Philips HDR612 TiVo 60 Hour Digital Video Recorder
Useful technology...but has kinks to work out
Tivo totally changes the way one watches TV...as a matter of fact, if basically forces the change upon you.  The situation is as follows:  if one uses a digital satellite system, such as DirecTV or Dish, then Tivo will not let one watch a program and record a different one at the same time...even if both programs that are coming from over the air antenna signals, such as the local affiliate channels - NBC, CBS, etc.  This is because the stand-alone models of Tivo don't have a built in DSS decoder, and to prevent confusion, it totally forbids the ability to watch a channel and record another.<br />This means that if one sets up an extensive recording program - i.e. a lot of time slots are reserved for recording, or if Tivo is voluntarily recording a show that it &quot;thinks&quot; one will like, one can't change the channel without stopping the recording.  Therefore, the only alternative is to either watch what is being recorded (of course one can rewind to the beginning of the show) or watch something that has been taped before.<br />Therefore, if one watches a lot of TV, Tivo will constrain one's ability to watch live TV and record shows.  Of course, if one has little time to watch TV, then Tivo is a godsend (or a curse? - Tivo will definitely increase the time one spends in front of the TV) - program the shows that one wants to see, work all day, come back at night and voila, a whole menu of shows to watch.  The downside to this is that it inhibits &quot;channel surfing&quot; - of course, this can be considered a positive.<br />Nevertheless, this unit has many merits.  It has a very large storage capacity - 60 hours at the lowest setting, about 30 hours at good image quality.  The interface is easy to learn.  Set up is relatively simple.<br />The downsides are as follows.  To actually prepare the unit the first time takes a long time...I left the unit cooking overnight, and it still didn't finish set up until about 10am the next day.  This leads to a second problem.  The CPU of the Tivo seems to be very slow.  Sometimes it will take a long time (a factor of minutes) for it to accept an action, to load a menu list, etc.  Furthermore, unlike the Replay, the Tivo does not have a skip 30 seconds function (the magical length of the standard TV commercial), so one has to fast-forward through the commercials.  Thankfully, there are three fast-forward speeds, and at the higher speeds, when one presses Play, the unit automatically rewinds a few seconds to take into consideration the reaction time of the average user (which must be better than mine).  Finally, the Tivo interface has many static frames, which can be on screen for extended periods of time while one searches for programs, edits the playlist, etc.  This can pose a problem for those using rear-projection televisions, because of the danger of burning-in images on to the screen.  Of course the people most willing to dish out [lots of money] for a fancy VCR are precisely the people that own large rear projection TVs.  Therefore, be extra careful not to spend too much time with static images on the screen, even paused images from &quot;live&quot; TV, or the screen that appears while one is setting up the Tivo for the first time (my recommendation is to turn off the TV while the Tivo is number-crunching the initial set-up, and come back from time to time to see how it is progressing).<br />All in all, I am pleased with this device, even taking the short-comings into consideration.  Also be aware that there is a monthly charge in order to download the Tivo programming, or a flat fee of $200, which is non-refundable.  This makes the Tivo as expensive as the Replay units, which offer the guides for free.  Of course, Replay is no longer making the units itself (I believe some large electronics firm is currently licesing the technology and has a couple of Replay-compatible devices out).  One final note - one has to have a telephone jack near the Tivo (or have a free wall outlet to use one of those RCA electrice wire-to-telephone jack units).