TV Reviews

This is my second week with this TV, purchased for $799 - an UNBELIEVABLE deal when compared to other sites and other TVs. Haven't tested dvi but the component hd signal is outstanding - dvds are very good and hd tv signals are very clear and crisp.

The sound is very, very good for an "all-in-one" set. This unit includes a subwoofer that has its own settings, very impressive.

Decent remote although I am having a little trouble with it commanding my jvc dvd.

What a deal -

The Toshiba 30HF83 offers many great features that can be hard to find at it's size. I was looking for a 30"-34" Widescreen HDTV Tube that would fit in my existing entertainment center, and this Toshiba is perfect for me!
The 2 sets of component inputs were just what I wanted to use to connect my Xbox (The Monster Cable XGL-400 works wonderfully) and for receiving a High Definition signal. The picture clarity for each is more than I had hoped for! Widescreen DVD's look superb in comparison to the 4:3 aspect ratio, and my Gamecube also looks amazing connected through the S-Video input.
You can switch between all of your inputs through the front panel of the TV or through the remote control. Individual picture preferences can also be saved for each input. This is a great benefit when switching from playing video games to watching movies or an HDTV signal. The Onscreen Menu is remarkably simple and through the use of the 'Auto Aspect' feature you won't need to frequently adjust your picture size. Standard TV also looks quite good, but it is a bit harder to watch after experiencing some HD channels.
I highly recommend the Toshiba 30HF83 to anyone looking for an amazing quality Widescreen HDTV, complete with many great features, to acommodate a smaller viewing area.

I bought this TV even after looking at the negative reviews and I'm glad I did! Good picture quality and features and the sound with the subwoofer is better than any other TV built in system I've heard, although it can't compare to a good surround system.
When I took delivery, I unpacked the TV and tested it before signing the acceptance form - not a big deal. The delivery guy was quite nice and even helped me put the TV in my entertainment center. This 30" widescreen fits where a standard 27" Sony used to, as the Toshiba speakers are wisely mounted beneath the screen.
Set up is easy, the instructions clear. Don't worry about burn out on the sides - the available options to set up the screen result in a good picture and the horizontal streching on the sides for "theater 1" (which is what I use for standard format TV) is almost unnoticeable. Great picture from digital wide screen sources!!!
The other TV I was looking at was a Gateway 30" LCD. Without the optional side speakers, it would have fit my entertainment center as well. It's lighter than the Toshiba, but I don't think it's worth spending $1500 more than the Toshiba. Plus, if I'm lazy and don't use my surround system, I can just turn on the TV and listen to a reasonably good sound and look at a great picture. The Gateway without the side speakers would have forced me to use my sound system every time I turned the TV on.

After 6 months of using this unit it went completely dead. I took it to an authorized Panasonic repair service center several weeks ago. The service center told me that the needed part, a circuit board, was backordered from Panasonic. The service center also told me that 3 different promise shipment dates for the needed part were not met by Panasonic and there was little they could do. So today, I am still without any idea when the unit will be repaired. I would avoid this unit.

We bought the Panasonic DVD recorder three months ago; we still haven't pressed all of the buttons on the remote. And it still functions beyond our expectations. We wanted to save old VHS programs and we wanted to time-shift television programs to watch later (a VCR). Perhaps very little to expect from a device that costs $500 but over twenty years ago we paid $1000 for a Mitsubishi top-loading, two-head VCR. Enough history.

It took almost three hours to hook up to a VCR, a Sony receiver, another DVD player, two TVs and the digital cable box. But when it was turned on, it was fantastic. We used the hard disc drive immediately. Playback was broadcast quality. We dubbed from the VHS to DVD-R; the quality actually improved. We recorded a test DVD-R disc from a commercial DVD and VHS and those both played back flawlessly. The big test came when we recorded a TV program onto DVD-R for a friend who didn't have the cable channel. Her old Sony player played it.

The instruction book is intimidating; read what you need and just keep the book handy. The prompt screens are somewhat intuitive. The most important buttons (after three months of use) are the 'Functions,' the 'Enter,' the four arrow buttons and the stop-pause-play buttons. We expect to learn more the longer we use the recorder.

The Panasonic recorder (with Hard Drive) is an excellent piece of electronic equipment. Well worth the price and deserving 5-stars.

