TiVo TCD648250B Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder
by TiVo
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List Price: Our Price: $139.99 You Save: $360.00 (72%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Category: Receiver or Amplifier See more product details |
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Customers in the UK,
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TiVo TCD648250B Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder
Customer Review: Tivo series 3 delivers as expected
Summary: 5 Stars
Our local cable company rents a Motorola HD-DVR
as its high-end box. This is hands-down one of the most
poorly usable products that I'm ever had in my house.
Its amazing that millions of cable customers all over
the world are not revolting against this engineering disaster.
And its not only the slow and confusing remote that
frustrated me, but also poor quality hardware. Being
an R&D engineer myself, I do appreciate a good design,
and the Motorola not. For example, it gets very hot,
even in the 'off' position. It burns no less that 30
Watts day and night, frying the collection of antique
VHS tapes in my multimedia cabinet.
So, does the Tivo series 3 fix these issues, and is it
worth the steep $1000+ dollar premium for the box + service?
I think it is.
It offers the familiar excellent usability of the Tivo
DVR, while adding HD and a large 250G harddrive.
The box is sleek, well-designed and literally, as
well as figuratively 'cool'. The HD playback is
smooth, and simply works as you'd expect.
The menus respond slightly faster to commands than the
series 2 Tivo that I have. The menu is much clearer
in HD, thanks to the fact that the unnecessary conversion
to an analog signal has been eliminated. Picture quality
is probably as good as it gets given the inputs.
Otherwise, this series 3 works just like the series 2
minus a few web features due to cable card copyright issues.
Since I wasn't using that anyway, I do not care.
The set-up was easy: I plugged in a network cable and
the HDMI cable, and it worked basically out-of-the-box. I
had to call Comcast for the cable cards and pick up
their sorry Motorola box.
Comcast had some trouble dealing with the dual cable
cards. The installer had never seen a Tivo before, but despite
that, the cards worked fine. The main issue was
that they did not know how to charge for the service.
This was only resolved after long consultations with
supervisors (the first cable card is free, and the second
is $1.50 per month).
In summary, this is a good HD version of the conventional
2-tuner Tivo series 2. The Series 3 offers no surprises:
its well engineered and simply works well. It enabled me
to get rid of that crappy hot Motorola HD-DVR box. If you
can live with only cable service and a $1000 hole in
your pocket, this is is probably the best you can get at
this time.
Customer Review: Best HDTV Option - throw away your cable DVR with a smile
Summary: 5 Stars
I've had the new HDTV Tivo for a week. As with other reviewers I previously had a Comcast provided Motorola/Microsoft DVR (Microsoft did the software/guide in the Seattle area at least). The Comcast unit was slow to respond, awkward to use and frequently missed recording programs partially if not completely. It is a terrible device and I went through several. I switched from my old Tivo Series 2 to the Comcast HD recorder only to get HD recording.
So far the Tivo Series 3 is an HD capable and otherwise improved machine to the series 2. For some reason, you need cable cards even if you don't subscribe to non-basic content. Although local HD channels are not encrypted, the HD content schedule won't work without the cards. Not too big of an issue since the cards are free at least with Comcast. The device has a few notable improvements from the Series 2.
Improvements:
Silent Operation. The series 2 was easily audible in a quiet room. Not so now.
Enhanced Remote. It's now backlit and has controls for your TV's input, power up and aspect control as well as your audio receivers volume. Nice !
30 second skip !! I missed this on the Comcast box perhaps more then any other single feature and it remains with the HD box. Thank goodness !
Downgrades:
This is only minor but switching channels is a bit slow. I believe this is common for HD tuners but you definitely can't flip quickly between channels.
Expensive ! $800 is kind of steep for a DVR. Within a year or two, media PC's may superceed this kind of device.
Missed one program so far in a week. I'm not sure why but the Tivo missed about 1/2 of the evening news. I'm unsure as to whether this was a cable outtage or a software failure so I can't blame Tivo for certain.
Summary: Same great features of the original Tivo plus HD. Exactly what I wanted. The interface alone is worth the price. I will never miss wrestling with the FF RW buttons on my Comcast nor just about any other thing about it. You don't know what you're missing till it's gone. If you have a Cable provided DVR, you'll be absolutely thrilled with the Tivo. If you don't have one, then just get the Tivo and be content to know it's worth the money.
Customer Review: I AM SO SORRY TIVO
Summary: 4 Stars
After purchasing a High Def. TV I knew I needed a HD DVR. I had been a loyal TIVO subscriber since 1998 and I did not want to give up my TIVO but the price of an HD TIVO was WAY out of my price range when it first came out so I chose the cheaper route and route and ordered a Bright House HD DVR. Yes, the dual tuner was nice, I didn't have that with my TIVO but trying to search for shows was a royal pain in the [...].
