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TiVo HD - Complete, Hands On Video Review
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TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder: Complete, hands on video review of the new TiVo HD box. Includes set up, scheduling and recording programs, watching Live TV, broadband extras such as Rhapsody, and Amazon unbox. Brought to you by The Digital Lounge (www.TheDigitalLounge.com). Please rate and comment on this video. Your feedback is appreciated...
68 of 69 people found the following review helpful:
TiVo Software Still Work in Progress; Cable Card and Over the Air HD Channel ATSC Tuner Glitches in Tivo HD
TiVo has most beautiful and user friendly DVR interface. But you ought to be aware that the software, especially for HD, does not come across as a finished product, but still a work in progress.
1. HD Tuner Problems: Tivo HD is the only DVR available to record HD TV Channels, as of now, and was the reason for my purchase. I had been using Samsung DTBH260F...
This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
Length:: 9:10 Mins
TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder: Complete, hands on video review of the new TiVo HD box. Includes set up, scheduling and recording programs, watching Live TV, broadband extras such as Rhapsody, and Amazon unbox. Brought to you by The Digital Lounge (www.TheDigitalLounge.com). Please rate and comment on this video. Your feedback is appreciated!
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
First, I need to inform you that all of my home television programming comes from an antenna on my roof. No cable or satellite whatsoever.
When the Series 3 debuted earlier this year, I contacted TiVo about recording two HD channels at the same time from an antenna and was told that would not occur. That one would be in HD and the other in standard definition. That, along with the price made me pass on this unit.
When the TiVo HD came along, I contacted TiVo again and was told by one technician that it WOULD record two HD shows and by another that it would not. With the cheaper price, I decided to give it a try and am glad that I did so.
I am happy to report that this unit will definitely record two high definition programs at the same time from an antenna. No splitters, amplifiers or other hardware. Just plug it into the Antenna connector on back of the box.
Setup and activation was easy. The most difficult part was figuring out the maze of cables behind my TV and Stereo amplifier, but that is hardly TiVo's fault. I already had it set up when I called to activate the box. When I got off the phone and turned it on, it was ready to download the Guide. Very hassle free.
The remote, while nothing fancy, has a good layout of buttons and is programmable so that it will turn my TV on and allow me to change its inputs while the volume and mute buttons control my amplifier. About the only other thing I need for it to do is actually turn the stereo on. But getting up once to turn on the stereo is a small price to pay for being able to record HD programs and pause live TV.
On some forums users have been reporting macro-blocking and pixelation when using some cable cards. I have no experience with that, but can report that I have not seen this problem using an antenna. In fact, I see no difference at all in the quality of the broadcast than I did when the signal went directly to my television.
After a bit over a week's use I have no complaints at all with the product or service and would recommend it to others.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
TiVo has most beautiful and user friendly DVR interface. But you ought to be aware that the software, especially for HD, does not come across as a finished product, but still a work in progress.
1. HD Tuner Problems: Tivo HD is the only DVR available to record HD TV Channels, as of now, and was the reason for my purchase. I had been using Samsung DTBH260F HDTV Terrestrial Receiver and was picking about 25 over the air (OTA) HD channels but I was to able to record only in standard defination (SD) on my Panasonic DVR DMR-E100HS. With Tivo HD, I can only watch 12 OTA HD channels, and they include CBS, ABC, NBC and FOX, but I cannot watch any PBS OTA HD channel when I go to Watch Live TV on Tivo HD.
Tivo is getting the signal from those channels but does not display the picture. I can see the channels and watch them on signal strength meter under Settings, and some of the PBS channels have a signal of 92-93 compared to say 81 on ABC which I can watch and record, but I still cannot see those PBS channels when I go Watch Live TV on Tivo. This indicates some kind of a software glitch and ATSC tuner sensitivity issues with TiVo HD. Even using Motorola 484095-001-00 Signal Booster, which bumps up the signal gain by 15 dB (as recommended by Crutchfield rep) has not helped either. Therefore, despite getting the signal, TiVO HD tuner cannot display the picture.
First 3 technical support guys did not know why there was a problem but the 4th Tivo technical support guy researched this issue and informed me that this software glitch has been known for about 2 months and effects some of the cable digital channels too, where you cannot watch the picture on the television channel despite getting a strong signal. According to Tivo technical support person "We are working on it but don't have a solution yet".
