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Summary: The technology _IS_ here
Review: I've purchased TIVO soon after it came out, spending about $700 for the unit and $199 for lifetime (note, it is the lifetime of my TIVO unit, not my own lifetime) subscription to the service. Initial setup took me about an hour, and the system worked perfectly ever since. Picture quality is great. It is almost SuperVHS-like when my TV reception is at its best on best quality (which gives you 10 hours on "30 hour" unit). Guess what -- I never ran out of space. I even have a small archive of Futurama cartoons that I have not moved to a VCR (yes, you can do that).I see lockups mentioned in previous reviews. My unit locked up once during setup. All you need to do is reboot TIVO by unplugging the box. I've had no other problems whatsoever. As a result I do not watch live TV any more and never miss any shows that I like. While watching TIVO I zoom through commercial I do not like, but I repeat the ones that I do like (I think that I watched Palm commercial with a girl beaming her phone number to a dude a few dozens of times :). Fast forwarding is awesome! You can always zoom back to the phrase you misunderstood, or zoom forward skipping a boring part.
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Summary: The best $400 you will ever spend!
Review: As you have probably read above TiVo allows you to pause and rewind live TV as well as record shows easily. That all sounds good in theory, but the amazing things is that it is better in practice! I don't watch a lot of TV so when I watch it I want it to be good, that is exactly what TiVo gives me. I don't watch more TV, I watch better TV. People are under the impression that this product is for people addicted to TV, I think of it as just the opposite, it is for people who like some TV but don't want to be a slave to it. I know quite a few people who own it now and every single one of them is very happy with it. I don't think I have ever seen a product that can say that. It is worth every penny you will spend on it!
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Summary: 3 Thumbs down for tivo - Wait for UltimateTV
Review: I had problem after problem with my tivo. To begin with, the channel line up was not correct and took ten phone calls (hours on hold) and three weeks to get it right. Secondly, it has frozen on me several times, some of which resulted in the loss of recordings. Lastly, the season pass has not worked reliably for some shows. Sometimes it just does not record them. I believe UltimateTV will be a much better choice and will be buying myself one for next Christmas.
Rating:
Summary: The best consumer electronics product in recent memory.
Review: I've bought two of these in the last 4 months, and am an avid enthusiasts of the TiVo. I can't say anymore than what has already been said, except that the service is great, and the product is revolutionary. Recently I was thinking that this is the most notable technology to come to a medium since Macs changed the computer industry. You really do have to try one for yourself, and when you do, you won't be able to imagine how you ever lived your life without one.
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Summary: Best A/V Investment I've Made Since My Original Betamax
Review: In the past twenty years I've purchased thousands of dollars worth of A/V and PC equipment. At $399 plus $10 per month for the programming, TiVo is my favorite. OK, if I want to spend hours every week programming my VCR (of which I own five), I can record all my favorite shows, but why bother when TiVO does a much better job virtually automatically. Since I purchased Tivo in April, I haven't recorded anything on the VCR's. I still use them occasionally to play a rental movie not available on DVD. For those of you that may complain about the $10/month (or $200 one time) charge for the programming data service, I would suggest that this is a minor cost compared to what you are probably paying for cable or direct tv, AND I would submit that the TiVo service will greatly enhance your ability to utilize and manage the 50 to 250 channels that are available with cable or satellite. Do I watch alot more TV than I did before? Not really, but now I always have something to watch that I'm interested in rather than just watching what happens to be currently broadcasted. Did I consider Replay? Yes, also a nice product, but for my needs TiVO is better. Will the price drop by Christmas? Probably, but at $399 why wait? Enjoy it today.
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Summary: TiVo Will Forever Change the Way You Watch TV!
