 |
Sony VGN-P530N/Q Black Friday Deals!.
Product: Sony VGN-P530N/Q Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on Sony VGN-P530N/Q
The impress is calm too high - I'd rob for $500
My rating is strictly based on tag not performance!
 |
TeleType 31002 Best Prices!.
Product: TeleType 31002 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on TeleType 31002
WorldNav (version 4, Premium model) method is well constructed. It has a SIRF III chip site that makes my GPS lock in very quickly. The conceal is very obvious and I could scrutinize it even during the state sunlight. I took it on a 200 mile slouch around the northeast.
Voice instructions clearly allege the name of the street to turn onto, with unbiased the factual amount of time to produce the turn. Routing is honest about perfect. In some cases I found that the route that I know is a bit faster but I deem that is because the contrivance provider is not fully aware of the traffic pattern in my set.
This GPS has the most complete offering of Points of Interest (POI) I have ever seen, it includes lots of chain businesses like Target, Walmart, and Home Depot, as well as runt businesses like bike shops, party stores, and doctors, in addition to the usual types of POIs like restaurants, hotels, and gas stations. A wintry feature I really like is its ability to net and navigate to a business by typing in a phone number.
It's a huge value, I'm recommending it to my friends
This is my first ever negative review of any product.
Pros: first affordable text-to-speech GPS. But that was 12 months ago.
Cons: unpleasant routing, lockup, software/firmware upgrade fix 1 screech and perform 2 more, charge too remarkable for plan upgrade.
Ask yourself:
1) will you ever search for video on your gps system?
2) will you ever listen to mp3 using your gps?
3) will you ever look pictures using your gps?
These are features you would most likely NOT consume. If you do, you will obtain that the quality is subpar. Google this product and you will glance what kind of frustration owners have to endure. By the contrivance, my unit died after 6 months.
This unit was ready to spend as I took it out of the box. Gets the signal easily. I do not believe a lot of units so I am not clear what the refresh rate is on others...but this one refreshes every second...my friends unit built in his car refreshes 3 times/second.
Pros:
Accurate information, POIs, Text-to-Speech, MP3 player, saves address history of previous trips.
Cons:
Slow refresh rate, takes a while to figure out that I am off-route and then takes about 10+ seconds to calculate re-route. Only announces the upcoming turn "once"...no plan to command the announcement....also it announces the turn before approx 0.5 miles and only makes a "ding" sound when the trusty turn approaches.
I would pick something else...Garmin/TomTom if i were to acquire another unit.
 |
TomTom 1M00.780 Black Friday Sales!.
Product: TomTom 1M00.780 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on TomTom 1M00.780
I really savor the 720. I have tried the Garmin Nuvi and unbiased didn't like the software nearly as grand as the TomTom. Entering addresses is really hasty and you only eye towns in the residence you are looking in. This means no more having to scroll through 30 different Springfields to accumulate to the one you are searching for. You can shroud the keyboard to search for a long list of stop matches so instead of having to type out the chubby city or street name you can unprejudiced hit the first few letters and then purchase from a list.
Mapshare seems like it will be a mammoth approach in the world of automotive GPS devices. Is a street marked as start when it should be blocked? Impartial lawful the error with a few speedily taps on the camouflage and it's fixed. What's really the gargantuan reach though is the ability to piece my corrections with all other TomTom owners. I connect the 720 to the TomTom HOME software and it downloads corrections that other users have submitted.
What you peep on the hide can be fully customized so that if you want the location bar on the side then you can do it there or you can leave it on the bottom. You can also settle what information is shown in the set bar. You can display or veil the time of day, remaining time, remaining distance, original heading, and your original rate of accelerate. If you subtract items from the area bar the other items automatically rep bigger to remove up the remaining plot. You can also pick if you want to expose the unusual street you are on and the name of the next street you will be turning on to.
Text to speech quality is very capable and will say the directions so for example it might say "in 250 feet retain legal, then occupy the exit good, 204B towards Westview." Or "in 200 meters, turn correct South West Madison Avenue." You can determine from multiple voices although I judge the Dave tell sounds the best of the bunch. If you don't want to hear the "sustain to lane" instructions you can disable this feature although I personally like to have it on. You can also report your believe spoken instructions so for example you could have your kid's inform declare you to turn left in 200 feet. I haven't tried this though.
