Humax DRT400 40-Hour TiVo with DVD Recorder

This was the exact replacement I needed. When I called TIVO because the hard drive had failed on my older (but still AWESOME) unit they recommended replacing the hard drive which had failed after seven years of service. I shopped around - $139.00 for a new hard drive so I went to trusty Amazon and found the exact same Tivo DVR for $99.00! I was able to pull the old TIVO and just plug in the new TIVO and off and running - new DVR, new parts, new drive, for $40.00 LESS than replacing the hard drive - and NO WORK to fix it. Awesome deal and I have my TIVO back. Works as promised and as always.

As off 5 days ago stopped to work,I don't know why.

I purchased one of these units as my first foray into the TiVo world when my 15 year-old VCR started to die. I figured 40 hours seemed like a lot of TV to watch, and if I managed to get close to filling it I could download video to a DVD-RW and use those just like I used to use video tapes.Alas, the "gotchas" were too much for me:1) Video quality on the TiVo has 4 ranges: Best, High, Medium, and Basic. Shows recorded with Best looked pretty good, but anything less than that I found the video artifacts rather noticeable when watching the programs. I should note here that I was watching prime-time dramas, not sports (which, having more motion, should reveal more artifacts).2) Recording time was not what I had hoped. The stated "40-hour" recording time is for programs at Basic quality. At Best quality the total storage was more like 13 hours.3) The DVD recording function was disappointing. Not that it was difficult to do; it was really quite easy. No, my problems were with storage capacity and video quality. The first show I tried to move to DVD was an episode of The West Wing, and I found I couldn't store the entire show on one 4.7Gb DVD-RW (the one included with the unit, no less). Seven minutes of the show had to go on a second DVD-RW. Most of what I record is hour-long shows, so this wasn't going to work for me. I tried recording another hour-long show (again, a West Wing episode) in High quality and transferring that to DVD-RW; it fit with room to spare, but the quality on the DVD was really poor. Not impossible to view, but so noticeable that it was distracting.I did record another hour-long show at Best quality and found I was able to get that on one DVD-RW (barely), so it looks like I was subject to the vaguaries of MPEG compression. Some shows might compress enough to fit on a DVD, others might not. In the long run that was not going to work for me.Basically, if you're hoping to use this unit as a TiVo/quasi-VCR you're probably going to find it doesn't work as well as you expected. You may want to consider going with a unit that has more recording capacity, and if you really need to put programs on DVD try using the TiVo-To-Go feature. I haven't tried it and can't speak to the quality of the resulting DVDs, but I just can't imagine it would be any worse than using the DRT400.

I am a very big Tivo fan; and had 2 original series 2 tivo's. So when my 1st Tivo went on the fritz I decided to buy this unit. I figured ease of use; one device, and a recorder something previous Tivo's don't have. I have to be honest the first unit I bought gave me trouble with the remote control and other universal remotes. After returning it the next unit worked fine.Setup:Setup is fairly easy; even though I wish the networking option would work straight out of the box, instead of connecting to the phone line for an hour. No Biggie though; I survived.Configuration:Standard configuration s-video; component audio. Eventually I am going to use HD component cables (but supposedly they don't improve video on regular tv signal on DVD)Ease of Use:It's Tivo thats a no brainer; there is a DVD button on the remote press it, move the selection to play or burn dvd and you are done. Very easy to use.Positives:Addition of LCD time on the front.Fact that it is a DVD recorderFair PriceNegatives:After reading alot of reviews regarding the DRT800; the people who complained about the blacks not being distinguished are right. The video colors suck! Especially When you have a seperate input with HD and you toggle between them.There is no HD support (Tivo Doesn't supoort HD yet)Support took a few days to get back to me.All in all it is a fair price and I knew I wasn't getting an High Def picture out of it so the video doesn't burn me that much. It burns and plays DVD's with ease. It is worth $250-300. If I could give the unit 3.5 stars I would b/c it's better than 3 but the picture makes it less than 4!

Great device to use with computers.

I havn't watched live TV since a week after I recieved my TIVO. Without going into the numerous features of TIVO, this model with the DVD burner is great because you have unlimited storage. It holds up to 40 hours on the hard drive but then you can burn TV/movies on DVD-RW and keep them. Definetly a better way to watch TV.