This DVD Recorder is exactly as it should be. It's better to record to the HARD DRIVE, the acceptable quality of LP speed is about 70 hours - enough for most people. You do have to use the remote but you can trim off the beginning and middle of shows (commercials). After editing, you can the transfer to a blank DVD-R (you can fit 2-4 hours on 1 disc). Other thanthat, it works exactly like a VCR but there are some additional great differences. For instance, with this Panasonic, you can be recording something on the air now and start to watch something you recorded last night or you can even switch and watch a DVD and it does NOT affect the recording going on (be careful - some recorders do NOT have this feature!). It has a great 100x forward and back so you can skim through a movie in a 5 minutes in perfect clarity. If you want a more indepth review, click on the info about us - metroxing and there's an url with a more indepth review (I'm guessing Amazon doesn't like outside urls in the middle of reviews).

But now, to answer some of the questions for people unclear on what they're getting.

If you have premium/digital channels - yes, this unit cannot change channels on your cable/satellite box - not Panasonic's fault - it's the cable/satellite company!

Picture quality - just because it's a DVD recorder does NOT mean you will achieve the quality of a retail DVD movie. You will essentially get a reasonable facsimilie recording of the exact reception you are getting now - which is actually pretty good. Yes, your cable/satellite reception is compressed - most channels are 5 to 8:1 - most premium movie channels (HBO/Showtime are only compressed 3:1 so they always look better). And yes this DVD/HDD recorder compresses a little bit more - store bought DVD's are also compressed from the original film - on the major releases, they go through frame by frame to adjust it - buy a cheap DVD disc and you can see where they save money. As with compression, you will not get perfect blacks - in a perverted twist, it's because the quality is better, you can see it, VHS tapes with their much lower quality obscures this.

So, yes, it's not as good as a major studio DVD but on the other hand, with blank DVD-R's costing about $1.00 each, that's about $.25 per hour for a pretty nice quality disc with all the functionality of a DVD (fast searches, etc ...). I'm not sure why some people believe they would get a better recording that what they're watching - it's just NOT possible with any machine! But keep in mind you are either taping something because it's cheaper than buying retail or because it's not available, what better way that a tiny disc that holds 4 hours of footage?!

It also has lots of plugs - a set on the front is perfect for hooking up your camcorder and transfering to disc.

If your expectations are in line, this is a great machine and really well designed in setting up recording and using ... it's not a miracle machine, it's just a great DVD/HDD recorder!

I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it.

I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable box, and I didn't want to take the risk.

Amazon gives you a 30 day return policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay. The price was essentially the same.

I can watch a lot of TV now in much less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts of the show I am not interested in.

It is not perfect - there are clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is: the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become available in the near future!

Things I like: - live pause

- easy to set shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof

- watching shows from the beginning, even while they're recording

- watching any show already recorded, while you're recording another

- the fast forward and skip capabilities

- the theme channels

- the standard recording quality is plenty good enough for me

Things that need improvement:

- disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be nice if they gave you more control over this)

- channel guide could be more clever (some errors in it)

- doesn't have slow motion and frame advance capability

- no way to advance to a particular point in a show (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)

- can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you really want, say

- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for 15 minutes starting at 8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if you toggle it over to the RF input...)

- would be nice to have a search capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand in the channel guide

This little recorder make the top 3 list in my house.
I cant imagine doing with out it.. I wish I had the 60 hour
unit now. It don't miss a beat.

regads,
Kelvin

I don't know how better to describe this device than to quote my (non-techie wife), who exclaimed that "It's the best way to TV." I've had mine since December, and now have the upgraded 2.0 software (a download which occurred overnight in the routine dialup).

The good: 1. A great program guide that lets you see about 8 days of programming. To record, you simply highlight a show and hit the record button and then you decide if your recording is a one-time event, an "always record" event, and how many episodes of the show you'll keep.

2. Pausing live programming or rewinding a live show. This is great - you get a phone call, hit the pause button and go back to the show. The nice thing is you can catch up to live by fast forwarding the commercials.

3. The quick skip button - lets you jump 30 seconds forward (through commercials). This is a huge time saver and a 30 minute show can be watched in 22 minutes or so (skipping intros and commercials). Seriously, I feel like I'm getting away with something here and HATE watching live TV now as I must sit through the commercials.

