Rating: 
Summary: Tivolution
Review: I have been using DSR6000R for six months and I continue to be amazed at what a wonderful product it is. Yes it will indeed change the way your television viewing habits. The feature I enjoy the most is the "Season Ticket" feature where you designate a show that you want to have recorded whenever it is aired. Thus I never miss the BBC's "Coupling" and my three year old can always get her fill of "The Brady Bunch" from Nick At Night. With 35 hours of space there is ample time to view all the shows we enjoy. I have not used the function for transfering to VHS tape, but it is available for those programs you wish to save in this manner. The product has its own language and qwirks, but after a few days you are realizing how vital this product is. I do not watch that many television shows, but I do not want to miss the ones that I do enjoy seeing. Tivo makes that all possible.
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Summary: Tivo and Phillips have created a beautiful product.
Review: The first thing I noticed when I unpacked this unit was how well designed each and every item was. Not just the remote and the unit itself, but the manuals. In this day and age, it's not uncommon for companies to supply minimal documentation in favor of online support or help menus within the product. Not Tivo/Phillips: These manuals are thorough and in full color! Setup of the product was simple, it walks you through it onscreen (but there's the wonderful documentation, as well). The remote is simply amazing. It has about half as many buttons as most universal remotes, yet it does so much more. The buttons are large and easy to find without taking your eyes off the tv. In addition, it's one of the first remotes I've used that will actually operate the volume of my AV Receiver. I'm finally down to one remote--a miracle. Personally, I far favor the Tivo user interface over the standard Directv interface. I like that it gives you the program descriptions while your searching, without having to jump to another screen as the Directv interface forces you to. And finally, it really is wonderful to find a product that takes the chore out of recording television shows and gives you the features of a VCR or DVD for live television. With the abundence of pay-per-view and premium channels that Directv offers coupled with the power of Tivo, there really is no reason to make trips to the video store anymore. Sure there are some software glitches I'd like Tivo to fix and features I'd like them to add, but overall, this product elevates your viewing experience to some amazing heights. You won't regret your purchase.
Rating:
Summary: Just Get It
Review: My advise is to stop reading up on this unit and just buy it.
Rating: 
Summary: Tivo is obtrusive and a waste
Review: Tivo is a pain in the a**. If you want someone picking shows for you, get it. Personally, I don't like shows like MacGyver or In the Heat of the Night, programs that it has been recording at random. I finally turned that feature off. My guess is that its reporting back what our viewing habits are by random sampling.
The lifetime service agreement is pretty pricey when you consider that it only applies to the life of the receiver. Do you plan on getting HDTV in the future? [...]DirecTv HDTV tuner.
Its a shame they don't make an integrated PVR that doesn't require a service agreement that bleeds you like Tivo or Microsoft does. Some people really enjoy the features on Tivo. [...]
And what happens when Tivo goes out of business like RePlay did?
Rating:
Summary: Lost Features
Review: This product does not let you watch or record local channels that are on an antenna. You can only use it for Directv programs. I am going back to my previous unit and returning this newer model.
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Summary: Wow, what a great product!
Review: Tivo is amazing! If you're reading this, you must be considering buying one. So do it! You absolutely will not regret this purchase.
My wife and I just had our first child in June, and since then trying to watch 30 minutes of uninterupted TV during prime time has been nearly impossible. With the Tivo, if our son needs a diaper change or a bottle, we can just push "pause" and go do whatever he needs, and not miss a second of our favorite shows.
We've scheduled "season passes" for our favorite shows, so we no longer have to rearrange our schedule around when our shows are on. We don't watch very much TV, but when we have a few minutes to relax we'd rather watch a favorite show than just surf the channels. The quality of what we're watching has gone up considerably with Tivo. Of course we can also skip all the commercials, which makes watching TV even more efficient!
Tivo's suggestions have been right on target. Just push the Thumbs Up or Down on any show you're watching, and it will automatically record shows you might like in the space that isn't used by your scheduled shows.
One more note... We chose the Philips over the Sony because the Philips remote is much more intuitive and can be easily operated without looking at it. The internals of the Philips and Sony machines are identical (both made by Philips?) but the Philips is cheaper and has a better remote. The Philips remote can control the power and volume of other brands of TV's and stereo receivers, so you don't have to worry about brand compatability.
Get one of these! Take control of your TV!
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Summary: Re August 9 review
Review: Just a quick comment regarding the August 9 review -- the reason you can't change the recording quality with this unit is that it records the DirecTV digital video directly off the satellite -- it doesn't go through a MPEG II digitizer like other TiVo models. So the picture is always just as good as it is when watching live.
Rating:
Summary: The Truth about TiVo
Review: This is an amazing product. I bought this because it came with a $100 mail-in rebate which made this very appealing to me. There are a few errors made by other reviewers that I think should be corrected. The first being that there is a "go back" button, called "jump" on the remote. Also, at the end of Summer 2001, this model is going to have the capability of digitally recording 2 channels at the same time. This feature is already on Ultimate TV, and will soon be on this TiVo as well. Once that happens, TiVo will be 10 times better than Ultimate TV. Make sure you buy this TiVo now and take advantage of the $100 mail-in rebate, and then you can be a happy TiVo owner like myself. One-Click this product now, and laugh at Ultimate TV. You don't know how helpful TiVo is until you buy one yourself.
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Summary: Quicks & issues, but still Tivo!
Review: This is my first Tivo unit, but I did a lot of research before buying it. Right off the bat I'll point out the one thing that NO-ONE else has said about this unit: Unlike other Phillips units, the DSR6000 DOES NOT ALLOW you to change the recording quality setting. Why on earth they REMOVED this feature is beyond me. On other units you have the choice of trading off recording quality for time. DSR6000 unit owners do not have this option - it's just software, should be cake to fix.The other problems (slower surfing, no advance spports listing, etc.) have been outlined by others. Also, unlike the RCA DirectTV receiver that this replaced, there is no "go back" botton to allow you to instantly go back and forth between 2 stations. Lastly, my unit had a defective S-Video output, but this stuff happens. I am awaiting the replacement. Having said all of the above, the fact remains that it is still Tivo and DirectTV combined. IMHO, a MUST for any sports fan! The unit is pretty easy to use, and a ton of fun! Hopefully they are reading thiese things and will address the shortcomings in future software upgrades.
Rating:
Summary: This thing rocks!
Review: Before I bought this I read people's reviews and thought, "yeah, right, like it's really that good." Well, surprise...it really IS that good and then some. TiVo changes the whole TV paradigm. No more sitting down and thinking, "gee, I hope something's on" and channel surfing for an hour and walking away depressed. Now we sit down with TV and there's a ton of programs recorded and waiting to watch, more than we can possibly get to. We keep finding more and more things that we like about TiVo, more ways to search for programming that we like, and the TiVo suggestions are getting more accurate, even though we have eclectic tastes. The picture and sound quality are much better than our previous DTV receiver (Sony). Overall, TiVo tames the TV beast, especially the TV beast that having 200 satellite channels can be. Only drawback; I'm watch way more TV than I used to!
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