HD Picture quality is also far superior with Samsung HD digital tuner than TiVo tuner. Recording quality of SD program was probably better in my Panasonic DMR-E100HS DVR than Tivo. But TiVO is the only DVR available to record in HD and once you get used to watching HD channels, especially over the air ones, it is difficult to go back to watching analog channels.
These quality issues indicate that TiVo ATSC tuner is not as good as the dedicated Samsung tuner: picks up less channels, despite receiving the signal cannot display the picture and the picture quality is inferior.
2. Cable Card Glitches: Getting cable card to work with TiVo is a nightmare, as detailed by other reviewers; despite Charter Cable guy, spending 5 hours and trying 3 different M series Motorola Cable cards, I have been unable to get it to work. Solution from TiVo tech support - keep trying more cable cards until you find one that works!
3. QAM Tuner Problems: Just like the digital tuner, TiVo channel scan misses lot of the analog cable channels that my TV can pick up with its regular analog cable tuner. If I punch in the channel number on TiVo remote it shows the channel but there is no way to manually add the channels in TiVo.
4. Occasionally the TiVo freezes and you have to reboot by unplugging the power cord. One particular instance where this happens is when TiVo cannot get the Wi-Fi connection to the internet.
5. Slow Wi-Fi adapter: Other problems with Tivo include slow internet connection using their wireless adapter (I think it is 802.11g). They need to come out with 802.11n, a faster wireless adapter, if TiVo is going to be the device to watch Internet content and the media from your computer and download movies from the internet.
6. Slow software and processor: the remote buttons are kind of slow and don't really produce the desired action instantly, probably due to slow software and processor.
7. TiVo Desktop software problems: I still have not been able to get desktop and TiVo to Go software to work.
8. Losing live TV after Netflix: Sometimes after watching a Netflix movie, you lose TV and the only way to restore is to restart the TiVo.
9. TiVo has so many different promotions and deals going on at any time, depending on where you get it from, that you are never sure you are getting the best deal! I though I was getting a great deal, $50 off, at Amazon. After buying it, I discovered that I could have gotten a better deal directly from TiVo, with free wireless adapter and 3 months free.
10. Toslink cable and audio problems: Dolby digital and surround sound does not work through optical audio toslink cable. This problem started after one of their software updates.
But otherwise, unquestionably, Tivo is a delightful DVR and pleasure to use; and the potential to add web based services is really limitless. The hold times on technical support have not been more than 10 minutes. The technical support reps are courteous but may not always have the solution.
Tivo HD software and tuner are still work in progress, need glitches resolved and software refined and fine tuned.
Update February 20, 2008: Now I can watch some OTA PBS channels. The trick is to manually change to the channel (say 19-2), then start recording the program by hitting record, and the channel is added!
Video quality of OTA channels is has also improved by changing Video format settings to "native" format.
Update November 2009: Issue number 7 has been resolved with new version 9.0 of Toast for Mac. Now TiVo Transfer software automatically exports the correct video format to iTunes. You can also do the same thing with iTivo software.
Uodate July 2010: When I called TiVo about issue #10, they told me that they could do nothing about the issue, it probably was a hardware issue, and the rep offered to upgrade me to the new TiVo. But with so many issues, I really did not want another TiVo. So I purchased Elgato EyeTV 250 Plus Digital/Analog TV Receiver and Video Converter and I have been using that with an EyeTV iPad and iPod app and it is like having TiVo and Slingbox all in one device!
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
I bought one of these a few weeks ago and have been waiting for Amazon to 'release' it so I could comment on it. Initially there were some known issues such as macroblocking/pixelation on digital channels (particularly channels showing HD content) with cablecards, but TiVo worked quickly to release two revisions to the TiVo HD software already and 98% of the issues have been resolved. My only complaints about the TiVo HD:
1.) Internal HDD only records 20 hours of HD content. It is equipped with an eSATA port, but as of now it is not enabled on the THD. (The Series3 HD has the eSATA port enabled, TiVo expects to enable it later in the year, possibly at the same time as a TiVo-branded eSATA HDD) 20 hours is ok if all you're recording is a day's worth of shows and watching through them daily, but I sometimes go up to a week without being able to watch shows, and if you record a few movies in HD, it fills up quick. Also on season passes the minimum you can set for programs to keep is 5, with the smaller hard drive it'd be nice if you could set it to 1 for things like news broadcasts (to set it to record daily and just delete yesterdays if you didn't get to it when it records todays)
2.) No built-in WiFi. I know the story is the same as Microsoft's "technology changes so quickly so adding in a wireless-g compliant adapter would limit it if a wireless-n standard comes along." but come on now, I hate having to add a bunch of items to the box, I'd rather it be built in.
