Toshiba RS-TX20 (and RS-TX60) Tivo DVD Recorder Review

For years, I have been waiting for an affordable digital video recorder to replace my aging 12 year old VCR. Finally, the technology is here, and the cost is within reach. Today, there are many digital video recorders that combine a hard disk drive with a DVD burner. I was particularly interested in a TiVo DVR with DVD burner, and the Toshiba RS-TX20 provides both. I purchased the RS-TX20 and this review is from a week-long experience using the product. The Toshiba RS-TX20 comes with a 120GB hard drive (140 hour recording time in the lowest quality, 32 hours in the best quality) along with the Tivo Series 2 DVR hardware and software platform, and free Basic Tivo service (a no frills 4 day programming guide and manual recording capabilities and TiVo live TV features, but none of TiVo's special full service features). Of course, you can also upgrade to TiVo's full service for a fee. For those that want a larger hard drive, a 160GB hard drive model is also available, the Toshiba RS-TX60. Other than the hard drive size, the Toshiba RS-TX20 is nearly identical to the RS-TX60.

Setting up the RS-TX20 was fairly straightforward. All the cables I needed were in the box, including a 25 foot phone cord. Partway through the setup, the Toshiba TiVo shut off because while moving it around, the power cord came out (the power cord is fairly loose plugged into the box). I thought... Oh No, I'm going to have to re-enter everything again! Fortunately, the TiVo setup remembered all of my previous input, and I happily continued the setup with no problems after that. One of the nice touches of the TiVo system is that it comes with an IR Blaster, which is a pair of small infrared emitters that mount via double-stick tape on your cable box. This allows the TiVo to change channels on your cable box. The setup is straightforward, but, plan on spending around 30 to 60 minutes doing it. It requires a dial-up phone line as well. One disappointment, after going through the setup, after it downloads its programming guide information, it takes about 4 to 8 hours before you can actually use some the advanced TiVo features such as SeasonPass, because it is rather slow in processing that information.

The Toshiba RS-TX20 of course has all of the standard TiVo features such as pausing live TV, rewinding live TV, and the TiVo programming grid (which is superior to my Comcast cable box's programming grid).

Hardware and Software

Since the Toshiba RS-TX20 is based on the Tivo Series 2 platform, it is based on newer generation TiVo hardware platform which (probably) includes: a 200 Mhz. MIPS processor, 32 MB RAM, and a PCI bus with USB ports (compared to a 52 Mhz. processor and 16 MB RAM for TiVo Series 1). Despite the faster processor, I think the interface feels a bit sluggish (I have not used previous models, so I don't know if it's much better or worse than other models). I find that for instance entering the TiVo main menu takes over 4 seconds. Entering various menu options also takes several seconds. I would prefer faster response times. TiVo's software is built on top of the Linux operating system with the Linux 2.4 series kernel. One other important point is what it lacks- noise! The RS-TX20 seems to be very quiet, having only slightly noticeable fan and hard drive noise. I wouldn't want to put it in my bedroom though, because in a very quiet room, you can hear it, but, with any normal level of television sound, it is not noticeable. The Toshiba also has a Firewire port amongst its list of ports, letting it take input from a video camera source that supports Firewire. The remote control is a standard TiVo style remote, but with a few special buttons for the DVD player. Although the remote control is fairly functional, and reasonably good, it could be improved. It's hard to control in the dark, and, the layout is a bit non-intuitive.

TiVo's user interface is a prime example of good design. It is simultaneously beautiful, functional, easy to use, and fun. The menus are clear, the information provided in each area is informative. They have done a great job. Since this model contains a DVD burner, the menu system provides easy, well-integrated archiving of programs recorded on the hard drive to DVD.

The Toshiba TiVo also supports wireless networking. This is useful for some of its more advanced services, and allows the TiVo to update its program guide information and software through the internet, allowing you to get rid of the phone line. I purchased the very compact Netgear MA111 wireless USB adapter, and the system recognized this adapter right away. I was able to very easily set it up using DHCP and supports WEP encryption. I put in my WEP key using a text string at first, but that didn't work, so I switched to using the HEX passkey instead, and it was talking to my base station with no problems.

TiVo Full Service

The really appealing features of TiVo are with its full service, which at this time costs $12.95/month or if you prefer instead, $299 for the product lifetime (the lifetime service is attached to the particular box, and moves with the box). The TiVo full service includes a number of interesting features:

WishList: This lets you search for your favorite actors, directors, or movies and have the TiVo automatically record them when they are playing. You can also set it up to watch for keywords. It's a great feature, and I find it very useful.

SeasonPass: This feature lets you record all episodes of a certain program, whenever and wherever they happen to appear. This is another incredibly useful feature, and they have implemented it well.

