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,
Buy this product at amazon.co.uk
for British Pounds
Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of TiVo TCD648250B Series3 HD Digital Media Recorder
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: 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
Yamaha RX-V461 - AV receiver - 5.1 channel
Toshiba REGZA 37HL67 37" 720p LCD HDTV
Customer Review: Best PVR on the market
Summary: 5 Stars
Sadly, most people will experience their first DVR/PVR via their cable company. Those devices are extremely cheap imitations of Tivo. The best analogy that I can think of is the difference between a generic MP3 player and an Ipod. Apple dominated the MP3 market by focusing on software, user experience and great industrial design. Tivo has done the same thing for PVRs that Apple did for MP3 players.
I was a DirecTV subscriber for four years, using the built-in Tivo and it was fantastic. When I upgraded to a plasma HDTV, I moved to Comcast for HD channels. I used the generic (Motorola) box from Comcast for about a year and it is just plain terrible. Hard to use, non-intuitive, buggy and average picture quality. It doesn't handle subscriptions well, it's very hard to make changes, it's hard to find shows, and (worst of all) it continues to record the same shows over and over again, filling up your box with stuff that you've already recorded, watched and deleted. I could go on and on, but if you've used an Ipod and some other crappy imitation, then you already know what I mean.
At the time of this review (Nov. 2006) the cable card installations are not the easiest thing in the world but the cable companies are largely to blame, not Tivo. Mine took two visits from Comcast (free of charge) and the second visit got everything working fine. (The problem was a defective cable card, which by the way are manufactured by Motorola...) It's hard for me to describe how superior the experience is on the Tivo box, relative to everything else on the market. Tivo's just so simple to use that a 3-year old can figure it out. You owe it to yourself to try it out. The Comcast installer basically said, "that HD picture blows away the picture on our box." I find it difficult to say definitively but he's seen many more installs than I have, so I take his word for it.
The Tivo is pricey but if you've dropped $3,000 on a TV, why would want your content delivered by some crappy imitation PVR?
Customer Review: Outstanding Product -- and Superior to Cable Companies' Set-Top Boxes!
Summary: 5 Stars
After dealing with unreliable cable company-supplied boxes for years, I was ready for an alternative. Then I saw a review of the TiVo Series 3 in Sound & Vision magazine, where the S3 was highly recommended. So I bought one. And I will never go back to using a horrible cable company's box again!
Thanks to the FCC, CableCards -- a technology that frees consumers from a cable box -- allows one to receive virtually all cable channels without a cable operator's box. (There are some exceptions, most notably "on-demand" services. But even this limitation may eventually be solved, though it may take several years.)
In any event, the TiVo Series 3 provides two CableCard slots, allowing the S3 to record from two cable channels simultaneously. And the TiVo user experience absolutely blows away that provided by cable operator's boxes. Whereas the latter hiccup -- and even crash -- regularly, the TiVo Series 3 is rock-solid reliable. If, like me, you have experienced regular crashes with cable boxes, this will be a revelation.
Beyond the reliability, the TiVo Series 3 provides many MANY features that you don't see -- and likely may never see -- on cable operator's boxes. There are too many to list here, but suffice it to say that the S3 continues to amaze me with its capabilities. And TiVo has rolled out several Series 3 software upgrades (all free!) over the past 9 months, each adding additional features/capabilities. Plus the few minor bugs/issues that did originally exist in the Series 3, have been resolved thanks to said software upgrades.
Unless you absolutely must have access to "on-demand" services, the TiVo Series 3 is a winner. And bear in mind that you can still rent a cable operator's box to provide on-demand services, while also owning a Series 3. But once you have used an S3, you will avoid the cable operator's box like the plague.
Purchase the TiVo Series 3, and start ENJOYING your cable service, rather than CURSING at it.
Customer Review: Tivo Series 3 performs as expected in HD
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased my tivo series 3 after studying reviews and comments since it came out. I delayed because I have a Sony HDD DHG 250 HD recorder now that does a good job. I wanted to rejoin TIVO because I wanted the better ease of use factor that tivo offers. I found the tivo for 669 to 673 on the web but didnt want to mail order in case the machine was defective. I called best buy and they agreed to match the price. I got the unit home and was able to get it running properly by swapping out the cable card from my existing DVR by sony. I turned everything off first, followed the instructions, read the manual and went to the web site to activate my service as it was after 10 pm and tivo was closed so I couldnt activate over the phone. Sure enough everything worked perfectly out of the box so I was pleasantly surprised. I only have one cable card and have asked comcast to deliver another. 2 weeks they told me and a 24.00 service charge for the visit. I dont know what monthly fee they will charge me for the 2nd cable card because I didnt ask. Regarding the operation of the tivo, it is excellent and operates flawlessly as promised. The fully backlit remote is the best I have ever seen. I have a slew of universal remotes including the fancy philips with the lit screen and this remote is superior. I highly recommend the remote for series 2 owners as you can buy it separately from tivo. THe recorder records beautifully in HD, the software and operation is fast (speedy) and the built in over the air tuner picks up terrestrial HD stations that were unaccessible to me using my tv's own internal atsc HD tuner (sony sxrd HD newest model) as well as my HD dvr from sony. The tivo screen on the machine is fine as is the resolution on the tv screen of the onscreen menus. I am going to look at the home network device next for broadband features but need more research. In summary all is great and I am happy to be back with tivo after a 6 month absence.