3.) Basic remote. The Series3 comes with a glow remote and this one does not. You can buy a white or black one from TiVo for $50, but it is the newest TiVo DVR, they could include the better glow remote.
4.) No TiVo-To-Go or Multiple room viewing. Not so important on the MRV for me since I sold my Series2 to help pay for my THD, but I can see how this bothers people with 3-4 TiVos. I can appreciate that HD content is much larger and would probably take forever to transfer and take an enormous amount of hard drive space, but I liked transfering recordings to my laptop and taking them to my girlfriend's place who doesn't have cable or TV reception and catch her up on CSI etc. Rumor says it'll be enabled eventually, and I can at least appreciate that they put it on the back burner to fix release issues like the pixelation/cablecard issues.
5.) Menus, searching for programs, scheduling recordings, etc all do take a little longer than on my Series2. I'm hoping this goes away with a software fix soon. Hitting the 'record' button takes 10-15 seconds to start recording the show. (even though it still caches 30 mins of live recording and it does keep all of it, but one would think it could process the request faster)
6.) For the cost of TiVo service, one would think the software would have been completely release-worthy. On some of the forums, people have been complaining of issues with cablecards etc for a month and I think the least TiVo could do is give a few months free service to anyone who buys a TiVo HD so we don't feel like we're paying full price to be beta testers. Also, since it is a monthly fee, I don't think we should be subject to any sort of menu advertising. The guide is still ad-free, but in the menu, there is still a selection that can be any number of things (right now it is an option to learn more about the TiVo HD, but I've seen it be an ad for GM trucks etc) and one time when a program finished and it brought up the screen to choose between deleting the program or keeping it, there was a 3rd option to learn more about some program sponsor. This was one of the things that pissed me off about cable companies cable boxes.
All in all, despite the quirks, the picture is amazing and I'm glad I get to have HD content on my TiVo. I work swing shift and always miss all the good prime time shows and once I got an HDTV, the only show on in HD when I get home is Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and now when I get home I get to see all of my favorite shows in HD and commercial free. Life is easy again. Now if only I could add a 750GB eSATA drive, I can go back to storing large quantities of programs I may never get to watching. :) Nobody even comes close to TiVo, and the cable company's DVRs are all lousy.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
We recently switched to Comcast just to get HD. For some reason, in civilized areas, Comcast offers a Motorola cable box but not in our area. In our area, they only give Scientific Atlanta (they need to get out of this business) boxes, which are beyond terrible. I don't have a modern TV with an HD source only to look at a GUI out of 1986. Not to mention, it performed terrible and was poorly logically organized. It was so bad, we opted to spend the money to buy the TiVo and pay the money for the service.
We called up Comcast to see if we could pick up cable cards and we could not. They would have to come and install them. When they came to install the cards, they only brought two. Neither one of them worked. Apparently, this is a common issue with cable cards and TiVo boxes. I suspect some of it is by design since cable companies really want you to use their equipment. The next day one technician returned with a handful of cable cards and started the install. I believe he went through 5 cards before he found 2 that worked properly....while he was here.
Now that I've had the box for about a month now, here are my observations about it.
* The organization of programming is AWESOME. Now when my TiVo records the 17 South Park episodes, it places them in a file to access, as opposed to littering them across my "Now Playing" list.
* The cards `reset' themselves sometimes. I've had this box for about a month, and already it's happened several times. I'll get a gray screen, but then when I push any button, it goes away and the card works fine. When it does this, it doesn't affect recording, so I don't know what it is. I fear calling Comcast about it because I could have a more informative conversation with my cat. I don't know if it's a Comcast/card problem or a TiVo problem, but considering the cards are prone to issues, I'm assuming it's the card.
* There's a high rate of pixilation/broken frames. This rarely happened when using the craptastic SA box, but it happens often on the TiVo. I don't know why. I don't know if it's the cards, the cable, etc. ***I just read another review about the software update fixing these problems. They haven't fixed my problems. It's annoying, but not as annoying as the SA box to me.
* Downloading movies from Amazon is a great feature.
* My major gripe about the box is that it's slow to recognizing the remote and slow when navigating through menus. There's no way you can become kung-fu master on this. Your thumb will be 7 clicks ahead of where the menu is. On my old DirecTV TiVo, I could navigate with no missteps. On this, I constantly misstep. And while I'll accept that much of it is my impatience and user error, I believe this indicative of the box not having enough memory.
