Video Reviews

DVR's are great. I have 3 -- 2 Replays and a Tivo. I highly recommend them over VCR's for all the reasons you read in all the reviews. They also work quite well with few glitches, so I hadn't had much chance to test their tech support, until recently.

My Tivo unit is not properly contacting the server to download the program directory. This has been going on for over 2 weeks, so now my unit won't record at all. Tivo support lines have 30 min+ waits to get through. Online support is very limited. Upon getting thru to the first Tivo number, finally, they sent me to a second Philips number, and they were closed, with limited business hours. It would be one thing if this were just bad out-of-warranty hardware support, we're all used to that. However, Tivo is charging $12/month for the directory service and to not be willing to even take my call on it is frustrating.

I've had no problems with 2 Replay TV units, which I've owned longer, and would recommend them over Tivo. Functionally, the units are essentially the same -- Tivo's slightly easier to use but Replay is slightly more flexible. My next unit will be another Replay.

Tivo has revolutionized my tv watching in the two months we have had this device. The machine setup itself was simple to follow. However, it took my engineer tv watching daughter and me a day to think through the options of hookup with a single tv monitor, a cable box and a vcr. we can simultaneously record different channels on tivo and the vcr, we can select to watch tivo live or playback or vcr.

The very strong features not in order of preference are the (1) ease of surfing for current live program with program summaries displayed, (2) searching for program names in future for recording. (3) the season pass feature for recording all episodes of a given series, with automatic change when certain episodes change time for local programming needs, i.e. CBS Sunday morning on the west coast changes from week to week in football season (4) ability to watch a program from the beginning while it is continuing to record the completion of the program, i.e. the evening news, I get home about 5:45 and can watch from the beginning and skip stories not interesting to me.

Also good is TiVo "suggestions", which I wouldn't have recorded in the first place, but having recorded available, I can choose to view or not. ease of deletion, a mere click. My tv watching is broadened because of this feature.

controlled viewing of playback is an excellent feature. we can pause a playback, do other things and come back to the place we left off. to review something near the end is excellent, skip to end and then back scan.

Sports recording is a mild disappointment because of the limited recording time at the high level of resolution necessary for comfortable watching. IF i don't have other cultural programs on storage waiting to be seen, it is good. higher disk capacity would be better.

all in all an excellent device for tv watching computer nerds.

I thought these reviews were from Tivo employees until I bought my own tivo. It is as fantastic as these reviews state! Works like a charm, cures Tv surfing for good, and may make you a couch potato. Has s-video connections, hooks to the data port on rca directv units to control the satellite, never misses a show. This is the future of tv viewing, here now. I have had a great experience with this Tivo 14hr unit. Even in the lowest recording quality, tv looks great. I record 99% in low quality with no problems. And 14 hours is really fine for time, otheriwse I would NEVER have the time to watch all I recorded in a days span. The advanced tv listings is worth the $10 a month in it self, or you can switch to a lifetime plan anytime for $200. And now the 14 hour Tivo units are everywhere for $399 with a $100 rebate for current, or new directv users. With the rebates, a Tivo unit for $299 is a better choice than a vcr. Tivo comes with hords of hookup cables and solves the "no local channels" issue for small satellite users by allowing the satellite channels and local channels from an antenna or cable tv service to be intergrated into one, in the Tivo tv listings and taping. If your reading these reviews and thinking of buying, BUY! You WILL NOT regret it! And with the rebates, and a 30-day money back from tivo, your the winner. But you wont want to return this. Drawbacks are few. One is a looong setup proceedure when you first hookup tivo, as it downloads tv first time tv listings and sorts them all. Also, it can become slow and pokey in responce to the remote, but snaps out of it shortly. Ive seen this mostly when going through listings while the unit is recording a program at the same time. And the remotes pause button and play button should of been switched, and the thumbs up/down button should be much smaller and located at the bottom of the remote where the enter and clear are located. Thats it! Just picky drawbacks that are a pleasure to put up with for the convience of using the Tivo. You'll LOVE it! I didnt think I would, and I do. Iam just glad I went and got one, and as other reviews state here, " I wouldnt give it up for anything"...

