TiVo R24008A 80-Hour Digital Video Recorder

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.

We love this thing! Setup was a snap. I really expected it to be much more cumbersome than it was, but they obviously did a lot of usability testing on the product. I had it hooked up in 10 minutes, and within 1.5 hours, I had signed up for the Tivo subscription AND downloaded and processed the entire guide. Unfortunately, there are some limitations for certain AV hookups -- we had to make some tradeoffs with ours, but it was worth it. Using it is a snap. My wife has never been able to record a show with a VCR, but with 5 minutes of explanation, she was able to record a show through the guide, setup a season pass to record every upcoming episode of her favorite show, and setup a wishlist to record every show that had her favorite actor in it. The on-screen prompts and instructions are crystal clear -- I would, however, prefer more shortcuts. I can imagine that always following the prompts will get old. Picture quality was very good. I braced myself for some degradation in quality, but there's minimal on our set. The unit hums a bit, but the sound is easily masked by the normal TV volume, and ours is in a closing entertainment center, so we don't notice it. The pause between channel changes is generally 1 to 2 seconds, but I never notice it because I generally use the guide to move around. That's my favorite part of the Tivo -- I don't waste time channel switching any more. I use the guide -- if I see something I like, I watch it; otherwise, the TV is turned off. And I always pause the shows I like for 15 minutes so I can fast forward through the commercials. The fast forward and rewind are fantastic, too -- too much to write here, but you will like it. No more anticipatory button pressing!

I'm on my second TiVo. I bought the Sony SVR-2000 in October 2003, and have not watched TV in the same way since. I an a professional AV technician and home theater installer with 40 years of experience. I've been around TV since the Golden Age of Television. TiVo has to be the best DVR out there and is second to none. The others like Dish Network, Scientific Atlanta, Motorola and others don't come close. Season Pass, Wish List, and TiVo suggestions searches and recordings by alphabetic rather than time schedule surch makes TiVo a cut above all. For example, in close to 4 years of use, if I'd keep a Season Pass in my TiVo, it would pick up shows in a series that I missed sometimes two years ago. The wish list allows me to enter movies titles to record future showings of movies whenever the appear maybe three years from now. Try manually checking scedules for over three years every week or so to find a listing. I know that I would probably miss it. In 2000, I paid $425 for the 30 hour Sony TiVo including the machine Lifetime Service Option, which then was $199. I received a $100 rebate a few months later. Less than a week ago, I received my Series 2 80 hour TiVo from Amazon.com and activated it. My call in for activation took 30 minutes, but I have since found that the best time to call is before 8:00AM Pacific Time. If you call about three minutes before the "live agent" shift begins at 8:00AM, you get to be almost first in line to get a live person. I got on within a minute to talk to a live person. Now that the Lifetime Service Option is $299, I sold the TiVo that has given me exemplary service for nearly 4 years for $330 on eBay. In effect, I have made a fantastic investment, essentially having use the TiVo for free and recouped every penny I spent. Obviously, I again chose the Lifetime Service Option. To those who are worried about the life of the machine, I wouldn't. I learned recently that TiVo will allow online transfer of any Lifetime Service Option machine to another machine of the same model number, without question. Therefore, even if I had kept the Sony, I could have purchased a used one for about $80 and transferred my Lifetime Service Option to it without problem. So, basically, Lifetime Service is Lifetime with very little additional expense. Likewise, any time in the future, I can purchase a new TiVo of the same model and would have no problem transferring my Lifetime service to it. They only do not allow upgrading to a higher level machine as a means of keeping as many machines in service as possible. Otherwise, older version machines would be retired to closets, basements and attics. TiVo happens to be one of the best investments to make, if done right.

I bought this particular TiVo because the technical help at TiVo.com said that the Series 2 could function like a VCR without a subscription. I don't want a subscription because we only watch 60 minutes of TV a week and don't have cable. Having a way to record our 60 minutes so we could skip commercials (especially during the Olympics) was the reasons we bought the item... BUT... it doesn't do what the TiVo tech help said it would... we can only pause and go back. We cannot record a day/time or even go back very far (30-60 minutes on a rolling continuous basis). ALSO... it is ANALOG only even though it says digital. The digital is for the recording not the signal... SO, I needed to take our perfect digital over the air signal, convert it to analog, and then put it up as a grainy mess onto our lovely digital TV. What a useless waste... Glad they are no out of stock. DO NOT BUY unless you want a grainy analog picture and plan to dump $15 a month into TiVo's bank account.

