Price Paid:  $99.00 from Circuit City

Summary:
A must have product for any sports fan and for families. Records everything and is easy to use. The kids get to see all their Bob The Builder shows, the wife gets to watch all her prime time shows and doesn't have to stay awake until 11 pm to see the end and I don't miss the games. We all watch TV when we like to and how we like to. Don't know how we lived without one of these. Wish it had more space because 30 hours isn't a lot for a famaily of 5. Overall-this product is great!

Strengths:
Guys and gals, this is a must have product in your home! It does exactly what it is suppose to do. Records 1 or 2 shows simultaneously. Can watch shows when you want to and how you want to. Good picture quality. Pausing live TV is something I don't know how I lived without. It has improved my relationship with my wife, because I can stop the game without ignoring her by telling her I'll get back to her at the next commercial break. Now I can watch it all live or taped without missing any action-Important for sports fans and gamblers. The wife doesn't miss the end of her favorite late night shows anymore either. Phone rings-no problem-you can talk and get back to show in a few minutes. Great invention!

Weaknesses:
Program menu's for live TV are not as good as most satellite receivers like my Sony A55. Slow and Clumsey without easy to see channel icon's. You can only view about 20 channel lists at a time. Trying to view what's on TV 20 channels at a time takes too long. 30 hours seems like it's enough time, but with a family of 5, all with different tastes, we only get to save a few programs each a weak, so we still miss alot.

Althoufgh the Tivo has many great automatic recording features, it doesn't do a great job recording season passes for sports packages. There are many times Tivo will attempt to automatically record a game on the wrong channel that is not avaialable. For example- all season pass hockey games must be recorded on the 740-760 channels, but could be available on othet channels such as the non local Fox channel that I don't get unless I have the Sports package as well. Tivo will attempt to record the wrong channel 90% of the time. So I have to review the upcoming schedule of recordings daily, remove the channels that I don't receive from the pre recorded list and set the Tivo to record the correct channel. This feature also ties up the TV when I am out of town trying to record 2 games at the same time and won't allow my wife to watch live tv because Tivo can only do 2 things at once. Their should be a bypass feature that would allow Tivo to record both games and allow the cable feed to be bypassed someone else so they can watch regular tv on the cable feed. We direc-tv on one set with the TIVO and cable for all other tv's. You can't by pass the Tivo without doing some very creative wiring configurations which then requires the use of 5-6 different remotes and input swithcing which drives simple people crazy when they just want to watch the damn news, so I won't go there.

The remote requires a direct point at the Tivo receiever and the directional menu buttons on the remote are very clumsy.

Similar Products Used:
None-Just some other

Price Paid:  $499.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I have had TiVo for 2 years now and it is truly the greatest consumer electronics product since color TV. Since 14 hours in low quality isn't really enough, I added an 80 gig drive to mine and it now gives me 30 hours in best quality (108 hours in basic), which really makes all of its features come alive. I now watch very little live TV and always have something to watch. It even finds all kinds of shows and documentaries that I never would have watched otherwise. v2.01 software that came out earlier this year is awesome and will only get better in the future. I very highly recommend it for everyone!

Strengths:
Truly changes the way you watch TV. 2 week TV guide, scheduling, season passes, pause live TV, suggestions, instant replay, hackability, etc....

Weaknesses:
None

Price Paid:  $212.00 from Best Buy

Summary:
I recently bought a Tivo and was quite pleased with it but wasn't very happy about the lifetime fee of $249, so I returned it and got a Replay. It was $30 cheaper after the rebate and I figured if everything was the same then it would be worth it. It wasn't worth it. First of all I had to buy and RF modulator for an additional $32 which brought the price to be the same but I still had an additional 10 hours on the model I bought. Well, I have to say after comparing both models that Tivo is the winner here for the way I watch television. First of all I don't like having to look at my remote to make sure I'm pressing the right button because it's all complicated, secondly I watch a lot of different shows that are on all different times of the day. When I scheduled 2 replay channels to record the 2 shows, it never told me that they would conflict. Instead they took the show that was first asked to record as it's solution. Well, not really a solution with me!! I did not like that at all and when I tested it again I found out that if you gaurantee 2 shows that broadcast at the same time they will decide to record in alphabetical order. NOT HELPFUL. Also if 2 shows are not gauranteed and conflict it will take the show you first asked to record. Once again not very helpful in case I don't want to see that show. I also didn't like the way replay always took an additional half an hour or hour away from me whenever I gauranteed a show. That means you must check your disk space more often to make sure you don't run out which I don't want to do. You also have to pay attention how many shows you've gauranteed or non-gauranteed. I'm sorry, but the replay TV software was a lot more confusing and not very efficient. I found what really helped with my Tivo was that whenever 2 shows that I record all time (Season Passes) conflict with one another that they will ask me OK, we'll record these episodes for you, but we can't record that show here because it overlaps with this show that is a higher priority on your season pass manager (another great Tivo feature!!) and will give you the choice to go ahead, which is what I mostly do or decide to cancel that one episode to allow the other one I want to record to get recorded. A whale of a lot simplier and efficient than replay TV. So for the way I watch TV and after trying both units, I'm sticking with Tivo, I don't care about the costs, I'll pay it over Replay and I don't care about setup and the hours it may take compared to Replay. It's all been worth it and I just love it!!

