Dane Elec High Speed 32 GB Class 10 Secure Digital Card DA-SD-1032G-C

Card made in Taiwan; well known making electronic stuffs. I got blue body not grey as photo. Great price for the 32GB class 10.

this seems fine, but i was hoping for it to be grey, as stupid as it sounds, so it was easy to differentiate from my other SD cards.

oh well. seems to work fine. have not filled it up yet.

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It electrically works but the plastic surrounding the electrical contacts is extremely thin and brittle with no adhesive reinforcing them. Some of those plastic bits broke off inside my DSLR's slot and I had a hell of a time getting it unjammed.

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Works like a breeze with my somewhat outdated dSLR as well as my somewhat outdated point-n-shoot. No glitches, no errors, no problems and with 32 Gigs at my disposal, I'm swapping batteries before I swap memory cards!

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Since it was in explanation with SLC, although it expected, it is doubtful in whether it is really SLC from speed.

Sequential Read : 36.751 MB/s

Sequential Write : 14.198 MB/s

Random Read 512KB : 33.394 MB/s

Random Write 512KB : 0.656 MB/s

Random Read 4KB (QD=1) : 3.089 MB/s [ 754.2 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=1) : 1.138 MB/s [ 277.9 IOPS]

Random Read 4KB (QD=32) : 3.112 MB/s [ 759.7 IOPS]

Random Write 4KB (QD=32) : 0.833 MB/s [ 203.5 IOPS]

Test : 1000 MB [L: 0.0% (0.0/29.3 GB)] (x5)

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4GB USB Pen Drive Digital Audio Voice Recorder 70 Hours

• Memory capacity: 4GB
• Recording format
• Recording rate: 128bps
• Recording time: about 70 hours

4GB USB Pen Drive Digital Audio Voice Recorder 70 Hours

This recorder works flawlessly. I can attach it to my cell phone and record telephone conversations both ways.

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This little item works exactly as advertised. Clear recording and easy to just transfer to your recordings to a pc

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I love this little thing. light weight, easy to "stash" places, and good sound. I love how there is little hiss and static if no sound is being recorded. It is great for EVP ghost hunting. I love it so much I have more than 1 now.

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The voice recorder has very good quality audio, though if you move it around you will hear static. For the price it's a great product. The only problem I had with it is the cap for the USB is difficult to get off, and required a small, hard object to open. I'm still giving it a 5 out of 5 because of the price and quality.

This works great, I had one that went threw the washer, that will kill the mic, everything on it I was able to retrieve. I use this for long meetings that last for hours and it record everything, I put it on the table in middle and it records I can hear everyone.

Zmodo 8 CH Security DVR Surveillance Camera System With 1TB Hard Drive 4 Sony CCD Video Audio Outdo

The kit arrived and as the manual recommended I un boxed and checked all the components. One of the cameras was dead and took some coaxing to fire up. As I removed the casing on the DVR, I noticed that the 1TB drive inside was being held on to the base by a single screw and it was only partially tightened allowing the drive to flop about and into a portion of the mother board. Thankfully no damage had been done as far as I can tell. The PTZ cam was a much larger unit than I had expected it to be but other than those mentioned the whole kit was a super value for what features and functionality it has. I replaced an 8 channel system with cmos cameras and WOW, what a difference in picture quality ccd cameras make. Crisp clear and full of very sharp color! These cameras wont have any problem identifying any one who steps into view. Overall it's a good solid investment for the cost as there are not many other systems with this level of features, quality, and Sony cameras in this price range.

Samsung EPL3PHPBEGCAN Tablet HDTV Adaptor 30pin

This adapter works by allowing me to plug my Samsung Tablet into my tv using an HDMI cable. The only thing that was not mentioned in the product description is that you have to plug the power source into the adapter in order for it to work. So, you will need a dedicated outlet for the adapter to work.

Works great! I am able to see everything clearly. Really satisfied with this product. Very easy to use and to connect.

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It's good but it's pity that this doesn't work with Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 7.0. I hope this kind of product will have better compatibility to work with similar devices.

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Good product, easy to use and works every time. Would recommend for anyone looking for the flexibility to watch video from your tablet on hdmi devises.

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American Audio Pocket Record SD Digital Recorder

• Portable High Quality Digital Audio Recorder
• Specially Designed For Voice & Audio Recording
• Stereo built-in condenser microphones
• Support high quality 44 KHz WAV and MP3 recording formats
• Stereo audio inputs

I agree completely with the other reviewer Siena. This device works very inconsistently and can not be relied on for any recording. I would have said cannot be relied on for "serious recording" but that should be assumed. This device simply can not be relied on for anything. You don't know when it is going to engage and work and when it is not going to engage. There's supposed to be a way to "pause" recordering but what it does is shut off the device. Because it is digital, this means you have to reboot which takes at least 12 or so seconds and by this time you have missed what you want to resume recordering. This is only one example of what's wrong with the device. It sometimes changes tracks on its own and you lose your place where you were recording. When you do get it to work, the play back volume is extremely low. You could not play it back to a group in a room because anyone more than five feet away wouldn't hear it, even if it you turn it all the way up to a setting on the device of "20." And after doing so, the device defaults to a lower volume setting of "16." You get higher volume with a handheld microcassete recorder. Unlike Siena, I found an 800 number in their instruction booklet labeled "customer support." This is anything but "support." When I said that I was having problems understanding the operation the person who answered kept on repeating to "read the instructions." I said I did, but it still seemingly did not always work. He said they were not there to teach how to operate the thing but only to "troubleshoot problems." He said they didn't have time to help with the operation, "only troubleshoot!" I said I was indeed having such problems but he kept repeating to "read the instructions we only troubleshoot." The instruction booklet is very poor. It is full of typos, is not paginated but in many places refers to other pages by page number and you don't know what the heck they are refering to. This is indeed junk. Do not buy it. It appears that this device is made in America. Figures! No wonder we're losing the trade wars.

UPDATE: I bought an Olympus VN-5200PC recorder. I recommend it. It does all of the things that the Muscians Gear recorder claims to do. And it does them easily and consistently. It has a pause button for both recordering and playback. The instructions are simple and only took me a few hours to understand and operate. The instruction booklet is easy to understand, has charts showing the menu options and explains what they do. There is a website that explains things even more fully. There's an 800 number for customer support, but I haven't had to use it. And all of this for one-third the price of the Muscians Gear recorder. The Olympus is made in China, the Muscians Gear in the U.S. As I said, no wonder we're losing the trade wars.

FURTURE UPDATE: February 27, 2010. I have to give another update. I put the American Audio recorder aside for a while since using my Olympus VN-5200PC. But then I thought, why not try it again. It's worse! The screen now reads on all folders and all files "FULL." I can't even record on it! I went thru all of the intructions to delete, but nothing works. Stay away from this product and anything else made by this company that calls itself, American Audio!

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I bought this once. It was so inconsistent in playback and sometimes

it worked and sometimes it didn't. I tried emailing the manufacturer

who has a fancy website. American Audio. Email kept getting returned.

Then I called them. It was a long distance call since they don't have

an 800 number. When a support guy answered he said he didn't know about

that product and someone who did would call me back. They never did.

Luckily I can return it to the distributor I bought it from.

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May 2013 update:

I just bought a second back up unit and it works just as well as the original. I strongy suspect the negative reviews may have problems caused by slower storage cards or even user error. Keep in mind that this works best with WAV files. If you want to record MP3s, I'd buy something else.

I sold my fancier Tascam unit after getting larger unit. But I am keeping this unit, as it really does a great job with the included mics. I recently recorded a vocalist backed up by a 2000 pipe organ and once again the unit performed admirably.

####

I bought one of these about 5 years ago, and at the time there were not that many to choose from. I did make a recording of a 2,000 pipe organ in a large church. The CD is only sold in the gift shop, but more than 500 copies have sold with no complaints and portions were aired On a nationally syndicated radio show devoted to organ enthusiasts.

One of the benefits of this unit is that it has two built in microphones of fair quality and two additional microphones on long cords that plug in the top of the unit. It is also possible to use all four microphones at one time.

I used the two external mics that come with it for the CD material and the nice analog volume controls to adjust them.

One big CON is the terrible manual. I had a hard time switching from MP3 to WAV formats, even after trying to find out how in the manual. I FINALLY figured out the problem I was having with the WAV vs MP3 setting. The display shows the setting (MP3/WAV) of the sound file being VIEWED on the screen, not how the NEXT file will be recorded! SO, for example, if you make one recording as an MP3 and then set the next one as a WAV, the display will still show "MP3" and not change to WAV until it displays the file recorded as a WAV file. Not the best way of doing it, in my opinion.

Those who have had inconsistent results and corrupted files may have used too slow an SD card. You need at least a class 4 card to maintain the write speed. Again, today you can do better, but it sure got the job done for me. For radio news work, podcasting and even some casual music recording, the easy to adjust manual knobs and the external microphones are a real bonus. I'm debating buying a second one just for the mics!

I think you need to be a bit of an enthusiast to really enjoy this unit. If you simply want to push a button and make a recording as simply as possible then newer models from other companies may be a better bet.

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I still can't figure this machine out because of its inconsistency. I wish I had seen the other reviews. Don't buy it.

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I have read all of the other reviews. I have used mine extensively for over two years. I can't review the pause function during recording because I never pause during recordings. I have recorded symphony orchestras, church choirs and orchestras and get excellent results, on the level of the zoom H2. Mine came with exterior condenser microphones that are excellent, producing good fidelity and clarity. I self record my own music performance. I have never lost a file and the recorder has never jumped to other tracks. My advice to others is to do all of your file management of your SD card in the recorder itself. While I take the SD card out and put it in my computer to upload, and the computer window wants to "fix files", never do that with your SD card. Never delete files from your SD card using your computer. Delete all your files using the recorder.