Online Scheduling: If you're not at home, you can schedule recordings over the internet through TiVo's web site. This is particularly useful if your TiVo is connected to your broadband network (ethernet or wireless network) because then TiVo can receive recording updates up to about an hour from when shows start. The online scheduling interface is fairly simple, but functional. It doesn't seem to know exactly which channels you have (at least on my system it didn't, but, then, I had to edit my channel selection at setup time because they were not one of the predefined combinations).

Home Media Features: I currently don't plan to use these, but, for those interested, you can use the TiVo to store your digital music and photographs. Also, if you have multiple TiVos, there's the multi-room viewing feature and in the future TiVoToGo, for portable viewing of your recorded programs.

Video Quality and DVD Recording

Watching live TV, the video quality coming out of the Toshiba RS-TX20 is very good, but, slightly degraded compared to the signal going straight from the cable box to the TV, in particular, the picture seemed a bit grainier. On my fairly standard Toshiba 27" TV, recorded video quality at seems good to very good at medium and high quality. Watching a medium quality DVD recording on my computer however, I found the quality to be lacking in detail, but using high quality, videos on the computer looked good enough. I am overall happy with the recording quality of the TiVo, though I should note that I do not have a very high end television.

The archiving of shows onto DVD was the primary reason I chose this model. Since hard drive sizes are limited, at some point, you will run out of space, so, if you don't want to delete any recorded programs, you have the option of archiving to DVD to free up some space. It also makes your recordings "portable", which is important if you have multiple TVs, or wish to view your recordings on your notebook computer when you're travelling. The Toshiba RS-TX20 supports two DVD recording formats, DVD-R (write once) and DVD-RW (rewritable many times). Recording to DVD on this model takes about 1 hour for writing a 100% full DVD (2 hour movie). This was using a high quality recording with an 8x DVD-R disc. Writing a 60 minute show that used medium quality (and filled up 25% of the DVD) took 16 minutes. The DVD burning speed is acceptable, though a bit slower than I had hoped it would be. Fortunately, you can watch live TV or watch a TiVo recording that is already on the hard drive while it's burning a DVD. DVDs that are burned by TiVo also have a familiar TiVo-style menuing interface for selecting programs to watch on that DVD.

Shortcomings

Although the TiVo system is very well designed, there are some shortcomings I found in this review. The first shortcoming is rather simplistic space management. There seems to be no way to show the amount of free hard drive space, so you really have no idea how much space is left. The TiVo proactively records programs it thinks you might like, so, I think the free space calculation should not include those. I would also like to have more priority levels in dealing with how programs are deleted (currently you can set programs to be deleted only manually or automatically if space is needed).

Another shortcoming is lack of organizational capabilities for recorded shows. It would be nice to be able to organize programs by folder, and group things together. Perhaps in older models that had a smaller amount of space, this was not necessary. However, hard drives are now so large that you can accumulate a substantial amount of programming.
CORRECTION: TiVo Series 2 machines now appear to have the ability to automatically put programs into folders. From the "Now Playing" menu, just hit the number 2 on the remote control. It places all programs for the same series or same WishList keywords into the same folder, and it seems to work well.

Another limitation is that programs recorded to DVD are recorded at the same level as they were on the hard drive. Oftentimes, I find that a movie recorded at high or best quality does not fit onto one DVD. I wish TiVo would have an option to re-encode video down to a quality level that would fit the program onto one DVD as it is writing the DVD.

One final feature I think is missing is, it should have a counter for the number of times you've watched a show, and show it in the Now Playing list. This way, you can tell if you've already watched a show without going into the show menu to read its description.

Review Conclusion

The Toshiba RS-TX20 (and RS-TX60) TiVo DVD recorder is a great product. I like the TiVo user interface, the flexibility and ease of scheduling programming (especially the WishList, programming over the internet, and Season Pass features). Archiving of programs to DVD is simple. I liked the easy no-hassle, well-integrated DVD burner. The ease of programming the TiVo is great- the freedom you get by not being tied to predefined show schedules is liberating.

Long Term Usage Review Update

After over a month using the RSTX20, I still think it is a great product. There are a few surprises on the plus and minus side, but, overall, I am quite happy with it. On the negative side, when burning a DVD, the whir of the drive is somewhat louder than normal (it is nearly silent while watching a DVD, fortunately). The integrated DVD recorder is wonderful, far more streamlined than any separate DVD burner + TiVo solution could be.

Also, around December 8, 2004, a new TiVo software version and DVD firmware was automatically distributed to my TiVo (and no doubt everyone else's as well). This update seems to greatly improve DVD burning speed. Now, when burning a 4X or faster DVD, although the time estimator starts with a 1 hour estimate, it actually proceeds much faster and ends up taking about 22 minutes instead of 1 hour. Furthermore, the user interface seems to be a bit faster too. Especially going to the main TiVo Central menu, which used to take over 5 seconds now takes about 1 second.