TiVo HD 180-Hours Video Recorder

Pros: 2 week program guide, easy recording and season pass, HD viewing and recording, sleek design
Cons: Slooow interface, instabilities, loooong reboot, subscription required for basic function

Alright, this year Santa brought TiVo to our house and after 2 months of usage the feelings are mixed towards this new companion. It does pretty much everything it claims to be, but there is enough room for improvement that keeps us from getting all too ...

Pros: Easy programming
Cons: Ongoing expense

It seems like Video Cassette Recorders have been around forever. They have been around long enough that the difficulty of setting them up to automatically record a program for what has become known as "time-shifting" has entered legendary status. The ...

Pros: Record two shows at once, fast forward commercials, never miss shows, stream netflix, good capacity
Cons: Slow start-up, slow interface, no built-in wireless, needs cable cards for some

A high electricity bill and cramped living room led to a recent television upgrade. My husband and I just purchased our first flat panel television. Until this point, we had been using an early generation high definition tube television. We purchased the ...

Pros: Easy to use & setup; competitive subscription prices; very intuitive menus; reasonably priced;
Cons: Must use cable cards which eliminate the use of Pay-For-View channels.

This is the third TIVO unit that I have owned in the past few years. I started with the original TIVO and then upgraded to the 2-tuner Series 2 standard version and now to the 2-tuner Series 3 HD version. Each time that I upgraded, it cost me very little ...

Pros: Value; video quality; feature set; price; capacity
Cons: Possible incompatibility with SDV in some areas; fees; CableCard installation

Quick Summary Great value; excellent video quality; great feature set, although a step down from Series 2 in a couple areas; somewhat complicated CableCard install and monthly fee structure; compatibility problems with Switched Digital Video ...

Pros: Excellent user interface, 30 second commercial skip, huge hard drive, Netflix streaming movies.
Cons: Way expensive, advertising in menus, it's watching you.

I was a very early adopter of DVR technology, the idea of turning a hard drive into a kind of smart VCR.  I am a huge fan of the idea, not because I am an avid TV watcher, but rather because I find 95%+ of what is on TV these days is virtually ...

Pros: Intuitive user interface.
Partnerships with Netflix, Youtube, and Amazon.
Robust program listing.
Cons: I have heard that their customer service can use some help.

Background: I was a Tivo user with a lifetime subscription service when the series 1 unit came out.  I use off-the-air program content and am reluctant to subscribe to cable or sattelite services.  When digital and HD content became ...

Pros: Easily records an entire season's worth of TV shows with some remote programming options.
Cons: Tries to do too much with some freeze-ups and slow response.

I have been a big fan of Tivo since first getting a Series 1 Sony unit 8 years ago with a lifetime service plan. After getting a new LCD HDTV, I found that we needed a new Tivo to take advantage of the TV's HD capabilities and Tivo offered a transferal ...

Pros: All the great features of Tivo are still here in the HD unit
Cons: Will probably exhibit performance issues with Verizon Fios

I have been a long-time Tivo user pretty much since its inception nearly a day ago. I have used it with cable systems; moved to DIrecTV and their Tivo HD DVR and now just joined Fios and purchased the TCD652160. I bought two of these HD ...

Pros: Pricing - expandability
Cons: Bugs, advertising and hidden charges

I had an original series 2 and always liked it but when I got HD service and Tivo did nothing to support HD, I cancelled. The cable company HD DVR's have been ok but have their quirks so I though after three years I would try the Tivo HD. I was really ...

Pros: Order a pizza from Domino's.  If you like Domino's.
Cons: Lousy warranty.  Lousy agreement with Netflix for streaming few titles.  Lousy exchange policy.

My TIVO HD 20 hour Series 3  (ends in mfg 2160) was activated on December 14th, 2009.  It ended its life on February 22, 2009. 

A life of just 9 weeks.

Despite its warranty, I was offered a used/refurbished unit as a replacement.  It is up to me to pay for shipping the unit back to TIVO as well.

I will give credit to Tivo's tech suppoort for trying to do all that it could to revive the unit but TIVO's replacement plan for a 9 week old unit is pathetic.

I'm not one that supports extended warranty options but in this case, I'd suggest it as working directly with TIVO was not positive.

On the other hand, IF Netflix offered more than a few titles to stream or upload to it, that feature would have been great.

PICASA (by Google) was excellent for the short 9 weeks that it worked.

My unit was best for ordering a pizza from Domino's online if in fact I would even order a pizza from Domino's.

Much hype about nothing.

Pros: loaded with great features and is customisable
Cons: Fiddly to install , hard to use , bland interface , multiple system faults

update enables the eSATA port for use with approved external hard drives like the Western Digital MY DVR Expander, which adds additional recording space to your TiVo. The update also includes recent Rhapsody and Amazon Unboxed enhancements, multi-room support, and the long-awaited TiVoToGo support. I was able to verify the My DVR Expander support (check back soon for my review), as well as TiVoToGo to both Windows PCs (with Tivo Desktop 2.5 Plus) and Macs (with Roxio Toast 8).
TiVo fans and fanatics rejoice! The TiVo HD gives old and new TiVo users the HDTV quality they want without the steep $800 price of last year's TiVo Series 3 HD. That's because it's basically the "TiVo Series 3 light" that has been rumored since the arrival of the Series 3. Understandably, a few Series 3 (S3) features have been left out to make the TiVo HD more affordable. Even so, most users won't miss them. This is the high-def TiVo you've been waiting for

Pros: Fairly easy to use interface. Easy to connect.
Cons: Looses connections to internet and cable often.  Drops audio too often.

I love the way I can stop live tv and have recorded programs right there to pick from (no DVDs or tapes to sort through).  But this equipment is quirky and faulty.  For something that costs so much money, it ought to work much much better.

About every 5 minutes, it looses several seconds of audio from recorded programs.  It frequently looses contact with the cable service and says that there is no signal.  About 2/3 of the time, it is unsuccessful in connecting to my internet service.  It can wait as long as several minutes before it will change channels for me.  If it looses power, however briefly, it takes a good 5 minutes to come back up.  It records the wrong programs sometimes (its program guide must not be too accurate, and remember, this is something you HAVE to pay EXTRA for).

Pros: With broadband Internet service, can rent movies from several services; can view YouTube...
Cons: Given TiVo's lack of responsiveness, I wouldn't recommend ANY TiVo product for ANY purpose. 

The TiVo HD sounds like a great product. And if the product actually did what TiVo claims that it does, it would be a great product.
Unfortunately, TiVo is advertising a feature that the product does NOT reliably accomplish: Analog tuning.
If you want to record or view any analog channels (which most cable providers still offer to basic subscribers), chances are that your TiVo HD WILL NOT reliably tune those programs. 
This is a common failure in TiVo HDs.  Think I'm kidding? Check out TiVo's own user forum.  http://forums.tivo.com/pe/action/forums/displaythread?postID=10435965 (http://tinyurl.com/tivohdanalog). 
If I had purchased my TiVo HD, I probably would have returned it for a refund. I happened to have won mine from a radio station (go figure), complete with lifetime service -- so I have no recourse.  I returned TWO units before I finally got one that works.  Other customers are having less success.
If you're only contemplating recording digital TV, go right ahead. Otherwise, DO NOT BUY THIS PRODUCT!