Yes, other recorders may be better. Nothing in the $50-$100 price range compares to this product, however.

Panasonic RR-US450 Voice Recorder, Thin Style, PC Software 66 Hour Rec

I've always respected Panasonic quality and reliability -but this was a shock.

It was onsale at Fry's for 39 dollars -1 day sale.

I returned it within hours.

The main reason was neither XPSP2 or Vista wouuld recognize it as a device in My Computer.

While it was detected and identified as an IC recorder in XP -one could never access anything saved on it.

Instructions took about 45 minutes of careful scrutiny just to configure settings necessary to record something.

Playback volume was weak; "buttons" difficult to identify and press.

I expected this device to produce an "open with" or "autoplay" dialog just as one would expect for a camera.

No such dialog ever appeared.

Vista never knew what it was. XP could not see it as a drive.

Their 1-800 support number was inaccessible from California. Their 1-905 number for Canada, was -but noone was available at 2:30pm on a Friday afternoon.

There is no support for this device at their site other than the Editing software updates -which are useless without the ability to detect the unit properly.

No help in the manual for transferring files -just a warning not to disconnect the cable when transfer is taking place.

Kind of cheaply constructed the controls are a bit weird and everytime I pick it up I wonder, "Is it broke yet?" I've been able to record conversations accurately and painlessly. The software is "crappy" but it does the job if you struggle to learn it. My task was to record the conversation, download their format, convert it to mp3/wav for distribution. I used their software to get to the wav, and Audacity to get to the mp3. Their software is pretty good at removing noise to clean up the recording. I've had it about 3 months now, and I still haven't broken it. I keep it in my back pack wrapped in a bandera. (Makes a better case than the sock I was using and people don't react to the bandera as strongly as they did to the dirty sock.)

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I've had this recorder for 3 years and use it for my job to record meetings, of which I then produce written summaries. It works OK, but I have a new laptop for my job and I want to install the driver software on the new machine. I haven't done that because I no longer have the original driver disc and Panasonic wants me to pay for a replacement (no free download). I don't want to waste the money doing that because the new machine runs Vista and the software doesn't work well on Vista. My recommendation is to get a recorder from a different company with better customer service.

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This is the worst bit of Kit I have ever bought, it records really well and plays back on the device fine, which ever record quality you choose it remembers when you switch it on. (That's if you can call it switch on, as you push the hold button to switch it of, and un hold to switch it on.) so if you select HQ for record quality the next time you switch it on its set to HQ. the controls are very good with a Jog Shuttle type joy control, but the main problem is when you plug it into a PC via USB it is unidentifiable, it requires the drivers from the CD. But even after that you cant access the files, it wont show up as a drive, the software cant see it, windows see's it as a Panasonic device but not a drive, I tried to access it via a dell laptop using Vista I gave it to a friend who tried it on a desktop using XP and this could not access the files, so for now its at the back of the draw till my brother goes Clay Pidgin shootingPanasonic RR-US450 Voice Recorder, Thin Style, PC Software 66 Hour Rec

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Philips BDP5010/F7 Blu-ray Disc Player

• Full HD 1080p
• DivX playback
• Digital audio
• BD Live ready
• CD and DVD

I purchased this BluRay player this morning at a local retail store. The price was reasonable and it had the Phillips name. At first I thought it may have been a Funai with Phillips branding, but after a little net research I have found it is an authentic Phillips manufactured BluRay player.

The player itself is smaller than the cheaper boxes by about 25%, which is nice as it fits snugly on my dresser with my flat screen HDTV. Out of box setup was a piece of cake, startup and BluRay setup was simple. Speaking of startup, it's quite sprightly, taking about 5 seconds to go from power on to BluRay ready mode. In other words, I can hit the power, take a BluRay disc from the case (in this instance it's "Wall-E"), and it's ready to go right in the tray. After that it's 2, maybe 3 seconds and we're off! I was impressed by it's response time right off the bat.

Now, as to the quality. Wow. BluRay really opens up the world of high definition and takes it to a totally different level. Before this player I had a DVD upconverter, and it looked fairly good on my HDTV. It of course plays at 1080p, but is perfect for any HDTV whether it be 720 or 1080. So back to the movie I used as an example: "Wall-E" on BluRay and in this player, was enough to take my breath away. Gorgeous colors, clear, crisp image and sharp, precision audio. To say I was impressed is an understatement.Everything just flowed together beautifully.

I removed Wall-E from the player and grabbed my "Finding Nemo" DVD. I wanted to see what it could do for regular DVDs. I put the disc in the drive and waited a few moments, and when the menu popped up, I was surprised. The quality was excellent. Obviously not BluRay quality, but far superior to my old DVD upconverter. Richer colors, great looking picture.

So, to sum it up:

* Smaller design than cheaper models

* Easy Setup

* Quick Startup and Load times

* Incredible picture quality

* Plays DVDs with far superior quality to DVD Upconverter

I give it 5 out of 5 stars, with a wholehearted recommendation.

This Phillips BluRay player gives you the most bang for your buck.

~J.W.

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Very nice and affordable blu ray player. Easy to setup from the quick start documentation. More complete details regarding features, remote control, internet connections, Secure Digital (SD) port, and firmware updates are detailed in an English instruction manual. Separate quick start and instruction manuals are included for French and Spanish. Also in the box are batteries for the remote control and a warranty registration card.

Note:

The best way to connect to your flat screen hdtv is with a high quality, high bandwidth hdmi cable, rated for 1.3 and category 2. Don't be conned by the $100 to $200 cables for sale at the electronics stores. The hdmi cables Amazon offers for under $10 from makers like Mediabridge and others exhibit wonderful quality and performance, and are identically rated to the more expensive store cables.

Overall impression:

Excellent. Performance is all you would expect from any blu ray player. Beautiful picture with magnificent color saturation and detail. Audio, channeled through the speakers of the hdtv and my seperate amplifier is as good as it gets. Standard DVDs are upconverted, and while audio and video can't approach blu ray quality, it's better than your old DVD player. Remember that the GIGO (garbage in, garbage out) rule applies -if your disk content is junk to begin with or is damaged from bad handling and/or storage, no player can make the output wonderful. Basic setup is quite efficient and easy from the Quick setup card. It took 10 minutes to set up, connect and begin testing this player with Blu ray and standard DVDs. The remote control arrangement of buttons for features is decent, and most will find it at least marginally better than remotes from prior generations of players.

Features:

The unit is low profile and pleasing to the eye. The front of the player has basic manual controls for on/off, stop/playback/fast forward/reverse, and disk access. A small window exhibits the current procedure the player is performing. The SD/MMC slot is easily accessible from the front of the player, so audio/video content from still and video cameras can be quickly viewed. If your video camera doesn't support SD, you can also edit sound and video on a computer that does support SD and transfer the output to SD. This extra burden is inconvenient to some, but remember, this is primarily a blu ray player.

The rear of the unit houses both cutting edge and legacy connectors. Input to the player from the internet permits updating firmware for future compatibility and blu ray live downloads if that interests you. Outputs include HDMI to your flat screen HDTV, fiber optic coaxial audio output to your digital amplifier if you have one, and the usual legacy RCA connectors for composite tv and audio, and analog audio output if you have an analog amplifier. This is nice if economics doesn't permit upgrading all your components to digital at the same time. You can gradually upgrade as individual circumstance permits.

It's amazing to see so much value in this Phillips player. Its size, features and options rival and outperform machines in the $500 to $1000 range from previous generations of Blu Ray players. After a week of enthusiastic use, it is a rock solid performer and no DVD, neither Blu Ray nor standard, exhibits any problems.

Highly recommended!

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This Blu-ray player picture is great colors are vivid and you can really tell the difference between Blu-ray and regular DVD's. This player upconvert other DVD's to almost blu-ray quality. The one draw back is that the start up time is slow it takes about 3 or 4 mins of loading before the menu screen is shown. Other than that the price is great, this is my first blu-ray so I'm not sure if this is normal for a blu-ray player.

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Unlike some other Blue-Ray players on the market this one seems to work well. I didn't have any problems playing any discs I tried, including recordable discs. Please note, however, the machine isn't region free, so it won't play foreign discs. As a bonus, it does play DivX files, but it does not play H264 files. Neither file type is a big deal to me, but some people might be curious about this.

I've had this Blu-Ray player for a few months now, and have had no problems. Picture is great, menus are logical, start-up is reasonable.

My only complaint is that the power button lights up when the power is OFF. Who thought that was a good idea....?

Monsoon Multimedia 010410VL - Vulkano Lava (4GB SD Card) - The Complete TV Companion!

• Watch & control your TV from anywhere in the world on any mobile device; stream TV wirelessly around your home
• Schedule TV recordings from your mobile device from anywhere in the world to Vulkano's internal 4GB memory card
• Transfer favorite TV recordings from Vulkano to your mobile from anywhere in the world over Wi-Fi or 3G
• Watch YouTube videos on your big screen TV
• Access photos, home videos, music PCs, smartphones or NAS storage and play them on your big screen TV using UPnP

I received my Vulkano Lava w/4GB memory card yesterday, and have spent the last 24 hours fiddling and fighting with all of the settings. It has not been an easy experience. I would say that this is a good example of a decent hardware product but a clunky app to configure it, as well as buggy software that drives the guts of the streamer. When you first plug in the device, it downloads the latest firmware for the box (letting me know I had a viable internet connection), after which it walks you through the initial configuration of the settings. The problem with this is that many of the descriptions make the assumption that you know what they mean. For instance, can anyone tell me what a "digital non-build" means? I still don't know. Do I have Comcast/Palo Alto or Comcast/Cupertino? You end up guessing, or saying "I don't care" in your first pass through it. Once you start playing with things, then you finally come to understand what most of the terms you previously did not understand mean. I would say it took me 2-4 passes through the setup menu before I got most of the settings correct. I understand that the Monsoon help desk probably could have whisked me through the setup much faster, but then I wouldn't know what any of this means, would I? Yes, I'm stubborn that way.

