Customer Reviews

Sezmi DMR-1000 All-in-One Personal TV Service, Black

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

We took part in the Sezmi Beta testing program earlier this year, trying out the service and box for about 4 months before signing up for it officially. Initially the box performed rather poorly, with the operating system and DVR software obviously still going through revisions and testing, but that was to be expected - we were Beta Testers after all. This improved with software updates, and the latest version performs much better, but not without some bugs still.

Tuning took some experimentation and adjustment of the antenna with repeat scans to get a decent signal. Initially we were on the first floor of our apartment building and reception was a little iffy for some stations, but after we moved up to the second floor where there were fewer obstructions the reception improved considerably. I actually found I was able to get further signal improvement by connecting an old passive single pole antenna that came with an Elgato TV unit into the coax socket at the back of the Sezmi antenna converter box. Sezmi do offer a second antenna that uses their proprietary connectors, but the coax connector allows you to use pretty much any third party antenna as well. Most local stations come in at a decent signal level.

We have been long-time Tivo subscribers - we bought one of the first generation Tivo units and have pretty much evangelized Tivo ever since. However, Tivo's contractual disputes with DirecTV meant that we could no longer get the combo unit and we were forced to use DirecTV's own HD DVR, which was slow, not to mention the gross expense of the service. We had been keeping an old Tivo unit running just for loyalty, but didn't want to pay the cost of Cable TV to use it, so when we heard about Sezmi it seemed the perfect alternative.

There are obvious similarities between Tivo and Sezmi, but where Sezmi primarily differs is in allowing viewers/users to create their own customized 'zones' which learns their own viewing habits and records their own shows independent of other users. A user's own interface is customizable by setting a color scheme to differentiate it from other users, and each is accessed via a color-coded button on the remote, which all works quite well, albeit the switch between users can be rather slow (more on speed issues further on). This is a nice feature as it allows separation of content for families or multi-viewer homes, where peoples viewing tastes may differ (husband: science and sci-fi, wife: reality and home/garden, kids: cartoons and music) etc.

The choice of channels for the price is impressive. For the basic $4.99 a month you get all the local networks in HD, but for $19.99 a month you can add a good selection of "cable" networks which would normally only be available through a local Cable or Satellite provider. We found the choices available to be a good cross section of the main channels we used to watch on Satellite, such as Discovery, TLC, Science Channel, SyFy, Planet Green (one of my wife's favorites), VH1, amongst others. All of these additional channels are received via the antenna alongside the regular local networks. They're obviously encrypted so that you can't view them if you only have the basic package. The local networks are all received in HD and are picked up from the regular over the air transmissions that you would get if you just hooked up an antenna direct to your TV - what you're paying the $5 a month for is the DVR, Guide, and on-demand services at that point. The higher priced package allows you to receive the other channels which are decrypted by the DVR. The downside to all the additional channels is that they're not in HD, only SD, and the quality is, at times, barely SD. Getting decent reception for these extra channels is fairly hit or miss and depends a lot on where you live and your proximity to transmitters. We are in the middle of Los Angeles and we had continual problems with picture and sound breaking up and delays in the channel changing while it found and decrypted the transmission.

One thing to note about Sezmi is that it really isn't geared towards being a "Live TV" system - something that becomes obvious when you realize that there is actually no "STOP" button on the remote. In order to watch "Live TV" one must go to the Guide and select the channel and show one wants to switch to. Live is not the default state. It is really designed to be a system that is used to pre-record pretty much everything to be watched later. This is one of the reasons behind having the massive storage capability - it allows the system to record a LOT of content!

The DVR software, although competent, and providing for a LOT of storage capacity, has a lot of difficulty dealing with poor/broken signals. A lot of the time, if there is any kind of signal degradation during a recording, then that show becomes unwatchable on playback. The image breaks up, the sound stutters, and probably about 75% of the time the DVR functions become unusable because the scrubber cannot determine time codes and gets completely confused as to where it is supposed to jump to. Fast forward and Rewind functions lock up, skipping ahead sometimes works, and sometimes the show will just restart right back at the beginning, but when you reach the troubled area again it just goes haywire. This is something that really needs to be fixed - some kind of check in the playback functions that looks for loss of integrity in the signal and unmatched time codes and attempts to jump over the problem area rather than try and play it. The system has some other anomalies that should be dealt with sooner rather than later - it has a tendency to be somewhat overzealous when deleting shows by itself. On several occasions I went to watch one of about two dozen saved episodes of a show only to find that about half of them had been deleted by the system, but they did not then appear in the Deleted Items folder for me to recover. Shows that are manually deleted by the user go there, but shows deleted by the system (I assume to free up space or because it felt they had expired) do not.