The shroud is very gleaming and easy to peep even when I have my sunglasses on. The 720 can be spot to automatically turn the brightness down as it gets black thanks to a built in light sensor on the front of the unit.
The mount is exquisite clever and orderly easy to spend. Impartial push it up to the windshield and it sticks good on. The 720 then impartial slides apt on and is held solidly in position. You can turn the 720 in any direction to pick up it exactly where it's easiest for you to seek.
With all the gargantuan features of the 720, I judge what will really area it apart even more from the other GPS units out there is the Mapshare feature. Being able to fix your believe plot and download updates automatically to withhold the procedure up to date is one of those things that is so fantastically grand that you wonder why on earth it took so long to design to a shipping product. Whether or not it can live up to the expectations remains to be seen. Even if you took Mapshare away it's unexcited the best car GPS I've ever former. With it, there's objective no contest.
My biggest complaint is that there's no case in the box. You need to consume one separately although I've been using the plastic holder it shipped in so far which is OK.
After using a Garmin Nuvi 350 for a while, it finally was ready for retirement and I started looking for something unusual. The 720 seemed like a qualified plot to go. Unfortunately for me, I have become fluent in Garminese so switching to Tomtom has been somewhat of a challenge.
The Garmin interface was simple and elegant. This Tomtom does alot more so there are more menu choices and more clutter. For instance, if you want to kill a route, Garmin had a Discontinuance button on the cloak. Tomtom requires you to go down 3 menu levels to execute. Not that hard to do once you know where to go.
Garmin would affirm me "In 500 feet, turn left on Main Street". Tomtom tells me the street I need to turn on sometime before but the steady recount will be "After 200 yards, turn left". Different especially if you are venerable to something else. One friendly thing though is where Garmin said "turn left, then left" Tomtom says "turn left then invent third left", better!
Routing seems better on the Tomtom so far. Garmin had a habit of routing me on runt, winding, unlighted, hilly roads instead of main roads and highways. If you don't know better, you follow these backroads and it can be uncertain. So far, Tomtom has consistantly taken me to the highways which is one of the main reasons I left Garmin.
Now the dreadful. Favorites on Garmin are stored by name. When you catch a well-liked, you are shown the complete address as well. Tomtom by default stores a popular by address. That doesn't assist with a restaurant or store that you will never remembor or search for the address. You can rename a popular like "My Restaurant". Thats ok but then the accurate address is hidden. There seems to be no plot of displaying the loyal address of the accepted. As a work around I have honest appended a name to the address so the name of a well-liked will be something like "100 Main Street, Anytown, NY - My Restaurant". Its long,wordy, makes for an ghastly favorites page but it works.
The Garmin graphics were generally higher resolution looking but that comes at a notice. Garmin updates the mask approx once a second giving a jerky motion to the animation. Tomtom has more jagged graphics but it is smoother. Haven't decided which is better yet.
All in all I am contented so far with the 720. Only time will allege but so far, it has done better with routing than the Garmin and thats what is most principal in the ruin.
When I received the 720 from Amazon, I was impressed with the packaging. It was boxed and padded quite well and arrived in righteous condition. Before doing anything I choose to read the Swiftly Inaugurate Guide, a sunless gray pamphlet included in the 720 box. It advised me to charge the unit at least 2 hours before proceeding. So without even turning the unit on I plugged the nefarious unit into a USB port on my computer. This gross unit is customary, via the USB, to connect to the computer as well as recharging. My regret here was that I would not be able to recharge the unit in my house unless the computer is on.
While the unit was charging I went ahead and installed the software using the CD which was included in the package. The installation went smoothly on my computer which runs on Vista Home Premium. After the recommended charging interval of 2 hours I activated the 720 and it immediately connected to the software, Tomtom Home, which I had unbiased installed. Almost instantly I was informed that there was a software update for Tomtom Home. I told it to continue and my computer downloaded an updated Tomtom Home version 2 point something and proceeded to uninstall the version I had objective installed using the CD and to install the recent version. I was mildly annoyed, but I was grateful that the update downloaded and installed without incident.
My 720 then asked permission to download some updates into itself, which I allowed it do. Everything went smoothly and I continued by setting some preferences in the 720 by using Tomtom Home. I then spent about an hour with the unit, unplugged from the computer, to find familiar with the menu structure. The last GPS that I had was a Garmin IQue 3600 and I found the 720 structured very differently. Nearly every choice in the menu structure of the 720 is graphically based using pages of icons with which to invent your selections or station your preference. I found it very intuitive and comfortable.