If you have it, opt for the Wi-Fi interface and save yourself hours, if not days, of head-bashing. Like others on the Monsoon forum pages and here on the comments page, I initially thought I would connect my Lava to my Apple Airport Extreme via an ethernet cable. Should be faster than Wi-Fi, right? Instead, my initial attempts at streaming a signal to my brother several hundred miles away were a disaster. A very lousy picture at his end, far worse than the worst YouTube video there is. After a couple of hours of getting nowhere, I removed the ethernet connection and selected Wi-Fi, pointed the Lava to this connection, and immediately my brother was stunned at how much better the picture had become. There are some serious issues with the Lava's wired ethernet interface under some conditions (no need to dwell on the specifics here) that simply do not exist if you use the Wi-Fi connection. If the receiving party sees things like stuttering video, non-synchronized audio and video, a fuzzy image, 3 or 4 frames per second, it is a sure sign that you are experiencing data packet corruption between the Lava and your router. It has little, if anything, to do with problems at the receiving end where there is nothing to do but receive the bits, decompress them, and paste the images on the screen. Packet corruption is instantly fixed when you use Wi-Fi. Do yourself a favor and select the Wi-Fi connection. Leave the internet follies for the smart guys who understand what DHCP and subnet mask mean!

PIcture quality: When you finally get things working, you will see at the receiving PC or Mac that the best possible picture size is 720x480. This is standard "HD DVD" size, not "high-def" like 720p or 1080p. You may pump your uber-clean 1080p signal into the Lava, but that isn't what gets streamed! On top of that, there is compression of the 720x480 video, needed to keep streaming bit rates to an acceptably low figure that does not choke your cable uploads. The quality of the received video depends entirely on the bitrate of the stream. By my math, 2.2Mbps is the equivalent of a 1GB/hour mp4 file, which usually looks pretty good. No doubt the Lava uses .mp4 for its compression. If your stream rate is in the 2 Mbps range, you will probably be viewing a good picture on your computer. Less than that, and you'll start seeing compression artifacts.

Other variables in your viewing experience are the size of your display and whether you view the picture at 1x size or blow it up to fullscreen. While you can blow the Lava image up to full size on your 27" iMac, or your 70" hi-def TV, you will also be exposing any warts in the compressed movie. Personally, I find that when I blow up the image to fullscreen on my 27" iMac AND the bit rate is running at about 2.5Mbps, it's still a very crisp image. But if the bit rate starts to drop, it's another matter. If the bit rate gets into the 1Mbps range, you're probably best off setting the viewer to the 2x or 1x mode. The ultimate in any viewing test is how crisp small text appears. When it starts looking fuzzy, decrease the size of the viewing window. The receiving player shows the incoming stream data rate at the bottom of its window. I noticed that it takes a minute or two after firing up the viewer before the image quality settles in. Don't judge the picture until after this wait. My brother and I timed about a 6 second delay between what I was seeing on my TV and what he saw on his viewer.

Using the Mac viewer, both my brother and I were able to simultaneously view the video that I was streaming from my TV. From this, it's fair to say that you can have simultaneous multiple viewers although I don't know if it's 2 or 10. I fired up my viewer app while my brother was watching his viewer, and he observed no change in his image quality when I logged on. Your mileage may vary. Be mindful that I don't think this is true when you stream to a phone, which I did not try. Streaming to a phone will cost you money for the phone app. The computer viewer app, however, is free.

There seems to be some confusion about the storage card on the Lava. I thought it would be helpful to talk about it. First, it IS removable. It plugs in on the left side of the box (looking at the face). It is NOT internal. It is a standard push-push to insert-eject connector.

Along with my Lava, I ordered a Transcend 32GB SDHC SD card (TS32GSDHC10E) because a couple of other commenters mentioned you could upgrade from the included 4GB card to larger sizes. I believe the important spec for any card is that it be a "Class 10" device, which means "fast." When you first run the Setup routine for the Lava, it will initialize whatever card is plugged into the slot. Out of the box, I was initially wary of pulling the 4GB card and replacing it with this 32GB card, so I left the 4GB card in place. I then ended up formatting the 4GB card as part of the setup procedure.

24 hours later, I figured it was time to remove the 4GB card and initialize the 32GB card. I swapped out the cards, then entered the SETTINGS:ADVANCED SETUP:STORAGE window. The screen said "read-only" but no amount of memory was indicated. At first I thought I had the card's write protect tab on, but it was not. There is nothing else you can do in this window but exit it by clicking OK on the remote. I expected an option to format the card, but there was nothing. I went back and forth several times, and each time when I clicked on OK, I was thrown back to the Advanced Setup window. No signs of "want to initialize this card?" I went into the STORAGE window again, and sat there for a couple of minutes, pondering what to do next. But this time, when I exited the window with an OK button push, I was finally given the option to format the card. I think the key this time was waiting long enough in the STORAGE window for the system to fully read the card's parameters(?), and that in previous attempts I had bailed out of the window before this read operation had finished. But this is just a guess. Others may want to refine my observation.

I then followed the instructions to format the card, and off it went. The 32GB card took a long time to format, maybe 15-20 minutes. An on-screen progress bar indicates how far into the formatting it is, but it seemed to stall at about the 90% mark. Be patient. After the formatting was done, it told me I had 28.0GB available. Yee-haw!

Once you get the settings nailed down, then the operation is pretty smooth. The biggest issue you will probably face, once you get the streaming working right, is selecting your Set Top Box (STB) model. I want to give it 5 stars because once it's working, it works well. But i knock off one star because of the difficulty it requires to get it working in the first place, and another star because of the often-confusing setup menus, dreadful UI, and buggy ethernet drivers. Remember: if you initially are getting a bad picture at the receiving end, it's almost 100% certain that the problem is between the Lava and your router, which has to be corrected. In a system like this, it's all in the streamer, not the receiver!

Buy Monsoon Multimedia 010410VL - Vulkano Lava (4GB SD Card) - The Complete TV Companion! Now

For those who will see this as TL:DR, let me cut to the chase. Don't buy a Monsoon/Hava/Vulkano product. There has been a service outage for more than a month with no press release or admission by management that there is even a problem. Tech support have promised for weeks that the service would be restored "by the end of the week". Each week has come and gone and still no updates and no service. The company has effectively abandoned their customers and left us with bricked devices.

Full review: I Purchased a Lava in February 2012 and connected it to a DirecTV HR20 receiver, via component cable, with the display output over HDMI to my projector. Using either composite or component is required due to HDCP (DRM) restrictions on HDMI output. As a previous reviewer pointed out, this takes your pristine 1080p signal and dumbs it down to standard def. I knew this going in and, as I would mostly be streaming to a 4.6" phone screen, could live with it. I found it to be a decent value compared to Sling or out-of-band solutions like TiVo-to-go and DirecTV Nomad.

Setup was certainly not TiVo smooth but also was not particularly difficult. The interface allows you to step through the configuration and the remote is busy but well laid out. The IR bug did not control the satellite receiver and finally, after finding this to be a common issue on the support forums, I used the front IR transmitter to bounce the signal to the receiver. This involved the decidedly low-tech solution of putting the Lava on top of the STB and taping a piece of paper over both IR ports (so they could bounce the signal to each other). The unit also gets very hot and only uses passive cooling (no fans). Accepted that this wasn't a perfect technology but would be acceptable for light streaming to my phone.

The clients for Android, OSX, and Windows are all similar enough and allow you to access the main features of the device. None of the interfaces mirror the features of the setup screens on the Lava itself although there is a Windows program to do basic setup. My PC client will crash every time I use the return/enter key when searching for a show (have to click the on-screen button). All clients are unnecessarily chatty and seemingly reach out to Monsoon to initialize your device. Live TV streaming is pixelated but viewable over a 4G connection with occasional stuttering. If you're expecting HBO GO or Netflix, move along. This is on-the-fly encoding of live TV and it works but looks like crap, period.

The biggest surprise for me, even after doing my research, was the electronic program guide (EPG). I didn't realize how basic the system is and that it is missing what I consider some core DVR features. If you are coming from a TiVo or any modern STB (cable, fios or sat), you will be disappointed. The EPG is extremely basic, the search feature is inconsistent, there are no "season pass" features (a huge negative for me), and the system relies on Monsoon for all updates. There is no way to use a third-party guide and firmware development looks to be stagnant or simply non-existent. The EPG covers roughly the upcoming 1.5 weeks and, without a recurring episode feature, requires me to remember to schedule every single episode of every show. Forget to schedule a recording? The Lava will not "tivo" it for you, you just miss it and hope for a repeat. Monsoon having problems pushing updates? Then you have no guide and are blind when scheduling a recording. Think that shows on channel 200 at 8pm? Maybe it is, maybe it's not. There have been two outages that I'm aware of since I've owned the Lava during which time the guide went blank (no updates for > 1.5 weeks). The most recent outage is still on-going and has been so for well over a month. Customer support has provided the same canned response (we changed EPG providers, there are problems with the updates, service should be restored in a week) with only an an occasional, partial guide update. My guide is now completely dark but support told me service should be back in a week or so. I should have sent the Lava back when I had the chance and now deeply regret not doing so.

