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: Easy as 1-2-3!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
WOW. I am a first time Tivo user. I did not own any other Tivos, but my friends have and they all ranted and raved about what a great invention it was! And now I agree with them. I am glad I went all out for the Tivo Series 3 because I believe HD broadcasting is the way to go.
Likes:
Remote is unlike any I have ever had. The ENTIRE THING lights up the moment you press any button and stays lit for a few seconds. No hassle button pressing, no guesswork here! Oh yeah, and it's pretty aesthetically pleasing.
Ease of use: If I put in a wishlist topic and ask it to record anything having that topic I can! I can also record an entire season if I want and if I select "First Run Only" it will only record new episodes and not repeats!
Easy to hook up. I was worried but I found out you don't need to be a Philadelphia lawyer to hook this thing up. Just plug in the HDMI, the power plug and the cable cards (must activate with cable co.)
Recording is crisp and clear. You cannot tell a live broadcast from a recorded show.
Records two shows at once!
Tivo website is helpful
I signed up for Tivo online and tested to see if I could add a show to record on the internet...and it registered on my Tivo To Do List the next day.
If purchased from certain places, lifetime subscription can be included with the Tivo box. That way, no monthly fees!
Dislikes:
The expensive price tag.
If recording two shows you cannot watch a third without stopping the recording of one of the shows.
The only problem I have now is that certain channels aren't showing, but that's a Comcast Cable Company problem. So, HORRAY to TIVO and BOOOOO to COMCAST CABLE!!!
Customer Review: Will never go back to the cable company boxes
Summary: 5 Stars
I purchased the Series3 a few months after it was first released.
It took a few days of waiting for Comcast to arrive to install the cableCARDs (at the time, they required a service call), and some initial trouble when the technician clearly didn't understand how to install cable cards. But once it was up and running, the TiVo is an amazing device.
The search, scheduling and recommendation functionality is just amazing and much better than the standard DVR's being offered by Comcast.
Never again do I need to wait around for a show to air - in the 2+ years I've been using this, it has never "missed" a show - it always records them reliably.
I expanded my unit by buying and plugging in an external 1TB eSATA hard drive. Now there is MUCH more storage and my recordings are saved for longer. A highly recommended and easy upgrade.
The only downside is that some menus in the system are a little slow to load (i.e. when searching), and TiVo seems to insist on sticking little advertisements in various menus which shouldn't be there (I'm paying a monthly subscription fee - I don't want to see advertisements on a subscription-based system!).
Keep in mind that in addition to buying the TiVo, you'll need to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee to keep it running (the fee is for guide data and online account management).
Also, on-demand services from your cable company are not currently supported, but this is something that I have never personally wanted to used. TiVo (in partnership with Amazon and Netflix) now offers many on-demand services at more reasonable prices than the cable company, so this is not a problem.
Customer Review: Series 3....soon to be 3.5
Summary: 5 Stars
I have owned a series 1, series 2 and now a series 3 Tivo. All have had lifetime service.
The series 3 is an excellent compliment to a new HDTV set. It has all the output options you would need, and even ships with a HDMI cable. The remote has been improved over the already fantastic Tivo remote. Instead of blinking lights, you get an additional status panel on the front of the tivo that displays information. If anything, I dont' think it's potential is being fully utilized.
Why would you buy one of these over a cable-supplied or directTV supplied DVR? There is the much lauded user experience and program search capabilities. Tivo still has the best. I have had a lot to compare it against -- I have gone through several home PC-based DVR setups (snapstream, mythtv, etc) and decided that I just wanted an appliance, which the Tivo is.
But for myself, there was one more reason. Simply put, I did a reality check, and decided that paying for TV was dumb. I just don't watch it enough to justify it's expense. So, I bought a Winegard MS-2000 antenna and put it on my roof. YMMV, but in my case all the the over the air broadcasters that were broadcasting digital television were within the range of this antenna. It is not the absolute best, but it doesn't need to be pointed since it's omnidirectional.
So, I am a happy camper. I get great looking television. It is all broadcast, and there are enough things available that I don't miss satellite at all. I certainly don't miss the bill.
My hunch is that there is a lot of extra functionality locked in this box that hasn't been tapped just yet -- more than just Amazon unboxed.
Customer Review: We Love TiVo Series3
Summary: 5 Stars
What can I say?
The TiVo-3 is so much better than our Cox Communications Motorola HD DVR (SB5120) that we hurried over to buy another one only 8-days after converting our first DVR to TiVo-3; just to be rid of the aggravation of the other Motorola SB5120. The original TiVo Series3 is our choice even though it is about $300 more than the newer downgraded TiVo HD; we like the extra remote and acccessory features.
Intuitive remote, full web access, automatic recording of recommended shows (if you like the Netflix recommendation service, you will love TiVo), remote programming of scheduled recordings, and on and on. There is no real competition from our cable company, who were careful to point out that TiVo cannot download Movies on Demand (dozens of titles) for money ($3.99) from Cox Communications. This was no problem for us; we now download movies from the Amazon UnBox service (thousands of titles) for less money ($.99). TiVo can download video from many other Internet videos (NYT, CNET, etc etc) as well, including regular podcast subscriptions and the like, for NO money.
And TiVo-3 can display or play any file in our home network, we have thousands of photos and music files. I was never able to get Motorola DVR to even talk to our network.
Oh, and the cost; we saved $35/month in rental fees by dumping our Motorolas; less the $6/month for renting the four necessary cable cards. Two TiVo subscriptions total $17/month for three years; The net savings in subscription fees ($12/mo) and movie download fees ($12/mo for 4 movies) should pay for the TiVos over the next four years, well before we need to upgrade to the next big thing.