TiVo TCD649080 (80 GB) DVR
- Type: Video Recorder (DVR)
- Broadcast Type: Cable Satellite
- Compatible Service: TiVo
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Setup is NOT for the novice user
Pros
Good cable selection, great walk through, solid internet support
Cons
PC integration is horribly unfriendly and my cable box was not exactly made for this
Recommended it?
Yes
The Bottom Line:
This is a great product but was difficult to set up. This review is not based on the service.
This review will primarily deal with the setup and installation of a TiVo Series 2 80 Hour DT box, the associated "TiVo desktop" PC app, and Tivo's web integration. I have not used the service for long enough yet to give it a fair grade but so far so good, and there are not other products on the market that I am aware of that make the same claims as Tivo about moving TV content to PC, PSP, DVD, etc.
First of all, out of the box there are two bags, an "A" bag of cables and a "B" bag of cables. Most serious TV watchers will require the "A" and "B" bags needed to hook up your cable box to your TiVo.
The provided walkthrough instructions were actually surprisingly good. The only piece of equipment Tivo failed to provide was a cable to connect Tivo to my TV, which was fine - I had extras but I would have been upset if I didn't - that's a pretty basic requirement to leave out of the box.
All in all, it took me an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get all the cables hooked up and in the right places. It was a little aggravating but not horribly so.
The system's startup sequence when you first turn it on is quite long. Fortunately, the provided documentation is quite thick so you can thumb through that while you wait.
This is where the real griping begins. Setting up my digital cable channels was about a 5 step process where the Tivo would say "Okay, we're going to do this - now watch your TV - What happened?" It got really old after the third time.
Once I finally got the box setup to the point where I could watch TV, I discovered I had no sound on digital channels, because my cable box does not support a secondary audio out even though it does support 2 different video outs. I have a HDTV cable box, so I have the component cables running to the TV and the composite cable running to the Tivo. Hence, if I want to watch HDTV from my cable box, I have to change the audio cables behind the box. I hear what you're saying - that's not Tivo's fault and I somewhat agree, but I've got more.
The "Dual Tuner" is kind of a fakeout. You can record 2 programs on channels 1-99 or 1 program on 1-99 and 1 program on 100 but never 2 programs on digital channels 100 . It is asterisked on the box and I should have read it more closely - I would have bought the cheaper single tuner box.
The PC connection setup was horrible. The music and photos were not really really bad, but you can't listen to music while watching photo's (or at least I could not). The process was also a little laggy across my network and timed out more than once. The internet functionality (weather, traffic, photos, podcasts, inet radio, games, etc) is FANTASTIC and I wish more consumer electronic devices would celebrate this kind of integration. Now the bad part - The set up of sharing TV programs across the network took a full 24 hours of rebooting my PC, rebooting the Tivo, reading message boards, and generally just wasting my precious time. Needless to say I was extremely upset when I finally got it to work because how long it took.
I am very excited about this functionality as the ability to watch my TV programs on my train commute is why I bought the device in the first place. Overall, this thing takes a LOT of work to set up and I sincerely hope the service is worth the pain.
First of all, out of the box there are two bags, an "A" bag of cables and a "B" bag of cables. Most serious TV watchers will require the "A" and "B" bags needed to hook up your cable box to your TiVo.
The provided walkthrough instructions were actually surprisingly good. The only piece of equipment Tivo failed to provide was a cable to connect Tivo to my TV, which was fine - I had extras but I would have been upset if I didn't - that's a pretty basic requirement to leave out of the box.
All in all, it took me an hour, maybe an hour and a half to get all the cables hooked up and in the right places. It was a little aggravating but not horribly so.
The system's startup sequence when you first turn it on is quite long. Fortunately, the provided documentation is quite thick so you can thumb through that while you wait.
This is where the real griping begins. Setting up my digital cable channels was about a 5 step process where the Tivo would say "Okay, we're going to do this - now watch your TV - What happened?" It got really old after the third time.
Once I finally got the box setup to the point where I could watch TV, I discovered I had no sound on digital channels, because my cable box does not support a secondary audio out even though it does support 2 different video outs. I have a HDTV cable box, so I have the component cables running to the TV and the composite cable running to the Tivo. Hence, if I want to watch HDTV from my cable box, I have to change the audio cables behind the box. I hear what you're saying - that's not Tivo's fault and I somewhat agree, but I've got more.
The "Dual Tuner" is kind of a fakeout. You can record 2 programs on channels 1-99 or 1 program on 1-99 and 1 program on 100 but never 2 programs on digital channels 100 . It is asterisked on the box and I should have read it more closely - I would have bought the cheaper single tuner box.
The PC connection setup was horrible. The music and photos were not really really bad, but you can't listen to music while watching photo's (or at least I could not). The process was also a little laggy across my network and timed out more than once. The internet functionality (weather, traffic, photos, podcasts, inet radio, games, etc) is FANTASTIC and I wish more consumer electronic devices would celebrate this kind of integration. Now the bad part - The set up of sharing TV programs across the network took a full 24 hours of rebooting my PC, rebooting the Tivo, reading message boards, and generally just wasting my precious time. Needless to say I was extremely upset when I finally got it to work because how long it took.
I am very excited about this functionality as the ability to watch my TV programs on my train commute is why I bought the device in the first place. Overall, this thing takes a LOT of work to set up and I sincerely hope the service is worth the pain.