Review: There's not much one can add to 100 other reviews about TiVo. All I can say is, if you don't have one, you don't know what you're missing. Deciding whether or not to buy a Personal TV Recorder, which is what they are called, is a "no-brainer." BUY ONE! The only decision is whether to buy TiVo (versons sold by Phillips and Sony) or ReplayTV (sold by Panasonic). Both systems require that they call in by local telephone call each night to download program information about the channels you receive locally, either by cable, satellite (Dish/DirecTV) or antenna, and both charge for that service. ReplayTV sells for about $200 more than TiVo, because the ReplayTV subscription charge is included in the purchase price. TiVo sells for about $200 less, but you must buy the subscription. The total cost is essentially the same. One advantage to TiVo, that ReplayTV doesn't offer, is that you can also elect to subscribe to TiVo by the month ($10) or year ($100) if you don't want to shell out up front the $200 for the life-of-the-TiVo subscription. ReplayTV subscriptions are for machine life only. Both lifetime subscriptions are tranferable to new owners, so you can sell it or give it to your kids when the next PTVR generation comes along. Each consumer will have to make up his or her own mind about which system to buy, but I urge you not be misled by explanations saying ReplayTV subscriptions are "free," and TiVo subscriptions are more costly. NOT TRUE. No matter which PTVR you get, your TV life will never be the same. You'll wonder how you survived without!
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Summary: The Absolute **Best** Electronics Investment I Ever Made
Review: TiVo is absolutely the best electronics investment I have ever made, particularly in conjunction with my satellite dish. It has enhanced my TV viewing quality of life and enjoyment enormously (I own three of them now). BEST FEATURES 1. TiVo suggestions. Based on what you record, and what you tell Tivo you like, the Tivo unit will search its programming database for similar programs, or movies with the same actors or directors. For example, I had thumbed up a couple of Hitchcock movies, and lo and behold, Tivo found a whole weekend long Hitchcock marathon I hadn't even known about. You can set up your Tivo to automatically record suggestions for you, or you can easily turn the function off, and just browse through the suggestions yourself and see what you want to record. 2. Tivo menus and search functions. So much better than going through a TV Guide or slogging through a satellite menu. Tivo keeps 10 days worth of programming information in its internal memory, so no waiting for the dish to upload the programming details, and you aren't forced to scroll slowly through an hour and a half worth of programming information at a time. If you want to know what's on two evenings from now at 8PM, click, click, click, and you're there. And that programming information is updated daily, so you have the most current information available. You can look at everything that's currently on, search for programs by name, look at all movies on for the next couple of hours, check out what's on next week, or check what's on your favorite channel tonight. 3. Digital recording. Tivo records programs digitally, on an internal hard drive. This means that if it is set on BEST picture quality, the recording is virtually the same quality as the original broadcast. Almost no loss of picture quality. Setting up recordings is easier than a VCR or even VCR plus, and you don't have to mess around looking for blank tapes, unless of course you want to download a recording onto videotape. 4. Time shifting. I almost never watch *live* TV anymore. I can record programs at original broadcast quality level and watch them hours or days later, and FF through a 3 minute commercial break in seconds. I can also start watching a program from the beginning while the Tivo continues to record the program. I can watch a program I've already recorded while I am recording a new one. You can virtually eliminate commercials from your TV viewing experience. You can't do that with a VCR! 5. Pause and Rewind of Live TV. If you walk in the room and hear the tail end of something that interests you, you can rewind the Tivo's memory up to 30 minutes to hear what you missed. If you have to leave the room to check on dinner or answer the phone, you can pause the screen up to 30 minutes and when you return, start up where you left off. For example, we caught a story we were interested in on the nightly news, rewound to the beginning of the story, put it on pause, got a videotape and downloaded the story onto tape for some relatives of ours. 6. Manual Setting of Recordings. Want to record a basketball game or a particular program, but your favorite show always starts a minute or two before the hour, or you're afraid the game will go into overtime? No problem. You can manually set recordings to start a little early or add an extra half hour onto the end. Only want to record Jay Leno or David Letterman's monologues, but not the rest of the program. Again, no problem, because you can set the Tivo to record in five minute increments starting and ending at whatever time you choose. 7. Season passes. You can designate specific programs as season passes. If you're a Voyager devotee, you can set a season pass for it, and it will record every new episode it finds for you (on that particular channel), regardless of when it comes on. If its on an hour later than usual, as long as the change was scheduled, Tivo will get it for you. If there's a 2 hour special, it will automatically record both hours. It will record it on Wednesday night for you, and if the same episode is broadcast on Saturday, and it already has it in its memory, it won't record the same program again. If you love Frasier, but don't want to watch the re-runs, only current season programming, no problem there. Set a season pass for your NBC affiliate, and it will ignore all other channels, even those showing syndicated re-runs. DRAWBACKS: The set up is a time consuming process, particularly if you have cable or DBS with a lot of channels, but it is absolutely worth every minute of the time.
