I wanted something for my wife and me to better manage our TV viewing, yet I'm completely against paying a monthly-fee for recording TV programs. The Toshiba SD-H400 with TiVo Basic turned out to be a perfect product for us, until Media Center PCs go mainstream.

I didn't really need another DVD player at home (we already have 5 other stand-alone DVD players), but if that's the only way to get TiVo Basic service, so be it. Plus, the price I paid for this Toshiba (no rebate) is only (a bit) more than a stand-alone Series 2 TiVo (after rebate). For (the money), I got a progressive-scan DVD player, progressive output for TiVo, AND free life-time subscription to TiVo Basic service. What a bargain.

TiVo Basic Service:
Okay, so I don't get the Season Pass feature. However, once you're set to record a show (say, Friends at 8PM this Thursday), you can navigate to the To-Do list and select that program, and change the recording option to "Repeat this recording". Change it to weekly,... Read more

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 DVD/Tivo (or as a friend coined, DVDivo) unit 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. After that, the wireless worked A-OK.
During all this update time I could, of course, still watch and pause live TV.

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... Read more

Okay, there's a lot of ignorance about this machine in these reviews, so I feel the need to comment. This is my second Tivo, and I am an avowed audio-phile. Do I own $10K worth of AV equipment? No, but then, I do know that you don't have to buy the priciest product from the priciest brand to experience exceptional quality.

First, this is not a simple "home video" compnonent. It is actually a Small Form Factor (SFF) Linux computer, with hard-drive, modem, processor, and RAM. Hence, it does have a fan, as do all computers except that one model of Apple G3 (or was it 4?). As such, it does not ever "power off" completely (nor do most "home video" components). It will often run in the middle of the night, for 2 reasons: first, it is recording shows based on the "Tivo Recommends" function; second, it will generally make its daily call in the middle of the night when you are unlikely to need to use the phone. If you don't want it to be whirring its drives in the middle of the... Read more