TiVo Series2™ (80 Hours) (80 GB) 80-Hours Video Recorder

I've been interested in the TiVo concept for a long time. It seems like everybody who has one "could never imagine going back". Finally, I was able to see one in action -- a friend had a TiVo series 1. Wow, it was neat.

I bought my wife a TiVo series 2 for our anniversary. Why series 2? Series 2 is the newer one (rumored to one day have features that series 1 doesn't), has USB (for an ethernet adapter so it can use the cable modem, not the phone to dial in) and bigger hard drives. Most of the TiVo series 1 devices I've seen are 10, 15, 20 or 30 hours. The series 2 that I've seen have either been 60 or 80 hours. I purchased an 80 hour at Amazon.com.

Setup was easy, but took a little over an hour. Standard cabling to do -- if you've ever plugged in a DVD player, VCR or Nintendo, it's the same thing. We have a Dish Network digital satellite set up, which the TiVo supports well. There's an extra plug to put in the back of the TiVo that goes into a pair of IR transmitters (infrared -- like the remote to change channels) so the TiVo can control the satellite decoder. Since there's very little power change between leaving the decoder on and turning it off, I don't mind leaving it on like the TiVo needs. Then there's telling the TiVo all about yourself. Tell it your area code, tell it your time zone, and tell it what channels you have (this took a while -- it defaults to thinking you get all the channels, and to take a Dish Network subscription and pare it down to just the "Top 50" subscription took a while). Then it dials (a 1800 number?), and asks you which local number you want to use.

After all that, you're good to go. Hit the "TiVo" button, and start selecting shows you want to watch. It'll just start to record them and a few others it would like to suggest based on what it thinks are your tastes.

The TiVo is like a VCR/DVD player in that it has fast forward and rewind (three different speeds of each), and like a DVD/CD player in that if you want to watch shows out of order, it won't make you sit while it winds to the right spot like a VCR. It won't let you watch live TV on one channel if you're recording on another -- it records the live TV that you see, so if you grab the satellite remote and change the channel, the TiVo keeps going. You can watch one recorded show while recording another, though.

Our unit is quiet, but there's a fan and a hard drive in there, so it's not totally silent.

To use a TiVo to its fullest potential, you need to subscribe. It's typically $12.95 a month or $249.95 for a lifetime subscription (lifetime of that particular TiVo, so if you replace it with a newer one in 2 years, the subscription does not transfer). Doing quick math, you'd have to keep your TiVo for almost 2 years in order for the lifetime subscription to make any sense, unless it's a gift or budgetting is hard to do. If you're buying for yourself, though, and you don't mind budgetting the money every month, think about how long you keep pieces of electronics before you commit to the $250.

If you have digital cable or satellite, you may be disatisfied with using the lower qualities of recording. The digitazation loses a little when it goes through cable or satellite, but we don't usually notice much. Likewise, when a normal signal goes through a TiVo, it loses a little but we don't usually notice much. A signal that goes through both, however, may lose enough to notice. In tech speak, it's MPEG encoding an MPEG decoded stream. In layman's terms, it's almost like copying a VCR tape that is itself a copy.

One of our biggest pet peeves is that we like to watch TV while eating dinner at 6. Only repeats and syndicated shows are on then. The TiVo, however, lets us watch first run TV (the next day, week or whatever) at times that are convenient for US!