Those of you that have TIVO are aware of keyword searches, multi-room viewing, season pass managers, amazon unbox!!! The Bright House HD DVR could not do any of these things. So I waited until TIVO had a rebate of 200 dollars and bought a HD TIVO. I cannot say enough how great it is. I love the new HD TIVO!!!!!! My picture is georgeous, I have all of my shows set and ready to record. I can transfer shows from my bedroom TIVO to my livingroom HD TIVO and vice versa. I can order any kind of movie right from my TIVO through Amazon Unbox which is ANOTHER fabulous feature.
Now, the only reason why I give it 4 stars instead of 5 is because of the cable cards. The Bright House guy had trouble setting the cards up. Now, some of you might say that is not TIVO's fault and you are probably right but, TIVO should have sent a more detailed instruction sheet for the guy to look at. After setting up the cable cards, I had to call Bright House and schedule an appoinment because my recordings were pixilated or I had black outs. Apparently after the cable cards are set up, you need to go to "Message & Settings" then "Settings" then "Remote, CableCard & Devices." From there go to "CableCard Decoder", select a CableCard (either 1 or 2) go to "CableCard Menu" and select "SA CACBLECARD CP SCREEN". You will need to visually scroll down to where the EMM count is and it should be 33 or higher. If it is not above 33 you will have a problem like I did. Mine was at 4 which was causing the picture to be distorted or blank.
The cable guy will have to call in to have the cable cards "reassigned" with the correct information. After he/she does that, recheck your EMM count. If you have any problems with your CABLECARDS call TIVO at 1-866-986-8486. Hope this helps and THANK GOODNESS FOR TIVO!!!!!!!
Customer Review: TiVo - Love / Hate Relationship
Summary: 2 Stars
Ok - here goes !
First - The Love:
* TiVo's best feature- its great being able to watching programs on "your" schedule and not the "TV program" schedule.
* Skipping thru the junk and commercials is heaven.
You can watch 2 or 3 programs using TiVo in the same time you watch
one live show.
* Menus are easy to use and it's "smart" ! TiVo can find your programs, advise if you have recording conflicts, has a program recommendation feature based on your preferences, can download movies from Amazon and Netflix, watch You Tube, and a whole list of great feature that is growing.
* Dual channel HD is very nice and Tivo is addictive !
It will drive you nuts to have to watch a "live" program once your use to Tivo and you will soon be buying another unit once the other family members horde in on "your TiVo" - lol.
Now the Hate:
* DO NOT purchase the lifetime subscription service !!
Unless you're a addicted gambler or a fool - there is a very very good chance you will be parted from a huge (400.00) chunk of your wallet. The service subscription is for the life of the "unit" and
--- TiVo reliability is abysmal !!! ---
Some research on diff web forums as well as TiVo's 30 day replacement (no charge) and 1 yr limited replacement (min of 40.00 charge) will attest to the this.
* I bought 2 TiVo HD units and both have failed in the first year. I have read a lot of reviews about folks having units for years with no problems - but beware..
there are also a LOT of units that have had problems, been replaced multiple times, and or just become useless after the 1 year limited warranty is up.
* And if you are thinking - Wow what a great rebate !
O-boy... another disaster ! Several calls to customer service, rebate service, tech service, and the janitor and you may finally get it. Let me know cause I'm still waiting.
As much as I love the Tivo when its working,
I would not recommend this unit to anyone due to very lousy warranty and reliability. And PLEASE don't get sucked into buying a "lifetime" Tivo subscription unless you like just love to gamble or waste money !!!
Customer Review: Oh, Tivo Series 3HD...... How Much (they want to know) Do I Love Thee
Summary: 5 Stars
We recently bought a 37" HDTV and upgraded our "glorified antenna" cable service to digital with an HD box. Although our beloved Series 2 played well with our new cable box, we were missing all of that glorious HD programming as we are never around to watch TV when it happens, and our Series 2 couldn't record in HD. On those rare occasions when we were watching live TV on the cable box, we missed all of the great Tivo functionality we'd grown to love. So we bought a Series 3, ditched our cable box and moved our Series 2 to another TV. Now we have two fully functional Tivos in our house at a cost of about $20 per month, which is what it would have cost us to have one DVR through our cable company. The cable cards required for the Series 3 are costing us $1.29 a month for both (first one's free!). While the initial outlay for the Series 3 is pretty spendy ($600), as with most electronics, if you wait a while, it'll go down. Our first Tivo box, now over three years old, was certainly worth the money and we fully expect the Series 3 to live up to our expectations.
We've also started downloading videos using Amazon Unbox for Tivo and are about to ditch our Netflix service (which is great if you watch a lot of movies, but we don't anymore). So far so good. The movie selection could be better, but I'm sure they're working on that.
Below are the product links for our setup, which we are enjoying tremendously. We think we're middle of the road on affordability, quality and function. No complaints on any of it so far. Oh, and after exhaustive research on price on all of this stuff, Amazon and it's 3rd party vendors are pretty much the best price going. And I've never had to worry about whether I'm going to get ripped off.
TiVo TCD648250B Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder
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