TiVo TCD652160 HD Digital Video Recorder | 
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| Brand: TiVo
Category: CE
List Price: $299.99
Buy New: $243.53
You Save: $56.46 (19%)
New (44) Used (2) from $219.97
Rating:  206 reviews
Color: Black
Media: Electronics
Memorabilia: No
Batteries Included: Yes
Hard Drive Size: 500
Shipping Weight (lbs): 15
Dimensions (in): 12.6 x 16.5 x 3.4
MPN: TCD652160
Model: TCD652160
UPC: 851342000742
EAN: 0893835000815
ASIN: B000RZDBM2
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Features:
| • | Controls cable TV with record, pause, rewind and fast-forward in HD | | • | Records two HD channels at once, while watching another recorded show | | • | Records up to 20 hours of high definition programming (or 180 hours of standard definition) | | • | Video output modes include: 480i, 480p, 720p, 1080i | | • | Sources supported: Digital cable, Analog cable, Digital antenna (ATSC), Analog antenna and broadband content |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
TiVo HD is a smart addition to any high-definition TV, combining the clarity of high definition with the smart, easy-to-use TiVo Service. It works with any cable set-up. It connects to any home network, so you get access to the best of both broadcast and broadband content. It downloads the latest movies straight from the Internet to your living room. It can pause, rewind, and slow-motion your favorite moments with razor-sharp HD clarity. Plus, TiVo HD connects to virtually any cable service via CableCARDs1, so it replaces your existing cable box. TiVo HD Features
Search for HD movies and sports: With our intelligent search features, you can easily find a specific director, actor, player, or team among the world of both broadcast and broadband content. Prefer to see a movie in high definition? Do a WishListTM search and the TiVo service will automatically record the HD version and place it in your Now Playing List. Record movies in HD: When recording with TiVo HD, you have the option of capturing shows in standard or high definition. Plus, when you play them back, you can easily pause or rewind HD instant replays without ever sacrificing their original razor-sharp HD resolution. Download movies from the Internet: Don't see any great movies in your cable program guide? You can easily select a classic or new release from the world's largest movie library, order them with a click of your remote control, and have them downloaded directly to your TiVo box. Access your music library with the remote: When you connect your TiVo DVR to your home network, your HDTV can connect right to millions of songs and playlists available over the Internet. You can now enjoy digital music on the best sound system in the house. Schedule an HD premiere: With TiVo, you can do your TV scheduling from any computer when you are away from home. Log onto TiVo.com, click on a show, and you're done.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 45 more reviews...
 HD recording from antenna is a breeze. August 24, 2007
William Kasting (Southeast Missouri)
157 out of 162 found this review helpful
First, I need to inform you that all of my home television programming comes from an antenna on my roof. No cable or satellite whatsoever.
When the Series 3 debuted earlier this year, I contacted TiVo about recording two HD channels at the same time from an antenna and was told that would not occur. That one would be in HD and the other in standard definition. That, along with the price made me pass on this unit.
When the TiVo HD came along, I contacted TiVo again and was told by one technician that it WOULD record two HD shows and by another that it would not. With the cheaper price, I decided to give it a try and am glad that I did so.
I am happy to report that this unit will definitely record two high definition programs at the same time from an antenna. No splitters, amplifiers or other hardware. Just plug it into the Antenna connector on back of the box.
Setup and activation was easy. The most difficult part was figuring out the maze of cables behind my TV and Stereo amplifier, but that is hardly TiVo's fault. I already had it set up when I called to activate the box. When I got off the phone and turned it on, it was ready to download the Guide. Very hassle free.
The remote, while nothing fancy, has a good layout of buttons and is programmable so that it will turn my TV on and allow me to change its inputs while the volume and mute buttons control my amplifier. About the only other thing I need for it to do is actually turn the stereo on. But getting up once to turn on the stereo is a small price to pay for being able to record HD programs and pause live TV.
On some forums users have been reporting macro-blocking and pixelation when using some cable cards. I have no experience with that, but can report that I have not seen this problem using an antenna. In fact, I see no difference at all in the quality of the broadcast than I did when the signal went directly to my television.
