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For what. Avoid. The TIVO HD is a piece of junk. They gor their hardware back 5 months ago and I'm paying for nothing. Go with DirecTV HD DVR. It's sluggish, channel changes are slow, and the Internet features work poorly.What's worse: I bought it, returned it, canceled the Tivo service (if you don't call to cancel they will keep charging you $14/mo)., but they kept charging me even though I haven't owned the hardware for 5 months. I called to cancel again months later and they want to charge me a $150 early termination fee.
Have been very happy and long-term Tivo customer (have 3 other non-Series 3 units in the house) until now, but are switching the Tivo HD DVR to a DVR provided by our cable provider. model (for ~$100 fee) and transferred lifetime service. New unit lasted about 8 months and Tivo now (as of 5/09) charges a $200 "transfer fee" for lifetime service that they will not waive (plus $49 +s/h for the replacement unit), even though the reason for the transfer is a substandard product. Multiple units have proven unreliable. Tivo sells an unreliable product that breaks down in The hard drive died in about a year and a half. We ordered this product and transferred an old lifetime service (for $150 tranfer fee) to this machine. Tivo replaced with a refurb.
We returned the useless CABLE CARD, and sent back the TIVO HD unit.TIVO (the company) was the other half of our problem. They kept 59 dollars, for nothing.Every day now I think about cancelling ALL our TIVO service and living with the lousy CABLEVISION DVR. We bought a HD TIVO in November 2008. But I had always wanted one capable of recording in HD. After an hour on the phone, we finally got 41 dollars back. CABLE CARDS ARE A HORRIBLE WAY FOR THE MOVIE/TV INDUSTRY TO "PROTECT" THEIR CONTENT. 50% of the HD channels simply did not work with the TIVO HD.
Because it was outside the trial period, THEY COULD NOT REFUND ANYTHING, and they did us a "favor" by not charging us an early cancellation fee. Three months later, I remembered to cancel the service.
Half of this was due to the cable company and CABLE CARDS. HUGE MISTAKE.
We have 3 standard definition TIVOs, networked, throughout our home, and LOVE the interface. Once I had returned the TIVO HD, I forgot about the 1-year service contract.
At least I know they're going to screw me. We finally saved up enough money, and.TIVO HD was nothing but a nightmare from day one.
The CABLEVISION (NJ) tech that came out was cynical about how the card would work, and he was right.
Now there is MUCH more storage and my recordings are saved for longer. when searching), and TiVo seems to insist on sticking little advertisements in various menus which shouldn't be there (I'm paying a monthly subscription fee - I don't want to see advertisements on a subscription-based system).Keep in mind that in addition to buying the TiVo, you'll need to pay a monthly or annual subscription fee to keep it running (the fee is for guide data and online account management).Also, on-demand services from your cable company are not currently supported, but this is something that I have never personally wanted to used. I purchased the Series3 a few months after it was first released. A highly recommended and easy upgrade.The only downside is that some menus in the system are a little slow to load (i.e. TiVo (in partnership with Amazon and Netflix) now offers many on-demand services at more reasonable prices than the cable company, so this is not a problem. It took a few days of waiting for Comcast to arrive to install the cableCARDs (at the time, they required a service call), and some initial trouble when the technician clearly didn't understand how to install cable cards. But once it was up and running, the TiVo is an amazing device.The search, scheduling and recommendation functionality is just amazing and much better than the standard DVR's being offered by Comcast.Never again do I need to wait around for a show to air - in the 2+ years I've been using this, it has never "missed" a show - it always records them reliably.I expanded my unit by buying and plugging in an external 1TB eSATA hard drive.
TiVo can find your programs, advise if you have recording conflicts, has a program recommendation feature based on your preferences, can download movies from Amazon and Netflix, watch You Tube, and a whole list of great feature that is growing.*Dual channel HD is very nice and Tivo is addictive.It will drive you nuts to have to watch a "live" program once your use to Tivo and you will soon be buying another unit once the other family members horde in on "your TiVo" - lol.Now the Hate:*DO NOT purchase the lifetime subscription service.Unless you're a addicted gambler or a fool - there is a very very good chance you will be parted from a huge (400.00) chunk of your wallet. Several calls to customer service, rebate service, tech service, and the janitor and you may finally get it. *Skipping thru the junk and commercials is heaven.You can watch 2 or 3 programs using TiVo in the same time you watchone live show.
I have read a lot of reviews about folks having units for years with no problems - but beware.there are also a LOT of units that have had problems, been replaced multiple times, and or just become useless after the 1 year limited warranty is up.*And if you are thinking - Wow what a great rebate.O-boy. Let me know cause I'm still waiting.As much as I love the Tivo when its working,I would not recommend this unit to anyone due to very lousy warranty and reliability. another disaster.
Ok - here goes.First - The Love:*TiVo's best feature- its great being able to watching programs on "your" schedule and not the "TV program" schedule. ---Some research on diff web forums as well as TiVo's 30 day replacement (no charge) and 1 yr limited replacement (min of 40.00 charge) will attest to the this.*I bought 2 TiVo HD units and both have failed in the first year. And PLEASE don't get sucked into buying a "lifetime" Tivo subscription unless you like just love to gamble or waste money.
*Menus are easy to use and it's "smart". The service subscription is for the life of the "unit" and--- TiVo reliability is abysmal.
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