TiVo Series2 Digital Video Recorder (*TiVo Service Fee Not Included)
A very good product with a few problems.
I bought and installed the Tivo last December as a Christmas present for my parents. Their overall experience with it has been positive, but there have also been a number of problems, which I will go into in this review for the benefit of those trying to make an informed decision.<br />First, after Tivo made its initial dialup connection, it crashed. A green screen appeared on the TV announcing the crash and saying that if the system did not recover within 5 hours to call customer service. It took considerably longer than that, but eventually it did recover. Two days later, another crash occurred. Over time the crashes became less frequent and recovery time was faster. As far as I know, crashes no longer occur. (Perhaps Tivo downloaded patches to its drivers.) Crashes are very frustrating, because not only can you not record during them, but you can't even watch TV at all without disconnecting the Tivo from the cable. Television should not be subject to crashes. VCRs never do this.<br />One reason I bought Tivo for my parents is that according to the hype, it is so easy to use that anyone can quickly learn and become comfortable with it. My parents are not very tech-savvy and never mastered the VCR that they have owned for over 10 years, so I thought Tivo would be an excellent solution for them. It's been a struggle, but they finally know how to use the basic features and are no longer angry with me for turning their television-viewing into such a stressful time.<br />A seldom-mentioned fact is that Tivo does not give you the ability to watch live TV and record a separate program simultaneously (although you can watch an already recorded program while another is being recorded). So if you just want to turn on the TV and channel-surf, you won't be able to if Tivo is already in the middle of recording another program (unless you tell it to stop recording that program). Even more infuriating is when you are watching live TV, and in the middle of the program a message pops up saying that Tivo is about to beginning a scheduled recording, giving you a few seconds to decide whether you want to abandon what you are in the middle of watching or if you are willing to not do the recording. Sometimes this can be a very stressful dilemma, particularly if the scheduled recording was requested by another member of the household. My father was often not quick enough to tell it to cancel the recording, and as a result, recording would begin, and the program he was watching would suddenly disappear from the screen and he wouldn't know how to get it back. When this occurred during major sporting events, his level of stress was unprecedented.<br />Tivo doesn't work well when shared by multiple members of a household. Besides the aforementioned problem of different viewers canceling each other's conflicting recording schedules or even deleting other people's yet-to-be-viewed programs to free up space on the drive, there is also the problem that the program recommendation feature becomes hilariously inept. It works something like this. Tivo keeps a database on their servers of what programs each Tivo records as well as viewer ratings, and then it looks for corelations. For example, 95% of people who watch program A and program B also record program C. So Tivo if you regularly watch both A and B, Tivo will recommend and record C for you. Of course if A and B are recorded by separate individuals, the correlation means nothing. If I record Spongebob and my father records Meet the Press, and 95% of people who record both also watch programs on the golf channel, that correlation is meaningless. Tivo has definitely made some weird choices.<br />Also, there is an occasional stutter in which a program will freeze for a second or two. This is particularly pronounced when it is recording one program while displaying another. The problem is not serious, since it restarts where it left off with no gap in the sound (and you can always rewind). But it is moderately annoying to me and extremely disturbing to my parents. Also, if you choose to copy important programs to videocassettes, you would record all the stutters as well.<br />One disadvantage of VCR programming that Tivo has yet to overcome is the problem of preempted programs. If a show is delayed by a sporting event or that crazy Bush fellow, Tivo will not know this. It will begin and end recording at the scheduled times. In other words, the system is still not foolproof. There will be times when the ending of your program is cut off. Perhaps now that Tivo is making the jump to broadband, it will have access to constant scheduling updates.<br />Overall this is a very good product, and I do recommend it for most people. I chose to concentrate on the flaws in this review, since the advantages (which are quite significant) are detailed exhaustively in the other reviews. It definitely deserves all four stars, and future versions of Tivo will probably do much to remedy the current problems.