TiVo HD

Pros: Excellent user interface, 30 second commercial skip, huge hard drive, Netflix streaming movies.

Cons: Way expensive, advertising in menus, it's watching you.

The Bottom Line: The best DVR that [A LOT] of money can buy.  Worth the price if you are a serious DVR junkie. 

Review: 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: 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

The Bottom Line: I highly recommend this DVR to anyone looking for an HD upgrade. It has a few flaws, but nothing too detrimental to its functionality.

Review: 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.

The Bottom Line: Owning a DVR will cause you to wonder how you got along without one before. TIVO makes the easiest and most intuitive unit on the market. Maintains value well.

Review: 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

The Bottom Line: Highly recommended overall, but expect some minor setup headaches. Also, investigate SDV compatibility and CableCard fees before purchasing. Otherwise, an excellent unit for the price.

Review: 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: Intuitive user interface.
Partnerships with Netflix, Youtube, and Amazon.
Robust program listing.

Cons: I have heard that their customer service can use some help.

The Bottom Line:

Highly recommended with the 1TB hard drive upgrade and lifetime subscription if you do NOT subscribe to cable or satellite.  It won't work with satellite anyway.

Review: 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.

The Bottom Line: Great Tivo machine with a number of improvements, but tries to do too much.

Review: 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: Easy programming

Cons: Ongoing expense

The Bottom Line: Making the leap to a remote I can actually use is worth the cost

Review: 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: loaded with great features and is customisable

Cons: Fiddly to install , hard to use , bland interface , multiple system faults

Review: 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 ...

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

The Bottom Line: An intelligent video recorder with HD capabilities, but with a lot of infancy problems and restrictive DRM.

Review: 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: Fairly easy to use interface. Easy to connect.

Cons: Looses connections to internet and cable often.  Drops audio too often.

Review: 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 ...