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: Excellent DVR.
Summary: 5 Stars
After our local cable company "upgraded" the firmware on the DVR we were renting from them, it became obvious that it was time to look at alternatives.
After reading many reviews, I decided to get the Series3. It is an excellent DVR. TiVos in general have been covered in many reviews, but here are the big things I've noticed:
Plusses:
* Swivel Search is really nice and lets you find programs pretty easily.
* It learns what you like quickly and starts recording extra suggestions.
* The interface is fast except when you re-shuffle some of your recording priorities.
* The front display is excellent: It's really neat to be able to see what it's recording at all times.
Minues:
* Some programs (e.g. The Daily Show/Colbert Report) don't set the new/re-run status, and TiVo records the extraneous during the day showings.
* the cable company DVR had the ability to keep a program playing in a window(either live or recorded) while looking at the list of recorded programs. With recent firmware, the TiVo can do this with the program guide (as an overlay, not a window), but doesn't seem to do it with the Now Playing list or parts of the UI.
* My cable company won't let me have most of my HD channels unless I rent either their HD-DVR or their cheaper cable-box, despite the fact that I have the TiVo and CableCards rented.
Other things to note:
* It's a little disconcerting to not have an on/off switch.
* The TiVo-To-Go works, but it doesn't seem to send copyrighted shows (i.e. 99% of content) to the PC. The other way (PC -> TiVo) works great. This might be user error on my part, I haven't investigated thoroughly. It does automatically convert into iPod format and load it up onto my iPod.
Overall, it is an excellent device. It is a little expensive though.
Customer Review: Tivo Series3 Review
Summary: 3 Stars
I was a little disappointed with the Tivo Series3 DVR. The primary reasons I purchased it were because it had both QAM (digital cable) + ATSC (digital antenna) tuners in addition to analog cable and over the air. However, the QAM tuner doesn't work unless you purchase a cablecard from your cable company (each one costs the same as renting a cable box from my cable provider and the Tivo needs 2 in order to handle dual-tuner functions). This is aggravating because most digital tv's these days will tune in the non-encryptyed digital stations on cable, but the Tivo doesn't. Tivo says it does in their FAQ, but it doesn't. Tivo says you can manually change to those channels but there is no decimal point on the TV remote to do so. The FAQ states it cannot record those channels on the DVR because it won't know what TV Guide listings to match to those channels because cable providers pick the frequency/channel to broadcast those on and don't tell TV Guide. This is a lame excuse Tivo because you could easily have people map the channels to the TV Guide listing of their choice. Regardless, it doesn't work as they claim anyways. I hooked up a new Sharp LCD tv without the Tivo and it picked up all the non-encrypted digital stations without a cablecard. My cable provider broadcasts the local tv stations in HD over cable, plus digital music stations in non-enrypted format. Tivo has a new feature called Amazon Unbox and it's a nice concept, sort of like pay per view. The lame thing is none of the content out there is HD or surround sound content and also you only get a 24 hour viewing period. So I guess I won't be using that service. Also, I use a normal TV over component video at 4:3 aspect ratio and the HD stations that it tuners over ATSC are squished with black bars on both left and right side of the screen, no way to fill the screen even with the aspect ratio button on the remote...Customer Review: Unreliable and fails frequently
Summary: 1 Stars
My Series 3 worked fine for about 8 months. Then it started to lock up and could only be restarted by pulling the power cord and restarting. I did this for a few weeks, but then it started to fail more frequently. After several days on the phone with the Tivo customer service (after long waits on hold ... and very boring music by the way), they agreed to replace my box. It cost me an additional $869 to have the replacement box mailed immediately. This was unreasonable given that the Amazon price is much lower for this product. The refurbished box arrived and it was just as bad as the one I had. I could not get it past the "Powering Up" screen. Another round of customer service and I got approval to mail back the replacement box. I refused to pay another $869 because I hadn't (and still haven't) received a refund for the previous payment. So I'm sitting here, no Tivo for over 10 days now and out $869 (in addition to the original price). I used to love Tivo, now I am not a happy customer. By the way, when I was at the UPS store mailing back my second Tivo box, a neighbor came in to mail back his HD Tivo box. This is an unreliable product.
Update: 7/15/09 -- Following the episode described above, I received a new HD Tivo to replace the reconditioned one they previously sent me. I purchased an APC power conditioning unit and installed that prior to connecting my third HD Tivo. At this point, the box runs fairly well. It still drops one of the two feeds occasionally and I need to go through the restart process to get it back. If you are away from home when this happens, you lose whatever programs you thought you had recorded. The box locked up yesterday (screen blank and not responding to the controller) and I did a repower-up. It did it again and I just waited it out the second time and the box did recover itself.
Customer Review: Probably the best there is, but MAN I hope for better.
Summary: 4 Stars
TiVo drives me crazy because there are SO MANY simple things they could do to vastly improve their software, but they're scared to death to change anything. Also the monthly fees are ridiculous for the service provided (especially when you end up with 4 TiVos like I now have).
ALSO, it seems like they charge more for HD tivos, which is lame because they just provide tv listings. Oh and ads. They give you ads you didn't ask for -- so I guess you're paying for that privilege too.
That being said, there is NO BETTER option out there. You're stuck with 'em. And this is their best unit.
I immediately bought the western digital expander ( which is unfortunately still not available on Amazon, only at TiVo) to give this a reasonable number of HD hours. If you are serious enough to be buying this, then you are serious enough to need the extra space.
BTW, unlike previous reviews, let me not that this DOES COME WITH AN HDMI CABLE. I bought an extra cable because the other reviews complained it didn't come with one. It does.
Also, you will almost certainly need to buy the overpriced $50 TiVo wireless adapter. So don't leave that out.
The remote can control two DVRs, which is nice if you're like me and moving from an SD TiVo to an HD one, and will still have the old one around for a while.
WARNING: If you have a tivo already, the new remove is different. The select button is in the middle of the arrow pad instead of below it. I'm undecided on whether this is a plus or a minus. It IS different, and you will find yourself muting the tv ALL THE TIME (it's where the select button used to be) until you get used to it.
It has a cool display on front that shows the name of what's being recorded, but it's way to small to see.
Customer Review: The Best DVR for a Home Theater Enthusiast
Summary: 4 Stars
The perfect addition to anyone's home theater set up. I have Time Warner Cable, and after going through countless of their DVR boxes I finally knew I had to do something different. I've always heard about TiVo from friends and finally decided to do a little research. I ended up with the Series3 HD and haven't looked back since.
Having the ability to set up your computer as a media server and stream all your music and movies to your TiVo is also a nice bonus. However, since I have a PlayStation 3 I use that as my main media service, but it's nice to have more options.
The Amazon Unbox service is also awesome. Being able to rent and download movies straight through the box is great. But on that matter it brings up the only downside to having a TiVo - you lose access to any Movies On Demand channels or Pay Per View channels your cable provider has. I don't miss the PPV, but sometimes I miss the MOD because there's just never anything on TWC's lineup. Luckily I still have my Mets game in HD and don't have to worry about my picture and audio skipping like it did on all my TWC DVRs, so it all balances out in the end.
The only problem I have with TiVo's is not on the product side, but on cable companies. You have to have good installers in order to get things done right. Time Warner Cable refuses to allow you to do self-installations so I had to have the installers come out to the house - and they charge you per card for installation, so be ready to shell out some more extra cash.
Overall, it took me about 2 weeks to finally get my TiVo set up because they knew nothing about it and I was the one who suffered. All they did was complain about having to do a CableCARD installation and how they all hated it and pass the job off to everyone else. Irritating to say the least.