Rating: 
Summary: TiVo Rocks!!!
Review: This is a superb machine. I bought an upgraded Series 2 tivo at www.weakness.com. The unit runs like a pro, and yes you do need a land based phone line to set it up. The unit does have an s-video port, contrary to a other users comments. If you love tv at your control do yourself a favor and get one. Also note : if you have directv look for the directv/tivo receivers.
Rating: 
Summary: This TiVo is great: Dispelling some other reviewers issues
Review: This product is great, i love TiVo, but I'm not going to concentrate on reviewing TiVo itself, rather this TiVo brand DRV. People need to understand that TiVo is really just a service and software, too often these reviews are filled with info on the service, which is fine, but doesn't help the reviewer make a decision on which DVR unit to buy.Ok the first thing i want to do is dispel some of the complaints of other reviewers. For the reviewer who stated "However, I was disappointed in the picture quality. I record at Basic Quality so as to get the most hours of recording time", i would say that if you look at the different quality settings you will see that "Basic" is the lowest, so of course you are going to have the lowest quality. It doesn't really matter what the levels of quality are called, if you pick the lowest one, you're going to get the worst quality, try using a higher quality setting. Next, for the reviewer who stated "This is a very cool product, but it's extremely loud. The fan and hard drive combine to create a high-pitched whistling noise that we found impossible to live with", I'm not sure what he/she is even talking about, it must have been a defective unit. Mine is silent, i really can't hear a thing. Now the manual clearly states that you shouldn't set the TiVo directly on top of another component, or put another component on it, as this maybe block ventilation. So if this person has created a "component sandwich" with their TiVo in the middle, maybe the fans are coming on frequently, I don't know, mine makes no noise. One review states "Be sure to understand that not only do you need to buy the TiVo (the player) itself, but you also need to buy the sevice!", this is 100% false. You don't have to purchase any service at all. The service gives you access to the "Season Pass" feature where you can tell TiVo to record every showing of a certain show. But you can always set the TiVo up to do this manually, you do not have to purchase any service at all. Another reviewer has this to say, "Another thing: no power switch. Again, for casual TV users, this is a waste of equipment lifespan & electricity." This is really quite nitpicky, if you turn the TiVo off, it cant make its dial-in call to get your updated schedule of shows, and it cant search for shows you might like based on your preferences. Besides that it doesn't use much power at all, and the only thing that would be getting any wear and tear are the hard drives and they sleep when they aren't in use. He also states "it's just a very expensive toy", um hello.... Of course it is, that's the fun of it. Finally there is this complaint, "You need a credit card to activate the service. This is a real problem for those who do not have, or choose not to use, credit cards". Ok lets see, first of all you don't need to sign up for the service, and if you don't have a credit card I'm guessing you run into this problem all the time, it isn't just with TiVo... This TiVo unit works as advertised, I cant really say anything else about it. One thing to realize is that, while this is an 80 hour unit, that really is only about 25 hours of recordings at the highest quality level. I know some of you are saying "25 hours is plenty", and you're right, but if you were looking at a unit with less recording time, remember that you only get about 30% of the total time at the best level. The only other problem I have with this is that recording a show while watching something else on live TV is impossible if you have a cable box for your TV. I have digital cable, and therefore I need a cable box, well you cant split a digital signal very easily and its then impossible to record on one channel and watch another. But it isn't that big a deal as one can still watch a recorded show and record another.
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic
Review: TiVO has totally enhanced our watching experience. From features like being able to start to watch a show 10 minutes into it's beinr recorded (try that with a VCR), to fast skipping the ads (watch a 1 hour show in only 40 mins) its great. I now have two. You should also get one.
Rating:
Summary: Can't Live Without It!
Review: Tivo is the greatest thing that has happened since DVD's! Get a season pass to record all of your favorite shows and then you can save them to a tape! Also you can set up a wishlist(e.g. a show with your favorite actor/actress) and it will automatically record it. My only complaint is that you can't change the channel if your recording something, and you can with a simple VCR. But besides that it's great.
Rating:
Summary: You've heard it before...will change the way you watch TV
Review: We had always talked about getting TiVo, but it wasn't until we visited a friend's house who had TiVo that we decided we had to have it. We purchased this 40 hour model and have been very happy so far. Set up was very easy. I followed directions on the TiVo website to add a cable splitter so I could watch live TV while recording something else. This is easy to do and only costs about $10. In order to get 40 hours of shows, they need to be recorded at "basic" video quality. This level is not the greatest, but after watching it for a while, you get used to it. If there is anything we really want to see in a higher quality (such as new episodes of our favorite shows) we will record those in medium quality - which seems almost perfect to me.
Rating:
Summary: TiVo rocks!
Review: We love our TiVo! It doesn't get any simpler than that!
We watch what we want when we want it. THe bigger the better so that you can catch all of your favorite shows and your wishlists. Wishlists are things you'd like to find like that episode of Yes Dear that the Wiggles were on (my son really likes the Wiggles). We threw it in our Wishlist, came home one day and BAM! there it was!
