GearBits

Guest Blog Entry: Bob's New DVDiVo

My pal Bob got a new DVD+TiVo unit and I asked him what he thought about it. He managed to craft up a nice post for GearBits, so here it is:

After listening to Craig's TiVo enthusiasm for weeks now, I decided to finally take the plunge and to treat myself to TiVo.

Not being an audio or videophile, I'll admit it did take some personal effort to cave in. I've had roommate who bought speakers and components at $5K a piece. While it's great stuff, that's just not me. Still, I still like sitting down in front of the tube to watch some dumb analog (I refuse to pay Comcast's ridiculous fees for digital box rental) cable TV. After listening to Craig, I feel I have a inalienable right to watch something good WHEN I want to watch it. Add a Wiggles-happy toddler to the mix and I have a compelling case.

My TV cabinet didn't have much room for extra components, so a new TiVo unit was going to be a tight squeeze. That's where the Toshiba SD-H400 DVD/TiVo (shown) combination unit (or, as Craig coined, 'DVDiVo') comes in. The DVDiVo solves this problem by being rather small and by replacing my existing DVD player.

Not counting the mandatory rewiring of the video and audio cables, the install was mostly a piece of cake. You first setup and configure the box with the phone line (a handy 25' phone cable is included!) That took about 30 minutes. After that, the Tivo was supposed to recognize my Linksys network adapter. It didn't. I had to reconnect with the phone line and spend another 90 minutes downloading (are we there yet?) the 5.1b TiVo software update. (Thanks to the Wireless Weblog for the tip.) After that, the wireless worked A-OK.

Remember, it's not fun unless you've had at least one technical snag to challenge your skills.

I've only had TiVo working for a day. I'm only using the TiVo basic service. But this TiVo noob loves his TiVo.

TiVo Basic, you say? TiVo Basic requires no monthly fee and comes with the Toshiba. You get three days of TV Guide information, but none of the fancy search or Season Pass features. Coming from analog cable, TiVo Basic gives me the feel that I've got some fancy digital cable or satellite service. I've used the TV Guide GUI to manually locate and program the TiVo to record several hours of shows (kiddie shows and my spouse's HGTV favorites) for the next few days. Not being someone who follows any particular show (yet?), TiVo Basic might suffice. I look forward to testing my will by signing up for the TiVo Plus service trial.

The DVD player seems to work really well. The GUI is certainly much better than my year-old Pioneer DVD player.

On the downside, I'll admit that the unit is a little noisy. If I'm cruising the TiVo menus without the TV audio on, I do notice the sound of the hard drive actuators softly clicking away. I'm not sure if that noise is specific to the Toshiba design. (Craig?) If so, then I figure it's just a trade-off for having such a small footprint. It's not a major problem for me. Besides any audiophile will already have this issue "covered" with glass component doors.

The other item to consider is the remote. TiVo spent a long time pruning down the buttons to make a good remote. Toshiba, on the other hand, had to stack extra buttons on their remote to support the DVD player. The remote works well, except for when you want to use the number buttons the change channels. The thoughtless placement of these teeny-tiny number buttons (0-9 + Enter) at the bottom of the remote makes me occasionally use two hands to change channels. (Hello, Toshiba? Does a majority of the population of the planet have double-jointed thumbs?) My thumb may get used to it. Better yet, I hope that TiVo is so good that I'll never have to manually enter channel numbers again.

Despite those two items, I'm very pleased with my DVDiVo purchase.