TiVo Series2 Digital Video Recorder (*TiVo Service Fee Not Included)
User-friendly, great utility -- some minor shortcomings
We love this thing!<br />Setup was a snap. I really expected it to be much more cumbersome than it was, but they obviously did a lot of usability testing on the product. I had it hooked up in 10 minutes, and within 1.5 hours, I had signed up for the Tivo subscription AND downloaded and processed the entire guide. Unfortunately, there are some limitations for certain AV hookups -- we had to make some tradeoffs with ours, but it was worth it.<br />Using it is a snap. My wife has never been able to record a show with a VCR, but with 5 minutes of explanation, she was able to record a show through the guide, setup a season pass to record every upcoming episode of her favorite show, and setup a wishlist to record every show that had her favorite actor in it. The on-screen prompts and instructions are crystal clear -- I would, however, prefer more shortcuts. I can imagine that always following the prompts will get old.<br />Picture quality was very good. I braced myself for some degradation in quality, but there's minimal on our set. The unit hums a bit, but the sound is easily masked by the normal TV volume, and ours is in a closing entertainment center, so we don't notice it. <br />The pause between channel changes is generally 1 to 2 seconds, but I never notice it because I generally use the guide to move around. That's my favorite part of the Tivo -- I don't waste time channel switching any more. I use the guide -- if I see something I like, I watch it; otherwise, the TV is turned off. And I always pause the shows I like for 15 minutes so I can fast forward through the commercials. The fast forward and rewind are fantastic, too -- too much to write here, but you will like it. No more anticipatory button pressing!