4. Search options. As part of the 2.0 upgrade, you can search by show title, actor, dirctor, etc., and pick and choose what you want to record.

5. You can watch one recorded show while it is recording another, or walk in during the recording of a show and start watching it from the start.

The Bad - or, wouldn't it be nice if they included that. 1. It is not clear what show will be deleted if your drive is full - they should advise you at a menu or with a different color on the listing of recorded shows that "This goes next".

2. When you switch channels during live programming, the buffer (for you to rewind to catch dialogue you might have missed) is erased. I've found that if you use your cable box remote rather than controlling the channels from Replay, this gets around this problem.

3. No way to control the dialing in. It is set to dial in every day. I pay for every call, so it would be nice to have it call every other day.

4. Record options don't make perfect sense. You can do a single record or a "record all", the latter of which looks for the same show EVERY DAY at or around the same time. If, for example, you record an HBO show, which they show reruns of on other nights, it'll record the new episode Sunday and the replays during the week. You should have the option of saying record ONCE, DAILY, or WEEKLY rather than once or every time it is on.

5. Channel guides should be translucen (like TIVO) so that you can watch the show as you are programming other shows.

6. It would be nice to see a "task list" where you could see a list of shows that will be recorded today. As it is now, you just see a long list and don't know when the show will be recorded. . .

I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it.

I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable box, and I didn't want to take the risk.

Amazon gives you a 30 day return policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay. The price was essentially the same.

I can watch a lot of TV now in much less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts of the show I am not interested in.

It is not perfect - there are clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is: the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become available in the near future!

Things I like: - live pause

- easy to set shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof

- watching shows from the beginning, even while they're recording

- watching any show already recorded, while you're recording another

- the fast forward and skip capabilities

- the theme channels

- the standard recording quality is plenty good enough for me

Things that need improvement:

- disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be nice if they gave you more control over this)

- channel guide could be more clever (some errors in it)

- doesn't have slow motion and frame advance capability

- no way to advance to a particular point in a show (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)

- can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you really want, say

- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for 15 minutes starting at 8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if you toggle it over to the RF input...)

- would be nice to have a search capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand in the channel guide

This little recorder make the top 3 list in my house.
I cant imagine doing with out it.. I wish I had the 60 hour
unit now. It don't miss a beat.

regads,
Kelvin

I don't know how better to describe this device than to quote my (non-techie wife), who exclaimed that "It's the best way to TV." I've had mine since December, and now have the upgraded 2.0 software (a download which occurred overnight in the routine dialup).

The good: 1. A great program guide that lets you see about 8 days of programming. To record, you simply highlight a show and hit the record button and then you decide if your recording is a one-time event, an "always record" event, and how many episodes of the show you'll keep.

2. Pausing live programming or rewinding a live show. This is great - you get a phone call, hit the pause button and go back to the show. The nice thing is you can catch up to live by fast forwarding the commercials.

3. The quick skip button - lets you jump 30 seconds forward (through commercials). This is a huge time saver and a 30 minute show can be watched in 22 minutes or so (skipping intros and commercials). Seriously, I feel like I'm getting away with something here and HATE watching live TV now as I must sit through the commercials.

4. Search options. As part of the 2.0 upgrade, you can search by show title, actor, dirctor, etc., and pick and choose what you want to record.

5. You can watch one recorded show while it is recording another, or walk in during the recording of a show and start watching it from the start.

The Bad - or, wouldn't it be nice if they included that. 1. It is not clear what show will be deleted if your drive is full - they should advise you at a menu or with a different color on the listing of recorded shows that "This goes next".

2. When you switch channels during live programming, the buffer (for you to rewind to catch dialogue you might have missed) is erased. I've found that if you use your cable box remote rather than controlling the channels from Replay, this gets around this problem.

3. No way to control the dialing in. It is set to dial in every day. I pay for every call, so it would be nice to have it call every other day.

4. Record options don't make perfect sense. You can do a single record or a "record all", the latter of which looks for the same show EVERY DAY at or around the same time. If, for example, you record an HBO show, which they show reruns of on other nights, it'll record the new episode Sunday and the replays during the week. You should have the option of saying record ONCE, DAILY, or WEEKLY rather than once or every time it is on.

5. Channel guides should be translucen (like TIVO) so that you can watch the show as you are programming other shows.

6. It would be nice to see a "task list" where you could see a list of shows that will be recorded today. As it is now, you just see a long list and don't know when the show will be recorded. . .