After a bit over a week's use I have no complaints at all with the product or service and would recommend it to others.
TiVo HD is a great entry level HD DVRs!!!! August 21, 2007
StriderWA (Bothell, WA)
202 out of 218 found this review helpful
I bought one of these a few weeks ago and have been waiting for Amazon to 'release' it so I could comment on it. Initially there were some known issues such as macroblocking/pixelation on digital channels (particularly channels showing HD content) with cablecards, but TiVo worked quickly to release two revisions to the TiVo HD software already and 98% of the issues have been resolved. My only complaints about the TiVo HD:
1.) Internal HDD only records 20 hours of HD content. It is equipped with an eSATA port, but as of now it is not enabled on the THD. (The Series3 HD has the eSATA port enabled, TiVo expects to enable it later in the year, possibly at the same time as a TiVo-branded eSATA HDD) 20 hours is ok if all you're recording is a day's worth of shows and watching through them daily, but I sometimes go up to a week without being able to watch shows, and if you record a few movies in HD, it fills up quick. Also on season passes the minimum you can set for programs to keep is 5, with the smaller hard drive it'd be nice if you could set it to 1 for things like news broadcasts (to set it to record daily and just delete yesterdays if you didn't get to it when it records todays)
2.) No built-in WiFi. I know the story is the same as Microsoft's "technology changes so quickly so adding in a wireless-g compliant adapter would limit it if a wireless-n standard comes along." but come on now, I hate having to add a bunch of items to the box, I'd rather it be built in.
3.) Basic remote. The Series3 comes with a glow remote and this one does not. You can buy a white or black one from TiVo for $50, but it is the newest TiVo DVR, they could include the better glow remote.
4.) No TiVo-To-Go or Multiple room viewing. Not so important on the MRV for me since I sold my Series2 to help pay for my THD, but I can see how this bothers people with 3-4 TiVos. I can appreciate that HD content is much larger and would probably take forever to transfer and take an enormous amount of hard drive space, but I liked transfering recordings to my laptop and taking them to my girlfriend's place who doesn't have cable or TV reception and catch her up on CSI etc. Rumor says it'll be enabled eventually, and I can at least appreciate that they put it on the back burner to fix release issues like the pixelation/cablecard issues.
5.) Menus, searching for programs, scheduling recordings, etc all do take a little longer than on my Series2. I'm hoping this goes away with a software fix soon. Hitting the 'record' button takes 10-15 seconds to start recording the show. (even though it still caches 30 mins of live recording and it does keep all of it, but one would think it could process the request faster)
6.) For the cost of TiVo service, one would think the software would have been completely release-worthy. On some of the forums, people have been complaining of issues with cablecards etc for a month and I think the least TiVo could do is give a few months free service to anyone who buys a TiVo HD so we don't feel like we're paying full price to be beta testers. Also, since it is a monthly fee, I don't think we should be subject to any sort of menu advertising. The guide is still ad-free, but in the menu, there is still a selection that can be any number of things (right now it is an option to learn more about the TiVo HD, but I've seen it be an ad for GM trucks etc) and one time when a program finished and it brought up the screen to choose between deleting the program or keeping it, there was a 3rd option to learn more about some program sponsor. This was one of the things that pissed me off about cable companies cable boxes.
All in all, despite the quirks, the picture is amazing and I'm glad I get to have HD content on my TiVo. I work swing shift and always miss all the good prime time shows and once I got an HDTV, the only show on in HD when I get home is Late Night with Conan O'Brien, and now when I get home I get to see all of my favorite shows in HD and commercial free. Life is easy again. Now if only I could add a 750GB eSATA drive, I can go back to storing large quantities of programs I may never get to watching. :) Nobody even comes close to TiVo, and the cable company's DVRs are all lousy.
