Thomson PVR10UK TiVo

Well its now 2010, and the Thomson tivo counts as my longest owned gadget since 2002 !

This was I think the first hard disk TV recorder, in 2000

Released long before anyone had heard of SKY+, somehow it didn't catch on here in the UK, but its better than sky+ as it can record based on a keyword. And when your not using it it records stuff similar to what you like and stores it on the HDD. Oh, and it remembers all your series links forever.

Anyway just popped on here since mine died (hard drive went south),

and after a quick phone call to tivocentral.co.uk I got a replacement the very next day !

Tivo back in service and recording freeview !

Bought my Tivo off ebay for just 99p BARGAIN. Been using it for a while and i wuld say its gotta be the best PVR on the market. Fadded out of the uk for now but tivo will be back next year teamed up with Virgin media.

At the end of the day great system and still going 10 years or so on.

COME BACK SOON TIVO

The Rolls-Royce PVR even though it's showing its age a little. Many PVRs and even set top boxes have flaky software and/or need a reboot every now and then. My Tivo recently ran 6 months continuously. All this on a 50Mhz PowerPC processor! If you upgrade to (eg.) 400GB Samsung drive and network card you have something there's still no eqivalent of. The best set top box I've used with it is the Sony (no longer made) and Humax FOX.

Some feel that the size is a bad point, being around the size of an older video recorder, but it is ideal for those wanting to stack a DVD player, Xbox, Playstation, Freeview box or just about anything else on it. Despite the recorders somewhat lowly recording quality on a standard machine, the display, even on a large screen LCD is still good enough for most people. The intuitive controls and TiVo's easy setup make it a fantastic personal video recorder. Long before SKY+, TiVo was recording a full series of any particular program with a minimum of input from the user. Automatically avoids clashes in schedules, records items based on actual programme name choices, actor, genre, type of programmes, learns viewing habits and records programmes you may have forgotten about. Many users, once they have a TiVo can't look at TV without it. It was the first mainstream box to allow you to pause live TV, watch one recording while recording another, things taken for granted now, but in some ways, the EPG and controls especially noteworthy, nothing else has ever come close to TiVo. The lack of a digital tuner would put people off it now, but as it can control a Freeview box, this is not really a detrimental item. Many TiVos now in the marketplace have been heavily modified, and items with larger drives are a highly recommended thing. An original machine having only 12 hours recording at high quality (40 hours basic quality, and in this day and age, not acceptable), add to this the fact the series one machine has not been manufactured for over 4 years and the drive may have seen a lot of its life used up. Larger (and newer) drives fitted to modified machines see recording time upped to the 300 hours plus at maximum quality. There are further modifications to increase menu speeds and allow other changes to the hardware and software, even allowing a higher recording quality, but these are perhaps best left to the individual to research. The main point here is that TiVo still has a strong following in the UK, support is still available, as is the subscription service (ironically, I am told it is Sky that actually now carry the TiVo name in the UK). TiVo is still big in the US, and their TiVo units have progressed into smaller boxes, more features, DVD recording abilities and more, while in the UK only the series one was ever an option. NTSC boxes and any of their upgraded designs are no use in the UK as they will not work. On a plus point, the series one Tivo was a substantially built unit. Suffers from few (if any) of the more annoying traits of it's US cousins, and is largely the same as it ever was. If you can find one and overlook it's lack of DVD drive, and native Freeview, it is still one of the best, if not the best personal recorders released to date.

Purchased my Thomson PVR10UK Tivo digital video recorder in 2002 and it has been the best puchase ever. Anything I want to keep for a long time or pass to friends, I just transfer to normal tape video recorder.

I got hold of my Tivo PVR by mistake after purchasing a laptop. I was unable to return it so I got a credit and purchased the Thomson PVR10UK. It really does change the way you watch TV. Instead of waiting for your program or messing around with a video it just records what you like (and learns what you like). You then watch what you want when you want to! allowing me more quality time with my friends and family. An excellent purchase, couldn't be without it now.

I bought my Tivo back in May 2002, after changing jobs, and I started to miss my favourite programs due to the longer hours in my new position.

Buying the Tivo has been the best £200 pounds I spent, because it really is a must have box, once you have got it set up and started to tell it what you like to watch or dislike.

Since I got the machine, the VHS has only been used to playback a couple of films since, because the tivo leaves the VHS for dead, in terms of ease of use, flexibility, and programming is a doddle.

My next purchase will be a DVD recorder, and this will be a Panasonic DVD-RAM model, which does the same as a tivo does, in that it can start playback of a program whilst it is still recording.

It is a shame that Thompson have stopped making the unit, as they have broken their partnership with Tivo Inc, who does all the clever whizzy stuff that makes Tivo run.

If you manage to spot one in a comet, currys or dixons for 100-150 buy it.

You will also need to get a subscription from tivo, which is either £10 a month, or £200 for the lifetime of the unit.

I bought a lifetime sub, it was best for me.

What is Tivo? In a nutshell its a digital VCR, instead of using a cassette to record programs it saves them to a hard drive (like those in your PC). There are additional features such as pausing live TV, automatic recording of programs and recording of suggested programs.

The unit its self will set you back around £150, this will get you a box that can record about 20 hours of TV. If you want the advanced features like automatic recording and suggestions the subscription service is £10 a month or a one off £200 for a 'life time' (of the recorder) subscription.

A Tivo will change the way you use television, I don't watch live TV anymore, everything I watch is now pre-recorded by Tivo and watched at my leisure (advert breaks can be skipped). You can forget about setting the to record by time and date as you would with a VCR, just choose the name of the program from a simple to use menu and hit the record button. In the 2 months I've had it its only dropped 3 programs due to recoding errors (I record about 7-10 programs per day). If you do find yourself running out of space you can use the 'save to VCR' function.

The only gripes I have with Tivo is that its a single tuner device, you can only record one channel at a time (although you can record a program and watch another pre-recorded program simultaneously). The 20 hour recording capacity isn't enough, depending you your viewing habits it can fill up in a couple of days. Fortunately Tivos are modifiable, you can fit larger hard drives to give your unit 200+ hours of recoding time. Bear in mind that you will void the warranty by doing this.

Finally the Tivo only uses SCART plugs, so if you have digital TV your Tivo will take the analogue out and re-digitise it. This leads to some picture quality loss. Hopefully the next generation Tivo's will have FireWire in/out so you can record the DV stream straight from your decoder (Sky+ does do this).

The thompson PVR10UK personal video recorder-you can now get these life changing boxes for £199.99 get 'em while they're hot!!