Price Paid:  $125.00 from The Great Indoors

Summary:
I bought this unit as a Demo for $125. After playing with it for a month, I was hooked and spent $325 on a Maxtor 80GB hard drive and upgraded the unit myself (this voids the warranty, but given my initial investment, that didn't bother me much). This turns the unit into a 100+ hour recorder (at Medium Quality). I use the unit in 'Best Quality' mode due to the fact that my display is a 58" HDTV. Picture quality in this mode is excellent, but not perfect, If I bypass Tivo and watch TV via a direct cable-feed, I can see that it's a bit sharper, with a lack of pixelation (keep in mind that the HDTV will bring out the worst in even the best signal). I wish that when you watch 'live' TV that it would bypass the buffer and feed the signal directly, but unfortunately, 'live' isn't really, it's delayed by a fraction of a second and you're watching it via the buffer. As shipped, the unit buffers 30 minutes of the current channel, this can be upped to 60 minutes if you're technically savvy. Unfortunately, you can't watch a live program via Tivo and record another program at the same time, unless you physically bypass the Tivo (I use my VCR to do this). You CAN watch a previously recorded show while recording something else, though.
Initially, I was using the tuner built into the Tivo, and I noticed that the local Fox station was just about unwatchable via the Tivo, but perfect via direct cable. Apparantly, the CPU in the Tivo unit generates enough internal RF that it intereferes with this channel. I subsequently used my cable box to feed the Tivo via it's S-inputs and the problem disappeared.

Ok, those are my quibbles. Like I said, once you start using it, you get hooked. I come home to find not only my favorite shows, but also some shows that I would have never considered watching before (this can be good or bad, depending on how dedicated you are to indicating the shows that you like and dislike). If you don't like what's recorded, it's gone at the push of a button. The on-screen guide is better than anything that the cable company can come up with, though it can be a little slow when scrolling from page-to-page. The scheduling features are complex, but once you understand how they work, you'll never miss a show.

Equipment used:
Mitsubishi 58" HD Projection TV
Pioneer Elite VSX-09TX Receiver
Pioneer Elite DVL-91 DVD/LD Player
Scientific Atlanta Digital Cable Box

Strengths:
It WILL change the way you watch TV....Really!

Weaknesses:
Can't record 2 channels at once (though you can view one and record something else, just like a VCR) and you can't watch a live TV show and record another channel (see text). Guide navigation is sometimes slow. One channel is unwatchable due to RF being generated by the Tivo unit itself (see text).

Price Paid:  $499.00 from Sears

Summary:
This is my second post about this product. I still love it. I couldn't live without it. I watch what I want when I want. And I skip the commercials too.
My only gripe was that I bought one of the first ones and it only had 14 hours of capacity at basic. After buying a 36" TV (up from 27"), we had to start using medium with only 9 hours of capacity. This is because the better the playback quality the more disc space you use. Nine hours is not enough for 3 people. But I just upgraded it myself buy formating a 60 gig hard drive and installing it. Now I have 91 hours of capacity in basic and 55 hours in medium. The new hard drive cost $200.00 and the hard drive bracket cost $20.00. The info for this can be found at this site:

www.tivoupgradecentral.com

Installing and learning to use this thing is not for everybody. But once you get it going, everybody love's it.

Strengths:
Great TV appliance.

Weaknesses:
What it does is hard to explain to some people.

Similar Products Used:
Many VCR's.