TiVo TCD649080 Series2 80-Hour Dual-Tuner Digital Video Recorder

TiVo TCD649080 Series2 80-Hour Dual-Tuner Digital Video Recorder | Tivo rocks!

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TiVo TCD649080 Ser...

	TiVo TCD649080 Series2 80-Hour Dual-Tuner Digital Video Recorder TiVo TiVo average customer review:based on 109 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An explanation of just what TiVo is for you newcomers

Watch Video Here: http://www.amazon.com/review/R2XT4JQXNVM8PW In this video, I explain just what a TiVo is, how it works, and why it is TOTALLY AWESOME.

Tivo rocks!

This is our first DVR and we are already devotees. I had a bit of a problem with the connections, largely because it had to fit into a small space in our entertainment center along with our VCR/DVD player, since we still have many tapes we need to watch and want to be able to play DVDs. The poster did not mention how to connect the VCR, so I disconnected some things that should have remained connected, and then had trouble with the coaxial cables. It took about an hour, but our furniture setup was largely to blame. There should be something on the poster to warn folks with VCRs or DVD players to go right to the appendix of the printed manual and skip the poster.

Once it was hooked up, though, it was a breeze to register and set up. We are still on a learning curve, but we were blown away when on the third day we had friends over and were recording two shows at once while at the same time showing a slide show of our vacation photos from off our two computers. Zapping through the ads is so great now, and when you push the play button, it backs up just the right amount to account for the overshoot. No more tracking problems with the tapes. As another reviewer said, this is the way TV was supposed to be.

Edit 12/15/07 *****
After 6 months we still love our TiVo. Sometimes the initial love affair with a new widget dies after a little usage, but not here. We have had no problems with it whatsoever. (I don't like the little advertising icons in the Now Playing list, but just don't click on them and they'll leave you alone.) We continue to find new ways to use the TiVo. For example, I just joined MovieLens, a site that makes movie recommendations for you based on your ratings of movies in their database and they produced a Wish List for me, mostly of movies that came out several years ago. I entered that wish List into TiVo and when any of those movies appear on TV it will record them. I just did this a few days ago and so far none of those movies have come on. The picture is crystal clear, the network connection has been perfect, and I transferred a TV show that I had recorded to my PC so that I could discuss some of the finer points via e-mail with a friend who is a fan of the same show. It was great to be able to zip right to a particular scene to compare notes. This is cool technology.

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Love it!!!

I absolutely love this product! The Wishlist feature is probably my favorite feature, because we are gone a lot and this way we don't have to worry about missing a program.

Good Luck on Dual Tuner and DVD

The TIVO functionality works as advertised and as long as you pay attention to the instructions set-up will go smoothly. Be sure to buy yourself a nice long Ethernet cable if you are planning to hook it up to your router. (Unless you are one of those people who have the router right next to the tv - then buy a short one).

Three points that ding the rating on this Series 2:
1. The Dual Tuner is joke, you need to jump through a whole series of button clicks to get it to work. Not intuitive at all - you will find yourself reading the manual a number of times in the hopes of getting it right.
2. You can't hook your DVD player up to the TIVO! This means that if you only have one set of input jacks on your TV, that you will need to either buy and S-Cable for your DVD or continuously switch the DVD & TIVO back and forth. What is upsetting, is that the TIVO has input jacks, but doesn't allow the signal from the DVD to get routed through.
3. Finally we did get some hiccups in the volume when we first set it up, but these have magically disappeared.

To summarize, base TIVO functionality is really good, but there are some fine points that need to be worked on to make this a 5-Star product.

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Take the good with the bad...

1. First, don't even try it with analog cable, digital cable is a must. Even then I wouldn't use Tivo to watch "live" tv, get a splitter and use another input on your tv. Secondly, you'll have to keep the Tivo on best quality recording to get something that resembles the actual broadcast, which brings the actual recording time down to 22 hours. That was a little disappointing, but honestly, if I ever need more than 44 shows to watch at once, I've got bigger problems.

2. To make up for less recording time the PC software has been great for archiving, but you really need a PC dedicated to tivo. Storage is almost 1 gig per 30 min show, and it takes almost that long to transfer (I schedule it to transfer while I'm at work or late at night). After that, DRM is kind of a bummer (because your transferred show is now a .tivo file), but it's alot better than dozens of tapes or dvds with no labels.

3. The online program scheduling is convenient (especially when you forget when the season starts), but it's not something I use everyday.

In the end, it still gives me a better service offering than my cable company could provide. If you can get used to a few harsh realities, this is a decent product.

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