- Controls cable TV with record, pause, rewind and fast-forward in HD
- Records two HD channels at once, while watching another recorded show
- 160GB internal hard drive records up to 20 hours of high definition programming (or 180 hours of standard definition)
- Video output modes include: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i
- Sources supported , Digital cable, Analog cable, Digital antenna (ATSC), Analog antenna and broadband content.
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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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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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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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.
Instead of TiVo wirelessTiVo AG0100 Wireless G USB Network Adapter for TiVo Series2 & Series3 DVRsI would recommend using Actiontec MegaPlug 85 Mbps Ethernet Adapter Twin-Pack to get much faster network downloads of Amazon Unbox movies and transfer media files from computer. If you have multiple devices in living room that need to connect to Internet, say TiVo, BlueRay player, Game Console, Roku, TV etc. then you are better off getting a desktop switch like D-Link DGS-2208 8-Port 10/100/1000 Desktop Switch or NETGEAR GS108 ProSafe 8-Port Gigabit Ethernet Desktop Switch.
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!
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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