We bought our first Tivo in September after we found an deal that made it very affordable - free - and although we did no fall in love with it as much as some other people seem to have, we do appreciate its features. It is great to have the guide once again (we lost the guide when we dropped our DirectTV service) and of course a simpler interface for recording our favorite shows is also a welcome benefit.

However, sometime in early December, right around the time a new version of the Tivo software was announced, the image in our TV lost its quality to the point that we had to remove the Tivo. We tried to place it in a different room and with a different TV without any better results. I followed just about every technical tip I found online but nothing worked. All of the symptoms pointed to a blown hard-drive or a problem with the real-time encoding since the cable signal was being corrupted somewhere within the Tivo itself.

I usually don’t buy the product insurance most retailers offer you while you are checking out. Most of the times I think it is lost money but given we were getting a good deal on it and the fact that I knew of hard-drive problems in some units (remember the hard-drive is doing something almost 24-7, that’s hard on any electronic component) we decided to buy the insurance. That decision payed off this past weekend when we had to replace our unit, we walked to the cashier and asked for a replacement. The cashier printed out a copy of our receipt and excused herself while she went to get a new one. Five minutes later we were walking out with our new Tivo!

The setup process was much smoother compared to last time since this unit had the latest service pack installed. The updated version meant I could use our home wireless network without any tricks or hacks. The whole process still takes a few minutes and the guide information downloaded overnight but it was a very pleasant experience. The latest service packs allow you to download your recorded shows to your iPod or PSP and brings other online services to your TV. I hope to check these out over the next few days and get more out of our Tivo