A few years ago I bought a used Creative Labs FPS 2000. Recently I accidentally knocked one of the connections lose, and thought I'd broken the speaker system. I plunged into researching speaker systems, and after reading a number of reviews I settled upon the Z640. When I got the speakers, I excitedly connected everything together and started perusing my playlist. Much to my dismay, none of the music seemed as clear or powerful as with my old system. I tried fiddling with my equalizer settings or using different Winamp plugins or using the Matrix mode for the speakers, but nothing made them sound better. I may not be a hardcore audiophile, but I can differentiate between broad levels of audio fidelity. These speakers simply aren't up to par. Thankfully, my FPS2000 system was still working, but I regret buying this set of speakers. If you want your speakers to give you a real musical experience, look elsewhere.

I wanted a set of speakers that I could eventually use with a 5.1 surround sound system away from my PC. Testing out various speaker systems at a local computer shop, the Logitech Z640s had the best sound for the best price - $... with a $... rebate.

I was already looking at eventually getting a Sound Blaster Extigy to use as my Dolby converter, but with the Logitech Z-640s, it has the "Matrix" surround option which simulates surround sound from 2-channel sources. I was actually impressed with how well it could simulate surround sound. In many areas of movies, it actually worked! However, once I obtained the Extigy, I can attest that nothing can take the place of true Dolby Surround decoding. However, for those on a low budget, the Z-640s with the Matrix surround sound is an excellent buy.

The stands on the two front and two rear satellites allow to you either leave the speakers standing on a table or mount them to the wall. The center speaker's stand only gives you the option of leaving it on top of your monitor or TV set. It allows only two positions: angled up or angled down depending on whether it's placed below or above your listening level. I do wish it allowed mounting to a wall, since that is where I have my front speakers and the center channel should always be inline with or slightly behind the two front channels.

The sub-woofer pounds out the bass so well that my wife is constantly telling me to turn it down! From our rec-room in the basement, she says she can hear it up in our second-floor bedroom. Now, that's some powerful stuff!

Hooking up the speakers is pretty simple. The satellites hook into the subwoofer. From the woofer, another cable comes out with the standard lime-green (front), black (rear) and orange (center/subwoofer) connectors for 5.1 sound cards. Logitech provides a connector that allows you to hook up the speakers to a 2-channel source and utilizing the Matrix option, you can get simulated surround. The front and rear connectors hook in on one side and on the other are standard RCA jacks so that you can take the audio-out of a DVD player or game console and hook it up directly to the speakers. That is an excellent move on Logitech's part. The power supply is internal, so no bulky power supply block is needed to plug into your outlet which can take up space.

The rear speaker cables only allow about 10 feet, which wasn't enough for me. The wires would be running across the floor, except I went and purchased a pair of RCA extension cables and that fixed the problem real well with no degradation of sound.

All the controls are placed on the center speaker EXCEPT for the bass control, which is inconveniently placed on the back of the subwoofer. For me, it's not that bad as the subwoofer is not out of place. But, for those that love to hide it behind furniture in the corner of the room, it could be a problem. The controls on the center channel consist of the power button, volume control, fader, center channel volume and the Matrix button.

The look of the speakers is pretty slick and professional looking. I haven't had any problems with distortion of sound nor interference with the TV.

For the price, this is a definite buy for those people on a budget, but who want some great-sounding speakers. Other people who are more particular with the way their sound system works would probably do better looking elsewhere.

If you want to spend some more money, there are other speaker sets out there that have Dolby Digital decoding built in, but some are over $...(THX certified) while others are around $... (Dolby Digital only), but I don't know how well they sound.

The best thing to do is shop at a store that has the speakers set up for testing so you can determine for yourself if they are the right choice for you.