* Save to VCR...WTH? Why is this even an option? OK, maybe there are those still hoping for the return of the tape are using this function. Having the function is fine, but why not also have an option to burn to DVD and/or send to specified device? Why can't it just be "Save to..." and give us the option. Hopefully this is addressed in the $600 version.
* Can't PnP!! Well, we can't. It may just be our TV (Samsung LNT series w/o HD cable tuner).
* No WiFi! There's really no excuse for this. We're going on what? the 5th year of widely distributed WiFi? Furthermore, the WiFi adapter is huge. They make WiFi adapters that are like, the size of my pinky now. And I could have gotten one, but I wanted the TiVo recommended adapter.
* Oh, and the moving TiVo smiley is cute and can be distracting after a couple...few...some drinks.
All in all, even with the defects, I'd suggest this over the cable boxes provided.
***
Update: After kirking out on a few people at Comcast and threatening to terminate my service, they sent someone with one multi-stream card (We'd had two single streamers) and I haven't had any of the problem's I'd been experiencing. Apparently, this card was straight out of the box. So, w00t!
And two more complaints:
* The inability to delete whole folders from the now playing list.
* The only button to the Now Playing List is the TiVo button, which means that to access the Now Playing list is two steps on a laggy system.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
I bought this Tivo DVR as an alternative to using the Scientific Atlanta cable box DVR that is issued by the cable provider. I found one, and only one, major advantage to using the Tivo DVR rather than a cable company DVR--the Tivo DVR is intuitive, simple, and fun to use. If you or others in your household are inept with electronic gadgetry (could never figure out how to program a VCR) then you will particularly appreciate the Tivo DVR over the one provided by the Cable Company.
Unfortunately, I found several downsides to using the Tivo. But, I hate the cable company issued DVR so much, I tolerate them.
1) Cost. You have to buy the Tivo and if it breaks down it's your problem and expense. On the other hand, there's no up front cost for renting the cable box DVR from the cable company, only monthly rental fees. Cost of the Tivo service and the CableCARD rental combined is slightly more than the cost of renting a cable box DVR from the cable company.
2) Setup and Maintenance. As the caption says--It works great when it's working. But getting it to work and stay working has been a challenge. With a cable box DVR, the cable company installs it, makes sure it's working, and sends someone to your house to repair or replace it if stops working--all at no additional charge. This is not the case with the Tivo DVR. You have to install it yourself then contact the cable company to insert and configure the Cable CARD's. This is where the migraines start. The support provided by the Cable Company does not go beyond inserting the CableCARD's and activating them. If your Tivo is not working after they do that, as in my case, you have to contact Tivo tech support for help. It can be difficult or impossible to determine whether the problem lies with the Tivo DVR or the CableCARD's. You have different support contacts for each of them, pointing fingers at each other, and unwilling to cooperate with each other. After spending hours on the phone holding and following instructions from Tivo and Cablevision, and a lot of trial and error type troubleshooting, alas it started working! But, about 8 weeks later, as the memories of the installation ordeal were starting to fade, it stopped working and a new, similar ordeal began. It turned out that the CableCARD's were the culprit and needed to be replaced. The Cablevision technician explained "they just go bad every now and then". Alas, the Tivo started working great again, for a about 5 weeks until the next troubleshooting escapade ensued. This time it turned out that the Tivo itself had broken down and needed to be replaced--just 1 week after the warranty expired. Tivo offered to replace it at a discount, but when I threatened to cancel my account, they agreed to replace it for free. When I received the replacement, I had to contact the cable company to re-configure the CableCARD's to work with the new unit. Begin reading this paragraph again from the beginning to see how it went. Groundhog Day!!!
UPDATE on 12/4/09 -- Since I wrote the above review over a year and half ago, I have not had any further problems. However, my cable provider converted some channels to a technology called "switched digital video" (If you wish, you can read up on it at [...]). Those channels cannot be accessed with CableCARDs unless you install a "tuning adapter". In my case, the tuning adapter was provided by the cable provider (Cablevision) at no additional charge. It is relatively easy to install and I haven't had any trouble with it. The only downside is it's an additional piece of equipment and thus additional clutter. It's about the size of a component DVD player. It requires an additional electrical outlet connection, an additional coax cable connection, and a USB cable connection from the tuning adapter to the TiVo.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
I had TiVo service from DirecTV several years ago (two of the black philips units) and loved it. I have also had two ReplayTV units and two Dish PVRs. My most recent set-up was Dish Network ViP 722 at my last house, and we just moved into a Verizon FiOS area. After reading horror stories about the Verizon DVR, and after taking a few years off from TiVo (...in part to block the memory and sting of the wasted money spent on "lifetime" service subscriptions....), I was very much looking forward to this TiVo HD! Because of my house-move and timing, I was also able to compare head-to-head, the Dish PVR, the Verizon PVR, and this TiVo unit. So here is my impressions of the good, the bad, and the ugly:
GOOD:
- Well-designed rear-panel with just about any connection scenario being possible except coax-digital (same for Dish and Verizon, not a big deal in the HDMI age....)
