TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Great - but some gotchas
I've heard a lot about Tivo, and finally made the plunge.  All-in-all, it works pretty well.  I would buy it again, but perhaps be a little smarter about it.  I'll admit that I'm a neophyte, so some of my problems may just be that I'm not an expert at using the system.  However: <br /> <br />1. The biggest issue I have is broadband connectivity.  Why Tivo makes such a point about the enhanced services you can get if you have a broadband Internet connection, and then not put an RJ45 LAN connector in the box is beyond me.  In addition, the multitude of incompatibility issues with USB network adapters boggles my mind.  I bought what the Tivo site recommended as the right adapter (Linksys USB200M) only to find that ONLY version 1 works, and not version 2 (which I received from Amazon).  No forecast on when, or if, that will ever work.  I'm out 25 bucks, and have to find another one that hopefully will work.  It seems I shouldn't have to be an engineering specialist to figure out what works with my Tivo box.  I hope that changes soon. <br /> <br />2. The unit really needs to either be much smarter about dealing with overlapping programs or have dual tuners.  Despite getting the \\"you'll almost never have that problem\\" advice, I find that it's difficult to record network shows when some are registered as starting at 9:59pm or ending at 10:01pm and there's another show I'm trying to record that overlaps by one minute either way.  Perhaps it's just pilot error, but this seems to be difficult to set up, particularly with Season Pass. <br /> <br />3. I'm still not entirely convinced that I have the system set up correctly, because it's not recording all the episodes of the season passes I set up, but I haven't had the time to check to see if each episode is a repeat or not.  I have not figured out how to tell in the \\"upcoming episodes\\" or TV Guide information if it's a repeat or not, even though the box must know that information to determine whether or not to record it. <br /> <br />I really enjoy having this product and, as others have said, it has changed my TV viewing quite a bit.  Of most value is the ability to pause live TV.  I'm sure the value of having this will only increase as I get over the initial learning curve and hardware setup frustrations. <br /> <br />My summary -- a good purchase, but plan to invest a fair amount of time fine-tuning it. <br />