Philips HDR312 TiVo 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Sorry, took it back for a refund!
With a 5-star concept like this, how could I give it only three stars?<br />1. Set-up problems prevented me from using it the night I took it home, a call to tech support (the next day, when they opened...hello, when  are most people using a device like this?) remedied the situation.<br />2.  Three hours for TIVO to download my cable provider's schedule, with  hard-disk grinding away.  In my bedroom at 1am, this wasn't well-received.  ;-)<br />3. The most annoying thing to me: if I WANT to watch TV with no  TIVO-meddling, it is impossible.  You know how you can turn off your VCR if  you want to just channel-surf?  If you turn off TIVO, you don't get a  signal to your TV.  C'mon folks, this is a pretty easy feature to  implement, since it's been a part of every VCR made in the past 15 years  (or more?)  It's irritating and kind of Big Brother-y.  Let ME control how  and what I watch...that's the whole idea! <br />4. Channel surfing in general  is slow...for us remote-control jockeys, the delay when switching from  channel to channel is mildly annoying.  I'd rather have the recording  delayed than my channel surfing...<br />5. Menu options are poorly  implemented, IMHO.  Too much paging from screen to screen, and no quick way  to return four or five levels up...I found myself backing out of sub-menus  all the time.  Try this in your darkened bedroom for fun some time!<br />I  also bought a ReplayTV last year and took it back too for various 'n sundry  reasons (one of which was that it wouldn't work with my satellite TV  provider).  I may not be the most forgiving consumer.  However, I think the  idea is SO GOOD that the consumer electronics manufacturers should hear the  truth so they can improve the product.  Hopefully someone will get it right  in the near future.  BTW, my &quot;TIVO&quot; was badged as a Sony, I guess  Sony bought them out recently.  Don't think the Sony is a new device.  All  my other A/V gear is Sony, so when I saw their brand-name I pounced  (thinking maybe they'd addressed some of the problems).