impressedThis is all three! I may no longer need to keep my regular DVD player hooked up downstairs, and it has certainly been disconnected for the moment... because the new TiVo has an optical audio connection and S-Video! So, the new TiVo is hooked into the DVD spot on my A/V receiver. Of course, most of the programs I watch will never have Dolby Digital sound, but most of the DVDs I play on it will, and by hooking the TiVo to the receiver with the optical cable, I'll have the best possible sound.
I can pop a pre-recorded DVD into the new TiVo and play it; I kinda wish it hopped into DVD mode when I insert a disc, but I can see preferring it not to. As it is, I can always start playing the DVD by pushing the play button on the front of the TiVo! (Yes, this is the first TiVo I've ever seen with buttons on the front panel.)
Of course, I can also pop a blank DVD in and record programs from the hard drive onto disc... either permanently, or temporarily on a DVD-RW disc. That's more expensive, but it means I can put something on a DVD for a friend to watch, and then get back the disc when they're done to reuse for something else. The one drawback to this feature is that I can't record to DVD any programs that were transferred over from another TiVo, such as the one in my bedroom. I guess the recording formats are different.
My biggest gripe about this thing is that it looks like any old consumer DVD player, instead of like a TiVo! It's a silver metal and black glass box like almost any other consumer electronics product, instead of the curvy, sleek look I'm used to from TiVos, even the recorder-only units from Humax.
Right now my new TiVo is copying a whole bunch of programs over the network from my old one, so I can sell it to
guinness_duck. This is also the first time in a long time I'm using the Picture-in-Picture feature of my TV. I have both TiVos connected, and I've got a little window showing the old one in the corner. Don't want it to get lonely. Too bad I can't also copy over the Season Passes. I created new Season Passes for all of the programs I watch that have episodes within the next two weeks, but I'll have to wait until there are new episodes scheduled of "24" and "Alias" and "The Shield" and a couple of other shows before scheduling those. 