- It can record two programs and play a third (same for Dish and Verizon)
- Wireless USB Internet adapter works perfectly, even for the initial setup (this is unique, Dish has Ethernet and phone jacks; the Verizon box is inherently always connected to their network); the wireless adapter costs an extra $40
- Fan and Hard-Drive are VERY quiet and the unit doesn't get too hot
- The best TV guide information, the importance of this should not be minimized, TiVo by FAR has the best guide! (Dish guide is very-OK, the Verizon guide STINKS...horrible causing many missed or duplicate recordings)
BAD:
- Small Hard-Drive, only 20 hours of HD; need to buy a specific $170 500gb drive to use the expansion e-Sata port (BTW there is no technical reason for this, other HD TiVos support any external e-Sata drive)
- Need to unplug the box to turn it off (a quick call to customer service will educate you to not "trust" the menu item that restarts the TiVo)
- Menus are very "deep" for every-day use; getting to many options is not intuitive and information is not organized together that the user often needs to access at the same time
- Noticeable picture "wave" on some HD material (...before and after attenuation...I ended up not using any)
- Can not order "On-Demand" events
- Slow menus
- Momentary screen "grey-out" when using the "native resolution" option; the "native resolution" option will pass through the TV signal as broadcasted, which should be a "good" feature, but TiVo customer support readily admits it doesn't work consistently and ask you not use it and to choose a scaling option.
- There is a disarming "pop" sound when changing some high-definition channels
- The "TiVo Desktop application" to share videos, photos, etc from your computer is a poorly written resource hog, it is very hard to uninstall, and doesn't work very well.
- You can sign-up for TiVo service online, and manage your account online, but to cancel you need to call (and the call experience is horrible)
UGLY:
- Prominent advertising all over most screens, even in the sub-menus where TV show episodes are listed! This also actually makes the menus ugly and busy.
- Set-up is loony and unruly with the CableCards, and TiVo support is horrible (although the reps are very pleasant)
- TiVo monthly service-charges are about the same as Verizon for PVR, but the ~$250 for the TiVo unit is an additional expense, and for this extra cost, you get a lot of advertising!!! I know I've noted it a few times, but there really is a lot of advertising and it takes up Hard-Drive program space.
- Although TiVo customer support representatives are in the US-of-A and are very pleasant, the support service is not very good. (1) every-time you call you need to listen to a (I believe lengthy) condescending message to go to the TiVo website rather than calling support; BTW there is next to no useful information on their website. (2) No matter what option you choose via the phone voice-prompts, every-time you call you first need to speak to a "TiVo customer service" rep, who after a few minutes informs you that they must transfer you to the "TiVo High-Definition customer service" representatives; BTW, it seems "TiVo" and "TiVo-HD" support are two distinct organizations in different locations. (3) All of the customer service reps ask for a call-back number if the support-call is interrupted; I was disconnected several times when we needed to deviate from their standard support script, and I never received a call-back, and providing the case-number when I did call TiVo back myself didn't prevent having to go through the entire script again.
The two big issues I had were:
(1) getting the TiVo box to recognize I had service and an account (TiVo shut me off after 7 days saying I didn't have an account, although online and the customer-support reps showed I was indeed active) and
(2) getting the CableCards working properly is brutal (to their credit, Verizon was willing to put the time in to get the TiVo to work, it just took several trips and several many-hour calls to get SD and HD picture content to work at the same time, and we never got both CableCards to say "subscribed" at the same time)
I went through most of the online TiVo forums and printed out the latest and greatest install tips, tricks and details.