Later, when I took the 720 on its "maiden voyage", I found that using the unit was very simple. Choosing a destination and creating a route was easy and the unit calculated the route very mercurial. Generally the unit selects routes that are nearly identical to what I, as a local, would also rob. Only once has it routed in what I would think a round-about sort of arrangement but after I considered what it had done I realized that its chosen route would be nearly identical, in move time, to what I would normally utilize, so I can't really criticize it.
Since then the 720 has performed consistently and dependably. The method data had some minor errors, most of which, incidentally, I have already corrected and shared with the Tomtom database using Draw Fraction while connected to the internet. It even uses the 2 road name corrections I have made for a couple of local streets, using them in route calculations and even pronouncing them correctly when making navigation announcements. I have had no technical glitches at all.
I have interfaced the 720 with my cell phone using Bluetooth. Making and receiving phone calls using the 720 works flawlessly. It downloaded my entire list of telephone numbers from my Starcom and can easily bewitch them and set calls. The 720 internal speaker sound quality is marvelous considering its size.
The 720 locates and locks on to the GPS satellites and provides a region with a race I would have belief impossible a couple of years ago. It is exquisitely sensitive to the satellite signals and I am routinely able to lock on to 6 or 7 satellites sitting in front of my computer, advance the center of my house. Improbable! In my vehicle I have installed an external antenna and the 720's performance using this is phenomenal.
I have recently downloaded several songs and pictures into the unit and it plays and displays these without any hitch. I consume the FM transmitter, built into the unit, to play music over my vehicle's radio. I have discovered that I need to turn up the 720's volume waddle to 100% in order not to turn up the radio's volume too much; this helps avoid an annoying utter that you hear when an FM radio is turned up too loudly. Incidentally, the 720 politely mutes the music when a navigation announcement is made and then resumes. The quality of this sound is reasonable for casual listening in my pickup. The color of the camouflage when viewing pictures is friendly (not broad) and the reveal resolution is acceptable for this purpose. Using the slideshow option to notion the pictures gets rid of the aggravating gray bars which I otherwise have with pictures. I have added a 2 GB SD card to provide storage for these files. I am adamantly against using my internal storage for this. For me the 2 gigabytes are more than adequate. However, I can easily understand that 2 GB would seriously limit some people. The unit will interface with an Ipod although I have not done this since I don't fill an Ipod.
My overall experience with the 720 has been huge and I believe the Tomtom 720 is surely one of the acme products in the GPS market. I congratulate Tomtom for coming up with a product like this and give the 720 an eager round of applause. Two thumbs up! Forgive my rather lengthy post.
 |
Garmin 010-00577-20 Christmas Sales!.
Product: Garmin 010-00577-20 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on Garmin 010-00577-20
I recently bought a Nuvi 850. Here's my advice for what it's worth.
The dependable value of a Nav system comes from the fundamentals.
* Receiver
* Maps
* Routing Engine
* Display
* User Interface
Garmin does a solid job in all these areas. But that's not why you're paying a premium for an 800 series Nuvi.
This model has a couple of "nice to have" features that were introduced on the 700 series of Nuvi's.
* Where Am I
* Where's My Car
Both are very well implemented and can be very handy. But again, all of the stuff I mentioned so far can be found in a Nuvi costing $300 less.
So what are you paying a premium for?
* Bid Recognition
* User Replaceable Battery
* Front Mounted Speakers
Well, the front mounted speakers are unexcited drowned out by moderate road noise. So, I wouldn't pay a nickel for that. The only right sound solution remains the FM transmitter that everyone complains about. It works OK for me, in my car, in my position. Your mileage may vary.
The user replaceable battery is expedient. For $30 you can carry a spare battery and go totally wireless in the car or exhaust the Nuvi for 8 hours of walking around a city. I'd pay for that. In fact, every portable design should have user replaceable batteries.
OK, that leaves the "Astronomical Kahuna" feature, notify recognition. Don't acquire the hype from the professional reviews or some of the hosanna's being thrown around in Amazon reviews.
Does it work? Yes, it works amazingly well. In a uninteresting quiet environment.