I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it.

I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable box, and I didn't want to take the risk.

Amazon gives you a 30 day return policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay. The price was essentially the same.

I can watch a lot of TV now in much less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts of the show I am not interested in.

It is not perfect - there are clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is: the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become available in the near future!

Things I like: - live pause

- easy to set shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof

- watching shows from the beginning, even while they're recording

- watching any show already recorded, while you're recording another

- the fast forward and skip capabilities

- the theme channels

- the standard recording quality is plenty good enough for me

Things that need improvement:

- disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be nice if they gave you more control over this)

- channel guide could be more clever (some errors in it)

- doesn't have slow motion and frame advance capability

- no way to advance to a particular point in a show (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)

- can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you really want, say

- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for 15 minutes starting at 8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if you toggle it over to the RF input...)

- would be nice to have a search capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand in the channel guide

This little recorder make the top 3 list in my house.
I cant imagine doing with out it.. I wish I had the 60 hour
unit now. It don't miss a beat.

regads,
Kelvin

I don't know how better to describe this device than to quote my (non-techie wife), who exclaimed that "It's the best way to TV." I've had mine since December, and now have the upgraded 2.0 software (a download which occurred overnight in the routine dialup).

The good: 1. A great program guide that lets you see about 8 days of programming. To record, you simply highlight a show and hit the record button and then you decide if your recording is a one-time event, an "always record" event, and how many episodes of the show you'll keep.

2. Pausing live programming or rewinding a live show. This is great - you get a phone call, hit the pause button and go back to the show. The nice thing is you can catch up to live by fast forwarding the commercials.

3. The quick skip button - lets you jump 30 seconds forward (through commercials). This is a huge time saver and a 30 minute show can be watched in 22 minutes or so (skipping intros and commercials). Seriously, I feel like I'm getting away with something here and HATE watching live TV now as I must sit through the commercials.

4. Search options. As part of the 2.0 upgrade, you can search by show title, actor, dirctor, etc., and pick and choose what you want to record.

5. You can watch one recorded show while it is recording another, or walk in during the recording of a show and start watching it from the start.

The Bad - or, wouldn't it be nice if they included that. 1. It is not clear what show will be deleted if your drive is full - they should advise you at a menu or with a different color on the listing of recorded shows that "This goes next".

2. When you switch channels during live programming, the buffer (for you to rewind to catch dialogue you might have missed) is erased. I've found that if you use your cable box remote rather than controlling the channels from Replay, this gets around this problem.

3. No way to control the dialing in. It is set to dial in every day. I pay for every call, so it would be nice to have it call every other day.

4. Record options don't make perfect sense. You can do a single record or a "record all", the latter of which looks for the same show EVERY DAY at or around the same time. If, for example, you record an HBO show, which they show reruns of on other nights, it'll record the new episode Sunday and the replays during the week. You should have the option of saying record ONCE, DAILY, or WEEKLY rather than once or every time it is on.

5. Channel guides should be translucen (like TIVO) so that you can watch the show as you are programming other shows.

6. It would be nice to see a "task list" where you could see a list of shows that will be recorded today. As it is now, you just see a long list and don't know when the show will be recorded. . .

I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it.

I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable box, and I didn't want to take the risk.

Amazon gives you a 30 day return policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay. The price was essentially the same.

I can watch a lot of TV now in much less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts of the show I am not interested in.

It is not perfect - there are clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is: the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become available in the near future!

Things I like: - live pause

- easy to set shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof

- watching shows from the beginning, even while they're recording

- watching any show already recorded, while you're recording another

- the fast forward and skip capabilities

- the theme channels

- the standard recording quality is plenty good enough for me

Things that need improvement:

- disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be nice if they gave you more control over this)

- channel guide could be more clever (some errors in it)

- doesn't have slow motion and frame advance capability

- no way to advance to a particular point in a show (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)

- can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you really want, say

- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for 15 minutes starting at 8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if you toggle it over to the RF input...)

- would be nice to have a search capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand in the channel guide

This little recorder make the top 3 list in my house.
I cant imagine doing with out it.. I wish I had the 60 hour
unit now. It don't miss a beat.

regads,
Kelvin

I don't know how better to describe this device than to quote my (non-techie wife), who exclaimed that "It's the best way to TV." I've had mine since December, and now have the upgraded 2.0 software (a download which occurred overnight in the routine dialup).