{{Tangentially, if you go down the treacherous TiVo-HD path...make sure (a) the cable installer installs one CableCard at a time [they will want to do both at the same time....], (b) the "Host-ID" and "Data-Value" must be input into the cable-system [installer needs to make a specific additional call for this] and check the TiVo "Conditional Access" screen to make sure, (c) reboot and re-do guided set-up a few times, and (d), [perhaps only for Verizon], you may need to use an attenuator to lower the input signal for a good picture, check the Diagnostic screen for "RS Uncorrected" errors.}}
To put some context on the TiVo support issues, they were not helpful and they were consistently inconsistent. For example, one rep told me to unplug and re-plug-in the unit twice within an hour and then force an Internet connection twice in that exact sequence to fix some issues I was having, another rep told me to unplug the unit for at least two hours and then force two Internet connections, but made a point to say "never unplug twice without connecting to the Internet in-between". Another rep told me unplug the unit and use a can of compressed air to clean where the power-cord goes in, then do two guided set-ups and let the unit connect to the Internet automatically at night. I started to think I was on candid-camera, and they were going to ask me to perform some type of sacrifice or only connect to the Internet when I was facing the north-pole ..... I think you get the idea, but that is what I mean by inconsistent and not helpful, and very frustrating!
For those interested in some comparisons of the Dish PVR, the Verizon PVR, and this TiVo unit:
Picture Quality: (1) Dish ViP722 is by far the best for High-Definition content, and everything looks good, (2) Verizon has the most consistent looking picture and sound, and (3) as noted above the TiVo sometimes had a HD "wave" appearance, SD was identical to the Verizon PVR, and TiVo had "grey-out" when changing channels using native resolution.
Sound Quality: (1)Dish and (2) Verizon have perfect sound, and (3) the TiVo was usually the same perfect sound but sometimes made a loud "pop" when changing channels.
Menus/Options: (1) Dish menus are functional and allow you to set some slack-time before or after shows so you do not miss the end, (2) Verizon menus are serviceable but have no slack-time options and the default behavior is often different than most PVRs, and (3) the TiVo menus have ads all over them and are unnecessarily complicated; TiVo has slack-time options, but they didn't work well for me (as evidence, look at on-line forums and news stories for the countless folks who missed the winner on the American-Idol finale this year, and previous years....)
Capacity: (1) Dish has 55 hours of HD and 350 hours of SD, both (2) Verizon and (3) TiVo have 160GB internal drives giving about 20 hours of HD and 180 hours of SD
Expandable Storage: (1) Dish can use any external Hard-Drive [need to call Dish to activate for one-time $5], (2) Verizon has no expansion options yet, and (3) TiVo requires a specific $170 MyDVR 500gb to expand.
Multi-Room: (1)Dish, (2) Verizon both have real multi-room built in and they work out of the box without additional set-up. The Verizon multi-room's quality is exactly the same from any Verizon box in the house, The Dish quality is not nearly as good at other TVs in the house as the PVR, but does not require a converter box, just a cable-ready TV tuned to channel 67. In my opinion the (3) TiVo HD does not have much multi-room functionality because you have to have another TiVo box to watch shows recorded on another TV (in addition to the "TiVo Desktop application" being horrible, the application will not give you PVR recordings to another room, it is for get content to and from your computer). The TiVo ad-ware implies great content flexibility, but the bottom-line is if you have one TiVo DVR, you can only watch recordings on the TV it is hooked-up to, the Verizon and Dish let you watch your one DVR's recordings on any connected TV without any wiring hassles (they piggyback on the same one coax that goes to the TV already).
Remote: (1)Dish, (2) Verizon, and (3) the TiVo are all fine although you need to "hack" TiVo to have 30-second skip capability; all are "universal remote" compatible.
Cost: (1) Dish is cheapest and has most HD [for just TV], (2) Verizon is $15.95 a month for PVR [though you can usually get a $12.95 monthly special], (3) TiVo is $12.95 per month, BUT has advertising all over it and you need to pay $250 for the box and $40 more if you want/need the wireless Internet adapter.
I ended up keeping the Verizon PVR because Verizon FiOS Internet is exponentially faster and more reliable than the competition in my area and the cost for Internet-only is prohibitive without a TV bundle. Also, I am renting a single-family home, and the owner said "no dishes" in the lease (so no Dish).
I sincerely wish good luck all those who venture into TiVo-land, hopefully this manifesto was somewhat informative (and still visible on Amazon), and maybe TiVo will get their act together someday! I think TiVo needs to partner with more cable and/or some satellite companies, and/or pre-load pre-set-up boxes to take the hassle out of installation, they need to fix their customer support (but keep it in the US....just give their staff the tools and information to be successful), work on quality control, and focus on prospective customers, not just existing TiVo fan-club members!
