Lugosi 2008-12-24
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
I had a generic DVR from my caable company for several years before I decided to make the leap to TiVo, and I'm glad I did. I am seriously in love with this machine. I'm even considering marriage, though I think such a union would only be legal in Massachusetts.
Let me begin by saying that a DVR (regardless of the brand) will change the way you watch TV. And if you have one with a dual tuner, it means you never have to choose between two favorite competing shows. As a result, I pretty much stopped watching "live" TV years ago. With a DVR you can just record everything, save it for later, and then scan through the commercials.
And the beautiful thing about the remote with this unit (not sure if this is true all TiVo remotes) is that you can scan through the ads at three different speeds. When you hit play, it automatically backs up the recording several seconds, This is great if you overshoot the end of the commercials. It can be annoying if you're trying to pinpoint a very specific scene you just saw, but there's a great slo-mo button for that. The pause button also provides a very stable freeze frame image. A separate button automatically backtracks the action eight seconds. And if you're watching TV in the dark, the backlit remote with this particular TiVo is great.
My previous DVR from the cable company limited me to about 25 hours of HD recordings. If you follow several weekly series, and then add a couple of HBO HD movies, that 25 hours can fill up surprisingly quick. Keeping ample available recording space sometimes became a challenge.
TiVo's HD XL, on the other hand, gives you over 150 hours (according to the unit's diagnostics screen, it's 157 hours) of HD storage. Looking at it another way, that's the equivalent of over six seasons of "24". And if that's STILL not enough, you can purchase a separate expansion unit that will add another 75 hours of storage.
There is a Season Pass Manager that enables you to record either every single episode of a show on a particular channel, or just the first run episodes. And if the time slot changes, the TiVo (like any DVR) will make the schedule changes for you. A separate screen allows you to record specific weekly timeslots. This is great if you want to record, say, the 8 PM Sunday showing of The Simpsons regardless of whether it's a rerun WITHOUT also recording the additional 12 showings of the series during the week.
Another great feature: You can use the Season Pass Manager to add an additional minute or two (or more) to your recordings. This is handy, since some networks let their shows run long. NBC often does this with Heroes, and you would otherwise end up losing the last scene.
The unit has two tuners, so you're limited to recording (or recording and watching) two channels at a time. Again, the Season Pass Manager allows you to "prioritize" your recordings in case conflicts between three or more potential shows arise. You can, however, record two shows while watching a third that has already been recorded.
If you have a Netflix account, TiVo allows you to access it through the Videos On Demand screen. Of the 60 or so movies in my Netflix queue, about 10 or so were available for streaming at no additional charge. You can also rent (or even purchase) downloads from Amazon (you have to watch the rentals within 30 days). Both these features require an actual broadband connection. You can either use an ethernet cable or the separately available wireless USB connector. While setting it up is a cinch, its effectiveness will also depend on the location and range of your router.
TiVo--like most electronic equipment--generates a lot of heat. There is a fan on the back of the unit, but you still have to be careful about putting the machine into tight, enclosed entertainment centers. Again, there is a diagnostics screen that tells you the internal temperature and whether it's "normal." There is no actual power button; however, you can use the remote to put the unit in "standby" mode. This reduces the heat buildup somewhat if you're not actually using the TiVo.
I enjoyed the HD XL so much, I ended up also buying a TCD652160 for the bedroom. Though that model only holds 20 hours of HD recordings, you can network the two machines through your broadband router and transfer most recordings back & forth between the two machines. Though I haven't run into a problem with regular broadcast network shows, the Amazon recordings will be locked down to the specific machine that first recorded them. I've also run into this with some shows on the History Channel.
if you want, you can also place two machines near one another and share the same TV. There is a switch on the remote that can actually distinguish between TiVo 1 and TiVo 2.
Finally, the cablecard set up can be a major pain in the neck. Though a single multi-stream card can handle both tuners, my local cable office only had the single stream cards available. That meant TWO cards for each machine. The installer went through his entire stack of 20 cards before he found four that worked properly. The big hangup was with the premium channels for some reason. It literally took him almost three hours of trying, with several calls to his tech support office.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to call Massachusetts about a marriage license....
