Customer Reviews

RCA DWD490RE DIRECTV/UltimateTV Receiver (*See Restrictions)

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(9)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The UltimateTV user interface is quite pretty and it's simple to understand but it's also extraordinarily slow. Anyone accustomed to the standard DirecTV interface, or just about any other interactive menu system I can recall, will find it extremely frustrating after a while. It requires many selections to perform simple tasks. It often takes several seconds to respond to basic commands. Trying to view the next few hours of programming on a particular channel can be an object lesson in patience.

Don't buy this box for the WebTV capability. The browser is too clumsy and slow to do anything useful. You can forget the idea of playing streaming audio and video on your home theater equipment as it doesn't support most of the popular browser plugins you'll need and the modem is too slow.

The digital video recording features are great, in theory, but I've seen a few quirks. I've been unable to record more than about eight hours of programming before it starts erasing the earlier programs to record new ones. If anyone has recorded 35 hours worth of material I'd like to know how. It also gets completely thrown if a program that is to be recorded each time it appears has its start time shifted by the broadcaster. It simply gives up on that program forever. It may even skip other programs too, but I'm still trying to figure out exactly what's going on. Having said that, when it works it's superb. The fast scan and skip features become a way of life. You'll know what I mean when you try to fast forward a live broadcast to skip the ads! We've practically stopped watching live TV.

The technical support is almost non-existent. I've tried to reach both RCA and UltimateTV to find out how to use the video/audio input jacks on the front panel (there's nothing about them in the manuals, help screens or online) with absolutely no luck to date. Email requests remain unanswered after several weeks and multiple attempts.

So, in summary, it works OK but it has some strange quirks, a few incomplete features, a slow user interface and poor technical support. I'm hoping that they will eventually download fixes for most of the technical problems because it's an extremely useful product.

UltimateTVs single biggest problem is a slow and clumsy interface. Tasks that should require one well-designed screen use 2 or 3 clumsier ones. Response on some button presses and moving from one screen to another can take several seconds making many simple tasks painfully slow. I've come to hate deleting shows after watching them because it take so long, about 15 seconds to Tivos 5 thanks to UltimateTVs slow response and excessive screens (the last one simply has one button and text that tells you to press it). OTOH other screens are cluttered with buttons, text fields and checkboxes often arranged in a pretty-looking but functionally haphazard order that makes it unclear which combinations of up/down/left/right arrows will take you from point A to point B. Search screens contain text boxes at the bottom that you have to schlep through other widgets to select, then schlep back through to reach the "done" or equivalent button. By comparison Tivo screens are quick, clean, intuitively laid out, and the "done" action on a screen can be preformed with one or two button presses no matter where on the screen you happen to be.

The user interface is UltimateTVs primary failing, and a sufficient reason to avoid it even if it did everything Tivo did. It doesn't though. It only allows category searches or text searches of the title or description (which can find actors but only the handful listed in the description) - no ability to save searches beyond recalling one of the last 6-8 you did, and no ability to automatically record shows that match searches. Tivo can search for actors that aren't listed in show descriptions, directors, finer-grained categories, can filter text/actor/director searches by show category, save as many searches as you want, optionally automatically record shows that match whichever searches you want, and list shows matching all saved searches with one command.

UltimateTV does a serviceable job letting you manage upcoming recordings, but it's not as good as Tivo. Both list upcoming recordings, and shows that won't be recorded because of a conflict. But for repeating recordings UltimateTVs list is incomplete, only listing the next episode of each series. Tivos to-do list shows all the episodes in it's guide it will record and it's recording history lists shows what won't be recorded for any reason (someone cancelled it, you changed it's priority, etc). Tivo also keeps a 2-week history of past shows that weren't recorded or were deleted and why. UltimateTV only shows upcoming recordings cancelled due to conflicts, and doesn't keep any history of deletions or cancelled past recordings.