TIVO is one of the few discretionary electronic purchases in our home that we would absolutely replace immediately if necessary. They are expensive to purchase and if you purchase a lifetime support option, even more so. However, I would recommend this option if you can afford to purchase it since we have more than offset what monthly payments would have cost us over the years. There are many things we like about our TIVOs. A few are the ease with which you can record (and delete) programming. Also, the many recording options that allow you to record only new programming or new and repeated programming; the ability to record programs with a specific actor, singer, producer or topic without ongoing manual intervention; and the number of programs that can be stored on the TIVO. We feel that the TIVO saves us money in the long run. Before we had TIVO, we would rent many movies during a month and now we rarely rent movies since we have a continual backlog of programming to watch on TIVO. Our daughter has a TIVO and `prerecords' entire series of programming that she considers acceptable for the children. TIVOs are not all created equal. You can purchase independent TIVOs from TIVO itself or purchase your DVR via cable or satellite providers. Keep in mind that the ones you purchase from TIVO are full featured and will work with either cable or satellite systems. Ones purchased via third parties such as cable and satellite providers have tailored sets of features and will work only with their system. (If you move and go from one cable system to another or to satellite your DVR may have to be replaced.) Independent TIVOs can be LAN connected and we have done so. We have one in our living room and one in our recreation room. LAN connecting of TIVOs adds a whole new dimension to their abilities. We can watch recorded programs on either TIVO while recording one program in the living room and one in the recreation room concurrently. We can transfer programs from one TIVO to another if we decide to watch the program in a different room. Since the TIVOs are on the LAN, they can access the photo libraries on our PC. As photos are downloaded to the PC they are immediately available for slide shows on the TV. We have had several occasions to use TIVO's customer support. We feel that their support has been excellent. In most cases, our problem was resolved on the first call and their support people have been very helpful.

Bought it for my folks. Took them a while to realize that they didn't have to be in front of the TV for their favorite programs. After about two months, they have declared they LOVE THEIR TIVO! They setup the Tivo on the line in (we split the cable signal - one to the Tivo, the other to the TV). So when it records, they flip the VIDEO source to the tuner, and watch something else. Quality is user variable. With only 40 hours, we set it to medium, and it is just OK. But, I will probably add a second hard drive to the unit (see [...]) and a fan to add a ton of hours to it. With more capacity, we can bump up the quality to MAX at all times. If you are not computer saavy, get the 80 hour Tivo or have weaknees do it. They are nice people. I added a USB wireless adapter to get updates over the net. It worked after the initial upgrade over the phone line-- which took hours. Wish it came out of the box ready for wireless ethernet adapters, but it probably will in the near future. Now the updates are super fast over the internet, and they occur almost daily behind the scenes. Overall, it's been a wonderful addition. My mom loves it, and that's all that counts.

When I opened the box, the tivo was in perfect condition. Nothing was misplaced, and all pieces were there. As I plugged it into the television everything was hooked up correctly but it never started. Out of 4 hours of fiddling around with cables and such I gave up and took it apart for computer parts. I would not recommend this product to someone who is looking for an actual Tivo recorder. I would recommend it to someone who wants something to smash with a sledgehammer when they're mad that it's broken!

As a first time Tivo buyer, and as I have never seen it in real life before, I was a little bit afraid. Would it really work ? Would I like it ? But then, after I set it up, which is very simple and menu driven (I wonder why they included two manuals), my life of TV watching completely changed. I no longer need to waste my time to check TV programs, since Tivo does it for me. I no longer need to walk around the video stores to look for some movies (what a waste of time). I can finish David Letterman's show in 15 minutes (and I don't need to wait in fron ot TV on time and be there for an hour). I have had for 3 weeks and so far, it works perfect as advertised (and more than I imagined). Even though it is advertised as 40 hour, I set it up as High Quality recording which gives only 18 hours or so. Normally this is really good enough. But when I watched French Open Tennis, if things are moving so fast on all over the screen, picture becomes blocky. If I use "Best Quality" recording which gives about 12 hours of recording, there is no such problem. Only if I can record two channels at the same time... It is a littel bit annoying when there are so many times I wanted to record two channels at the same time but I can't because there is a slight overlap - for example, if a program A ends at 3:15 and another starts at 3:00, I can't record both of them at the same time. I have to manually set up one of them (and will lose 15 minutes). This is understandable with the current techonolgy. Tivo is essentially a Linux computer server dedicated to compressing/ decompressing videos. To perform two video compressions at the same time (and possibly uncompressing at the same time since the user may want to watch previously recorded one while recording two channels) would require some CPU power which prohibits the low cost, low heat and reliability. But I expect that within a few years this will be realized. Thanks Tivo ! ^^