TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
TEE-VOH! TEE-VOH! TEE-VOH!
positives:<br /><br />everyone knows what it does, how revolutionary it is, how it changes your relationship with tv, etc. so i wont go into it here. put simply, its an amazing, wonderful product. youll find yourself agitated when having to sit thru commercials watching normal tv.<br /><br />some minor gripes:<br /><br />40 hours of storage is at basic recording. the quality is a little choppy and sometimes the program will be a bit pixelated. its not horrible, though, and i record many shows at basic. highest quality equals to 18 hours of storage. tv programs never start on time (at least not on perfect tivo time) so u might miss the first few seconds or more of a program. thats something u can adjust within tivo. i use it with regular cable (no cable or satellite box to deal with) and after reading all the reviews here, sounds like i got it real easy on setup and usage. the remote control is kind of annoying. u press buttons on the top, middle, and bottom almost equally. so sliding it up and down in your hand gets old fast. not too big of a deal though.<br /><br />one more important tip:<br /><br />all tivo literature says u HAVE TO HAVE a standard landline to complete initial setup. this is simply NOT TRUE. here is what u do:<br /><br />1. plug in a usb-2-ethernet adapter before powering on tivo. of course, make sure its hooked up to a broadband connection.<br />2. power up tivo, go thru setting up everything on your tivo<br />3. when it says it has to dial out to complete installation, enter in dialing prefix \\",#401\\" -dont forget the comma.<br />4. it dials out, downloads anything it needs a whole lot faster than on a regular land line, and BOOM youre good to go.<br /><br />TIVO RULEZ!!