don't be fooled - it's not any good
Written: Apr 13 '05
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Pros: records hidef (of course)
Cons: slow, buggy, ugly, dumb
The Bottom Line: why should we have to settle for crap? I wont. I'm gonna sell this thing while I still can.
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| papyrus's Full Review: Hughes HR10-250 (250 GB) 200-Hours Video Recorder |
A lot of people have an affliction whereby they feel guilty about spending a lot of money on anything, and try to convince themselves that whatever they bought was well worth the price. These people also tout the virtues of their expensive toys to friends and family in hopes they will be looked on as a wise buyer.
Unfortunately this phenomena is all to common the hifi market. This Hughes Hi-def Tivo isn't very good, plain and simple. SURE, it will play back and record hidef programs some times. That isn't a feather in its cap, however, its a REQUIREMENT. of COURSE it records hidef.. that's what it is made for. You don't hear people praising their ferrari, however, because it can start up when the key is turned and transport 2 people to their desired destination. People need to demand more from high-end components and not settle for rushed untested garbage.
The actual issues:
1 - It's slow. I've had Tivos since the beginning. They were all faster (including $99 models) than this guy. It has nothing to do with hi-def. I'm just talking about the menu interface. Some people can pretend the 2-second delay in hitting the tivo button before the menu appears isn't there, but it's just too obvious to me. I wont stand for it, and you shouldn't either. It's ridiculous. I believe the issue is RAM, and it would cost them $20 to upgrade this $1000 unit to usefulness.
2 - It's buggy. When you change channels between OTA hi-def and satellite, vice versa, or various combinations, there is a loud pop or buzzing noise out of the fiber output. This is UNHEARD of in $30 analog TV sets. I have no clue how this one made it out of QA at hughes. a LOUD POP. We are talkng hi-fi here, and you have to deal with a loud pop.
3 - It's got garbage construction. There is a RAMPANT issue affecting over 50% of these devices wherby the HDMI output card fails. I had to return my unit. Until you do, the output looks like windows 95 in safe mode - literally. About 16 colors total, a pink hugh over everything, and heavy pixellation. If you open it or read online you'll see the issue. When the HDMI card is jammed into the case on the assembly line and coated with some goopy grease in hopes in will make good contact, it doesn't work so well. I would not personally make a single thing like this even for myself, but definitely not for mass consumption. They don't care. That's the bottom line.
4 - It's neutered. There is a cat5 jack so you can get your hopes up of having the network functionality in a tivo2 ($49 last I looked) but it's disabled. Rumor has it there is some contractual bureaucratic crap going on with directv etc that causes this, but again, they apparently don't care. I'm not on capital hill. I'm not in the directv boardroom. I'm not at the RIAA meetings. I just use this thing. They are. They can all point fingers about legal and bureaucratic explanations for this thing not being able to network, but to me it's all just that -excuses. They have the power to fix it, and they don't - because they don't care. And they wont unless we complain.
5 - It's ugly. I'm not talking about the case which, sure enough, is hughes-style ugly as well. I'm talking about the graphics in the tivo menu, The whole idea here is that we are hi-def customers who need high definition to make our newfangled huge televisions look as good as our old 19" tvs did 20 years ago. Isn't it obvious that the same-old low-resolution Tivo graphics aren't going to cut it on our tvs as well? Get some hi-res graphics to replace the old ones for crying out loud.
6 - more bugs. I scanned local channels. Received many. Then I moved. My locals didnt work. I scanned again. It found many of the same channels, but is all confused now because it has two versions of most channels. The old version doesn't work. The new version does, but it has no guide data for it. That means no scheduled recording on it. I can clear all channels to start anew, but then it only clears the most recent ones it found, not all of them - no matter what. It's a permanent problem. I can't schedule recording of over-the-air HDTV broadcasts.
7 - it's dumb. I have HBO. I have HBOH (hidef). It likes to record things on regular HBO, even though they are also there in hidef. So I'm back to watching lo-def.
8 - it requires a phone line. I know... you are laughing.. a PHONE LINE? who has one of those? This is for ME.. not my grandma.. I know.. again.. they don't care.
Recommended:
No
Amount Paid (US$): 800
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Epinions.com ID:
papyrus
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Location: Atlanta, GA
Reviews written: 17
Trusted by: 3 members
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