I brought these speakers along with a Soundblaster Audigy 2 card to replace two HP Pavilion Polk speakers. I am not disappointed with this purchase. Not only are they affordable for a 6-speaker system, but they sound amazing too. I'm not an audiophile or anything like that, so I don't know the nitty gritty details, but I trust my ears and they proved to be a huge improvement.

It took me a while to connect these things to the Audigy 2. Unfortunately the card's plugs arent color-coordinated with the speaker's cables, so it was somewhat of a challenge, but once I got it right I enjoyed listening to music a lot more than before.

These are surround-sound speakers. Unfortunately my setup doesn't allow me to place the rear speakers behind me, so I opted to put them on the side instead. Amazingly, it still sounds like surround sound.

The subwoofer is a welcome bonus too. I live in an apartment building, so I have to set the volume pretty low, but I can still feel the vibrations underneath my feet. I haven't tried it at full power, but I wager it would shake the wall on the opposite side of the room. It's incredible how much realism a subwoofer adds to a listening experience, especially with DVD movies.

I agree with the reviewer who said the blue light on the center speaker is annoying. If you like to watch movies or play games in a dark environment and the thing is right in front of your eyes, it distracts from the monitor. It's not a big deal though, I just put some black tape over it and I got back to enjoying the multimedia.

DVD's really sound good on these speakers. You can actually hear sound move from one speaker to another and cycle, depending on the movie. I've never had that experience with two speakers. In fact, you can hear sounds you've never heard before too! It's really amazing.

Games also sound great, though not all support six speaker systems. Most support four, and you can hear the difference, but the sound is still better than with two speakers. It's a fantastic consolation that games like GTA 3 and Vice City sound absolutely fabulous now. It actually feels like you have a sound system in the computer-generated car.

Now, they're not THX certified, as if I know what that means. The only place I've heard THX is in a movie theater and even then, I wouldn't want to get that at home. It would bother too many people to turn it up that loud. At least it gives me an incentive to go to the movies more often. Nevertheless, if you're not an audiophile and you're looking for an affordable upgrade that will make your world rock, literally and metaphorically, these speakers are a good solution.

After about two months of reading reviews and asking questions, I had it narrowed down to the DV525 and Toshiba's SD1200. Both were on sale last weekend. The latest issue of Home Theater magazine has a good article on the Pioneer, but was still worried about the dark picture I was reading about, also the artifacts on the Toshiba display. I wrote to the author of the review; he was kind enough to respond and reiterate his thoughts on the Pioneer being a worthy DVD player. He then pointed me to the technical editor of the magazine who had more hands on time with both players. The T.E. also responded (same day!)with what finally swayed me; Both are excellent players, but if it were him purchasing, would take the Pioneer for a 4:3 display, and the Toshiba on a 16:9 display. Sold to the man with the 4:3 set. Took about 10 minutes to connect and setup. 30 minutes to calibrate picture (I'm picky and want a clear, sharp display). Started the first movie (Godzilla 98) and could not stop grinning. Excellent picture, great sound even from Pro-Logic receiver. Heard no transport noise at "low theater" volume. No problems with The Matrix. Why only four stars? Nothing is perfect, but I haven't found anything wrong. Excellent player!

I've had mine for a few weeks now and must say that it is a great performer, especially for the price. It plays CD's and DVD's extremely well without making you pay for unnecessary "bells and whistles."

The build quality is pretty typical of what you'd expect for an inexpensive player. The buttons feel light but ok, while the tray is a little bit noisier opening and closing than I'd prefer, but tolerable. The remote buttons ARE small and close together, but the player works fine with my universal remote (since I used the DVD remote to set the player up, that is.)

I use the digital output (copper, not fiber) for CD and DVD audio and the component video outputs. The picture is very crisp, and the sound is very clean and dynamic. My CD's have never sounded better.

