Review on TiVo TCD540080 Series 2 80-Hour Digital Video Recorder: The Ultimate Entertainment Solution by Carlos Phillips

There are several customer reviews here that denounce this product for its monthly subscription fee. You are delusional. I think some people get offended when you try to sell them something; Money is a sensitive topic. Don't get me wrong, if TiVo lowered the monthly fee I wouldn't hurt my feelings, but that doesn't mean you don't get anything for the money. Without a monthly subscription, TiVo works like a fancy VCR, so you don't actually have to buy one; But I wouldn't leave without a subscription, and neither would anyone I know who owns a TiVo (a number of friends and co-workers). With a monthly subscription, you purchase a specific service: Scheduling. When you sign up, TiVo regularly uploads program schedule information for your cable/satellite/terrestrial service and suddenly gets a lot smarter. With this scheduling information, he knows which shows are on and which channel to switch to. When enabled, this feature unlocks the full potential of the DVR and makes the TiVo a household essential. You no longer think "channel 6 at 8:30 for 30 minutes"; They think "danger" (or something like that). The device is intelligent enough to automatically change the recording time when the channel lineup changes. Once you can select shows by title, actor, genre or whatever without worrying about the time, you'll wonder why it took you so long to buy one of these. The benefits are really hard to describe. I had to try to be sure, but now I'm a believer and I don't want to go back to TV without one of those things. Without this scheduling information, the box still works, but since it doesn't work, you have to program it manually (e.g. start recording at 3:30 a.m., stop at 5:30 a.m.) in order not to know what's going on and when , like a VCR. Lighter than a VCR but still the same approach. Beautiful but not stunning. I chose a monthly subscription fee and I don't regret my decision. I'm sure someone is making a decent profit from all the subscription fees, but then again, they won't be able to store all this information from across the country and make it available for everyone to download for free. I suggest paying a monthly fee instead of buying a lifetime subscription. Therefore, you can cancel, renew or make other changes to your subscription at any time. A lifetime subscription is expensive and takes a long time to recoup - you might want to upgrade your TiVo to a newer model first. The user interface focuses on usability and is really intuitive. we'll see how it goes. I haven't found anyone who can't figure it out quickly. There are many small touches that anticipate what you are trying to do. This seems to be one of TiVo's biggest advantages. There are other DVRs (ReplayTV?) that are geared more towards people who are computer savvy or enjoy tinkering with them. If you want your DVR to do absolutely anything you can imagine, you should spend a lot more money to turn a real computer into one. All I want to do is see what I want, when I want; and this device does the job. Being able to play my computer's MP3 collection in my living room is a nice bonus. The 40 hour version only gives me about 10 hours of better quality video, but that's still quite a lot of room. There are third-party companies that offer inexpensive drive upgrades if you need more storage but don't want to replace the drive right away. The reason I gave four stars instead of five is because you can't turn off the device without unplugging it. Because of this, it constantly makes a subtle but noticeable fan noise. Besides, I'm very happy with it.