Tivo will let you cancel an upcoming episode of a series or force a conflict-losing episode to be recorded without changing the priority of the whole series. UltimateTVs "resolve this conflict" can only rearrange the priority of a whole series, not individual showings of a series.

In fact UltimateTV gives you little control over priorities at all. Though "resolve this conflict" seems to change the priorities among the three shows involved in the conflict, there is nowhere to see what a shows priority is in relation to all other shows, nor is there any way to specifically change a shows priority. Tivo allows you to see the priorities of all season passes and automatically recorded searches, and give every show the specific priority you want it to have. Combined with Tivos ability to recognize and not repeatedly record most duplicate shows (something UltimateTV doesn't do) this is a big advantage with shows that are on several times a week. Giving them lower priorities lets Tivo automatically schedule them around other shows they might conflict with.

UltimateTVs only unique bragging right, WebTV, isn't worth bragging about. Connecting to the web is slow, the TVs low resolution can't display as much information as even a basic 15 inch monitor, and navigating web pages with only a short-range infrared keyboard and no mouse is a painful experience. UltimateTV ads mention "hundreds of hours" of interactive shows (though you only get 3 hours/month of internat access to play with unless you pay for more) but I've found only a few shows I watch offer any interactive features and of those none have content worth looking at at all, and certainly not worth suffering through UltimateTVs cumbersome navigation and low resolution web display. Microsoft has been trying to push internet-on-TV for years with WebTV, and it hasn't caught on. There's a reason for that.

UltimateTVs other one-time advantage over Tivo, dual tuners, is gone. Tivos latest software update activates the second tuner so it too can record two shows at once. UltimateTV offers built in PIP, something Tivo doesn't, but that advantage is questionable. Tivo can switch between tuners with one button (UTV requires 2-4), and there's not much need to watch two things at once when you can record them both then watch them sequentially, or pause one show then switch to the other and give it your full attention (and pause, rewind, fastforward, etc as much as you like) without having it obscured by, and trying to keep your eye on, a PIP window. PIP may be invaluable for watching two live shows with regular TV, but on a dual-tuner PVR it's little more than a techno-novelty. I much prefer being able to pause and quickly switch between two shows, full-screen, something Tivo does much better.

UltimateTV has a few less significant advantages over Tivo that IMO aren't worth mentioning here as I don't feel they outweigh the downsides (and Tivo has additional advantages over UltimateTV that I haven't mentioned either). There's more detailed information elsewhere on the web. Avsforum.com and pvrcompare.com might be good starting points.

UltimateTV is a decent first attempt at a PVR, but shows the flaws you'd expect in a product from a company that's only been at this for less than a year (and often has trouble realizing that not every electronic appliance is well suited to the goals they have and the design approaches they'd prefer to take). Tivo has been doing it since 1999 and is one of the founders of the PVR market. The difference in experience shows.

I think Tivo and Ultimatetv are both good products. However, Ultimatetv needs to improve in a few areas for the sports watcher.

First, there is always a TV picture on the screen - even when using the online-guide. At first, I thought this was a good feature. However, the drawback is that Ultimatetv will feed a live tv picture through this box when you first turn the unit on. So, if you had been recording two live sports events and turn the TV on to start watching one from the beginning, you might first be forced to watch one of the games in progress before starting the playback. Since so many sports now display a scoreboard all of the time, you'll know what has already happened before you start watching. With Tivo, I just press the Tivo central button; no tv picture is on the screen until I pick what I want to watch.

Second, Ultimatetv only allows you to extend the program by two hours. For a few 9 inning baseball games, this will not allow enough time; and with extra innings and rain delays, you are sure to miss some action. Tivo allows for three hours of extended time - this is better but could be longer still.

Third, both Tivo and Ultimatev need to get Directv to make their season ticket sports packages available in the program guide. Under the current set-up, I can't record a baseball game that starts tomorrow since Directv isn't releasing the guide in time. The fact that Ultimatetv has a huge ad in the Directv sports magazine is misleading advertising IMHO since you can only record sports events that are not part of the Diectv season passes, a pretty small percentage of the major professional sports available on Directv.

