Run, don't walk to the store
Written: Jun 16 '01
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Pros: TV when and how you want, excellent recording quality
Cons: Kind of noisy, it might be expensive, but still a great value.
The Bottom Line: Tivo maybe the most significant television product of the last 10 years. It has dramatically altered the way we watch TV, much more so than our DVD.
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| toddmoe's Full Review: Sony SAT-T60 DIRECTV Receiver with TiVo Service |
I travel quite extensively, so I don’t really get to watch what I want. The last thing I am interested in doing is flipping through 250 channels only to find that there 235 infomercials on. I had been intrigued by the idea if Tivo for a couple of years, but having to sync up to the satellite and manage both devices wasn’t looking very appealing, I also had some reservations about the amount of recording time available on these devices. 30 hours (yes, but on low quality) that low quality is the very reason I don’t use my VCR to tape from the satellite.
So when Sony came out with the SAT T60 I was intrigued, it’s Tivo with a DirecTV receiver built in, and it has 30 hours of recording on High quality! Joy!
Out of the box
Very easy to set up, basically remove the connections from your old Sat receiver and plug in the new one. Follow the on screen set-up, give DirecTV a call to activate and Viola’.
The one annoyance I must mention was that the remote was factory preset to TV instead of SAT (little switch on the side) so at first I thought it was broken. Kind of a dumb thing, but I was overcome with excitement so I didn’t realize at first. The access card is a hybrid specific to this device, so you can probably forget about doing anything “fancy” with an access card.
I am using the optical outputs, which provide Dolby digital encoding to my AV receiver. There are no 5.1 analogue outputs. One peculiar thing is that there are lots of little menu sounds that you only get when hooked up to the analogue outs, they just aren’t there when hooked up to the optical out. I found them annoying, so no loss there.
The love affair begins
Once all hooked up the magic really begins. You have a very normal looking Directv menu, but by selecting any program in the future, it will automatically record. It will also offer options like: record this show every time it is on, only the new episodes, etc. This is referred to as a season pass. Very cool! You then have a list of programs available to view that just continues to accumulate. Movie on next week at 3am bang! We simply don’t watch live TV anymore. You can fast forward right through commercials. You can also start watching something that you started recording 10 minutes ago from the beginning. So you come home late from work, your show has already started, no problem, you just start watching from the beginning and fast forward through the commercials until you catch up to live action, even though it is still recording. If you do happen to be watching live TV you can pause it for up to 30 minutes (or just start recording on the spot) and continue again when you are ready. You can also watch one recorded program while recording another.
I can’t say enough good things about this device; the integration of the Tivo and the receiver is really what makes it. It is just like using the satellite. Tremendous ease of use.
Last but not least, the picture quality is awesome; you will not know whether you are watching live satellite or Tivo. I have this hooked up to a High def capable TV and it looks every bit as good as the direct satellite feed. It will also record the Dolby digital soundtrack if there is one.
I've had it for 6 months now without any problems, but take the reliability rating with a grain of salt.
I initially had to convince my wife that this was a good idea, now she doesn’t know how to watch TV without it anymore.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 299
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Epinions.com ID:
toddmoe
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Location: Delray Beach, Florida
Reviews written: 3
Trusted by: 1 member
About Me:
Computer geek with a home theater fetish - expensive combo!
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