The good: 1. A great program guide that lets you see about 8 days of programming. To record, you simply highlight a show and hit the record button and then you decide if your recording is a one-time event, an "always record" event, and how many episodes of the show you'll keep.

2. Pausing live programming or rewinding a live show. This is great - you get a phone call, hit the pause button and go back to the show. The nice thing is you can catch up to live by fast forwarding the commercials.

3. The quick skip button - lets you jump 30 seconds forward (through commercials). This is a huge time saver and a 30 minute show can be watched in 22 minutes or so (skipping intros and commercials). Seriously, I feel like I'm getting away with something here and HATE watching live TV now as I must sit through the commercials.

4. Search options. As part of the 2.0 upgrade, you can search by show title, actor, dirctor, etc., and pick and choose what you want to record.

5. You can watch one recorded show while it is recording another, or walk in during the recording of a show and start watching it from the start.

The Bad - or, wouldn't it be nice if they included that. 1. It is not clear what show will be deleted if your drive is full - they should advise you at a menu or with a different color on the listing of recorded shows that "This goes next".

2. When you switch channels during live programming, the buffer (for you to rewind to catch dialogue you might have missed) is erased. I've found that if you use your cable box remote rather than controlling the channels from Replay, this gets around this problem.

3. No way to control the dialing in. It is set to dial in every day. I pay for every call, so it would be nice to have it call every other day.

4. Record options don't make perfect sense. You can do a single record or a "record all", the latter of which looks for the same show EVERY DAY at or around the same time. If, for example, you record an HBO show, which they show reruns of on other nights, it'll record the new episode Sunday and the replays during the week. You should have the option of saying record ONCE, DAILY, or WEEKLY rather than once or every time it is on.

5. Channel guides should be translucen (like TIVO) so that you can watch the show as you are programming other shows.

6. It would be nice to see a "task list" where you could see a list of shows that will be recorded today. As it is now, you just see a long list and don't know when the show will be recorded. . .

Vast improvement over my previous S-VHS VCR setup. Recording quality of integrated unit (Tivo + DirecTV) indistinguishable from broadcast; playback options (3 fast-forward/back speeds; slow motion, freeze frame, frame advance, etc.,) work flawlessly, without sound bars or other artifacts. Scheduling procedures are about as simple as possible while providing access to hundreds of TV shows. So far (5 weeks) have not encountered problems mentioned by some other reviewers - unit does not run hot, and is whisper-quiet - makes less noise than my computer hard drives. Speed of channel surfing and navigating program guides, etc., about on a par with my 5-year old Sony 32-bit satellite receiver. 2-tuner capability is a great new feature...One suggestion: price of unit varies widely from day to day and among vendors - pays to SHOP AROUND before you buy!!!

I was fortunate to get one of the first of these boxes. Compared to the stand alone TiVo, setup is a breeze. It takes about 20 minutes. The stand-alone takes 3-5 hours. Picture quality is perfect since the integrated receiver records the bitstream directly off the satellite instead of it being decoded by a separate receiver and re-encoded by TiVo. The DSR6000R also is the first TiVo to ship with the 2.0 software, which has many new features, such as Season Pass manager, . This unit also features two DirecTV tuners, which will allow you to watch 1 channel while recording another, when the feature is enabled. This unit also allows you to choose from the DirecTV guide or the TiVo guide, whichever you prefer.

If you've been waiting, now is the time to jump in. This is the best TiVo unit yet.

I will make this short & sweet...this thing is amazing! It has truly changed our TV watching for the better.

Thank you, TiVo!!

Ok so I'm not going to bore you with the TIVO details and how absolutely fabulous it is and is an absolute requirement for people that are not couch potatoes that will watch just about anything. I bought this unit just after it came out and so have most people in my family and my friends ...

First thing ... I've had no troubel with the unit but I've heard of some HD problems so do buy any ectended warranty ... remember this sucker is a computer and it's on 24 hours a day 7 days a week ... nuff said OK

Second thing ... I just bought another unit for my house, we'll not discuss the problems with my wife and thousands of Martha Stewrt programs being recorded, and I bought the sony TIVO with the Dorect TV receiver .....