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
Summation first, exposition last (if you want to wade through the wall of text, I promise to make it interesting, as best I can!):
1. A few users have complained about the DVR freezing up. I haven't had it long enough to speak to this issue, but some have complained that this is endemic with TiVo in general. Having had two Series 2 boxes for several years, and never a problem with either, I would say that any failure falls into the "acceptable failure percentage" of any product. Nothing is perfect. Even the best made cars malfunction, infrequently, five miles out of the lot.
2. That said, the TiVo dual tuner I bought a couple of years back didn't work. Neither did the three replacements they sent. Obviously, that was a poorly designed and released piece of hardware.
3. Read the material before the cable installer comes out. You'll want to have gone through the Guided Setup first. If you don't, you'll make the cable tech late for the rest of their appointments, and we all know how much we love it when the cable tech is late for *our* appointment.
4. Quick and easy pre-setup (before cable tech comes to install card).
5. Quick and easy cable card setup.
6. Multi-room viewing is immediate--all I did was plug in my TiVo wireless adapter, enter the encryption code during setup, and it recognized the box in the other room the first time I pulled up the "Now Playing" list.
7. It does a better job of providing closed captions than the cable box did (as I detail below, captioning is not available through the TV on the component or HDMI inputs). You can change the size, font, foreground and background color, and more. I wish there was a selection for a transparent background so that I could use yellow (I've found that yellow vs. white subtitles on DVDs are usually easier to read), but I'm not complaining. For the first time, I have *options* as to how I want to view the captions.
8. The "save to" function that one reviewer complained or wondered about isn't only for VHS, it's also for saving to DVD, if you have a DVD recorder. That reviewer wondered why this was an option, and I think the answer is obvious. If you're a Boston Red Sox fan, you might want to have all of their World Series games on DVD--or even VHS--for posterity. I know that I record certain sporting events. Others might choose movies.
9. There is a very, very small lag when returning to the "Now Playing" screen, but it has more to do with the TiVo interpreting/converting the incoming signal (480p, 780p, 1080i, 1080p). Really not a big deal, and hardly worth complaining about, although in a perfect world, there would be no lag.
10. Make sure to specifically request a multi-stream card (M-Card). The rep on the phone probably won't know what that is, so you may need to speak with a supervisor. My installer didn't know the difference between a single stream and multi-stream card, but luckily the card he had said M-Card in big, bold letters, so I knew what I was getting, even if he didn't know what he was installing. I didn't chalk that up to his incompetence, btw. Rather, inexperience. This is, to many people, brand new technology.
11. I like that the lights on the front tell us if one show is recording (one red light), if two are recording (two red lights), or if a show is transferring from one box to the other (one blue light). Native or Hybrid image selection is also displayed, along with the appropriate screen resolution. It's too small to see if you're sitting six feet away from the TV, but having that information available is helpful. It allowed me to troubleshoot the only problem I had with TiVo, and that was making the choice between Native or Hybrid, as the TV manual didn't provide me with the necessary information. Time and date would be nice, but as we kept our cable box for OnDemand functionality, and it displays the time, it's not a big issue.
12. My only real complaint is storage space. We'll have to pay close attention to any series that might have a "marathon run", like some of those ridiculous reality shows, and make sure that the Now Playing list is tidied up. There's only 20 hours of High Def recording space available. TiVo restricts our ability to expand by forcing us to use only one specific external storage unit made by Western Digital (that isn't, frustratingly, available on Amazon). Western Digital makes several of these units. Why limit your customers to one? I'm sure it's a support issue, to make their jobs easier, but choice would be nice.
Exposition:
Our 46" Sony TV manufactured in 1995 and that survived a flood, and which I stubbornly held onto even though the picture quality left much to be desired, finally gave up the ghost a couple of months ago, so we used the Amazon gift cards we received for birthday and X-mas presents to buy the Samsung HLT5076S 50" UltraSlim 1080p DLP HDTV. We immediately fell in love with the picture--of course--but bemoaned that because we only had a Series 2 TiVo, that we wouldn't be able to get the full use of the television. That immediately led me to look at this TiVo DVR, but some of the reviews here scared me off, even the positive ones. Specifically, that there was no multi-room viewing, and the cable cards were giving people problems. Also, and most importantly, when I spoke to Comcast about the cable card that they were required to provide by law, I was informed on at least three separate occasions, by three different people, that the cards only allowed access up to channel 99. This seemed collusive, as well as counter-intuitive. Do they really make that much of a profit renting boxes? I would imagine that they spend a fair amount of money--if not a LOT of money--replacing, for free, boxes that are destined to either fail or become outdated as technology moves full speed of ahead, disregarding, it seems, the laws of physics. The cable card issue was also a concern that I had seen posted here on Amazon, and so I decided to wait.