I thought I would weigh in on UltimateTV debate. There seems to be a couple Tivo devotees who wrote reviews on here and I wanted to clear the air.

First of all, I think that this is a wonderful product and all my friends are insanely jealous. The pausing of live TV is awesome. You will find that you become annoyed when TV is live because you cannot forward through commericals (which takes 2 seconds and 3-4 presses of the "Forward Jump" button).

Let me respond to come complaints:

1) Slow response time. I agree. It takes a second to respond when you press a button when using menus or (to a lesser degree) when switching between channels. I would disagree that erasing shows takes 15 seconds. I would was it takes me 3-4 seconds, although I agree that the last screen is utterly useless. At first it may be annoying if you are used to controlling your cable TV, but you become used to it and I no longer notice.

2) Ability to record 35 hours of programming. I recently put this to the test during the winter olympics. I was recording all the Olympic coverage on MSNBC, CNBC, and NBC every day. This was 15+ hours of coverage a day. I did lose an episode of AliaS I had been saving after I was not able to watch (of fast forward through) my recordings one day. I didn't add it up, but it was at least 30+ when it began erasing previous recordings.

3) Recording. I am still not sure what I think of the recording system. Once shows are recorded it is great. Playback is easy. I have a couple complaints with the planning to record system. The recurring record feature is too broad. If you recvord a show like the Simpsons which is in synidcation, you end up getting the Simpsons every day, rather than just the Sunday first run episodes. Which I find annoying.

I think those were the main compaints. The control you have or live TV or recorded tv is wonderful. When you are fast forwarding, when you press stop becuase you saw where you wanted to be in the show ... it jumps back 2-3 seconds to match you reaction time.

Admittedly, I have not tried Tivo ... but I am in love with UltimateTV and it is helping convince some of my friend's wives that they should get satellite TV too, just to have UltimateTV.

One note, we all call it Tivo cause it's easier to say. UlitmateTV is too long and a stupid name. Funny.

I live off the grid: no cables connect my house to the street--no power, no telephone, no cable, etc.--I have solar panels and a cell phone, and now a satellite dish. So my comments won't be applicable to most people. But, to people in similar situations, information like this can be hard to find so I thought I'd post it here.

DirecTV: I was able to activate the DirecTV service by calling on the cell phone. They must be able to activate access cards through the satellite signal. Don't try to activate your receiver on someone's else's landline and then move the receiver to your house--apparently it will then expect to be able to check on your billing over the landline and deactivate if it can't make a connection--but if you activate it without the landline it'll just keep going (I hope!). One significant disappointment was that apparently there are no national feeds for UPN and the WB (Ack! Buffy!). Unless you live in one of the cities with local satellite feeds you're limited to CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, and PBS national feeds (however you can get both east and west coast feeds which makes resolving conflicts easier with the three hour time difference).

Tivo: I first tried a Philips DirecTV/Tivo receiver and (expectedly) it wasn't much use without a telephone connection. I could pause live TV but couldn't record. And Tivo required that telephone connection to get its programming information. Even though I could see the programming information DirecTV had downloaded from the satellite, Tivo couldn't use it. So I disconnected it and got the DirecTV/UltimateTV receiver. (for the record I had thought I'd be getting a landline this summer and comments about Tivo's interface advantages had convinced me to try Tivo first--but I want to record NOW!)

UltimateTV: UltTV gets its programming information off of the satellite, rather than a telephone landline, so now I can record. In the literature and on the web you'll see comments about having to install a telephone line, but I talked to the people at UltTV and they said the only things you needed a landline for were to get pay-per-view, access WebTV, and rarely there might be a major problem with the receiver which required them to force a system update down a telephone line (usually system upgrades come down the satellite signal)--and in that rare event you could take your receiver to somewhere else with a dish and a landline (like a local dealer) and get it upgraded/fixed there.

