My Tivo HD (Finally)
After my wife and I purchased our new LG 42" LCD HDTV in February this year, we quickly realized that our less than 6 month old Tivo Series2 was not going to suffice in quality for recording programs.
We are both huge Tivo brand fans and really enjoy using the service. Especially with my wife's odd and unpredictable work schedule, it really suits us well. After scoffing at the price of a new Tivo Series3 which does support HD, we decided against it and to wait for a really slammin deal.
Meanwhile, we decided to use the built in HD DVR that came integrated with our LG screen. We figured this would be great, until we discovered all the downfalls that it had. Things like
- Not being able to resume your recorded program if you stop and come back
- Halt you from viewing a recorded program if one was recording at the same time and it finishes recording
- Really bad searching and scheduling
- Uses the integrated TV Guide interface which is clumsy, slow, and unorganized
- Etc, etc, etc
Needless to say, when I heard about the release of the Tivo HD last week, I was very very excited--especially when I saw the $300 price tag, compared to the $600 tag of the Series3 (from Amazon.com, retail is $800).
It is built on the Series3 technology. The only major thing that it differs from the Series3 is 10 less hours of HD recording time (putting it at about 20 hours I believe) and it only works with those who subscribe to Cable service (sorry satellite folks).
We went out to Best Buy last night and purchased it, and are loving it. We are so happy to have it back!
I may post more reviews about it, as I use it more, but so far it is really quite wonderful. Oh and by the way, there is a port on the back labeled eSATA - External Storage...hmmmmm.
Glad you are liking the Tivo HD. I have the Series 3 and absolutely love it!
Two notes on the eSata port. Tivo announced they will be activating it officially later on this year. You can, however use it now. There is a bunch of info on how here:
http://www.engadget.com/2007/05/04/how-to-use-your...
As for awesome unique Tivo features:
- From the beginning of Tivo, it has always boasted it's intuitive recording features in that it will automatically begin to record things that you like. For instance, let's say that you liked Heroes and you forgot to set it to record the special 2 hour finale, Tivo already knows that you like it from your viewing patterns and it will record it for you
- You can also set up season passes for Tivo to record shows every time a new one airs, or a rerun, or both.
- Interface is very nice, easy to use
- WishList feature which allows you to setup a variety of wishlists that are based on Actor, Category, Title, Description etc, and you can simply browse through the results that these come up with, or set them to record automatically.
- It also integrates into your home network really well to download additional free content, or rent movies from Amazon Unbox. You can also access things like Traffic, local movie listings & tickets.
- Another great feature that I use all the time is online scheduling. If you are away from your house on vacation, or over at a friend's place, or at work and you see a commercial for something you want to record, or you just remembered that you wanted to record something, you simply go to Tivo.com and can set your Tivo to record that program.
Those are just a few of the things that I enjoy most!
Great interface and excellent image quality IMO