Buy TiVo R24004A 40-Hour Digital Video RecorderTiVo R24004A 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder Product Description:
- TiVo service fee is not included
- Up to 40 hours of digital audio/video recording capacity
- Works with antenna, cable, digital cable, satellite, and combinations
- 2 USB ports offer ready connectivity with home networks
- Everything required for installation is supplied
Product Description
Never miss an episode of your favorite TV program again. Easy and smart, the original TiVo service automatically finds and records your favorite shows, every time they air, without the hassles of videotape. It will find and record by title, actor, sports team or keyword with a WishList search. You can control live TV with the pause, rewind, slo-mo, or instant replay any channel, anytime. Enjoy digital photos, digital music, remote scheduling and more with the Home Media Option premium feature (sold separately). TiVo works with any TV setup: antenna, satellite, cable, digital cable and combinations. TiVo service required and sold separately. Wired or wireless network adapter required. Home Media Option premium feature package is sold separately.
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
815 of 855 people found the following review helpful.
This TiVo is great: Dispelling some other reviewers issues
By Adrian Braun
This product is great, i love TiVo, but I'm not going to concentrate on reviewing TiVo itself, rather this TiVo brand DRV. People need to understand that TiVo is really just a service and software, too often these reviews are filled with info on the service, which is fine, but doesn't help the reviewer make a decision on which DVR unit to buy.
Ok the first thing i want to do is dispel some of the complaints of other reviewers. For the reviewer who stated "However, I was disappointed in the picture quality. I record at Basic Quality so as to get the most hours of recording time", i would say that if you look at the different quality settings you will see that "Basic" is the lowest, so of course you are going to have the lowest quality. It doesn't really matter what the levels of quality are called, if you pick the lowest one, you're going to get the worst quality, try using a higher quality setting.
Next, for the reviewer who stated "This is a very cool product, but it's extremely loud. The fan and hard drive combine to create a high-pitched whistling noise that we found impossible to live with", I'm not sure what he/she is even talking about, it must have been a defective unit. Mine is silent, i really can't hear a thing. Now the manual clearly states that you shouldn't set the TiVo directly on top of another component, or put another component on it, as this maybe block ventilation. So if this person has created a "component sandwich" with their TiVo in the middle, maybe the fans are coming on frequently, I don't know, mine makes no noise.
One review states "Be sure to understand that not only do you need to buy the TiVo (the player) itself, but you also need to buy the sevice!", this is 100% false. You don't have to purchase any service at all. The service gives you access to the "Season Pass" feature where you can tell TiVo to record every showing of a certain show. But you can always set the TiVo up to do this manually, you do not have to purchase any service at all.
Another reviewer has this to say, "Another thing: no power switch. Again, for casual TV users, this is a waste of equipment lifespan & electricity." This is really quite nitpicky, if you turn the TiVo off, it cant make its dial-in call to get your updated schedule of shows, and it cant search for shows you might like based on your preferences. Besides that it doesn't use much power at all, and the only thing that would be getting any wear and tear are the hard drives and they sleep when they aren't in use. He also states "it's just a very expensive toy", um hello.... Of course it is, that's the fun of it.
Finally there is this complaint, "You need a credit card to activate the service. This is a real problem for those who do not have, or choose not to use, credit cards". Ok lets see, first of all you don't need to sign up for the service, and if you don't have a credit card I'm guessing you run into this problem all the time, it isn't just with TiVo...
This TiVo unit works as advertised, I cant really say anything else about it. One thing to realize is that, while this is an 80 hour unit, that really is only about 25 hours of recordings at the highest quality level. I know some of you are saying "25 hours is plenty", and you're right, but if you were looking at a unit with less recording time, remember that you only get about 30% of the total time at the best level. The only other problem I have with this is that recording a show while watching something else on live TV is impossible if you have a cable box for your TV. I have digital cable, and therefore I need a cable box, well you cant split a digital signal very easily and its then impossible to record on one channel and watch another. But it isn't that big a deal as one can still watch a recorded show and record another.
113 of 118 people found the following review helpful.