With moderate road noise or even indoors with a TV at extreme volume 15 feet away the thing to gets confused about what it's "hearing". It should have a microphone with gross sensitivity and high directionality to veil out fraudulent noise. A runt DSP noise filtering wouldn't distress either. Unfortunately, the standard piezo mic that Garmin also uses for bluetooth phone calls will catch up any sound coming from any direction. The result is that protest recognition becomes an excercise in frustration.
Still, I'm gonna hold the darned thing. I'll simply enter destinations in the detached of my home, office, hotel room, or a restaurant before heading out on the road. The remote will live in my briefcase. It does keep you from a lot of tiring, keyboard entry. But, it is not the mobile safety feature that reviews would have you occupy since state commands are all but useless in a car. You can collect essentially the same features in a Nuvi 760 and attach yourself $300.
Your decision.
EDIT: Update.....OK maybe I was a bit harsh first time round. I have found that the unit will reply with moderate background noise.....some of the time.....if you bawl at it. It appears to have the ability to lock in on the loudest sound it "hears". So, if you are relatively stop to the microphone and deny really loud (shout), it does acknowledge some of the time.
On the upside, connecting to the Garmin website was very easy. I registered the 850, downloaded the newest firmware, and downloaded/installed the latest maps (2009), all in about ten mintues without a glitch.
I am a Realtor and have been using my Garmin GPS for almost four years. (It was the 2720 and had cost $999 when I bought it.) It's invaluable to me in my business. Today it died as I was previewing a dozen homes and I went attend to where I bought it originally and picked up an 850. Boy, am I disappointed!
The novel graphics will select some getting traditional to, but that's not the spot. With the newer technology and all the bells and whistles, I had expected this unit to be MORE intuitive than my venerable one. Turns out it's not. Twice it told me it could not glean addresses in older neighborhoods where my used Garmin never had a quandary. I had to guess my design across strange areas to fetch them and, obvious enough, once I got there, the street names registered on my veil. I immediately saw what happened but was shrinking that Garmin hadn't picked up the shrimp differences.
One street is named McLain Road. I typed in Mclain (runt "l") and it couldn't acquire it. The veteran Garmin faded all upper-case letters, so it found every address regardless of upper or lower case. This one obviously needs you to know which to employ -- very frustrating. The second one is spelled Hollowbrooke Lane. I typed in in every which plan I could deem of -- Hollow Brooke Lane, Hollow Brook Lane, Hollowbrook Lane, etc. Now that I'm home and could play with it a minute, positive enough, it found it. I should have typed in "Ln" instead of Lane and it had Hollowbrooke without the "e." When I had typed in Hollowbrook Lane, it couldn't derive it because I spelled out the word Lane. Again, the mature Garmin knew that Lane and Ln were the same thing.
Another very annoying thing I found missing on this current one which was on my obsolete Garmin was the prove of streets. Typically, each street will demonstrate up as I earn advance it, whether I'm turning onto it or not. With the 850 it doesn't expose streets unless they are major thoroughfares. I finally clicked on the "plus" button twice in succession and it started to give me lines (which represented streets), but it rarely showed the name of the street. Again, the dilapidated Garmin showed every street you came up to.
The impart prompts are also unreliable. Several times the mutter prompt did not match up with the shroud and if I tried to respond based on what I saw on the cover (for example, a city was on the shroud and the content was asking for a street address), I could not secure it to sync and had to inaugurate all over or (more often than not) unbiased gave up and tapped the information into the GPS. Again, a nice belief but frustrating if it's not working properly!
I can't figure out why this newer model would be LESS intuitive than the customary system. I'll play with it for a few days, but at the trace I paid, I won't be keeping it very long if I can't figure out how to create this work better.
And, not to beat a tiresome horse here, but I'm panicked that the unit doesn't approach with a carrying case. I impartial bought my daughter a nuvi 350 last week for her birthday and it cost a part of what the 850 cost -- and it had a carrying case! SHAME on you, Garmin!
This unit functions perfectly as it is described. The voice-activation is nearly perfect. Probably one of the best implementations to date that I can remember. The draw is a bit under-detailed for the impress but it gets you where you need to go. Direct commands from the unit are very easy to understand. Controls are easy to navigate as are the menu options. One thing that I deem is a bit ridiculous is the absence of Bluetooth Hands-Free calling. For $800 they could have included that and it is the reason that I gave it four stars instead of 5. Many of the options included with the arrangement are useless to me to be fair. Games? Report viewer? MP3 player? I don't need any of these but the voice-commands for unit control are awesome.