There have been a few other niggles with the system that should be noted, and while not deal-breakers, they do cause some usability issues that can make the system less than ideal. When using the Guide, it is dreadfully slow - taking between 5 and 20 seconds to refresh the current channel listing EVERY time you move the channel selector up and down, which can be painfully tedious - how on earth this couldn't be cached is beyond me. This is an often repeated function and the user should not have to wait repeatedly every time for the guide to refresh. It becomes incredibly annoying and makes the system cumbersome to use. Even DirecTV's dreadful on-screen Guide works faster than this. Additionally, popup message windows, show info, confirmations etc take rather too long to disappear. Another annoyance is a bug that causes paused shows to automatically start playing again when you switch back and forth between users, meaning you have to remember to hit Pause again as soon as the switch is complete. Speed of the system overall is definitely a major issue - the response of the device to button presses on the remote is probably only at about 85%, seemingly a result of the system being busy doing something else to react immediately to the remote, so responses are cached, however the lack of feedback means that one tends to try pressing the same or other buttons several times and when all those cached responses are then suddenly executed you end up with undesirable results. Speed of the system appears to be related to the number of saved recordings - the more shows you have saved, the slower the system gets. When you compare the speed of Sezmi to a TiVo, it's like comparing night and day. If you have used TiVo and you know how fast the on-screen guide responds to navigation and how quick it is to set up Season Passes and delete content, you will be extremely frustrated by the sluggishness of Sezmi.

Sezmi is certainly new, and it is certainly innovative - it has a LOT of potential, but it also still needs a LOT of work to make it truly usable on a day to day basis without being frustrating. The DVR software, Guide and Navigation overall need to be optimized to speed them up and make the user experience less cumbersome. If you're willing to put up with some bugs and work around some of the issues, then Sezmi is a great alternative to the much higher priced cable and satellite services. It's not a full-on replacement for those... yet, but it could be. If the additional non-local "cable" channels delivered were in HD and there was a wider selection, then even an extra tier at, say, $30/month, would be cheaper than basic cable or satellite. Combine that with a better UI and DVR software that works more effectively, and Sezmi will certainly give the big names a run for their money.

I've had Sezmi since they rolled out in Southern California in 2009. I had Verizon FIOs for few years and was so tired of paying $100 per month for TV service. Once I got Sezmi and started paying $20.00 per month for HDTV and SD cable channels, I was hooked. The customization features are great and the cable channels are all you need. The equipment was a snap to set up and the Sezmi customer service people are the best I've seen. The DVR is awesome and you can program shows months in advance. Everyone in the house can have their own set-up and record all of their favorite shows using their own home screen. The pay-per-view movies are exactly what Verizon and Amazon offer with the convenience of not having to switch boxes.

The only negative is the mostly slow response of the remote control. Also, sometimes the PPV movies take a long time before you can play the movie you order. 5 stars when those issues are fixed. Not a big deal to me, but it would be nice if the cable channels were in HD as well. Overall, I am extremely pleased with the service and price. I won't ever go back to overpriced cable again.
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UPDATE: March 27, 2011

Unfortunately, we ended up cancelling our Sezmi service for the following reasons:

1. The company did away with the SD cable channels. Although SD looks bad on an HDTV, it was nice to be able to watch shows we would not have otherwise been able to view. They lowered the price from $20.00 per month to $5.00, but we were left with channels that we could grab over the air with our rooftop antenna.

2. So, we now had a DVR and PPV services with the Sezmi box for $5 per month. Here's what lead us to finally cancel: The Sezmi DVR is painstakingly slow. The response from the remote took many, many pushes on the buttons and sometimes the DVR responded and sometimes not. We waited and waited for Sezmi to correct the problems and after many, many months...nothing. They knew their DVR's were an issue but did not fix the problem.

The recordings of the shows we wanted to watch were plagued by studders in the video and sound drops every few seconds. Sometimes the video would speed up for no reason and resume playing at normal speeds. It was terrible to have a favorite program have so many interruptions. The PPV movies took up to 15-20 minutes to download and play. I have Verizon FIOS internet so my connection is blazing fast.