I love my TiVo!
By Tony Ursillo
NOTICE: Most of this review relates to TiVo in general, not this specific hardware device, although they all pretty much work the same. I have a Sony SAT-T60 DIRECTV/TiVo combination receiver and a Hughes GXCEBOT DIRECTV/TiVo combination receiver. I've provided a few comments on these combo units because I highly recommend them if you are looking at buying a TiVo.
My wife and I became addicted to TiVo within 1 month after installing it. In fact, we bought a second TiVo for the bedroom about six months after purchasing our first one. We have gone from watching 90% live TV/10% recorded (VCR) to 90% Tivo/10% live TV! We hardly watch anything anymore at its regular time. We simply pull up the "Now Playing" menu, which lists all the shows I have previously recorded, and watch whatever we're in the mood for - drama (Law and Order or Boomtown), comedy (Friends, South Park), reality TV (Survivor, Fear Factor), or sports (Illinois basketball, cliff diving).
There are so many cool things about TiVo, but these are my FOUR FAVORITE things:1) Season Pass, which once you set it up, will record a particular show EVERY time it's on or even all shows with a particular actor or subject,2) Easy to record (simply choose the show, not the time and channel) and easy to find and play (scroll through "Now Playing" list of previously recorded shows and choose "Select" to play),3) Record two shows at once (like Survivor and Friends, which both start at 8:00 on Thursday) with a DirecTV/TiVo combination receiver, which we have. The TiVo Series2 product you are shopping for will only record one show at a time, but you CAN watch a previously recorded show while taping a show that is currently being broadcast.4) Replay button - skips back 7 seconds, which comes in handy whenever you miss something that was said, or you want to go back and pause something so another person can see it. We probably use this button more than any other on the entire remote.
HOW HAS IT CHANGED OUR LIFE?Let me just give you 3 examples:FIRST, we watch TV on our time. We never worry about what time, or even what day something is on. We have TiVo recording about 20 different shows for us each week and we watch them at various times, depending on our schedule. It doesn't matter when I get home from work, whether I'm out of town, or what time the kids go to bed. Our shows are on when WE want to see them.SECOND, we have a Season Pass for three kids shows (Sesame Street, Clifford, Teletubbies). Every day, it tapes the new one and deletes the one from yesterday. So, there is always a fresh show to put on for our kids when we need to get them out of our hair. No bulky video tapes, and none of the stories get old. They're seeing and learning something new every day.FINALLY, we pause and replay shows all the time. Want to stop and get a drink? No problem-pause. Phone call? No problem-pause. What did she just whisper? Replay it. Who was that behind Julia Roberts at the Oscars? Replay it, then pause or slo-mo. Use TiVo for a month and you won't believe that you ever watched television without it.We started with the monthly subscription and moved to the lifetime after just a month (it's good for the life of the box, not you). I bought a 4-year warranty as a safety precaution (new technology and insurance against the lifetime subscription). DirecTV customer service is decent, but not great (they handle the TiVo side as well). The BEST resource for TiVo is the TiVo AVS forum, which you can link to from the Buzz section of the TiVo Web site. It's a "must read" prior to buying this unit (if my review hasn't answered all your questions). But I am not exaggerating when I say that this is the coolest, most liberating invention to come out since the World Wide Web. No joke! You will fall in love with your TiVo too.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------A note regarding DIRECTV/TiVo units: First, it looks like the Justice Department is going to block the Echostar-DIRECTV merger. So, any fears that subscribers might have had about losing TiVo service to Echostar's technology are likely overblown now. I've also discovered that DIRECTV/TiVo combination units rarely hold the number of hours suggested. My Sony advertises "up to 35-hour recording capacity." In reality, the data density of the DIRECTV signal is variable and you will rarely have even 30 hours of capacity. I have been maxing out at around 23 hours before things get deleted involuntarily. You can control the recording quality on stand-alone units and therefore, you can tell exactly how much capacity you're using. Recording quality is not an option with the combo units, but you should assume that you will NOT be able to retain more than 22 to 25 hours of programming before shows must be deleted in order to make room for new recordings. This doesn't change my enthusiastic view on TiVo or the combo units one bit.