Based on the complete silence from management (last Twitter from Feb 2012 and silence on FB) my guess would be the company has run out of cash and/or couldn't maintain it's contract with the EPG provider. I can't imagine a modern hardware/software company not having QA and testing processes in place to validate a new EPG provider. They're probably swirling the drain and leaving us with hunks of useless plastic on our media shelves.

Read Best Reviews of Monsoon Multimedia 010410VL - Vulkano Lava (4GB SD Card) - The Complete TV Companion! Here

The Vulkano is a great piece of kit for the price. It does all it says it will. You need to be a little bit Tech savy to set it up. The set up is not hard. The previous poster had trouble with his remote to control his set top box. The remote is a learning remote but it does not always learn the first time around. However, with patience, it will learn all your commands and you can save this as a bin file.

The few things that could be improved are the software. There are a few annoying this things that do not have options to switch them off or on. Eg the setup wizard always wastes time looking for updates before it starts, there should be an option to set for when it looks for updates.

The remote viewer always looks for your Vulkano as soon as you start the software. If you have more than one vulklano it will try to connect to the last one you were connected to for some time before it gives up. No menus can be accessed during this time. There should be an option to let you start the application first then choose which Vulkano to connect to because you may have one local and one remotely placed for example.

Picture quality and compression could also be improved. It saves an mp4 onto the SD card at a rate of about 1hr to 1GB for near DVD quality. However, the quality only really warrants 1/2 that amount of space.

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This is a day one review, so I may be back for updates. Just consider this to be more initial thoughts than a full review.

First off, let me say that I saw the reviews complaining of a difficult setup.. I don't get it.. everything was extremely straightforward.. I didn't even have to look at the instructions.

Connect your set top box to the Vulkano using the included component cable(and the composite cable for sound), and connect the Vulkano to your tv with either HDMI or component.. whatever your set top box was connected with before the Vulkano. Plug in the IR blaster and aim it at the IR receiver on the front of your Set top box.. if you can't see it, shine a flashlight on it. Finally plug the Vulkano into power, and turn everything on.. the Vulkano then walks you through the software side of the setup , including setting up your network, configuring your router, and choosing your tv provider. After that you are all set.

The one snag I ran into, and it's why I'm starting at 4 stars instead of 5, is that they didn't have my tv provider listed in their database. What this ultimately means is that I can't use their program guide to schedule recordings(i have to manually enter the time and channel to record), and changing channels on the remote applications is a little slower because I have to do so through remote commands. A call to their tech support line was answered promptly and the gentleman I spoke to was helpful in explaining how to skip the guide setup. He told me to send in an email with my provider details so they could add it to the database. When/if that happens, I will update.

UPDATE: I found my tv provider listed under a nearby zipcode, so I was able to get the guide working.. no issues whatsoever. I can now choose recordings from the standard guide grid.

So far I've tried both the Mac and PC viewing applications on my home network, and they work as expected. On Monday I will try the Mac application from my office to see how the off-network viewing is.. this is one thing I could never get my old Slingbox to do at all.. perhaps because of a slow internet connection at home.

I haven't tried it out yet, but it appears you can record content directly to your computer using their software.. this may come in handy because the 4GB SD card included will only record about 4 hours of content at high quality(based on the Vulkanos estimate after scheduling a 1hr recording).

I also have a spare 16GB card that I will throw in later to beef up the on-device storage. I will update if I experience any difficulty in using it.

UPDATE: put the 16Gb card into the Vulkano, and it immediately asked if I wanted to format it. I answered yes, and it formatted in about 10 minutes. Straightforward and no issues.

UPDATE 1: one small annoyance.. and it's only a stroke of bad luck.. the IR signal that my sound bar uses for volume up and volume down is the same signal that the Vulkano uses to schedule a recording and invoke it's menu. Luckily the Vulkano also has it's own volume control so I can use that.. just have to reprogram my universal remote.

UPDATE DAY 3: I got to my office this morning, and fired up the Vulkano player software on my laptop.. it connected to the Vulkano back at home with no problem, with no further configuration necessary, and is streaming nearly flawlessly. I'm now bumping my review to 5 stars, as the Vulkano unit has handled every task with little trouble.

Highly recommended!

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Purchased the Vulkano Lava about 1 month ago. Very easy to use and great customer support. Set-up was easy,unfortunately I received my Vulkano when they did not have an EPG server, so I had to call customer support to help with configuring unit to bypass this. Technician answered phone quickly and walked me through the setup within 5 minutes. Also had to call back to configure the device to work with my firewall, again quick response and easy to setup. EPG server is now working and it is as easy to work as your cable or sat DVR. Inserted a 16gb sd card vs 4 gb card they supplied and no issue. Probably will go purchase a 32 gb next. If you have dvr with your cable or sat provider, easy to access and stream that as well. Benefit of using Vulkano is that you can transfer the file to your computer, ipad to watch offline (no wifi or 3g).

Player works well from windows pc computer, apple laptop and apple ipad. Have used in 3g and wifi service. Sometimes have drops when using over 3g service, but not sure if this is vulkano or 3g issue. Have fewer issues with drops when using vulkano around house with PC or Ipad. My children access the vulkano from their college dorms over thousand miles away without issue.

Only issue is sometimes we all want to access Vulkano at the same time and only 1 of us can watch, football season.

Sony ICD-UX71RED Digital Voice Recorder with 1GB Flash Memory

Have had this recorder for about 9 months. It has been excellent for everything we need primarily for recording meetings. Battery life is long, sound quality and gain are excellent, and the built-in USB connection makes it a breeze to transfer files to a computer or put on CD. I have used it it to easily dump the files to both a PC and a Mac (via iTunes) and it couldn't be easier. Very pleased.

I bought this for recording lectures and it works well. I've tested it from various areas in large lecture halls and it works best from the first few rows. It does pick up a lot of side noise like people coughing etc which can be annoying, but finding the right settings makes a big difference.

The small buttons are fine for me, but I can see how large fingers might have a problem with them. It has great battery life and plenty of storage capacity.

Aesthetically it is very nice and I love the color!

The usb makes it extremely easy to use and it works well with my mac without needing software or cables. That was the biggest selling point for me.

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I searched everywhere for a mac compatible voice recorder. Even called the Apple Store. All I could find that was reasonably priced was this one. And it's worked out really well. I can record, download to my Mac and then put it on my ipod. I can listen through stereo speakers in it's dock. I can listen in my car with an adapter for the ipod that fits into the cassette deck. I haven't tried to burn a cd yet.

I bought it mostly to use during chorale rehearsals. I sing in a local community chorale. I record the rehearsals and now can use what we sang to practice. The sound quality in the recorder really good.

My learning curve was a little high and I had to take the time to read the manual carefully. I became really frustrated for awhile because it was almost impossible to read the display window. Then a friend showed me how to take the plastic cover off the face of the display window. I can't believe I was so dense! Then I could see the display well enough to make it work.

This recorder does just what I need and would be good for anyone to record interviews, class lectures, or learn music. The quality of the sound on just the recorder is great and it translates well onto other media.

It's fairly easy to use once you learn how (read the manual). I went from a cassette recorder to this, so it was a big technological jump. It's a little small and the display window could be bigger. I'd love it to be about the size of an ipod. But I can read it well enough and again I can transfer everything onto my mac. That's the real bonus!

Read Best Reviews of Sony ICD-UX71RED Digital Voice Recorder with 1GB Flash Memory Here

Very useful recorder. Perfect size and weight. Excellent audio and recording quality. My wife use it to record her college classes and works perfect. Very nice product.

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I bought it to record vocal/instrumental concerts (both rehearsals and performances). The results were better than I expected for the price. It was equally good in a home setting as in a large concert space. The only criticism I have is that it's not entirely clear at first (even if you read the manual) how to record things in different folders; I almost overwrote one of my recordings accidentally by not switching folders properly. The rest of the process is very straightforward. The recording is clear and not wavy or garbled. It records what you don't want just as clearly as what you want, even with the correct settings, so for more offical recordings you may want to use editing software. Overall, I recommend this product.

Western Digital 2 TB AV-GP SATA 3 Gb/s Intellipower 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive- WD20EVDS

When I ordered a WD10EVDS drive to upgrade my Tivo HD, I was aware of the hanging soft reboot issue with drives manufactured after October 2009. The drive I received was manufactured in December 2009. Before putting the drive into service, I disabled the Intellipark feature that is reportedly causing the issue. I used the wdidle3.exe program from Western Digital to disable it based on info posted at as a guideline. I deviated from the instructions posted on the forum by putting the wdidle3.exe program on a bootable USB drive rather than a bootable CD. Also, the instructions stated that running "wdidle3 /D" would disable Intellipark. This did NOT work on my WD10EVDS drive. However, I experimented and found that running "wdidle3 /S0" did successfully disable the Intellipark feature. I had no issues executing the actual drive upgrade instructions shown on the same forum page. I used a USB/SATA adapter to connect the Tivo drives while running the WinMFS program. I verified that the Tivo does not hang during soft reboots.

I recommend this drive for Tivo HD upgrade only if you are computer savvy. I suspect that most folks willing to tackle a Tivo drive upgrade also have enough computer experience to disable Intellipark. The hardest part of disabling the Intellipark feature was creating bootable media to run wdidle3.exe. The instructions posted on the forum implied (or at least I inferred) that simply burning the ISO image to a CD would create a bootable disk. This was not my experience. None of the system files required for bootable media were present on the ISO. At that point I elected to put wdidle3.exe on a DOS bootable USB drive that I created.

I am VERY satisfied with this drive. It is extremely quiet and has performed well to date. I plan to purchase another WD10EVDS to upgrade a second Tivo HD unit.

After two years, my 500Gb WD DVR Extender started to give up the ghost the TiVO would randomly reboot about twice a day while watching television. So I decided to go down the path of internal drive replacement. There are other options to purchase a drive with the TiVO system installed, but they have their own bear traps.