If you have the money to bewitch this unit, find it... if not examine at some of the lower-priced 700-series Nuvi's
 |
TiVo TCD658000 Black Friday Deals!.
Product: TiVo TCD658000 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
Compare Prices on TiVo TCD658000
By now the benefits of a DVR are well known, and most people reading this review know about the award-winning Tivo experience - I'll not exercise time describing how it all works (but trust me, it's ample! - you'll reach to disfavor it when forced to gaze 'live' TV without Tivo) . If my guess about your knowledge is inferior I'd negate going to the Tivo website and reading all about it.
Instead I'll mention why I paid the extra for the XL Tivo when there are other, cheaper options.
First off this is the fourth DVR I've frail (fifth if you count the Tivo Series 2 I bought my parents years ago) . My first was a 160-hour ReplayTV (no longer available), and I loved it. As you'd guess when you have 160 hours to play with you have a lot of options. I was first jumpy I'd become a TV addict, recording and watching far more TV than I ever did before - and in the first month or so that was basically factual. Over time, however, you collect your habits change - I eventually grew tired of recording every indicate ever broadcast, and instead frail the capacity to only portray my approved shows, but with multiple episodes. That is, if you have a ton of room you don't have to stare 'ER' every Thursday at 10 - you can read a book instead until you're tired, then objective hit the sack. Only when you're in the mood will you fire the DVR up, and you'll collect multiple episodes of your current shows to glimpse. I actually found I was watching less TV, or at least TV on fewer evenings, with the ample capacity DVR - I'd broken the habit of sitting down in front of the boob tube at 8 to be fed by the networks (and waiting through their commercials) .
Well when the HDTV switch came around and I started using the DVR from my cable company and it's 15 hours of High Def capacity, I went from DVR bliss to recording-management he$$. I could not characterize remarkable at all, and so instead I seemed to exercise all my time massaging my recordings (recording repeats at a later time to free up residence now) or, what was worse, finding myself trapped between watching a expose when I wasn't in the mood or finding it gone the next day. Also, obviously, I couldn't represent arrive as worthy a variety as before.
Now comes the Tivo HD XL, which gets us benefit in the 150 hour territory. Yes you can rep a cheaper Tivo and then prefer an add-on 500GB 'DVR Expander'(rumors of larger coming soon), or perhaps void your warranty, initiate the box, toss the outmoded HD out and replace it with a third-party one - but after doing a number of hours/dollar calculations I found this XL was cheaper than a lot of solutions, didn't void my warranty, and didn't rely on hooking up yet another portion of equipment and cabling honest to catch me what comes out of the box with the Tivo HD XL.
My only cons, and these apply to all versions of the cable Tivo: 1) Requires a cable card (or two) and the inherent hassles that near with a cable 'technician' visit (mine went well, but many apparently don't) and 2) Tivo has ads that don't secure in the diagram of the functionality (you don't have to see them) but which detached annoys me. The first con is not Tivo's 'fault' - the second is, and is why I don't give the product a 5-star.
If you're too inactive to do more research aside from looking at this page, then you may be a bit surprised when you begin the box. Here's what you need to know:
1) This TiVo requires a CableCard. It does NOT work with your cable box. It in fact replaces your cable box, so things like On Inquire Of won't work anymore. Cable TV companies are required by the FCC to give you a CableCard on examine, but they will likely charge fees for installation and for using the CableCard. It also (at least for me) can be a giant injure to derive to a representative who can actually wait on you. I wasted hours trying to deal with my cable company. Also, try to regain them to let you install it yourself, as it's really, really easy and shouldn't cost you twenty bucks to have someone else journey a card into a slot. Seriously, your blind, senile great-grandmother could do this.
2) The TiVo DOES have an Ethernet jack on the serve along with the telephone jack. If you can spend a wired network connection, then you don't need to shell out extra for the wireless adapter. I'm now returning mine to Amazon for a refund.
3) Lifetime service (totally worth it in my idea) now costs $399 up from $299, but you can derive it for only $299 with a multi-service discount if you already have another TiVo. Even better, you can resell your TiVo in the future with the lifetime service and transfer the service to the recent owner. You can't do that with a monthly or yearly understanding!