My only nit is that the Scan feature for DVD's (i.e. scanning forward or back while watching in order to get to a particular scene) is a bit "clunky." It either crawls along, hardly faster than normal play, or else races so fast that you pass the scene you were looking for. This is the only thing that my VCR does better (it's seek speed is adjustable from the remote). Scanning audio CD's works well.

I know not many people may be after this little beauty because its at least 3 years old now. But I have to say mine still has the best interlaced picture I have ever seen. I recently upgraded to a Sony for the SACD capabitlities but, in a head to head picture face off in interlaced mode the little Pioneer roared ahead. It plays any DVD I throw in it. and the sound piped thru my Outlaw 1050 is great. It has a little noise at first then it fades away, layer changes are as fast as any DVD player Ive owned and the picture thru the componet connections to my 32" Phillips tv is stunning. Many people have asked me about the DV-525 when I first got it and Im so glad I did. If one is around somewhere you may still want to get it. It is alot more basic than todys units but it does what it does so well. Im also very pleased with CD playback. It seems to pick up very subtle sounds on yhe disc and relays them quite smoothly. I have used it as my CD player as well now for the 3 years I have owned it. All I can say is Highly Recommened.

I got this camera for christmas and was very excited but in just a few days it broke. Its true that the picture quality is great but its not worth it. I tried this camera three times and it never lasted more than a week. eventually i decided to just give up. Theres only room for about 3 mp3s with a 128mb card. All in all its decent for a person who uses a camera a few times a year, but for the true enthusiast interested in mp3s and durability, I would say spring for the more expensive cameras.

I bought the Aiptek with mixed expectations. The video quality is not as nice as a $400 digital camera/camcorder, but I didn't expect it to be. Its a fun gadget for family movies and vacations. The low cost of ownership, and nice compact size is good for trips. The camera comes with a tripod, case, cables, strap, etc. Hard to believe its so cheap.



The digital camera is nice.



I am right now working on ripping some of my kids dvds to mpeg4, so that they can watch their videos on the plane/car via the 1.5" lcd.



I picked up a $40 512MB SD card for it also from another retailer.



User interface VERY easy. So much easier then our Digital (DV) camcorder.



All in All, for the price you can't beat it.

Great camera, easy to use, for those that have a mac G4 like myself go to www.videolan.org to get a free player for this format (asf), info came from apple.com/uk windows media player will not play it on da mac. For those that are trying to shoot music videos of their kids, get out the flood lights, and you will get a better picture indoors, or spend the big bucks and get a low lux cam, otherwise it works great outdoors, and indoor photos with a flash are fine, this is the next generation of "kodak disc camera" that was out in the 80s using negative film. Cheap small I will be more than happy to take this cam on my next trip. Buy it if you like small cool gadgets that document a moment in time, via video or pics. Don't buy it, if you haven't read up on digital cams. Visit your library and get an understanding of light, or go to school and study the "eyeball" same principle. Great little gadget with many options.

Some preliminary comments based on my first few days with the "Creative Labs PD1130 WebCam NX Pro"...

* Installation - Straightforward and easy on Win2K Pro. Nicely integrated live shot of the cameras view in the install process, which builds early confidence that the device is working.

* Form factor - As others have noted, the three legged base is dicey on flat services (desk, top of CRT). It does, however, work quite well hinged to a laptop (or for you fortunate souls, your flat screen).

* Functionality - Bundled software provides all the basic necessities (still picture, video, scheduled monitoring + configuration)

* Performance - This is where the device is letting me down (hence the three stars for an otherwise positive experience). I'm seeing significant latency locally (~1.5 seconds) and extreme latence/dropouts via Yahoo & MSN messenger (below 1 FPS at 320x240) over a DSL connection (both sides) on a P3 box w/ 512MB RAM and Win2K SP3. I've tried, I believe, every option, with no improvement.

This would be (or will be) a five star product if I can work the performance issue out. As it is, it's on a path to being returned.