Multi-room viewing, closed captions, same easy interface, and quick, easy installation make this DVR a gem January 26, 2008
T. Burger (Chicago)
22 out of 25 found this review helpful
Summation first, exposition last (if you want to wade through the wall of text, I promise to make it interesting, as best I can!):
1. A few users have complained about the DVR freezing up. I haven't had it long enough to speak to this issue, but some have complained that this is endemic with TiVo in general. Having had two Series 2 boxes for several years, and never a problem with either, I would say that any failure falls into the "acceptable failure percentage" of any product. Nothing is perfect. Even the best made cars malfunction, infrequently, five miles out of the lot.
2. That said, the TiVo dual tuner I bought a couple of years back didn't work. Neither did the three replacements they sent. Obviously, that was a poorly designed and released piece of hardware.
3. Read the material before the cable installer comes out. You'll want to have gone through the Guided Setup first. If you don't, you'll make the cable tech late for the rest of their appointments, and we all know how much we love it when the cable tech is late for *our* appointment.
4. Quick and easy pre-setup (before cable tech comes to install card).
5. Quick and easy cable card setup.
6. Multi-room viewing is immediate--all I did was plug in my TiVo wireless adapter, enter the encryption code during setup, and it recognized the box in the other room the first time I pulled up the "Now Playing" list.
7. It does a better job of providing closed captions than the cable box did (as I detail below, captioning is not available through the TV on the component or HDMI inputs). You can change the size, font, foreground and background color, and more. I wish there was a selection for a transparent background so that I could use yellow (I've found that yellow vs. white subtitles on DVDs are usually easier to read), but I'm not complaining. For the first time, I have *options* as to how I want to view the captions.
8. The "save to" function that one reviewer complained or wondered about isn't only for VHS, it's also for saving to DVD, if you have a DVD recorder. That reviewer wondered why this was an option, and I think the answer is obvious. If you're a Boston Red Sox fan, you might want to have all of their World Series games on DVD--or even VHS--for posterity. I know that I record certain sporting events. Others might choose movies.
9. There is a very, very small lag when returning to the "Now Playing" screen, but it has more to do with the TiVo interpreting/converting the incoming signal (480p, 780p, 1080i, 1080p). Really not a big deal, and hardly worth complaining about, although in a perfect world, there would be no lag.
10. Make sure to specifically request a multi-stream card (M-Card). The rep on the phone probably won't know what that is, so you may need to speak with a supervisor. My installer didn't know the difference between a single stream and multi-stream card, but luckily the card he had said M-Card in big, bold letters, so I knew what I was getting, even if he didn't know what he was installing. I didn't chalk that up to his incompetence, btw. Rather, inexperience. This is, to many people, brand new technology.
11. I like that the lights on the front tell us if one show is recording (one red light), if two are recording (two red lights), or if a show is transferring from one box to the other (one blue light). Native or Hybrid image selection is also displayed, along with the appropriate screen resolution. It's too small to see if you're sitting six feet away from the TV, but having that information available is helpful. It allowed me to troubleshoot the only problem I had with TiVo, and that was making the choice between Native or Hybrid, as the TV manual didn't provide me with the necessary information. Time and date would be nice, but as we kept our cable box for OnDemand functionality, and it displays the time, it's not a big issue.
12. My only real complaint is storage space. We'll have to pay close attention to any series that might have a "marathon run", like some of those ridiculous reality shows, and make sure that the Now Playing list is tidied up. There's only 20 hours of High Def recording space available. TiVo restricts our ability to expand by forcing us to use only one specific external storage unit made by Western Digital (that isn't, frustratingly, available on Amazon). Western Digital makes several of these units. Why limit your customers to one? I'm sure it's a support issue, to make their jobs easier, but choice would be nice.