We had high hopes for Sezmi and ended up being very disappointed. I can't recommend the service. I ended up buying a Tivo DVR and using my Roku box for Hulu Plus, Amazon On Demand, and Netflix streaming. My Bluray player has Vudu for instant watching of movies. So sad because Sezmi weaned me off of cable and their game plan was awesome. Their engineering and product just fell way short of the mark.

UPDATE: 9/23/11 Sezmi emails customers at 6pm Friday saying the service will not be available come Monday. Poor customer service that didn't allow their loyal customers any time to find a tv alternative. What a cluster.

Sezmi is fantastic, HD + DVR of over-the-air network channels for $4.99/month. I opted in for the cable channels ($20/month) and most of them show up in HD-like quality. However I am considering dropping to the $4.99 plan due to my TV habits.

Pros:
-- HD-DVR for over-the-air channels for $4.99/month! You pay DirecTv $7/month for the DVR, $10/month for HD plus the programming package. Cable companies, you pay $17/month for HD DVR capabilities, plus the programming rates.
-- DVR acts as a media player so you get YouTube, etc. on your TV.
-- Weeds was an on-demand programming option. Wasn't expecting to see a Showtime show available. Note: it is the only cable-type show available. Sezmi if you are reading this, would love to see more Showtime shows.
-- HD quality is better than satellite and cable
-- "Cable" channels are better quality than expected. Some come in HD-like quality, others are standard.
-- Very simple on-screen menu
-- Fast-forwarding of recorded shows works so much better than DTV or the cable company DVRs.
-- Customer service has been fantastic when I have called and they are located in the US. No struggle to understand the technicians.

Cons:
-- Remote is a little tricky at first, but as with any remote you get used to it.
-- A lot of Sezmi branding on the on-screen menus.
-- There is a slight delay when changing channels. Not terribly annoying.
-- Setup takes about 45 minutes, so don't expect to plug it in and watch immediately as they download the latest updates the minute you plug into the Internet.

I am in love with the value of Sezmi. I was so frustrated paying DTV or the cable companies $50+/month for the lowest programming package when all I really wanted was the DVR for the network channels. Now I have it for $4.99/month. When I look at how much I was paying the other companies, it paid for itself in 3 months.

Sezmi Rocks!

I was with the service from the time of the pilot. When it started it offered a selection of cable channels over the air through the Sezmi Plus service, and even promised that they'd have a service that even offered more cable channels. Instead, they eliminated all cable channels earlier this year, and now announced with just three days notice that they're eliminating their service completely, making the already purchased equipment worthless.

Overall: Sezmi is an outstanding product so long as you are willing to do without certain channels not available OTA.

I had been considering cutting the cord from Dish network and relying on OTA (HD) and Netflix. I stayed with Dish network due to having a "grandfathered" HD package (Dish Absolute) that was recently cancelled by Dish. All currently similar programming options offered by Dish would have raised my price by about $40 per month. I knew that by cancelling I would lose certain channels, and while I was willing to do without those, having a quality DVR was a necessity. I did not see too many DVR options, and none that appeared to offer as advanced a recording ability as the Sezmi without relying on a computer (which would not have passed the wife test).

I was definitely reluctant to purchase the Sezmi due to a lack of detailed reviews as well as a couple very negative reviews written by users. However, principally driven by the fact that I could return the product to Amazon within 30 days and my frustration with Dish network I went ahead and purchased two Sezmi units, one of which is now connected to an HDTV in a room with 5.1 sound and the second connected to a standard definition tv.

I did have to mount an Outdoor roof antenna to receive all of the Washington, DC, channels in Northern Virginia. The Sezmi antenna missed a few of the channels. However, connected to the roof antenna (Clearstream 2), the Sezmi recognized 34 OTA channels from Washington, DC.

Here are my thoughts after a few days with the Sezmi.

Hits:
- Image quality is excellent on both the HD and SD tvs. I watched the Superbowl in HD through the Sezmi, but still recorded the game with Dish network. Looking at both recordings after the game, the HD image was better through the Sezmi than via Dish.
- 5.1 sound is excellent.
- The Sezmi interface makes it very easy to switch between live, recorded, and streamed feeds.
- The DVR functions much like my former Dish DVR (which I liked very much). The DVR is excellent, with easy to use search features to find shows.
- The Suggested shows the Sezmi records is similar to TIVO's. Currently it is grabbing many, many, shows. It remains to be seen how my pos/neg feedback on those shows will impact its future suggested recordings.