4) The remote is dreadful compared to the weak remotes. Plus, they switched around the buttons! It also now uses 4 AAAs rather than 2 AAs. However, weak remotes should work with this TiVo, too. (I haven't bothered trying.)
Nonetheless, don't let this terror you off. The TiVo HD XL is a really solid product, and TiVo is definitely serene the king of DVRs. The XL is a bit pricey, but if you do the math, you'll realize this is actually the best diagram to go. You really won't keep money or time by rolling your hold or by buying the cheaper one and attaching an external hard drive.
First, a exiguous background. I started with a TiVo series 2 a couple years ago, but recently I've upgraded to an HD system/surround sound, so I figured it was time to upgrade my cable service so I can receive HD programming. Runt did I know at the time how difficult it was for cable companies to "allow TiVo to be compatible with their system/network." They kept trying to collect me to utilize their "better than TiVo" DVRs, and insisted that TiVo was wholly incompatible with their system. So I gave em a shot and switched to AT&T's Uverse digital HD package. I had no pickle with the HD service, my only complaint was their pathetic attempt at a DVR (maybe I'm nefarious) . I called tech serve several times getting different people asking if there was any blueprint I could employ my occupy DVR instead of theirs, to no avail. Eventually I got fed up with it and decided to switch to Ynition networks who also promised HD programming. They offered dish network's DVR (with of course those astonishing service and privilege fees) and I've seen adverts for it claiming to be "better than TiVo" so I figured I'd give it a shot. After a month of tech assist trying to score the channels I actually subscribed for, they replaced it once and had the tech out a total of 4 times. Eventually I decided to scrap the HD service for cable and go help to what I had, but I had already given my TiVo series to Dad as a father's day note. So I musty this opportunity to upgrade and expend the extra money on the TiVo HD XL.
I will originate by telling you that this was the best win for my HD/surround sound system I've made. I cannot imagine watching TV without a TiVo again. Even though TiVo is orders of magnitude better than any other DVR on the market (in my conception) the series 2 had its faults. However, the TiVo HD XL resolved each and every one of those faults, most of which I wasn't even aware of until I noticed the subtle change.
Let me inaugurate with the remote:
The unusual TiVo remote was awesome, this one is perfect, TiVo now has the perfect remote.
1. They kept the same layout and get as the novel, simple, stunning, functional, and practical.
2. Made the remote programmable to work with your TV and receiver separately
3. Made each button individually programmable. If you have the novel remote you can program any of those buttons to any of the TiVo remote buttons.
4. It glows and is a nice vivid shaded!
5. The novel TiVo remote was a bit too symmetric and I've found that in the black I often started using the remote backwards (facing me instead of the TV) . TiVo resolved this by putting some slick ridging on the underside of one side of the remote so you can feel if you are pointing it in the legal direction naturally and intuitively.
Back to the DVR:
1. Tons of memory. Since I'm only recording SD programming (for now) fair to give you an belief, I can narrate 500+ hours of high quality SD video as compared with the series 2 that held about 20.
2. HD 1080i/surround sound capability. The feature is there when I need it, I can hook it up to over the air antenna for local HD broadcasting if I so desired (objective got it so I haven't residence that up yet)
3. Dual channel recording. This was the major limiting feature of the series 2, only one channel before and it was whichever channel the TiVo was space to at the time. Now you have two, and if you hook it up legal you can peek 3 programs simultaneously (2 on TiVo, one 'live' through TV)
4. The cable card feature that allows your TiVo to act as a cable box for your cable company (provided you actually have a cable company who has the cable cards) . I talked with the people at TiVo and they said EVERY cable company is spin by an agreement to wait on TiVo, however I couldn't find either of my cable companies to admit that or even answer whether they had cable cards I could spend.
5. Everything else that makes TiVo improbable is also here.
To me this was worth every penny. If you have a cable provider who's not willing to jack you around and actually let you expend the cable card feature for your HD programming, don't let anyone talk you into those "better than TiVo" DVRs. You'll miss out on the, "I wonder what my TiVo recorded for me today..." and the "bloop bloop" ...commercial skipping.. "bloop" with the perfect auto-backup that takes human reaction time into yarn.