Then on a lark, I called Comcast one last time to check into the functionality of the cable card. It just didn't make sense to me, for the reason I noted above. The representative I spoke to said that I could get all regular and high def channels (high def all being above channel 100), but that I couldn't get my premium channels, HBO or Showtime. Frustrated, I asked her to confirm this with a supervisor, and when she came back she said that ALL channels were available through the cable card with the exception of OnDemand. THAT made sense, as OnDemand is something offered specifically through Comcast.
And it sold me. I used the rest of our "account" to buy this DVR.
We had a few problems with HDTV, the biggest being that closed captioning was unavailable on any device hooked up through component or HDMI inputs. As I'm hearing impaired and rely heavily on captions, this was fairly disastrous. To think that we had spent so much "money" to take a step backwards...but then we found out that the cable box itself can provide closed captions, but better yet, when the TiVo was delivered, I thumbed through their manual and found that this TiVo box translates digital closed captions and transmits them to the component or HDMI inputs (which are really the only ones you want to use with HDTV). I was overjoyed.
When the Comcast tech arrived to install the cable card, I was sure that something would go wrong, because with so many different answers it seemed predestined. But nothing went wrong! The only cable cards they're using are the multi-stream cards (M-card) which allow the TiVo to function as a duel tuner. Within ten to twenty minutes, I was up and ready to go. Everything worked as advertised. Two shows recorded at the same time. I was able to watch one show while another was recording. Frankly, I'm not even sure that we need the other Series 2 in the bedroom, but we're keeping it because sometimes shows that *should* have digital captions don't. Most of these seem to be ABCs HD channel. (Shame on them!) So we're recording those shows in analog mode on the other DVR.
The closed captioning was just as good as the TV provides for the "lower-end" inputs, and it had all of the functionality of our old Series 2. We could even transfer shows from one box to the other, so ***multi-room viewing is absolutely possible***.
Ever single concern I had was alleviated, and I remain, as I have been for several years, an extremely satisfied TiVo customer (excepting the week I spent on phone with their tech help folks trying to make a dual tuner box work a couple of years back).
There is no DVR that comes close to TiVo. As any TiVo user knows, TiVo will search and find the programs you tell it to record, regardless of when they are on. So, if Law & Order is moved from Friday to Wednesday, you don't have to remember to tell the DVR that there has been a lineup change, which you do with Comcast's DVR, and other DVRs that I'm aware of. Either DirectTV or Dish is advertising a box that's better than TiVo, but I'll believe it when I see it.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
TiVos are DVRs done right. They work better than any cable company box. I've had a TiVo since 2000. I recently traded my cableco HD DVR for a TiVo HD. We love it.
That said, there are two items you should know about.
1) CableCARD hassles. If you're going to use this with any cable above "basic", you'll need CableCARDs from your cable company. There is a small monthly fee for these. This fee + the TiVo service fee may be less than the cost of a cableco DVR, but you should check what the fees will be. Also, the CableCARD install may require a service call that you will pay for.
2) If you watch a lot of TV, 20 hours of HD recording space is not that much. You can add space with a "TiVo Verified" external hard drive available from a limited set of vendors. You probably want to consider the cost of that when purchasing the TiVo HD. There are other ways to expand the storage, but they involve mods that will void the warranty. The more expensive "Series 3" has a larger (but still relatively small) hard drive.
If you can put up with these issues, I highly recommend this product.
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This review is from: TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder (Electronics)
When this units works, it's great. But too often it loses the cable signal; even though the same signal shows fine when connected directly to the TV's input. This happens every couple of days and, as a result, programs which I though were recorded have not been stored. Recording those shows is the unit's raison d'etre so this is unacceptable.
After an hour of troubleshooting I discovered that the problem can be temporarily 'cured' by rebooting the Tivo; a process that takes five minutes or longer.
Now, I learn from the Tivo Forums that numerous people have this problem and the company has not acknowledged, let alone fixed, this obvious defect.
So after spending $650 ($250 for the Tivo, plus $400 for the 'subscription') I'm no more certain that the programs I want recorded, will be, than when I used a VCR.
Don't buy one of these Tivo's until this problem is fixed.
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