Now this is INCREDIBLE when I called Direct TV to sign up the TIVO and the new receiver I learned that if I had more of these combo units I wouldn't have to but a $ 250 .00 liftime TIVO hookup for additional units since they are mirrored into my account with Direct TV ...I asked the cust service rep to double check and she confirmed that since I have multiple directTV units the additional units and TIVOS are covered under the 4.95 additional receiver Direct TV charge ...

Since i have one stand alone TIVO and one Combo unit I had to pay for life time TIVO but had I had multipe combo units (Direct TV with the TIVO) it would have been a freeby .... WOW

TIVO and DIRECT TV I cant live witout them ......

I've owned one of the Sony Tivo's for about two years and I love it. I was reading the reviews here and had to comment on one that said the remote was horrible and that Tivo was useless unless you could record one channel and watch another at the same time.

First, the remote is the best remote I have ever used. The Sony Tivo remote has garnered almost universal praise from reviewers and I agree. It nestles in the palm so that your thumb falls right on top of the most frequent controls. Clearly the person who wrote that review doesn't like it, but that is not the experience of 99% of the people who have one.

Secondly, I disagree strongly that the single tuner Tivo is usless because you can't record one channel and record another at the same time. I used mine that way for more than a year and it was still the best single piece of TV-watching technology I ever purchased. After I finally got a $5 signal splitter I now can record and watch at the same time it is a bit nicer. However, calling Tivo useless without this ability is absurd.

I can't comment on Sony service for Tivo's because I have never had a single problem with mine.

I plan on always having a Tivo and can't wait for the HDTV version due out later this year (2003). The inability to display or record HDTV is a big drawback with this unit.

yea doe eye wok tru the ally ub deeth i iz feered uv kno weevil

cuz i dew bee dee wun, dee olny, dee origunnal.....

S N O R P H T

F I N G E R P O O T

an yer knot

ATI's Hardware is better, Nvidia's Drivers are better...
Save some money and go for a Nvidia card, Un-broken drivers mean better preformance.
I have this card and I have a Nvidia TNT 2 Pro, The TNT card works almost as good as this one.

The performance and value represented by the ATI Radeon 9700 Pro 128 MB Graphics Card would score a perfect 5 stars with me, if only their drivers were performing up to par.

It takes quite a lot to stress their graphics product into behaving peculiarly, but the recently-released Star Wars Galaxies game does just that.

As of this writing, the Catalyst 3.5 drivers still render the SWG graphics with frequent "glitches," flickering rectangles and regions of the screen, even when sitting still. I have learned via Sony that this is an issue between the game itself and the Catalyst drivers that haven't yet been corrected.

I have tried a GeForce FX 5200 Ultra and this worked perfectly well, so I suspect the Catalyst 3.5 drivers ATI provides still aren't really up to high performance gaming quality standards. This is a pity because it's high performance games that are the main reason for selecting such products!

(Yes, I've written ATI about these issues and been completely ignored. I am exercizing my rights to express opinions in a public forum which is not libel.)

This is simply a great card. Time has proved it by the fact that two product cycles have gone by and it still beats Nvidia's offering. Simply put, this DX9 card is way way faster than any Geforce 4 card, allowing high resolutions with the best image quality. Plus the 9700 is the first and standard DX9 card, while Geforce 4 is Dx8 generation and dog slow for dx9.

Now Nvidia is trying to come out with Geforce FX, and this card is as fast as the fastest one of those, while not being noisy or bulky. The "midrange" nvidia offering is dog slow, half again slower than Radeon 9500 even (with advanced features enabled). Their image quality is worse also.

By the way, if the card isn't working for you then something is wrong with your system. ATI can't help it if you install it incorrectly or have other hardware incompatibility/instability. I bet those people have [inferior] power supplies or didn't connect the power supply to the card correctly.

Now there is also the 9800 Pro which is even faster than this.