Power: The RCA DirecTV/UltimateTV receiver has been drawing a near constant 36 watts--about 0.9 KWhrs/day if I leave it on all day (about 26 KWhrs per month). I usually don't--even though I have enough energy from my panels to run it all day this time of year (April)--it's right near my bed and although it's pretty quiet (about the same as a desktop computer hard drive, natch), it's enough that I don't want it on when I'm sleeping. I'm probably going to move it to the basement and control it with an IR repeater. Then I might leave it on all day, except in December and January when there isn't a lot of sun here in Vermont (it's not a waste of electricity when you have solar panels!). For the record, the Philips DirecTV/Tivo receiver used 40 watts. Not a whole lot more. A big difference though was cold start time: The Philips took four minutes from power on to watchable picture, live or recorded. The RCA takes only fifty seconds to get a live picture up (large inset in the Home screen), or only thirty seconds to get a recorded show. Both receivers/systems have a power/standby button but neither affects power use in the slightest--they just affect what's being sent to the TV (standby screen for Tivo, static for UltTV). If you leave the power connected there's no wait from standby for either receiver.

I haven't confirmed this but it seems the receiver needs to be on (connected to power) for a couple days before it has downloaded programming information for the upcoming two weeks (which is what they advertise it has access to)--and even then there are significant gaps. I don't know if that's because I disconnect the power and it loses info, or if there are just gaps in the information it downloads. If I just turn it on for a few hours each evening I usually only have programming info for the next day or two. Just means I have to stay on top of planning recordings and resolving conflicts.

I'm still getting used to the UltTV interface and didn't really have enough time to fully learn the Tivo interface so I won't compare them--others have done so. I will say that the UltTV series recording definately still needs work (yes, Simpsons up the wazoo!).

Hope this is helpful to some folks!

This is the best you can get for digital video recording. There's no question in comparing this product to Tivo. UTV has a dual tuner, which allows you to watch/record two shows that are on at the same time and it has WebTV integrated with the system. Tivo has none of that, and is about the same in price. Ultimate TV has all the other features Tivo has, including Live TV controls (Pause, rewind, instant replay, slow-mo, frame-by-frame) and 35 hours (5 more than Tivo) of Digital Video Recording. The only drawbacks are that this only works with DirecTV through an exclusive licence, and this unit currently does not have an HDTV converter (although future product upgrades might). Tivo is not compatible with HDTV either. Also, the screen is much more attractive and easier to use that Tivo's. As far as what is currently available on the market for Digital Video Recording and Live TV controls, Ultimate TV has it all and much more.

After reading all reviews on TIVO for Direct TV and Ultimate TV, I learned that there is not a whole lot of difference between the two. The major difference at this point is that Ultimate TV works ONLY with DirectTV and some models of Tivo work off of any source. The Tivo that works off any source - will only record one show at a time, the TIVO for DirectTV will also record 2 shows at once.
The other majore difference is that UltimateTV can still be found, while there are no TIVO's currently around that double as DirecTV receivers.
After getting the cables run from my dish and turning it on, the fun begins almost immediately. You call DirectTV to get service, then the Box comes on and works like any other DirectTV receiver, except that this one is on steroids, a lot of features are packed in here. You can scroll through the guide (up to 2 weeks in advance)to find a show you like and hit record on the remote and you can rest assured that the show will get recorded. You can even record 2 shows at the same time. Once your get back to where you want to watch the shows, they are cataloged on screen, just highlight the show you want and press play and your show comes on. I was a little wary of the recording as sometimes when I set my VCR for 7PM to 8PM, the show would lose either the 1st minute or 2 or the last few minutes - not so on the Ultimate TV, it pads the time to give you a buffer. Not only does it do that, but say you want to record the afternoon NFL game, you can tell it to over-run the scheduled time by up to 1.5 hours so you do not miss the overtime. Another great thing that beats the old VCR, the programmers figured for the old fast-forward "overshoot". Say you are fast forwarding through the commercials and all of a sudden you see your show on - you hit play and it BACKS UP the show about 5 seconds so you are automatically right at the beginning of the shows return instead of being 5 seconds into it... A lot of the reviews you may read pre-April 2002 say the device is slow in a lot of aspects. If you buy this product now, it will download the latest upgrade within 48 hours of setting the box up. This upgrade makes a lot of improvements, including major speed improvements. One other really cool thing is the ability to come into a program you want to record at any time. Say you want to watch ER and you do not get home until 9:15. On the old VCR, you'd have to wait until your show was finished taping to start the show, not so on the Ultimate TV, just go to the "My Shows" menu and you can start watching - from the beginning - ER - and it will keep recording in front of you. This way you can just watch until 10:15, instead of having to start it at 10....

