TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
My Third Tivo
I have been using Tivo for four years now.  I just purchased my third unit, the 140GB Tivo manufactured version.  I have an old Series I unit, which is still useful but lacking in the home media features.  I have an original Sony Series II unit, better, but still somewhat outdated.  I recently added a wireless network card to the Sony unit and found the Tivo to Go feature, along with the ability to cut the telephone cord, to be quite useful.  However, my main reason for writing this review is not to address how good Tivo is - there are many reviewers here who have already addressed this.  My biggest frustration is with the home media features associated with adding a Tivo to your home network.    To make the Sony unit work, I spent more than 10 hours researching various technical issues associated with network adapters.  I determined that none of the currently shipping adapters would support my unit.  To make things work I had to go to Ebay and bid on an outdated \\"version 2.6\\" adapter from Linksys, which has not been shipping for more than a year.  How can Tivo expect the masses to go through this type of effort to make their unit \\"media ready\\"?    My understanding was that if I bought a brand new Tivo I would not have to go through this.  Wrong!  The new Tivo has almost as many limitations as the older one.  Once again I had to go back to Ebay, bid on an old Linksys WUSB12 802.11b (11mbs) adapter, wait until midnight for the bidding to close (to make sure I did not get outbid), and go through the same setup hassles as my last unit.    In addition to dealing with outdated network adapters, I have spent many hours researching the required \\"codec\\" files and media players that must be installed on my laptop to get the video to play correctly.  And, I had to wait until Tivo got around to downloading the 7.x version of its software to my unit via the telephone line.  Without it, the networking options would not work at all.  In the end, I am happy with the results.  I can download TV shows to my laptop and watch them on those long, coast to coast flights I find myself doing more and more.  However, I am amazed that Tivo could advertise, on the outside of the box in big letters, \\"home media ready\\".  How many consumers would go through all this to make their Tivo network acccessible?  For Tivo to have any chance of future success, they need to make their units as easy to use as Apple has done with their Ipods.      They may be running out of time.  I recently added a High Definition DVR from Time Warner Cable to my home.  For $10/month, I just plugged it in and began using it.  Nothing to set up, and incredible picture quality for high definition shows.  This seems to be the way of the future, and I suspect Tivo may soon be history if they can not create this type of simplicity for future units.