game in 1 1/4 hours using fastforward. I have 5 kids under 8 and they store their Pokemon on the device and no longer is there any rewiding, finding a tape. It is a revolutionairy device. This device will be standard part of a TV at some point, everyone will have one. Our TiVo has worked perfectly and has never needed to be rebooted. Only improvement is that it can't handle two season passes that conflict from time to time and it records every ER when you really only want the one at 9:00 on Thursdays. You have to manually put in the time and channel. I bet both of these will be fixed through software at some time. It does automatic software updates at night over the phoneline so no hassle.