Great product, makes Directv much more enjoyable. We can now watch one program and record another. The hard disk recording has the typical disk over tape advantages; direct access without rewinding, instant jump forward, etc. We're now in habit of recording what we want to watch, then skipping commercials later during playback. The live re-play is used often also. And the..price was..less than the local vendor. Just a great product. some minuses: 1.) I'm not sure where to get questions answered, though there's some info on the web. 2.) once webtv is connected, it never disconnects. 3.) the disk is constantly writing, I worry about the life of the unit, but that issue isn't addressed in the documentation anywhere. But overall, we're very pleased with the unit.

I have had access to TIVO and Ultimate TV. Both are great products, but the Ultimate TV has many advantages. PIP...yes my tv has it already too, but unless you have two Directv receivers that feature is useless for satallite. Plus with this feature on Sundays...can you say three different NFL games on one tv at the same time!! The interactive and web icons. UTV receivers have icons that will pop up on ESPN and other channels so you can see other info. Such as other sports scores that ESPN is not currently talking about. The web icon will take you the website of a channel you are on and such. Since the upgrade in April my UTV receiver has moved much much faster. One receiver in my house is an Ultimate TV and the other is a normal receiver. Imagine the frustration while watching a show not on the UTV and wanting to jump back the 7 seconds to hear something I just missed..it is a big deal since I have poor hearing. The down side of this receiver is the Ultimate TV will no longer be produced so once everything that has been made is sold, that's all folks. The receiver also has a couple of empty spots, the "smart card" slot and the printer port, that are apparently just there for decoration. The last stinger is that with TIVO/DTVDVR (tivo is now called the Directv Digital Video Recorder) is half the monthly cost of UTV service, or if you have the Premier package, as I do, DTVDVR is free!!
Overall, once you buy either of these products you won't know how you lived without it. I still love my RCA Ultimate TV receiver and plan on buying another one for the living room, the monthly fee for UTV mirrors (you only pay for one no matter how many UTV receivers are on the acct) and possibly one for a spare in case something does happen to the one I have now. In my opinion UTV is the better way to go.

I was a little leery at first about buying this device based on the statements of it being slow to pull up the guide. However, I am very glad I bought it. In early April Ultimate TV had a service upgrade and upgraded my system automatically. This greatly improved the speed of the unit.

That being said, I can move onto other positives of the unit. First of all, the quality is a 10 out of 10. You could not ask more of the picture quality. Now, while other types of units allow you to choose more hours at the sacrifice of quality, this unit does not do that. You get FULL 35 hours of the highest quality setting right off the bat. This is the equivalent of a 70-hour unit that makes you choose the quality setting. So for those of you that are thinking of getting TIVO for the 70-hour unit, think again since you will only be able to record 20 - 30 hours TOPS on the same quality setting this unit is giving you.

In addition to this, you have the benefit of having a receiver made RCA, the leader in the industry of satellite products. I have seen many satellite receivers and RCA is by far the best. The interface is not only easy, but also very fun to use.

On the downside, I would state that the Internet connection is deathly slow and not feasible at this time. However I consider this feature to be a bonus more than anything, as you are not buying the unit to surf the net on. Also, a lifetime subscription would be nice to get rid of the monthly fee. That being said, the features and benefits of the unit MORE than make up for this.