This is exactly the drive to buy for a TiVO HD or Series 3. 1Tb is the simple size limit. There are incredibly detailed instructions on how to do the swap at TiVO Community. Critical pieces, you need Torx #10 and #15 drivers to open the case and remove the hard drive from the bracket.

There's one small nuance with this drive, it is a Green drive so it has a firmware setting that makes it slow down or idle when it is not in use. If this setting is not disabled, any time you restart the TiVO from the Settings Menu, it will not start properly. Simply unplugging the TiVO and plugging it back in will work just fine. It causes absolutely no other issues if you can live with restart by unplugging, don't bother with the firmware setting.

The hard part of fixing the firmware is finding a computer with SATA that can boot from a DOS CD. Once you download wdidle with the bootable CD image, burn the CD, connect the drive to a spare SATA port, boot the computer from that CD, and type in the correct run string; the fix is incredibly simple. I think it took about 30 seconds to fix the idle setting.

Using the copy tools listed at TiVO Community couldn't be easier. It's scary when the instructions are accurate to the letter. The place where the software is posted is kind of ancient and requires registration. It took about an hour or two before I finally got the registration activation email. It's a good idea to download all this before you open up your TiVO.

If you've ever upgraded a graphics card on a PC, you can very easily do this job. The cheapest path is to use a stray SATA port on your computer and not monkey with SATA to USB adapters. However, if you don't want to open your computer case, the adapters work just fine.

Opening the TiVO is pretty easy. There are a set of #10 Torx screws on the back. The cover pops off easily. You'll be amazed how little stuff is inside a TiVO. I was also surprised my 3 year old TiVO wasn't full of dust bunnies it was amazingly clean. The SATA / power supply secure connector pops right of the hard drive. Four #10 Torx screws hold the drive bracket down. Flip that over and four #15 Torx screws hold the drive to the bracket (there are rubber grommets to quiet the drive somewhat). Reverse all that with the new drive. Plug in the TiVO and it will be back up like new.

Honestly, the most difficult part of this project, trying to decide when to unmarry my extender from my TiVO. You lose all your recorded programs when you do this. There is no way around it. If you want to keep any programs, you have to use TiVO desktop, copy them to your computer, then copy them back when you do the upgrade. There is absolutely no way to save your recorded programs otherwise.

This is an upgrade I should have done long ago. The drive is fantastic, it flat out just works. And I have a bunch more hours of HD recording now.

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I have a TiVo HD with My DVR Expander. "My DVR Expander" broke after 1 yr. Decided to replace the internal 160GB with this. It's awesome!

PRO:

* Taking out My DVR Expander so 1 less power cord to deal with, less clutter in area

* Lower power consumption than the 160GB drive it replaced.

* Technically, according to spec, lower noise than the orig 160GB drive.

* TiVo UI is more responsive (though possibly, it may be bec the 1 TB drive is not full yet so TiVo is not busy doing background work to optimize).

CON

* None (other than the hassle of setting up your PC to do WinMFS).

This is the right type of hard drive for this type of application (DVR).

Read Best Reviews of Western Digital 2 TB AV-GP SATA 3 Gb/s Intellipower 32 MB Cache Bulk/OEM AV Hard Drive- WD20EVDS Here

I specifically orders this HD to replace another 1TB HD (Samsung F1) in my TivoHD.

The noise level is significantly lower with the new drive.

The TiVo is in my bedroom and I can no longer hear the drive spinning. Great product so far.

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I originally bought this hard drive with an intention of installing it into my third generation TiVo, but this undertaking turned out to be futile for reasons that I will not go into here. I decided instead to install it into my living room media PC and thus expand its storage. This turned out to be a bit more tricky than I had anticipated, since I already had an additional internal HD installed and there were no straightforward ways of adding a third drive. With a bit of tinkering, I was able to repurpose one empty CD/DVD ROM bay, make use of an unused SATA connection on the motherboard, and after some hardware hacking (sometimes quite literal it involved the use of power tools), my slim media PC became a storage monster. The HD seems to be very quiet and has not caused any perceptible amount of extra heating. For the past few weeks that I had been using it I have also been extremely satisfied with its performance, and have not come across any issues whatsoever.

Just a couple of words of caution: this hard drive is packaged in a bare-bones package, and comes with no instructions or other information. If you have never installed an internal hard drive, you may want to get some information online about what is the best way of doing it for your compute.

Sper Scientific 850014 Mini Sound Meter, 8" H x 2" W x 11/2" L

• Auto-ranging 30 -130 dB
• 0.1 dB resolution
• Accuracy of ±1.5 dB
• Fast or slow time weightings
• 5 YR Warranty

This meter is packed with features, accurate and easy to use. It comes with a detailed manual and is backed by the company's outstanding support. Must have for anyone pressing a residential noise case.

Creative Zen Vision W 30 GB Widescreen Multimedia Player (Black)

• 30 GB multimedia device holds tens of thousands of photos, up to 120 hours of video, and up to 15,000 songs
• 4.3-inch WQVGA wide aspect, high-resolution TFT LCD screen delivers crisp, clear details
• Built-in Compact Flash memory card slot lets you transfer pictures directly from your camera
• Connect the Vision W to a projector or TV with the included AV cable
• Measures 5.27 x 2.95 x 0.87 inches (WxHxD) and weighs 9.7 ounces

The first thing you'll probably notice about this player is it's gorgeous widescreen. How big is it? Well, technically speaking it's 480 x 272 resolution, 4.3 inches wide diagionally, and capable of displaying about 262,000 colors(same as Zen M). For those of you who now own a Zen M, to illustrate how big the screen is on the Zen W: You can lay an entire Zen M on the Zen W, and the entire area of the Zen M is about the size of the screen of the Zen W. For you Psp owners out there, the Zen W screen is exactly the same resolution and size as the screen on the PSP. Although, the PSP screen is actually more advanced and can display over 16 million colors. Though both of these screens are much better than the screen on the video Ipods(which is only 320 x 240, and only display 65,000 colors). The screen on the Zen W does the job very well, and you can adjust the brightness levels. Even at %50 brightness, it's adequate. Though it outshines the Zen M in screen size, I noticed that it's not quite as sharp and the colors are not as vivid as on the Zen M. Also, I noticed that while playing Divx video, the Zen W doesn't play the video as smoothly as on a computer. The video frame-rate seems to look more jerky and less smooth. Although the pre-installed videos looked fine in Xvid, so this may only apply to Divx videos. Some other great features about the player are it's built in FM radio, voice recorder, custom sound equalizer, built in speaker, and Compact Flash slot. The built-in speaker can get surprisingly loud and is adequate for watching videos... But if you're an Audiophile, it's not good for listening to your music. It's sounds quite tinny and is only a single speaker. One huge improvement over the Zen M is that you no longer need to carry a stupid adapter to charge or upload songs or media. The mini-usb power, and A/V out ports are already built in to this player. Also the magnesium casing seems much sturdier than the Zen M's plastic casing... and probably not as prone to scratches. The thing looks and feels very solidly built. The interface is also simple and easy to figure out and very similar to the Zen M interface.

The only big difference is that the Zen W uses buttons instead of the touch thumb-pad on the Zen M. I think they should have tried to integrate the thumb-pad somehow because it worked so well on the Zen M. In this respect, the Zen W buttons seem like a step backward in progress. However, I do like the fact that they made all the buttons on the right side so you can effectively use the player with only your right hand. (sorry lefties).

The built in Compact Flash slot is also a very cool idea. You can backup your compact flash or microdrive photos onto the player with the slot. The only thing is that you can't use the compact flash as a secondary hard-drive... meaning you can't just slip a compact flash card with video on it and watch it straight from the card. You must import it onto the player first before you can play the media. You can't play mp3s or browse photos straight from the CF card either. All the files must be imported onto the hard-drive of the Zen W first. This seems pretty lame to me because you're not using the slot to it's full potiental. Hopefully there will be firmware upgrades that will let you do this in the future. Another thing about the player that needs to be improved is it's thickness. The second thing you'll notice (after the lovely huge screen) is how thick this thing is. I mean, it's barely pocketable. So it's not quite as portable as the Zen M. How think is it? Well, it's nearly an inche thick... a little less thick than a PSP. If they could cut the thickness in half, it would make this player much more portable.(not to mention sleek and sexy). Here's a quick run-down on Pros and Cons.

Pros:

-Gorgeous 4.3 inche (480x272 resolution) screen that displays up to 262,000 colors. Movies look so much better than on a 320x240 (Ipod)screen. And if you like to watch Anime, you'll have no more problems reading subtitles.

-Built in mini-usb port, power, and Audio/Video out port(for tv output).

-Sturdy magnesium casing and solid feel.

-Lots of extras like FM radio, organizer, calendar, voice recorder -Audio/Video cable included, plays Xvid and Divx files.

-Built in compact flash/microdrive slot for photo backup.

-Removable battery (yes, finally!)

-Optional wireless Remote control available (built in IR reciever)

-ZenCast organizer (allows you to download/organize Podcasts to Zen W)

Cons:

Pretty thick at almost an inche thick. (barely pocketable)

Divx playback (Frame-rate) a bit jerky. Screen not as sharp-looking and colors not as vibrant as Zen M. (I'm nit-picking, you may not even notice the difference...especially if you don't have a Zen M)

No video line-in for video recording. It would be great if they had this built in and you could record from any video source... don't know why they don't.

When viewing files on Compact Flash using CF slot, you must first import/upload files over to the Zen W drive first to view.