Exposition:
Our 46" Sony TV manufactured in 1995 and that survived a flood, and which I stubbornly held onto even though the picture quality left much to be desired, finally gave up the ghost a couple of months ago, so we used the Amazon gift cards we received for birthday and X-mas presents to buy the Samsung HLT5076S 50" UltraSlim 1080p DLP HDTV. We immediately fell in love with the picture--of course--but bemoaned that because we only had a Series 2 TiVo, that we wouldn't be able to get the full use of the television. That immediately led me to look at this TiVo DVR, but some of the reviews here scared me off, even the positive ones. Specifically, that there was no multi-room viewing, and the cable cards were giving people problems. Also, and most importantly, when I spoke to Comcast about the cable card that they were required to provide by law, I was informed on at least three separate occasions, by three different people, that the cards only allowed access up to channel 99. This seemed collusive, as well as counter-intuitive. Do they really make that much of a profit renting boxes? I would imagine that they spend a fair amount of money--if not a LOT of money--replacing, for free, boxes that are destined to either fail or become outdated as technology moves full speed of ahead, disregarding, it seems, the laws of physics. The cable card issue was also a concern that I had seen posted here on Amazon, and so I decided to wait.
Then on a lark, I called Comcast one last time to check into the functionality of the cable card. It just didn't make sense to me, for the reason I noted above. The representative I spoke to said that I could get all regular and high def channels (high def all being above channel 100), but that I couldn't get my premium channels, HBO or Showtime. Frustrated, I asked her to confirm this with a supervisor, and when she came back she said that ALL channels were available through the cable card with the exception of OnDemand. THAT made sense, as OnDemand is something offered specifically through Comcast.
And it sold me. I used the rest of our "account" to buy this DVR.
We had a few problems with HDTV, the biggest being that closed captioning was unavailable on any device hooked up through component or HDMI inputs. As I'm hearing impaired and rely heavily on captions, this was fairly disastrous. To think that we had spent so much "money" to take a step backwards...but then we found out that the cable box itself can provide closed captions, but better yet, when the TiVo was delivered, I thumbed through their manual and found that this TiVo box translates digital closed captions and transmits them to the component or HDMI inputs (which are really the only ones you want to use with HDTV). I was overjoyed.
When the Comcast tech arrived to install the cable card, I was sure that something would go wrong, because with so many different answers it seemed predestined. But nothing went wrong! The only cable cards they're using are the multi-stream cards (M-card) which allow the TiVo to function as a duel tuner. Within ten to twenty minutes, I was up and ready to go. Everything worked as advertised. Two shows recorded at the same time. I was able to watch one show while another was recording. Frankly, I'm not even sure that we need the other Series 2 in the bedroom, but we're keeping it because sometimes shows that *should* have digital captions don't. Most of these seem to be ABCs HD channel. (Shame on them!) So we're recording those shows in analog mode on the other DVR.
The closed captioning was just as good as the TV provides for the "lower-end" inputs, and it had all of the functionality of our old Series 2. We could even transfer shows from one box to the other, so ***multi-room viewing is absolutely possible***.
Ever single concern I had was alleviated, and I remain, as I have been for several years, an extremely satisfied TiVo customer (excepting the week I spent on phone with their tech help folks trying to make a dual tuner box work a couple of years back).
There is no DVR that comes close to TiVo. As any TiVo user knows, TiVo will search and find the programs you tell it to record, regardless of when they are on. So, if Law & Order is moved from Friday to Wednesday, you don't have to remember to tell the DVR that there has been a lineup change, which you do with Comcast's DVR, and other DVRs that I'm aware of. Either DirectTV or Dish is advertising a box that's better than TiVo, but I'll believe it when I see it.
Tivo HD September 28, 2007
Emily Wiencek (Oswego, IL)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Great product. Make sure you tell your cable provider to bring more than one multistream cable card. Ours only brought a couple and none worked. We cannot record one program and watch another without the multistream cable cards.
tivo hd is just as good as series 2 August 25, 2007
Albert Davey
9 out of 10 found this review helpful
I have purchased the tivo hd and have paired it with Verizon FIOS. A service guy came last week and installed 2 cablecards and we have been off and running ever since. There is a tiny lag between channels, i think this is a digital tv thing, and not a tivo thing because when i switch the port to analog cable the delay goes away. That being said, it is as good if not better than my series 2, although i will miss the dvd burner. I was irritated about the wireless being additional, but the tivo branded one, is solid state and not that ugly. Great purchase, and great product, long live the tivo line.
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