TiVo Series2 Digital Video Recorder (*TiVo Service Fee Not Included)
Can't live without it.
As a first time Tivo buyer, and as I have never seen it in real<BR> life before, I was a little bit afraid. Would it really work ? <BR>Would I like it ? But then, after I set it up, which is very <BR>simple and menu driven (I wonder why they included two <BR>manuals), my life of TV watching completely changed. I no <BR>longer need to waste my time to check TV programs, since Tivo <BR>does it for me. I no longer need to walk around the video <BR>stores to look for some movies (what a waste of time). I can <br />finish David Letterman's show in 15 minutes (and I don't need <BR>to wait in fron ot TV on time and be there for an hour). I have <BR>had for 3 weeks and so far, it works perfect as advertised (and <BR>more than I imagined). <br />Even though it is advertised as 40 hour, <BR>I set it up as High Quality recording which gives only 18 hours <BR>or so. Normally this is really good enough. But when I watched <BR>French Open Tennis, if things are moving so fast on all over <BR>the screen, picture becomes blocky. If I use &quot;Best Quality&quot; <BR>recording which gives about 12 hours of recording, there is no <BR>such problem. <br />Only if I can record two channels at the same <BR>time... It is a littel bit annoying when there are so many <BR>times I wanted to record two channels at the same time but I <BR>can't because there is a slight overlap - for example, if a <BR>program A ends at 3:15 and another starts at 3:00, I can't <BR>record both of them at the same time. I have to manually set up one<BR>of them (and will lose 15 minutes).<BR>This is understandable with the current techonolgy. Tivo is<BR>essentially a Linux computer server dedicated to compressing/<BR>decompressing videos. To perform two video compressions at<BR>the same time (and possibly uncompressing at the same time since<BR>the user may want to watch previously recorded one while recording<BR>two channels) would require some CPU power which prohibits the <BR>low cost, low heat and reliability. But I expect that within a<BR>few years this will be realized.<BR>Thanks Tivo ! ^^