Near misses:
- Integration with internet streaming is done very well, but selection is currently pretty limited (no Netflix, Pandora, Hulu, etc.), and a browser would also be nice.
- One miss on the DVR is the ability to automatically prioritize your future recordings so that any recording conflicts are resolved automatically.
- The format of the Guide makes it difficult to see what is on all the channels for a given block of time. It is not a deal breaker, but I prefer the standard Dish/Cable/FIOS guide.
- The remote is a little sluggish.

Misses:
- Remote: 1) The lack of number buttons, 2) lack of the Sezmi remote to control multiple other components (receiver AND TV) through either codes or learning, and 3) a lack of a remote code for the Sezmi to allow easy use by other universal remotes.
- The Sezmi's lack of a "sleep" mode. Both my Sezmi's appear to constantly be running, whereas my Dish DVRs did not. The sezmi noise is low and not audible if in a cabinet/console, but if the Sezmi is out in the open you will hear it when the other components are off.

Overall, I am very happy with my Sezmi. While there is an upfront cost that will take a couple of months to recoup, $4.99/mo for the Sezmi DVR functionality is unbeatable. There are many features of the product (webcasts, etc.) that I haven't fully explored yet, but I look forward to updating this review in the future.

I recieved my Sezmi Last week. I bought it because I wanted to see if it would actually work where I am currently living, even though my location is not on their list.

Pros:
1) Clean HD Pictures from all the major Networks: ABC, CBS, NBC, FOX, CW, ION, PBS. In all I get 18 channels over the Air that come in clean including a Music Video station.
2) DVR functionality works great. Even better then the DVR from the Cable Company.
3) On Demand functionality works as well.

Cons:
1) It would be an even better product if they had some of the apps that other machines have Like Hulu Plus.
2) No Web Browser. That would make this product the best.
3) Must have high speed internet to set it up even for the over the air channels. However, in my case that is not a problem. I could see this being an obsticle for others.
4) On Demand, would help to have some better search features.

I'm hoping that Semzi grows and they add in some new features in the future. For now. I have the Sezmi, and a LG Smart TV Upgrader on 1 TV and I'm putting Sezmi and Roku on the other. This gives me all the options I need. My cable bill will go from over $180 a month down to $49.99 Plus tax. (High Speed Internet).

I would recommend this product to anyone who has High Speed that is close enought to areas that Over the Air Channels are available.

I bought a Sezmi from Best Buy to replace my Tivo HD, which cost $12.95 a month for the service. I live in the Twin Cities, MN, so only the $4.99 over the air service is available at present. I thought I'd be able to save $8 a month, potentially be able to add cable channels later on, and have a 1TB DVR to boot, greatly increasing the recording capacity I had with my Tivo HD.

First issue:
It requires an ethernet cable to be plugged in, to get the TV guide, and for web video, youtube, and on demand downloads. Since one wasn't available by my entertainment center, first I ran a 25 foot cord there as a temporary measure. Next, I boiught and installed Home Plugs - they worked for about a minute, then Sezmi dropped connection with them, replugged in the Home Plugs, repeated about a dozen times, connection dropped within about a minute every time. Wasted 40 bucks on those. Next I bought a Zyxel wireless access point. This was hard to get set up to talk to my wireless network, but thanks to a good helpful review on this Amazon site, got enough pointers to get it done. Zyxel wireless access point now works flawlessly, and never drops connection.

Deal breaker issue: I am getting stutters and freezes using Sezmi. I have bought and installed a more powerful DB4 attic antenna (I live 26 miles from our broadcast towers). I have placed it high in the attic, and aligned the bearing exactly. All other TV's in the house (the antenna output is routed to every room thru "cable" outlets) have no reception issues to speak of, although over the air TV will never be perfect. But for the other TV's, I get a noticeable twitch or slight pause like an hour or two apart (not an issue for me) - whereas with Sezmi, it's every couple of minutes and VERY annoying. On one channel KSTP, the reception stutters and freezes, I get "searching for signal" during part of this, and the outage lasts interestingly about 25 seconds, every single time! If I go watch another TV, I'm just not getting the same issues! I just can't understand it. So I went back to basic reception without Sezmi in my basement man cave, it works fine now.