It is an okay webcam for the price. I am just use to a webcam and microphone all in one like Logitech Webcams. Creative Labs have some good stuff and I have never had any issues with their sound card either... I believe they need more work with the cam if they are planning on being their with Logitech...

I don't write many reviews but this webcam deserves one. Great price, excellent picture, good color and contrast. It beats many more expensive products and is certainly far superior to some of the Logitech products out there. I'm running a 2.4 gig machine with 512kb memory, Windows XP Pro, which of course did not recognize the driver compatibility but installed without a hitch anyway. This webcam works great with the software bundle it comes with, and it is an above average bundle at that. Works out of the box with Yahoo Messenger and Windows Messenger, no problem at all. Total installation time about 10 minutes. My only complaint would be that the stand for a flat panel monitor include some type of device that allowed for a firm attachment. I suppose a little velcro or tape would solve that problem. Other than that, you cannot go wrong with this purchase. Creative has another winner with this one.

Truly will change the way you watch TV. Think of this as what you wished your VCR would grow up to be. We have just regular cable, so these comments geared towards that setup.

Pros:
*Record around 15 hours of programming
*Free on-screen programming guide (of recorded shows too)
*Watch recorded show while taping another (or same) one
*On-line management of your unit's memory
*Universal remote controls TV/Showstopper/VCR

Cons:
*15 hours of programming not enough (read below to let me explain)
*Cannot record two shows at once
*Volume is too low if not using a S-video input
*Need phone hook-up
*Another electronics lesson to the wife regarding remote
*Set-up took longer than anticipated

30 Hours of Programming (well, not really)
Three speeds/levels of recording - low, medium, and high quality pictures which reduce your recording capacity to 30, 15, and 7.5, respectively. The medium recording yields what I was use to seeing on the VCR, maybe even a little better.

It's only been a week, but I wish I had a "60 hour" unit (in my mind, really 30). We don't watch that much TV, we really don't. Our son is limited to about 1.5 hours every other day, and we watch about 1.5 hours every night after the kids go to bed. If you think about it, below is how much capacity I would like based on weekly consumption:

Shows the wife and I like to watch7 hrs
Last week's shows7
Movies for us4
Mindless TV for us (OK, it's all mindless)3
Shows for the kids2
Movie for kids2
Total 24 hrs

That would leave 6 hours of impromptu recording (or 3 hours of high grade recording for the football game). Only drawback - and it hasn't proven to be that big of one - is the inability to record two shows at the same time. Perfect example is "Survivor" vs. "Friends". You can work around this using the VCR, but in a perfect world I wouldn't have a VCR.

On-Screen Programming Guide
It's pretty handy to press a button to see what show are playing and details about those shows (e.g., new/rerun, plot, actor names). It's even more handy to see on-screen what I've recorded. Have you ever hunted on 2 or 3 VCR tapes for the second half of "Jack and the Beanstalk" with your 5 year old waiting impatiently?

"Watch TV when you want to watch TV"
The commercial where the family is eating franticly to catch the beginning of their favorite show has a ring a truth to it. However, in your Showstopper household you eat at a civil pace, load up the dishwasher, THEN sit down to watch TV. Since you can skip commercials, you end up "catching up" to live TV before the end of the hour - with a clean kitchen.

On-line management of your unit's memory
Since I only have 15 hours of memory, I have to be a little more active in managing the hard drive. Sort of neat to be able to go on the internet to my account at ReplayTV.com and delete shows. Also easier to scan for various shows with their on-line programming schedule and ask to have it recorded. My on-line database syncs up with the database on my hard drive every morning (2 a.m. - 5 a.m.), so the only limitation there is you can't go into the office and ask for something to be recorded tonight.

Remote Control
It's another universal remote control. This one does a good job of controlling our TV, VCR, and of course the Showstopper. Only cumbersome thing is to you have to remember to press the "TV" button before pressing "power" to turn the TV on. Same thing in controlling the Showstopper - press "showstopper" button then "power" to turn on Showstopper. Cumbersome to learn at first, rote after a little while.