In conclusion, this player packs alot of punch for the money. And almost everything it does, it does very well. If you love movies and music like I do, you will definately enjoy this device. It's very impressive and looks and feels sturdy. The biggest flaw/turn-offs to me is it's thickness. A device made for portability should be ... well, more portable. In a world where other mp3 competitors are sizing down their players, creative seems to be sizing their's up. If they could somehow cut the thickness of this player to half while not sacrificing any of it's other features, it would be perfect. Still with it's minor imperfections, this player is still worth every penny and outshines it's competitors. If you value portability over video capability, I'd go for the Zen M. The Zen M still plays video...but on a smaller screen.(And it's cheaper too)

One last thing, the viewing angle on this player is great, unlike the first model zen vision media player that came out a few years ago. And since the screen resolution and dimensions are the same as the PSP, so you can buy a screen protector for the Psp and use it on this baby :) Cool huh?

Update: For those of you interested in a case for the Zen Vision W 30GB version, the Nintendo DS lite is about exactly the same size as the 30GB Zen Vision W so many of the cases for the DS lite work pretty well for 30GB Zen W as well. However the 60GB Zen W is a bit thicker and the cases probably won't work as well for it.

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I just got my Zen Vison W yesterday. Pulled it out of the box and had it up and running within 30 minutes. The entire package is well thought out with an AC adapter, decent earbuds and a well designed software package for importing content into the player.

I took about one hour to import my music to the player and also used the Zencast service to import Rocketboom and other video broadcasts to the player with zero problems. The import process for RSS-driven videocasts (no, I won't use the i*od word, since a certain fruit-based company is using legal tactics to go after anyone who even utters the word now). The Zencast service that Creative sponsors is just great and really is simple to use for both the Zen Vision and Zen touch players I have. I hope Creative extends the service with more functionality and features over time.

I'm still working out how to load videos from my Directv Tivo, but overall, this is an amazing package. The only weak area I see is that the FM radio is a bit insensitive for folks like me who live further out in the boonies. I was able to pick up stations and feel that if I were closer in to the city, I'd do just fine.

Powerup switch is sort of unique with a momentary contact switch that takes a little getting used to. At first, I thought I had a broken switch and then it became clear that this was all designed in. I'm going to be careful when turning the unit on and off, since I never have liked momentary spring-driven switches They just seem to break unless you are very careful. I would expect that Creative used high-quality components for the switch.

Powering off uses the same switch with a momentary hold to signal the system to shutdown. The system powers off and on in a matter of seconds and despite complaints about similar units being slow, I don't see what the big deal is. Where else can you get this kind of performance, quality and sheer information storage? If it takes a second to get things to work, so be it Frankly, I think it is a very good balance that Creative achieved with technology, form, function and limitations. In other words They did great!

I was surprised that the sound w/o earbuds, using the inboard speaker was as good as it was. It can overdrive a bit, but honestly, it is just fine for watching videos in quiet locations and the sound is clean and just loud enough for most needs.

I was very pleased with the video quality. The screen quality is outstanding and the angle of view is *very* good. I have yet to try hooking the output to my Westinghouse LCD, but I'll bet it'll be amazing.

The photo section is great too I was able to transfer all my photographs quickly and the ability to play through the pictures is just great. Very nicely done. I also took one picture and zoomed in on a spot I liked and used that zoom picture for my wallpaper. Yep, they have wallpaper that can change just like on a PC and it really is pretty cool.

Getting data into the system is easy and just involves a USB cable and plugging into a standard Windows XP box. I was up and running in minutes. The battery charge time states 3 hours on the box, but it seemed like I was topped off in far less time, so I'll have to see how it goes over time.

The only weird thing is how to set the time and date. Takes a bit of fudging to work the menus and figure how to do it, but overall, it was pretty easy. The alarm feature was interesting too... I'd guess you really need to set the volume high to make it work and I'd suggest future versions of the Zen incorporate a small buzzer or pleasant chime to make this feature shine more.

Creative hit a home run with this unit and this should be the standard for all portable video. Huge screen, easy to operate menu and high quality. I'm glad I've always stuck with Creative they always give exceptional quality and functionality for a great price. I recommend this player highly and think you'll be glad you bought it if you go for it.

By the way, all my friends and family were blown away when they saw it... ;>) I'm happy with the product and will be using it for a long time to come.

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I'm a semi-professional photographer whose dSLR takes Compact Flash cards, and so I was very excited at the prospects of using the Vision W as a way to offload images from shoots (using the compact flash slot) and to free them back up so that I could continue shooting.

I was hopeful that I would be able to even use the W as a proofing device to hand off to clients directly after the shoot so that they could immediately delete the photos that they didn't like.

I also was looking for a new MP3 player and was very interested in having a video player.

After using all components of the Vision W, I have the following observations.

Good

-Almost everything about this player is good! It's very sleek, reasonably priced, it excels at almost everything it does, and is pure joy to use.

-The screen is gorgeous. It is easily viewable from any angle. Pictures and movies alike look great.

-I love the organizer feature and am syncing the device to outlook daily. This has gone very well.

-The options for video play back work well. If you're not watching something in 16:9 format, you can zoom in to fill the whole screen with a portion of the video, stretch it to fit the full screen, etc. I've used this more than expected.

-The formats of video that are supported are great! It's nice not having to worry what format it is. I appreciate that the software handles converting the video into a format that it can handle.

-The interface is very intuitive. I haven't yet picked up the user guide and have been able to navigate successfully around on it.

Bad

-Photos copied over from Compact Flash cards take a long time to transfer to the device and are very slow to load when cycling through them on the player. Granted, they're coming directly out of an 8.2 MP camera and so they are huge files, but I had hopes that they would load much more quickly. Also the thumbnail icons for these photos look distorted and load slowly, too. Photos copied to the device via the software (rather than directly from the compact flash card) do not have any of these problems.

-The headphone ear buds are too large to fit my ears. They literally fall out immediately because they don't fit. I had to buy a new, smaller set. (Note: I do often find that headphone ear buds run a little big these were even bigger than normal. If you generally don't find this to be the case then it shouldn't be a concern for you).

-Like another reviewer, I wish it had a stand for watching movies so that you don't have to hold it in your hand. It would have been nice to set it down on the tray table during a flight. (Update: I've had wonderful luck with a business card holder like this one that I bought for just a couple bucks at an office supply store I now have two of them one for my desk at work and one for my desk at home! It works perfectly the angle is great! I wouldn't recommend it on an unstable surface, but for most of the time it is perfect).

-When connected to the device from your computer, you can't interact with multiple directories at once. For example, I was copying over a large video file and wanted to recategorize images in a separate folder. I was not able to do so until the video had finished copying.

-I had hoped that there would be a setting to auto-rotate portrait orientation photos so that they would automatically show up sideways (thus making better use of the viewing area on the screen) but haven't found this feature. Instead, I manually rotate each picture.

-Deleting photos is not easy and intuitive enough for me to be able to hand the device off to a client. Overall, it's just not a robust enough photo viewer to reasonably plan to use it as a proofing device as I had hoped.

-There may be a way to do so, but so far I haven't found any easy way to quickly check what time it is on the device. Instead you have to go into the date/time submenu.

A couple other things that would have really put this over the top if they'd been able to successfully pull it off, but that I didn't really expect:

-Two headphone jacks, with one on each side for when two people are watching a movie together. We bought a splitter and that worked OK but a jack on each side would have been much easier and neater.

-AM radio tuner

-Slightly thinner body

-Inputs for other memory cards than Compact Flash.

Despite some minor complaints, I'm extremely happy with the device and strongly recommend it to anyone, especially anyone who uses a camera with a Compact Flash card.

Want Creative Zen Vision W 30 GB Widescreen Multimedia Player (Black) Discount?

My Creative Zen player died on me (through carelessness on my own part) and I decided to get a replacement. I was looking for another mp3 player but spotted this instead. Afer much deliberation I only wanted to spend under $100 on an mp3 player, so I had to take in account the other features that come with this I decided to go for it. And I have not regretted it since.

Like I mentioned in review title, this is strictly non-technical, because I am as layman a user as you can get, so the technical stuff just go over my head. I will simply tell you what I like about this player and why I feel every penny spent is justified. I'm not someone who will read the whole manual, and I'd rather just start using and learn as I use the item. Only when I am stuck or something bad happens do I start looking through, therefore everything I say here is from my own experience with my player. This might be a good review for someone else like me.

My findings:

The screen is very good, the picture is clear and the angle of view is good. My friends and I crowded around it when I first got it, and everyone could see clearly what was shown on the screen. The sound on the built-in speaker isn't that great for songs, but for watching a movie, it works good.

It plays everything I have downloaded so far. When the format or file is unsuitable, the software automatically tells you to convert. All you have to do is follow the steps and the files will be changed to fit into the player. It will even transfer the file when the conversion is finished. Granted, conversion takes a while (I don't know what a standard time to convert a full movie file is though) but usually I leave it to convert and transfer while I sleep and everything's done by the time I wake up. I love how I can just leave it to work while I go away or to sleep.

The files you download, if under a folder, will automatically be transferred under a folder of the same name. I haven't worked out if I can move the files around in the player yet (when hooked to the computer), because I would like to just have all movies under one folder instead of having 20 differently named folders with 1 movie in each. But some people might like this aspect, so it's a personal issue for me.

A small thing that I like is that the album picture of the song you're playing will be displayed when you play the song. This is not the case for all songs, especially if downloaded from unknown sources online. But if you ripped it from your cds, it should display the picture.

I'm still a little confused about how the fast forward and rewind button works. It seems that for some movies it will simply skip to bookmarked points, whereas others it will work as if it's a VCR and you have to stop it. When in such a "VCR mode", picture doesn't run while in fast forward or rewind, so you'll need to get used and I bet you'll be able to estimate well with experience.

