TiVo TCD540040 Series2 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Very good but not perfect
I just purchased a Tivo Series2 80hr and overall I'm pretty happy about this product. The things I like about the unit are the ease of use (a very intuitive interface) and just the general concept of being able to watch many programs, that I otherwise would miss, any time I want. Two issues that should concern potential buyers, that I have found so far, are as follows... <br /> <br />If you use a digital cable box with your DVR you can not watch live TV and record at the same time. I remedied this by using a dedicated cable box for the Tivo and I have a secondary box for watching live TV. My TV supports multiple inputs so this was not a big deal other than the fact that you need a second cable box for this setup. <br /> <br />Secondly, the 80hr record time advertised for this unit is at the \\"basic\\" quality setting, which is pretty lousy. Ideally you want to use the \\"high\\" quality setting which gives around 35 hrs record time. There is a \\"best\\" quality which gives around 22 hrs. So, now I'm looking to upgrade the hard drive to a 200 GB unit which should give me 80 hrs plus at high quality which should be adequate. My suggestion, buy the 40hr unit and upgrade the hard drive immediately. I bought a factory refurb 80 hr model for $199 but should of got the factory refurb 40hr for $149 and saved $50, which could of then gone to the new hard drive. <br /> <br />Other than these two issues, I really like this product and would recommend it highly.  <br />