maguilar's Full Review: Sony SVR-2000 (27.2 GB) 30-Hours Video Recorder
When people find out I have a TIVO..they always ask very innocently 'How do you like it?'. HOW DO I LIKE IT? I could be TIVO's spokesperson on how much I love it. I got it about 9 months ago and have been seriously addicted ever since. I love TV watching, but don't have alot of time to sit in front of the tube changing channels and trying to get the fickle VCR to tape things. So in the past..I would just watch what was on and make the best of it..if I missed a show I liked..I'd log onto the internet to read a synopsis of what happened.
Then my world changed. I got Sony SVR-2000 TIVO with 30 hours of recording time for my birthday in 2001. I had a bunch of old co-workers who were constantly spouting TIVO's numerous praises..so I'd heard about all these great things that the unit could do..but I in NO WAY was prepared for how it changed my life. Since I am usually on the go and have a busy lifestyle, watching TV was a snippet of time here and there..which doesn't work well when you have a VCR with one tape and hours of fast forwarding to do.
Now I just set up the TIVO for a show and off I go. When I return, I can watch 10 minutes while getting ready for work in the morning, 30 in the evening before making dinner, and ffwd instantly through the other 15 minutes of commercials! It's amazing how quickly a one hour show goes by..we've discovered we can watch a 1 hr show in 38 minutes. Talk about time management!
I can setup TIVO to tape anything with my favorite actors or actresses, search by a title of a movie that I'd like to see, or set it to tape all the 'award shows' that come on. It tries to be intuitive and figure out what I would like to see on its own..where it doesn't always succeed..but it makes a good effort. However, I could never quite figure out why it thinks I would want to watch a Korean soap opera..or a Spanish rodeo?
I always have TV to watch..and 95% of the time it's shows I never got to watch before TIVO, when I just had a VCR that was a pain to program. TIVO is pro-active, calling up my cable provider nightly to download the new listings of what is playing when, and then it makes adjustments to my Season Pass list and "To Do List" accordingly. Never again will I miss an episode of a show that normally aired on Wednesdays because the show was moved to Thursday for a week. TIVO will make the adjustment and never misses a beat. I probably never even realize that the show switched days.
Some of my favorite features of TIVO (because there's not enough room to list them all) are that you can view 'upcoming episodes' of a show and choose what you'd like to TIVO and what you want to bypass. You can view when a movie is playing over the next 2 weeks and add it to your list as opposed to just having to catch it on the fly. You can pause LIVE TV because TIVO caches up to 30 minutes of the channel you are on even if you are not actually recording it..just in case you turn on the TV and get caught up in what is on..you will have the last 30 minutes on cache for you to view immediately. The fast-fast forwarding is about 2-3 times as fast as f-fwd'ing with a VCR, enabling you to pack more TV watching minutes into a shorter period of time. TIVO also has this interesting 'thumbs up/thumbs down' functionality which lets you tell TIVO what you really like to see (3 thumbs up), what you are intrigued by (1 thumb up) and what you absolutely NEVER want to see again (e.g. Spanish rodeo which gets 3 thumbs down). The idea is that TIVO will then take its computer brain and start to filter out good and bad for you in the future, and will change it's 'suggestions' for you accordingly. It records less Spanish and Korean shows now that I've had it for 9 months.
Something important to note before you impulse buy is that the 'up to XX hours' recording time they advertise means that you are recording at lowest/basic quality to get that number of hours. My Sony unit is 'up to 30 hours' which means about 31 hours of basic recording (suitable for smaller TV's and non-action shows), about 20 of medium quality (better for high-action shows and more regular sized TVs (25-27") and about 11 of best quality (required for big screen TVs or else the image is more pixelated). Luckily, my TV is only smaller/average and so I am able to get away with more basic/medium shows and be able to record more hours. If you have a larger TV...I would get the units that have more space, such as the new one that just came out that is 60 hours, that would double your 'best' quality time to more around 25 hours most likely.
Also, the setup of the unit took a little more time than anticipated, the phone line connection was not working, etc..but somehow we managed to make it work. It took about a full evening (5-6 hours) to get it set-up and working correctly, so make sure you give yourself ample time so you don't get frustrated. One other thing about setup is that they did not have my local cable choice available, they had the provider and 'digital cable' but not the GOLD package which is what I had..which resulted in me missing a few channels that I could TIVO on. Since then I have downgraded to a SILVER package which is fine now..and the funny thing is that I did this because I was finding I didn't need GOLD any longer because I was recording 95% of my stuff on regular cable channels!
My wishlist on what they would change/fix would be that the units would be a little cheaper, that they would offer a 'trade-in upgrade' for when they come out with new units, as otherwise you have to go out and spend $400 for a brand new unit with the new functionality when you just bought yours a year ago. Also,some strange things that have happened with the TIVO is that it sometimes records odd choices of 'suggestions' (the aforementioned Spanish rodeo and Korean soap opera) when nothing in my prefs would suggest there was a correlation. Last but not least, probably the most disturbing problem I've had (and its not disturbing enough really..but once you have TIVO it becomes amazing how spoiled you can get!) is that sometimes the channels do not change correctly due to the IR setup, and TIVO will then tape the wrong show on the wrong channel. It would be great if the TIVO-geniuses could come up with a way for TIVO to communicate with the TV/cable to confirm that it is on the correct channel after it makes the attempt to change. I've missed a few shows by this happening, and you can modify your prefs to make the channel changes slower or faster and that is supposed to fix it..but its never 100%-maybe 95%. Oh and did I mention that if you get a TIVO you will suddenly find about 100 shows you never knew you wanted to watch..but suddenly you do? You'll be out of space in no time! Be prepared to spend some quality time with your couch if that happens.
To sum up the praise-fest..I love my TIVO and would NEVER give it up. I don't even think about the days before I had it..when I do I almost cringe. Life in the living room is so much more flexible and enjoyable now that I have the TIVO. The cute little dancing TIVO logo/image just makes the experience all the more pleasurable. GO TIVO-I will forever be a fan!
BTW I paid $300 for it because it was $400 in stores with a $100 mail in rebate. Awesome deal!
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