There are a few view modes on this player, Fit to Screen, Stretch to Full, Zoom to Full & Original Size. I find myself using Zoom to Full when viewing widescreen movies. The Stretch to Full makes everything look out of proportion, so I'm not touching that.

I tried the built in microphone once to record my friend snoring from about 2 feet away. I couldn't hear it when I play back on the built-in speaker but I can hear the snoring when I use the headphones. Another instance I recorded my friends and I chatting normally while sitting at different positions in a enclosed room, and we could hear just fine from the speakers when we play it back. So it might be ok for normal volume recording but most likely you'll use it for personal voice recording.

I don't know if it's a technical issue, but I'm bummed that you can't use the fm radio without using the headphones. It'd have been nice to be able to set it down and listen to the radio sometimes.

I haven't had the player go flat on me yet it charges up whenever it's plugged through the USB, so I never have to worry about it. I only plug it in with the adaptor when I am in a hurry to charge it up, otherwise I wait till I am transferring files on it. It gives good playback life, although I haven't really timed it. All I know is I bring it with me on the road and after watching 2 or 3 movies, it's still not out. The auto-shutdown feature is great because there will be the occasion when you just forget to turn it off and you'll be glad that it didn't run flat because of that.

I uploaded photographs and although the quality of the pictures isn't perfect (you get that compressed look), it's more than sufficient to be able to view the photographs in detail. You can even rate your pictures so that you can view only pictures from a certain rating that you wish. Of course, the slideshow feature is always a good thing.

Plugging the player into the tv was easy! Once plugged in, your tv screen will reflect what is shown on the player. All you have to do is select your movie/music/photo slideshow and play as per normal! It's that simple!

A lot of people have complained about the size of it, though I admit it is a little bulky, I don't see the point of having a tiny player which will come with a tiny screen and then you won't be able to view much anyway. So for my viewing enjoyment, I'll gladly accept the size :)

Hope this has been helpful to you!

I have the old Zen Xtra MP3 player and I thought that would suffice, but after doing research and reading reviews, I just had to get it! The Creative Zen Vision W, 30 GB.

It was packaged well, and very easy to set up. Amazon does an excellent job of being competitive on price and delivery. (where else would I buy it from :) )

Picture quality excellent for it's size.

Sound quality is excellent

fun to play around with and marvel at it's compactness and function.

Removeable battery

Seamless integration of MP3 files.

Ability to play video, music, and show pictures on a TV because of RCA wire.

Software that comes with it is really easy to use and it works.

Downside: (very little) but maybe because it is new to the market.

I still would recommend purchasing, and I love mine. But real love for something has improvement recommendations right? Where here they are!

No docking station (at least I don't see one yet)

no remote control

no practical way to carry it on your persons, at least I don't see a case. Who wants to carry around a small black bag?

no way of moving to the next song without getting the screen finger marked if in your pocket.

small buttons, not good for fat fingers, but acceptable, just wish it had fast forward, back, pause on the side instead of the front.

I would prefer it another type of media card acceptace, or 3 in one card, beside buying the adapter.

WiFi would be the ultimate

Gets pretty hot in temperature if on and playing.

I am so very pleased with Creative Labs innovation and quality. Please keep it up! I think that this will be better than the ZUNE from Microsoft.

RPS 3.5 Mini to Male PC, 16" Straight Flash Sync Cord #RS-8518 - (Equivalent of Pocket Wizard PC1 C

unless you want to tape the pc end to your flash and camera do not buy. there is not a solid connection that actually stays connected. got them and used on a shoot and was glad i had a back up plan!

I have used this short cord between a Radio slave and my Alienbee about ten times without a single issue. I like using this over the original 20' cord.

Buy RPS 3.5 Mini to Male PC, 16" Straight Flash Sync Cord #RS-8518 - (Equivalent of Pocket Wizard PC1 C Now

Zmodo 4CH H.264 Video DVR Security Surveillance Camera System With 4 Outdoor Night Vision IR Securi

I run a big name product surveillance system at work and comparing the two the picture is about the same. The night vision on this is very good and the little extras just set it off. You do have to pay attention when purchasing this brand because do to the fact some do not have the hard drive "4 not 5 stars", All in all I am happy with this company and will buy from them in the future.

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Swann 8-Channel DVR with Smartphone View (SWDVR-82550H)

Problem is today alot of things are going HD and this DVR is not able to handle those. However I do believe that some new HD cameras can still spit out Standard Def so this product still has some life in it still. I like the D1 capability...easy menu etc... a well made and backed up product... Swann has been doing this for a long time and you want someone with experience and a warranty centre of some kind.

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TiVo TCD649180 Series2 180 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder

• Record two basic cable channels, or one basic and one digital cable channel, at once
• Digitally record up to 180 hours of programming
• Ethernet ports offer ability to stream digital music and photos from a computer to TiVo and transfer programming to PCs
• TiVo service includes Season Pass, WishList, program guide, digital music, digital photos, and online scheduling
• Everything required for installation is supplied; subscription to TiVo service is additional requirement

I've been using this unit for a couple days now, and so far I have to say I'm very pleased.

Before purchasing this, I was using a satellite receiver with a dual TiVo DVR built into it. I loved how simple it was and I was kind of unsure about switching over to cable with a separate TiVo unit, but the ability to connect it to my PC is what ultimately drew me in (more on that later though).

Here is a summary of my review, if you would like more detailed thoughts feel free to read on. I'll try not to bore you too much. If you just want the bottom line, feel free to bypass my wall of text and skip down to the last section, Overall Satisfaction. :)

Packaging :: A+

Activation :: B-

Plan Pricing :: B+

Setup :: A+

TiVo Experience :: A

Customer Service :: A-

PC Connectivity :: A

Overall Satisfaction :: A+

Packaging (aka: Can I split a splitter?) :: A+

So I received the unit and opened it up, and for starters I was pretty impressed at the organization of the packaging. The basic installation poster was very easy to follow, the cables and items necessary for setup were neatly organized into separate bags, clearly labeled and such, it was nice to not have to suffer through any confusing instructions. One thing to note, the packaging contents does not list that it comes with a standard coaxial cable splitter (to use for the dual tuner), but it does. I bought one before I received the TiVo in preparation and didn't need it, don't make the same mistake I did!

Activation (aka: Deja Vu) :: B-

I went online to activate the TiVo service through their website and ran into my first problem. The website would accept my TiVo number (step 1) and ask my personal information (step 2), I'd click "next" and it would go right back to asking for my TiVo number (step 1!). I tried a couple of times to activate it over the internet but it would not work, so I had to call the phone number (talk to a real person, OH NO!). Upon calling, the wait time was a little longer than I would have liked, but once I got to an associate the process was very simple and took very little time. They activated my TiVo and set me up with my pricing plan which brings me to...

Activation (aka: Deja Vu) :: B-

...Just kidding.

Plan Pricing (aka: Where'd my money go?) :: B+

The only gripe I have about the pricing is that it's a little more than what I was paying before. Still, it seems like the standalone TiVo is more robust and so I'll put up the extra money for it. I won't get into the numbers though, because I think that's against the guidelines here.

Setup (aka: The TiVo bone's connected to the cable bone) :: A+

As I stated earlier, the basic setup poster that comes with the TiVo is very easy to follow. Setup for me was easy, but I was also coming from a very similar setup and am somewhat savvy about this sort of thing. My wife, being not so savvy, may have had a harder time, but I'm not convinced it would have been impossible for her. All you really have to do is hook up the TiVo in between your cable signal (basic and/or from the cable box) and your TV (or VCR if you want to be able to tape stuff from your TiVo).

TiVo Experience (aka: What ... he .... say?) :: A (overall)

So, everything's all set, I turn everything on, everything seems to be working! After looking around for a few minutes, I notice two things that are off...

1) The clock is wrong.

2) The sound is cutting in and out.

After checking all connections and determining that the sound issue is most likely something within the TiVo, I call customer service... (Oh No!! Another real person!!) ...we'll get back to my TiVo experience in a moment...

Customer Service (aka: Crappy hold music...) :: A-

I call up customer service and again have to wait a long time to talk to someone. Once they get on the phone though, I get to talk to a very pleasant and helpful person. They quickly determine that the time issue is only related to the daylight saving time change and will fix itself after updating the TiVo (Go to Messages & Settings > Setting > Phone & Network > Connect; note: you may have to, as in my case, do this multiple times as it may need to install multiple updates. When you go back in there, keep an eye on the upper left where it tells you the status of the last connection, it may say "Pending Restart" in which case you will need to restart the TiVo to apply the update. To restart the TiVo go to Messages & Settings > Restart or Reset System > Restart the DVR). They also suggest that the audio problem may just require a restart of the TiVo system to fix. I restarted the system and the audio problem went away completely, so I'm not sure what was going on there. They did make a record of the problem and he was very reassuring that if I ever experienced the problem again they would exchange the TiVo unit right away. With my two problems fixed (updates and restarting took care of them both, keep that in mind if you experience similar problems), I go back to my TiVo Experience...

TiVo Experience Part Deux

So back to my experience with my now fully operational, correct time telling, solid audio pumping TiVo. It takes me a while to go through and change all my settings (favorite channels, TV guide display, make a couple of season passes, etc.). Having come from a satellite receiver with TiVo built in, I feel right at home, although I do notice a few differences.

1) There's no button to go directly into your Now Playing list on my new TiVo remote (there was on my satellite TiVo remote), the quickest way is to press the TiVo button on top twice in a row... not a big deal, but I was so used to that button... I sure will miss it...