So I have wasted the purchase price of the Sezmi, home plugs, Zyxel, and probably the DB4 antenna (the DB2 I had before was probably adequate).

I'm calling Sezmi today to disconnect my service.

I'm surprised to still see this listed, given that it no longer functions.
Directly from their website: [...]

Important News
We regret to inform you that Sezmi is discontinuing its consumer service. As of Monday, September 26, 2011, you will no longer be able to view or record broadcast TV programming through your Sezmi System. However, you will still be able to view movies and shows you have already saved to your Sezmi media recorder. To help ease the transition, you may also rent movies and shows if available at no charge from Sezmi's On Demand catalog through November 1, 2011.

Sezmi WAS a great product, however Sezmi has discontinued all consumer services as of Sep. 26, 2011. They sent me an email with only 3 days notice and no alternatives suggested. The obvious alternative is TiVo, however that will cost ~$400 for the DVR and extra disk drive to get 1.5 TB storage plus $20/month for the service. So now I'm stuck with a $150 boat anchor useless DVR from wonderful Sezmi. This appears to be another case of a failed startup co. that has abandoned their customers totally! Below is the orig. review I had posted that is now just unpleasant history:

Installation and setup was straightforward, and it worked exactly as advertised out-of-the-box. I was using a combination of the Sezmi-provided indoor antenna (nice packaging--looks like a small speaker), and a small external stationary HDTV antenna (Phillips model SDV2940 purchased from Walmart) that I mounted on my chimney. After connecting my high speed internet cable, antennae, and powered it up for the 1st time: Sezmi automatically checked for and upgraded its firmware; then connected to both antennae and scanned for all available channels. I was able to receive all local HDTV channels with high signal quality except for 2 stations that were located further away and would require repositioning of the external antenna (that I don't plan on doing at this time). Note: my house is located about 15-20 miles away from most local HDTV station transmitters and as many folks who install a HDTV antenna may realize, reception quality can be highly variable depending on many factors such as intervening obstacles; height and location of antenna wrt to the HDTV station transmitter, etc. Also my ISP is AT&T U-verse Max Plus DSL that I discovered is the lowest U-verse speed DSL svc. (one down from fastest that is available) that is required to enable streaming video support for svcs. such as Netflix, which is unrelated to my use of Sezmi. Clarification: a slower ISP svc. would be acceptable for Sezmi use alone; but I also have a Blue-ray disc player that has Netflix and Pandora Internet Radio capability so I found out (the hard way) that I needed a very fast high speed internet svc. to enable use of these features in my Blue-ray disc player.

One of the best features for my use was the 1-TB DVR. I configured the Sezmi DVR to record various series shows that were broadcasted at times that I am not available to view them. The video playback quality (e.g., 1080i for the selected channel) was exactly the same as when the show was originally broadcast; with no glitsches, intermittent dropouts, or other problems that sometimes occur with DVR's. Also I like the Guide feature that lists all the shows by Time, Station, etc.

The only suggestion (that I discussed with the Sezmi customer rep. who called me to follow up on the installation) was to add a "Stop" button for the DVR on the remote control unit that would return the user to the info. display for that recording so that it could be deleted, etc. I was told how to accomplish that function using the "Pause" and "OK" buttons. Also some of the navigation features were somewhat non-intuitive so it's best to read the Quick Tips printed card that is included in the pkg.; and also refer to the online user manual.

Overall I WAS (but not anymore!) very satisfied with this product as it provided exactly the functionality that I needed for a very reasonable low monthly fee.

As a person who is tired of forking 100+ dollars over to the cable company once a month I have been looking for solutions for the problem of where to get the shows I want to watch. Antennas are a viable option since the digital TV cut over earlier in 2010 so being in an area for good reception this provided an ideal solution. I did miss having my DVR though, and getting a TiVO seemed a bit silly for an antenna. Well, the Sezmi is a full DVR and on demand service for OTA and OTT transmissions. It pulls together recent and past on demand movies, it aggregates all of your OTA broadcasts, and it records everything on its 1TB internal hard disk. This is the first viable option for cable I have found that covers most of the bases I was missing. The antenna that ships with the system is awesome, and I added an external amplified Terk antenna to the mix. I now get 17 stations, just about everything local to Boston. Super purchase!