Ultimate TV was the Ultimate disappointment
Written: May 16 '01 (Updated May 16 '01)
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Pros: Sony includes the keyboard for the internet service
Cons: Near unusable remote arrangement
Doesn't support features built in to Sony's other equipment
The Bottom Line: This is an unfinished product. Wait for the 2.0 version before you look at one.
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| RichardSP's Full Review: Sony SAT-W60 DSS System with UltimateTV |
I loved the idea behind Tivo and ReplayTV. Schedule/record anything and pause live TV. Brilliant for a couch potato like me.
When I heard that Microsoft came with UltimateTV, and that it had two build in tuners, I knew that it was the one to get. Just the thought of watching sports on something like that was enough to get me into the store.
I bought one at The Good Guys, took it home, and plugged it in.
The first thing I discovered is that it did not support Sony's S-Link system, nor RF remotes like other Sony satellite boxes. I have all Sony equipment so that I can minimize my remotes. I also have all my equipment installed in the closet. For using the TV, I can get by with one remote. Not with UltimateTV.
I had to stand up and walk over to the closet to change channels the first day, then I got a longer set of cables so that I could place the UltimateTV box on my television.
Now that I was sitting in front of the TV, and controlling the box, I noticed that the remote SUCKED! I can't say that strongly enough. The remote is absolutely horrible. It was setup so that the buttons you are going to use the most (record, rewind, skip forward and back) were the smallest, and positioned the farthest from your fingers. It also felt extremely flimsy and cheap.
The second thing I noticed was that the picture quality sucked! I was surprised, but then I thought about it. DirectTV sends the digital data, UltimateTV decompresses it, and recompresses it to the hard drive, then decompresses it to the screen. Bad!
After all this, I tried to use the box. I'm not a big "read the manual" guy, but this acts as the tuner for your TV set. If there are two things anyone should be able to use without reading the manual they are a telephone, and a TV.
The rewind function lost me. There is no way to tell that you are not watching live TV and I discovered if you are not watching live TV, and change the channel, it forgets what you just recorded. So if you pause the basketball game to answer the phone and hit the wrong button on the horrid remote when you get back - No game! What's worse is that the box responded to every numeric keypress by changing channels - even to channels that do not exist.
I even had to call someone to ask them how to remove the big frame from around the picture without going back to the guide.
I kept it for three days... and took it back. The only positive is that Sony included the keyboard for the internet service. This is definitely not ready for primetime.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 450.00
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Epinions.com ID:
RichardSP
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Location: Los Angeles
Reviews written: 6
Trusted by: 2 members
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