2) The channel changing for channels only available through the cable box has a delay to it. And here is a very important point to note. **** If at all possible, do not use the IR connector to change your cable box's channels. **** I received a cable box without a serial port on the back and brought it in to my cable service provider and requested to trade it for one that did. They were happy to do so, and I would suggest you try the same if possible. I've had experience with my father's TiVo using the IR changer and it was awful (He'd miss shows that he scheduled to record because the darn thing wouldn't work. We tried everything to get it to work right but it never did.). The Serial connection is so much more reliable, and changing a channel that is part of your basic cable is instant. But when the TiVo has to go to the cable box, it takes about 1-2 seconds to actually get there. Not too bad, but noticeable to someone coming from a system that instantly changed to any channel.

Another interesting thing to note, at one point I was moving around all the menus, making selections, changing stuff, and realized that I had grabbed my old satellite TiVo remote by mistake. I had been using it for the past 10-20 minutes without ever realizing! And it WORKED without a hitch! So if you don't like the stock remote, I'm sure there's an option out there that may accommodate you.

PC Connectivity (aka: I can finally watch "The Office" in my cubicle at my office!) :: A

So that brings me to the main reason I switched my system over in the first place. Connecting this thing to my PC. I opted for the TiVo branded wireless adapter, as I already have a wireless router in my home. It had no problem seeing my home network, and after putting in my network's password (SECURE YOUR WIRELESS NETWORKS PEOPLE!!!!), it's off and running. I download and install TiVo Desktop (available at their website) onto my PC and suddenly I'm able to see all the recordings that are on my TiVo from my computer, and can also see all my music and photos that are on my PC from the TiVo! I can get Podcasts and the weather and even movie tickets right from my TiVo. I can copy TiVo shows over to my PSP and iPod (that requires you upgrade to TiVo Desktop Plus for a one-time fee of $24.95), it's a beautiful thing! I immediately start to transfer over a recording of Scrubs and... nothing... the wireless connection is interrupted. I never did get it working, I'm not sure if the issue was with my router or the wireless adapter, but I ended up just running an ethernet cable from my TiVo to my router and it works fine now. Some day I might try to get the wireless connection working again, but oh well. Something to keep in mind though if you decide to go wireless, you may want to be sure to invest in a good router and adapter.

Overall Satisfaction (aka: THIS is what TV was meant to be!) :: A+

So this is what it all boils down to. After getting everything setup and running, I have to say I'm extremely pleased with it all. I, personally, am happy with the decision to move over from my satellite receiver with TiVo built in, to a standalone TiVo unit. To summarize the important things:

Positives

++ 180 hours of recording time, very nice

++ Dual-tuners (and I tried my best to mess them up, recording different shows, changing channels while something else was recording, they worked like a charm despite what I did to try to mess them up!)

++ What you can do with your PC is excellent

++ Season Passes, pausing live TV, fast-forwarding through commercials, instant replay... If you don't have these things you're really missing out!

Negatives

-Couldn't the monthly prices be a little lower? (Just a little??)

-TiVo: either cut down the time people wait on hold when they call you, or get better music!

-Wireless connectivity of the TiVo to the PC was problematic

Tips for buyers:

> You don't need a coaxial splitter. It doesn't list that one's included, but it is.

> Make sure to update your TiVo after hooking it up (Messages & Settings > Setting > Phone & Network > Connect), keeping in mind you may need to do this multiple times and may need to restart after certain updates.

> Restarting your TiVo may fix some problems, it seems to have fixed my audio problem.

> Try not to use the IR channel changing method. Use the Serial cable if possible. You may be able to exchange your cable box with your provider for one that has a serial port on the back, well worth the effort.

Buy TiVo TCD649180 Series2 180 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder Now

My Toshiba TiVo had video and audio input ports on the front that I used to plug my video camera into. This allowed me to upload home videos onto the TiVo and record them onto DVD. Unfortunately this TiVo device is having intermittent problems so I purchased the TiVo TCD649180 Series2 180 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder.

The TiVo TCD649180 does not allow any input directly from external devices. I expect this is because TiVo now sells a video editing service called One True Media that requires you to upload your videos to the services web site which is the launching place for editing and sharing (and I assume saving to DVD but am not certain).

I returned the unit because of the inability to put my own videos on the TiVo for recording to DVD. If you use your TiVo for this type of activity you may want to rethink purchasing this device.

Read Best Reviews of TiVo TCD649180 Series2 180 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder Here

As you might already know, the TiVo service is great. I've recently upgraded my TiVo to the wireless g internet "always on" connection. I'm programming tv shows on my TiVo at home to record episodes and season passes from the comfort of my cubicle at work. It's really great. Also I'm buying movie tickets at my local theater through TiVo. Oh, and I'm able to keep up with my TiVo programing by downloading my TiVo programs to my home network using the free TiVo Desktop software. They just upgraded to the long awaited 2.3 version.

TiVo suggestions are always cool. The more I rate ThumbsUp and ThumbsDown the better my TiVo gets at recognizing my personal likes and dislikes. Oh and the Hard drive is just about the right size for a busy work schedule and little time for TV.

Overall I'm very happy with this unit. The setup was a breeze. And this system has one of the most user friendly menus I've come accross. I suppose that is why TiVo has an outrageous customer sastisfaction rating. I heard a statistic somewhere where over 90% of all TiVo owners are won over by this stupid little contraption. Oh yeah, Googlezon. Look it up in google. Its an amazing hypothetical slideshow that was meant to educate hardcore traditional media moguls into viewing the new ways of media delivery. Googlezon.

Want TiVo TCD649180 Series2 180 Hour Dual Tuner Digital Video Recorder Discount?

I have been using the DVR from Comcast Cable for the past 18 months. The service was indescribably bad! It would reset in the middle of a show, "forget" to record, and mysteriously stop responding to the remote. I investigated TiVo for about a month and settled on the Series 2 180 Hour because I didn't need an HDTV version, wanted to record entire seasons of shows and not completely fill up my memory, and a dual tuner so that I could continue to watch TV while recording (otherwise, what's the point, right?).

I received the box, opened it up, and followed the poster instructions. The kits came with all of the cables and I was up and running in 10 minutes, literally! I comsider myself able to follow instructions, but not incredibly tech-y. Once I plugged in the unit, the on-screen instructions were also easy to follow. I had purchased the WiFi receiver to get updates I plugged it in, added the security information, and was ready to roll. Overall, I am very pleased with the setup process.

Even better, I've discovered Amazon's Unbox product. I entered my TiVo serial number, signed ton Amazon, and was able to download movies and rentals to my TiVo directly. I have ordered several moves while I was work and by the time I came home, they were downloaded and ready to watch. I am seriously considering stopping my Netflix membership for a while to give service a try.

This is my first TiVo or DVR of any kind. I really researched before I decided on this one, and I must say I can't complain. Tivo is great and this one has lots of space to hold lots of movies/shows, and it is SUPER easy to use. Here's a recap of what I think so far:

1. Setup yes, it is easy. But not as easy as plug and play. There are lots of cords and steps. I am not a tech geek, but I do know how to follow directions, and I honestly ran into no problems setting up the first time. Comes with easy diagram to follow and everything you need. The only problem I had was adding my DVD player into the setup. I had the cable guy here for another reason and he offered to set it up for me. Well, an hour later and after splicing cords and adding splitters and switches, he had me "set up," but when I went to record a show, the TiVo wouldn't work. So I took the whole thing back apart (yes, every cord), and followed the easy diagram from TiVo and had it back up and running, WITHOUT his splitter and switch, in a few minutes (since I had done it before, it was much easier the second time around!). I even got my DVD player hooked up to the whole thing BY MYSELF... moral of the story: READ DIRECTIONS! If I had just looked it up in the TiVo manual in the first place, I wouldn't have had this problem. I have my TiVo hooked up to the TV via coaxial cable, so the connection between your Tivo and DVD player needs to be via coaxial cable .. that was my mistake. Anyway, don't expect it to take 10 minutes if you are not a big techie... it will take a good half hour or so to get it all set up and running.

2. TiVo vs. Cable Company's DVR I had heard that going through the cable company is cheaper and just as good. So I asked around. WHY Tivo? Well, first of all, the software is better. It's just easier to navigate the Tivo. Also, Tivo doesn't fail when it needs updates like their DVR. Last, your cable company doesn't have Amazon Unbox. That is the coolest thing ever. You can rent OR buy movies via Amazon (super easy checkout... one click) and they download to your Tivo and you can watch them. Amazing invention. You must have a wireless connection to do this, which is ABSOLUTELY worth every penny. Someone got it right when they invented the Tivo wireless adapter ... takes seconds to setup and works beautifully! You can also manage your recordings on your computer this way ... a VERY cool feature.

3. Recording shows Setting up recording is easy... you can either set up a show to record in the future, or while you're watching hit the record button and it will do it right then and there. The Tivo also automatically records "suggestions" for you based on other shows you have recorded, which is really kinda cool. If you don't like it, you just hit delete and it's gone, no harm done. You can search for movies or shows based on a Wish List that you create. All the setup is easy, step-by-step, on-screen ... my 5 year old has even figured it out. There are parental controls available, too. Just make sure when you set up a recording that your cable box is ON!!

4. Remote control I have had no problems with this remote. It's easy to use, fits in your hand easily, and has very logical positioning of buttons. I have to use the IR (infrared) setup for the remote to get signal to my cable box... it doesn't look great for sure, and it partially blocks the clock... but it works just fine. There is a slight delay, but nothing annoying. I know I can call the cable company and ask for a box with the serial port, but I don't want to see a cable guy for a while after the mess they left me with, so I will live with this setup for now!

OVERALL Tivo is great. I would strongly recommend that you get the wireless adapter with this, though ... it takes the Tivo from a 4 star product to a 5 star product. The price is high for Tivo and activation, but so far we use it A LOT and it has been worth it.