TiVo Series2 DT

Having been a satified customer of Tivo almost since it's inception...I was blindsided by them when my cable company switched to digial service, doing away with all analog signals. Tivo did not notify… customers and have not addressed the issues on their web page. Soooooo.....save yourselves a whole lot of headaches and hair pulling. Don't buy this unit. Also consider before you buy the upgraded models with cable card readers....because I have researched this and have found that there are lots of problems with the cable cards. You have to have your cable company install them, which you will be charged for and there is a monthly fee for the cards. When I called and cancelled my Tivo service, the rep offered me an upgrade model for $99.00.....this should have been an upfront offer to all of those, like myself who purchase the Series 2 dual tuners with the good faith that the service would always be available. Shame on Tivo!

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Can't say enough good things about Tivo. I especially like this one with the dual tuner. I had an older one with a single tuner, which sometimes required complicated logistics if I was going to have more… than one show on at a time. For me, Tivo is kind of like the internet. I don't know how I ever got by without it. My only minor complaint is that the subscription fees are more than they used to be.

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I thought I had read everything about this model of TiVo to understand that it is a true dual tuner DVR, but it isn't one. It is a very clever if not misleading engineering feat to achieve dual-tuners on… this TiVo, but the way they did it defies understanding. The TiVo digital transition pages on their web site state that as an owner of a TiVo Series 2 DT, I do not need a converter box to view ATSC digital transmissions. This is fine since I now use FiOS. The problem is that I mistakenly understood this implication that the TiVo Series 2 DT works with QAM over cable. In fact, the Series 2 DT does NOT support QAM over cable and probably requires a converter box for over-the-air ATSC as well. The problem for my needs is that my Verizon FiOS service has NO analog channels at all. The "DT" feature of the TiVo Series 2 DT implies that the second tuner can receive basic cable, but that's not true for FiOS and a growing number of digital cable subscribers. What it doesn't make totally clear to you is that the second tuner can only receive ANALOG, UNSCRAMBLED basic cable. If you're buying this and you have FiOS or Comcast then you are effectively buying a single-tuner DVR. However, this might not matter, because even if this machine did support digital QAM channels, only lifeline basic cable is unscrambled. In fact on FiOS my HDTV tuner tells me that only the local channels and the music channels are actually unscrambled on Verizon FiOS. This is a clever and not completely honest marketing technique. They're not lying to you but they are not making enough of an effort to clarify what the dual-tuner can do without digging endlessly through the TiVo knowledge base or some of the many online communities. The "Digital Transition" information at TiVo's web site implied that the "DT" mark on the TiVo Series 2 DT meant "Digital Television." Now for the use of the TiVo itself, it's great, and I've used it for ten years, but the analog S-video connection between the Motorola FiOS set top box and the TiVo produces vertical "hum bars" which require a lot of trial-and-error to eliminate. You should get the Tivo HD instead of this. I'm frustrated with FiOS and the Tivo Series 2 DT and I don't frustrate so easily with electronics like this.

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