If you will be starting a new TiVo subscription please put my email address in as a referral (waldingrl@verizon.net) so that I can get some TiVo rewards points! Thanks!
Rating:
Summary: User-friendly, great utility -- some minor shortcomings
Review: We love this thing! Setup was a snap. I really expected it to be much more cumbersome than it was, but they obviously did a lot of usability testing on the product. I had it hooked up in 10 minutes, and within 1.5 hours, I had signed up for the Tivo subscription AND downloaded and processed the entire guide. Unfortunately, there are some limitations for certain AV hookups -- we had to make some tradeoffs with ours, but it was worth it. Using it is a snap. My wife has never been able to record a show with a VCR, but with 5 minutes of explanation, she was able to record a show through the guide, setup a season pass to record every upcoming episode of her favorite show, and setup a wishlist to record every show that had her favorite actor in it. The on-screen prompts and instructions are crystal clear -- I would, however, prefer more shortcuts. I can imagine that always following the prompts will get old. Picture quality was very good. I braced myself for some degradation in quality, but there's minimal on our set. The unit hums a bit, but the sound is easily masked by the normal TV volume, and ours is in a closing entertainment center, so we don't notice it. The pause between channel changes is generally 1 to 2 seconds, but I never notice it because I generally use the guide to move around. That's my favorite part of the Tivo -- I don't waste time channel switching any more. I use the guide -- if I see something I like, I watch it; otherwise, the TV is turned off. And I always pause the shows I like for 15 minutes so I can fast forward through the commercials. The fast forward and rewind are fantastic, too -- too much to write here, but you will like it. No more anticipatory button pressing!
Rating: 
Summary: Tivo warranty and customer service is joke.
Review: We purchased our Tivo unit six months ago, great technology, however, unit stop functioning. We tried to reach customer service six days in a row, waited between one hour and three hours for a person to talk too, but all you get is music. We are still waiting to talk to someone about how to return this useless device. For those who don't know, save some money as Comcast and other cable providers throughout the United State now provide equivalent or better TIVO functionality for just $10 per month and you don't have to buy a $250 to buy a unit. No service problems there. Buyer beware, $250 for a unit and $300 for a life time use, which in my case was six months. I wonder why all of their customer representatives are busy, my quess is massive product failures, which if you can't talk to someone you can't return the unit. Nice warranty. Cable companies will put TIVO out of business along with their defective products and underperforming customer service. Be wise and consider your alternative.
Rating:
Summary: BEWARE! DirecTv users MUST READ
Review: We were quite excited to receive our Tivo, but it wasn't until AFTER we'd paid the "lifetime fee" on the machine that we discovered a MAJOR problem. Apparently, our DirecTv box does not have a serial cable connection so we had to use the Infrared (IR) set up (basically two little prongs that stick out in front of the IR window on the DirecTv box to "beam" the signal--as opposed to it going directly through a serial cable connection between the two machines). We have roughly a 70% margin of error (i.e., FAILURE RATE) in changing the channel. We've used every troubleshooting tip suggested by Tivo, but none have improved the situation (including one that involves building a cardboard "tent" around the prongs--simply lovely for interior decorating. When we received this gift (through Amazon), the combined DirecTv/Tivo machine was not available so we were not able to return the machine and "upgrade" (which we'd considered doing before we actually gave in and paid the $300 "lifetime of the machine" fee). If you have DirecTV, DO NOT BUY THIS MACHINE unless you are SURE that you have the ability to connect via serial cable. We look forward to one day seeing what is supposed to be so "great" about Tivo, but for now we are left wanting to go "Office Space" on our machine. Hope you have better luck!
Rating:
Summary: BEWARE! DirecTv users MUST READ
Review: We were quite excited to receive our Tivo, but it wasn't until AFTER we'd paid the "lifetime fee" on the machine that we discovered a MAJOR problem. Apparently, our DirecTv box does not have a serial cable connection so we had to use the Infrared (IR) set up (basically two little prongs that stick out in front of the IR window on the DirecTv box to "beam" the signal--as opposed to it going directly through a serial cable connection between the two machines). We have roughly a 70% margin of error (i.e., FAILURE RATE) in changing the channel. We've used every troubleshooting tip suggested by Tivo, but none have improved the situation (including one that involves building a cardboard "tent" around the prongs--simply lovely for interior decorating. When we received this gift (through Amazon), the combined DirecTv/Tivo machine was not available so we were not able to return the machine and "upgrade" (which we'd considered doing before we actually gave in and paid the $300 "lifetime of the machine" fee). If you have DirecTV, DO NOT BUY THIS MACHINE unless you are SURE that you have the ability to connect via serial cable. We look forward to one day seeing what is supposed to be so "great" about Tivo, but for now we are left wanting to go "Office Space" on our machine. Hope you have better luck!
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