Reviews for Sony TiVo Personal TV Operating System

Sony TiVo Personal TV Operating System

Strengths: Very easy to set up and use. Comes with all the necessary cables, cords, telephone cables, batteries, etc.

Weakness: No component video hook up - the best available on this model is an s-video port.

This is a very nice DVR - comes with all the necessary cables, etc. and is incredibly easy to set up and use. Started "learning" what I liked to watch in a couple of days and is now well on its way to recording absolutely everything that I could possibly want to watch. You have to give it a while to set up (about 4 hours) but after that it is smooth sailing.

The best connection in or out of this model is s-video, which is a step down from component video hookups that I have on everything else. Also, the navigation system is a little hard to work if you're trying to get to the more advanced set-up changes and options. Holds 30 hours of recorded video, but only at the really crummy recording quality. To go to "best" quality (the only way to watch sports, otherwise it's really grainy), you only have 9 hours or so of storage. Not bad, but you do have to be diligent enough to watch things in a reasonable time (or send it to VCR).

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Sony TiVo Personal TV Operating System

Strengths: TIVO as a technology is fine;

Weakness: Sony has the worst customer service; used the unit less than 12 months and the modem is shot; Lifetime service for the unit goes with the unit;

I would not buy another Sony product, of any kind. Product is bad, but customer care is awful. You are the enemy. You can't fix the unit locally and they could care less about your cost.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Sony TiVo Personal TV Operating System

Strengths: Easy to navigate, set up and get your favorite shows recorded. Don't know how we did without it.

Weakness: Storage capacity, no dual tuner. Needs standard phone line to dial up, not able to connect with a cable modem.

At first I was hesitant to get TiVo. I thought it was just an expensive VCR with a monthly charge. Now that we've owned it for over a month, it's been great and worth it. We have just about all the programs we like set up and never have to concern ourselves with what time it is or missing a show. Besides the news we rarely watch live TV anymore. Just punch up what's been recorded and sit back. It's been nice too b/c we like watching David Letterman and other late night shows but have trouble staying awake that late. Am I getting old? Now, it doesn't matter what time it's on, it's on when we want it to be.

The scrolling listing guide is much better then the one that comes with our digital cable. On one screen you're able to see what's going to be on for the next eight hours on a particular channel. If you see anything you like just punch record and it'll be there for you. Basic quality works for most recordings and it'll take up the least amount of space. The only time you'd need the highest or a higher quality recording would be for sports or if you plan on transferring the recording to video tape to keep. 30 hours seems like a lot but we (my wife and myself) don't get to watch TV too much. There a plenty of shows we'd like to see and would like to have on file when we do get the chance. Sometimes the recording gets deleted even before we get to watch it. I've read about hacking into the box and upgrading the hard drive, maybe in the future if it really starts to bug me.

100% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

Sony TiVo Personal TV Operating System

Strengths: The Tivo System is wonderful. It can save a lot of time, and record all sorts of shows you want to see.

Weakness: The Sony Tech support is lousy. Also, changing channels was very tough. No help from Sony.

My Sony SVR 2000 Recorder died in 14 months of ownership. No help from Sony, even though the problem was progressively getting worse and reported to Sony prior to the Warranty expiration.
The Technology is great! I love it. But, This machine is a waste of money. Adding the $400 I spent for this unit plus the $10.00 per month for TiVo Service, I just paid almost $40 per month for this service. That seems a little steep to me.
To add insult to injury with Sony, I had to spend an additional $14.95 for 1-900 tech support to find out that my machine is shot and it is time to get a new TiVo machine, plus with further investigation I found out the number one problem with these units is the cheap modem they install in the unit.
My conclusion is that one should not buy this unit because Sony does not support it adequately, plus the shoddy manufacturing causes it to fail prematurely. Buying Sony equipment is a waste of money.

50% of readers found this review helpful. Did you find it helpful or unhelpful?

The Sony SVR-2000 is the first TiVo DVR made by Sony and was launched at the same time as the Philips HDR series which have identical features but different cosmetics, remote and drive sizes. This model has either one 30 GB or two 15 GB internal drives for 30 hours of recording time, and also gives you the ability to pause and rewind live TV. It is compatible with standard-definition terrestrial...

Read Full Review