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Summary: If you have a TV you need TiVo
Review: I have purchase many Electronics for my "Home Theater", DVD Players, VCR's, etc. but I haven't enjoyed any of them as much as I enjoy TiVo. I only watch the TV I want, no need to channel surf anymore and commercials why even bother watching them just fast forward through them all, With TiVo you can do all this and much, much more. I can no longer even imagine watching TV without it nor would I want to. If your looking to get a Product that will help you enjoy watching TV more then ever before I strongly Recommend TiVo.
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Summary: I use mine everyday.
Review: This will change the way you watch tv. TiVo is one of the few comsumer electronics I use everyday. In five years everyone will be watching tv this way. Get in now and enjoy it early.
Rating:
Summary: ReplayTV good, Tivo much better
Review: Both are light years ahead of VCRs, both have ups and downs, either will change your idea of how television is watched. They both pause live TV, find and record your favorite shows without the hassles that tapes create. They both allow you to pay service costs up front (actually Replay _requires_ it), and if you do they both cost the same. Tivo advantages: Suggestions. You give shows you like or don't like up to three thumbs up or thumbs down, and Tivo will look for things that match those preferences. Note that your preference information is never shared with Tivo Inc. It never leaves your house, the box makes the suggestions itself. Recording by date, time, and channel. Useful for lengthy shows you only want a part of, events that may run past the scheduled end time. Replay advantage: Theme areas which will record things based on keywords or actors. Tivo doesn't yet have this, but will by at least Halloween, probably sooner. As with Replay, software upgrades for Tivo are done automatically during the nightly call so existing Tivo owners will get it free. Where Replay scared me off was it's labyrinth of complex scheduling and show retention rules and it's disk management, which essentially chops up the disk into separate areas for each show. If you make the shows "guaranteed" (which does not actually guarantee the show will record), those areas won't share space with each other, even if they aren't using it. For "non-guaranteed" shows space is shared, but no warning about schedule conflicts is given so you never really know what's going to be recorded. Even Replay doesn't know if a show will pass all the tests until moments before it's on, so it can't tell you in advance. Think that Frasier "show" area will catch double episodes? Nope, show areas only catch one showing per day. NBC shows Frasier at 8:00 one night instead of 9, but you're covered, right? Nope, show areas won't find a show if it moves more than one slot away from it's normal time. So you use a "Theme" area for Frasier instead of a "Show" area, another way to do automatic recordings. Set it for an hours worth of programming and you're set! Double episodes, hour long episodes, no problem, right? Except that theme areas grab shows from every channel on the dial, and your UPN affiliate shows two syndicated episodes of Frasier every night (this isn't hypothetical, mine does), so your Frasier theme area gets those too. So what, you say, they'll just get overwritten when the prime-time episodes run? Nope. Replay theme areas won't throw away a show until it's a day old, so when Frasier comes on NBC at 9:00, Replay finds the hour-long Frasier area already full of shows it can't delete yet so it doesn't record _any_ prime time episodes, even if there is space somewhere on the disk. The solution is to up the Frasier area to two hours so it can hold both the syndicated episodes you don't want and any hour long or double episodes you do. You actually have to manage and allocate space yourself, and to do it effectively you have to be aware of when channels you don't care about show episodes you don't want since they can prevent Replay from recording or keeping what you _do_ want. Even VCRs don't demand that much care and feeding. A Tivo "season pass" handles this neatly and simply. It only records from the specific channel you set it to, but it doesn't restrict the times or number of episodes that will be recorded and it doesn't restrict shows to sharing a tiny portion the disk, so you'll get long, double, or moved episodes (unless a moved or extra episode conflicts with something else - neither Tivo or Replay can record two things at once, so something won't get recorded if that happens). Tivos to-do list shows you everything it will record through it's 10 days of programming data, and because Tivo projects it's space requirements throughout those 10 days, it knows it advance when a new recording would exceed it's capacity, and offers to delete some shows earlier than planned or cancel the recording. With Tivo you know what will be recorded, you know what effect additional recordings will have on Tivos spaces schedule, and recordings are kept as long as disk space permits. The Replay and Tivo forums at avsforum.com are an excellent source of information.
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