Set-up took longer than I anticipated
What I though would take me 15 minutes took about an hour the first time, then 15 minutes to change some things the next day. With regular cable, here's how I have everything configured:

Incoming Cable
Split to run to Showstopper and to VCR

Showstopper Output
S-video and RCA's to TV
RCA's to VCR

VCR Output
Coaxial cable to TV

With this configuration, I turn TV to channel "00" for Showstopper, channel 3 for VCR, and when the VCR is off then you can still go up and down the TV channel if desired. This also allows me to dump shows on the Showstopper to the VCR. Finally, originally was not using the S-video input from the Showstopper to the TV (using the yellow plug instead), and the cut the TV volume in half. Don't know why. Using the S-video input solved this problem.

Phone hook-up
The dreaded phone hook-up! We have one by the TV (actually spliced the line running to our alarm system, not that big of a deal) so this isn't an issue with us. The unit does "phone home" every night in order to give you a week's worth of programing, so you're going to need this. I've seen - but not used - the phone connections utilizing your house's wiring. I guess that would work. Had some initial problems with the unit doing it's initial dial-up to the ReplayTV servers, however, I just picked another number for my area (we had three number from which to choose) and it worked fine. I've seen complaints about this though.

ReplayTV vs. Tivo
Thought long and hard on this one. If I had a satellite dish I probably would have gone for Tivo since they are offering the all-in-one packages. However, since I'm on regular cable Tivo's ...didn't look that appealing for the marginal service of catching the special time a show appeared (i.e., Tivo would record the full 2 hours of a season-ending show, while Replay will record on the first hour). I'm glad I went the ReplayTV route.

The Panasonic PV-HS2000 unit works very well and lives up to the hype. The user interface is well thought out, and a pleasure to use. Installation is quite straightforward. Just make sure you have a local access telephone number first - not a problem in more densely populated areas. Be willing to try more than one number if several choices are available - my first choice didn't work for some reason.

Some very minor issues: 1. The unit dissipates 19 Watts when "off", so its a little wasteful of electricity.

2. When on, the unit makes a high-pitched hard-disk "whine" which may be audible if you listen to TV at low volume levels.

3. The unit takes 15 seconds to turn on.

As most people have a VCR already, then item 3 is not a problem in general, and it also makes it simple to watch one program and record another. You probably need a VCR for long term storage anyway, rather than keep favourite material on the recorder indefinately.

The unit certainly changes ones TV viewing experience - it's almost a strange feeling to "pause" live TV, but it certainly helps when my wife asks me to do the garbage in the middle of a favourite program!

I actually bought a demo model. To get out of the demo mode, I had to enter the rather obscure sequence: 7 7 7 Zones (4 key strokes on the remote). This is not in the manual!

The Showstopper is not JUST a digital VCR. It redefines what TV and puts you in CONTROL. It on longer matters when shows are on, you watch them when you want, you pause them, you skip the commercials.

We never recorded shows with tape -it was too cumbersome. Now, with a simple on-screen menu we've set it to record every episode of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and told it to keep the last 2 (or 3, or 4 -your choice) episodes. Plus, with the 30 second skip button (TiVo uses the much inferior Fast Forward button)you can now watch WWTBAM in 40 minutes instead of an hour. I love it because the kids don't get inundated with commercials anymore. The kids love it because it painlessly records every episode of "Boy Meets World" (including that which is on during dinner, piano lessons, etc). My wife (who generally hates TV) loves it because now she has control over when and what to watch. Our second ShowStopper (the modems do not conflict with one another) was just con!nected to the TV in front of the treadmill which now gets used regularly. TiVO is inferior for 2 main reasons; it has a monthly fee (something like $20) which the ShowStopper does not and TiVo does not have the 30 second skip function.