50 of 51 people found the following review helpful.
The cornerstone of my home theater
By A Customer
I hate buying expensive products and I hate month-to-month costs. When I went out to buy my Tivo Series 2, I had to grit my teeth -- the box was expensive and the upfront cost of a lifetime subscription was expensive. There wasn't really a way to get a better deal, and that goes against my grain.
In the end, the Tivo has been the best money I've ever spent.
The "killer" features of Tivo, in my opinion, that aren't thoroughly discussed already:- Wishlists, allowing saved searches of programming in the next couple of weeks by title, category (e.g. Sports/Tennis), actor, director, or using keywords, or some combinations of the above (e.g. Movies/Action and Jackie Chan).- 30 second skip, which has to be enabled when you boot your Tivo up (yes, Tivo is essentially a computer). This allows bypassing of a commercial you might already have seen, or skipping of a part of a program you may not want to watch. Hitting it when a player is tackled in a football game gets you instantly to the next play, for example.- Great menus. Tivo doesn't use one word menus or confusing Yes/No options. If you have a scheduling conflict when you select a new program to record, the menus will say "Record my newly selected program" or "Cancel this recording, record the old program as planned". Very technophobe friendly, when I show it off, people are amazed at how easy it is to pick up.- "Hackability". Since Tivo is a computer, it is alterable. I have installed a larger hard disk in mine to extend the content it's capable of holding. Note: this voids your warranty, so unless you're handy with computers and don't mind being "on your own" for support, you may want to ignore this.- A rabidly helpful and enthusiastic community, easily findable on the web. If you are having difficulties, there are users who have been where you are and can answer any questions: issues with the Tivo software, problems with the Tivo itself, plus they provide simple upgrade instructions.- This model (60 hour series II) has several advantages: more processor and RAM (faster), USB ports which allow it to use the Internet instead of a phone line, and an excellent hard drive bracket inside it should you choose to upgrade your device yourself (which the 80 hour model does not, I'm told). One downside: it is not as flexible as the Series I with respect to software -- you can't make it web accessible or other similar features (no Linux prompt). Also, this model is really suited for a cable box; if you use DishNetwork or DirectTV, I'd recommend checking out the satellite Tivo models, first. They have nice features like recording two simultaneous streams and recording in Dolby 5.1 (the Series II listed here doesn't do it). Personally, I feel the speed of this box makes up for a lot of the experience, I'd buy it again.
Does it change your habits? Entirely. I never channel surf anymore, although I sometimes (as a New York Times article put it) "Tivo snack". Once you have a bunch of programs recorded, you can hop from one to the other; catch twenty minutes of a movie, then watch ten minutes of extreme sports, then just a little of the old Batman TV show before going back to the movie. It's fun, and it saves time. A bad show or movie takes less than five minutes to identify, you delete it and move on.
One downside, mentioned below, is the IR blasters that change your cable box channels. I had to fashion a "fort" out of cardboard over the front of my cable box so that it did not miskey channels. It's frustrating to find paid programming from channel 41 on what you thought was a sitcom on channel 410. The "fort" fixed it, though (ten minutes of work and free materials). This could also be fixed in software by allowing serial control of cable boxes. This is apparently something in the works.
Tivo is truly extraordinary, a technological product geared for the discerning consumer. It is a new example of how traditional methods of content delivery are being slowly replaced by products that empower consumer choice and control. Although the PVR revolution is still in the early-adopter phase, it can and should take hold. There's no reason a leisure activity as low-impact as television watching should have to be rigidly scheduled. Well, OK, solved by a VCR -- but the Tivo takes the information age and packages the advantages for you. Think of it as a smart, huge VCR with nothing to eject or shelve. Recordings can be automatically scheduled, boring and annoying content can be skipped or hurried through, and its consistently improving suggestion engine hunts down programs you might never have known you'd like. You'll see your favorite shows as never before, see more good movies and generally enjoy the experience more.
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