I BOUGHT MY APEX 65" PROJECTION TV ABOUT TWO MONTHS AGO ....HAD IT FOR LESS THAN A MONTH AND ALL THE WHITE COLOR IN THE TELEVISION WENT "PINK" YELLOW IS NOW ORANGE IT LOOKS HORRIBLE! BARNEY THE DINOSAUR MAY BE PURPLE ON YOUR TELEVISION HE'S LILAC ON MINE...KINDA SUCKS! I HAVE BEEN WAITING 5 WEEKS TO GET IT FIXED AND GETTIN THE TOTAL RUNAROUND! YOU HAVE TO WAIT ON HOLD FOR HOURS AT A TIME TO GET THROUGHT TO CUSTOMER SERVICE IT'S RIDICULOUS...I HAVE CALLED 10 TIMES AND BEEN ON HOLD FOR A TOTAL OF 11 HOURS!!!!!! BUY ANOTHER TELEVISION SPEND THE EXTRA BUCKS AND SAVE THE HASSLE ....I JUST WANT MY MONEY BACK THE TV SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!

I decided to write this review because all of the other reviews were very informative and helped me inevitably decide to buy the TV. Just like everybody else, i thought the same thing... oooooo a big-screen for $1500 (and a 65" to boot), but "APEX"....hmmmmmm i dont know.

Well i shopped around and did my research. Any other TV of similar size was at least $1000 more. Also, there were several customers who loved theirs and only a few that dispised "APEX" for various reasons. My feelings were that with anything you will have a few unlucky or just generally pesemistic people, so i focused on the positive feedback.

I finally decided to give APEX a chance and i purchaced the TV.

i intended on giving the tv every chance to look its best. (i highly recomend that whatever TV you decide to buy you do the same). Before i even opened the box when it arrived (and this was extremely hard) i went out and bought a good quality progressive scan DVD player w/ component outputs and a good quality but modestly proced home theater system. (note: neither the TV nor the video components i purchaced came w/ component cables, so save yourself a second trip and pick them up while your there the first time... lesson learned)

I unpacked the tv (WOW that is a BIG SCREEN!) and plugged the rest of the components in. I read all of the instructions (for a change, again, just to make sure i was getting the most from the tv).

The first thing we watched was the cable. i was expecting less that stellar quality based on other reviews, but was pleasantly supprised that it was pretty good and that screen is so big that you just gaze at the tv and dont even notice anyway. The different zoom options change the screen in different ways, and you will find one that looks good to you.

Next was the DVD/progressive scan/component cable hook-up test. Drum roll please... first movie was "Pirates of the Caribbean". The picture was unbelievable. Clear, crisp, just all around very impressive. However, from a cinematography stand-point, "Pirates" is a litle dark, hazy, and monochromatic in the begining. So i put in "Finding Nemo" figuring that ought to have some vivid color. Let me put it this way, after watching for about 10 minutes, i finally picked my jaw up off of the floor. And every neighbor has responded the same way. Absolutely beautiful. You definately want this TV.

Bottom line: i was as sceptical as the next consumer, but took the leap of faith and was rewarded with a low-cost, humungous, beautifully clear picture, TV. i have ordered SBC HDTV today, and i will update this review if i get some spare time in the future. If you have your heart set on another popular brand name, then buy that one. But if you are like me, and are not sure about buying this TV because it says "APEX" on the front, forget about that and buy this TV before you procrastinate too long and they go on backorder. Just take the time to buy the proper accompanying components and set up the TV properly as per the instructions to get the best picture, and get a truck load of popcorn! This is how movies were meant to be watched.

Had the TV in home for about a week now. So far just a wonderful TV straight out of the box. Hard to pass up a $1400 price!!! Widescreen DVD come alive and regular TV programming takes on a whole new experience. Had been looking at other compariable models from Sony and the like, but with these in the $2K price range as well as another $400+ for like an extended Warranty decided would take a chance on the Apex. With a shade over $100 for an additional 4-Year RepairMaster Extended Warranty Policy, can't beat ~$1500 for this TV.

Only minor complaint that can't totally fault Amazon for was the shipping situation. I live in the SW Colorado region and the TV was shipped via Eagle Global Logistics from Atlanta to Denver and Eagle had to farm this out to local RAC Transport to deliver. Well RAC doesn't do in home delivery so ended up having to have a couple friends come down to a location with a trailer to pickup the set and we carted it back home. After lugging the TV (yes at 380 shipping pounds its quite large) up the stairs and into the home, once out of the box quite easy to move around. As believe will fall to Amazon's credit (once I see it finally appear on my credit card as they promised), after I contacted the customer service and expressed my unhappiness at not being provided the In-Home Delivery as their policy for large screen television holds, they agreed to credit me back the shipping charges for the purchase. Can't ask for more than that !