Caveats: Both Showstopper and TiVo require connection to a phone line so they can download the next weeks's worth of cable programming. For parents- before you bring it home, clarify with the kids the Showstopper is for watching better, not more TV. Finally, the hard drives do make a little humming type noise. We solved that by putting the unit in our glass enclosed TV stand. The treadmill setup includes wireless headphones so noise is not an issue there.

In summary, the Showpstopper is the single best 'gadget' we've bought in years. Get with the program and take over your TV.

I got my first one when Vista Imaging (viCAM) was selling them. Now 3Com is using the viCAM technology. It is the BEST webcam on the market. I own two of them and the Lens Pack. It is the only camera, that I know about, that lets you run as many as 8 at the same time! I run two of them on my website. It works with all software (WebCAM32, iVista, ChillCam, ISpy, NetMeeting etc). I ran one of the first webcams on the Internet and have used many cameras over the years. The 3COM is the best camera, it is a USB camera by the way. It works excellent in low light. The Lens Pack (cost extra) is also something that I use (the wide angle is used most often). The first viCAM cost me a lot and now look at the great price from Amazon. You will not be sorry you picked the 3COM.

If you need a camera that takes higher quality, and higher resolution photos in all kinds of light, you will need this camera. The 3Com HomeConnect has remarkable low-light capability. I use it as a "weather cam." It is pointed out the window of my office in Edinburgh, Indiana where it adapts well to everything from bright sunlight to ambient street lighting at night. Unlike most Webcams, this one features a resolution as high as 640x480. I also like the long, detachable USB cord. Another plus is the easy setup utility. Basically, all you do is put the CD in the drive and it tells you onscreen what to do next. It's so simple! Just don't plug the camera into the USB port before the program instructs you to do so. It's not the least expensive camera on the market, but the extra price gets you a much better camera than the average Webcam.

This thing rocks. You can put it in a pitch black room turn it on sit in front of it and light a candle anywhere in the room (given the room is not really huge) and it will auto adjust and look perfect in a few moments

I've had the Voodoo3 2000 on my pc for the past 2 years and still can't seem to have the need to change it to something else.
I'm a heavy on-line gamer and am very happy with this video card. Just have to work the jagged edges on some games though. Other than that, I have no regrets owning one.

Like many others writing reviews for this card, I too had an integrated AGP on the motherboard. Installing this card was not much of a problem. Make sure after your first round of installation, you download the latest drivers from the 3dfx site. The card provides excellent enhancements for most games which I play- currently Alice in Wonderland and Real Myst. Both are fairly graphic intensive games. And the card provides wonderful support. However I am not in a position to speak for people who plan to play games with extraordinary frame rate requirements. Anyways the only reason you would be buying this card is if you dont have an AGP slot on your motherboard and your game requirements are not excessive and you are on a budget. Given these three requirements I think this used to be an excellent solution. Is it still an excellent solution? Remember the company has closed down which means customer support will be minimal with no future software upgrades. If you are worried about that you should probably think about the new Hercules Prophet Geforce PCI card released very recently with 32 MB RAM. Amazon is not selling it as yet for some reason. ....

Low price, features, ease of installation, and super-charged video performance are only a few of the things the Voodoo3 2000 PCI card offers. Upgrading from a previous 4MB accelerator card, I've seen a tremendous amount of improvement in my computer system overall.

Obviously 3D applications look amazing on the card, running at very high resolutions and silky smooth. However, another point to mention is that there is such a thing as 2D acceleration as well.

The Windows GUI interface is much more speedy, both in overall performance and animation. 2D applications are faster, as all the 2D video processing is done on the superfast Voodoo3 chip. 2D games are vastly improved in speed and picture quality. In fact, my monitor has never looked so good. The Voodoo3 vastly improves image clarity and quality (at least over my other card I had).

I've heard a lot of people mention they've had problems with this card, but if you simply download the latest drivers from 3Dfx, you'll have no trouble installing this card. The best $ I've ever spent.

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.