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GoldLyrics.com - Nero Liquid TV
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List Price: $199.99
Our Price: $103.99
Your Save: $ 96.00 ( 48% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Nero Inc.
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: CD-ROM
Brand: Nero Inc.
EAN: 0658657900008
Feature: Enjoy the unique and easy-to-use TiVo interface; all the great TiVo features like Season Pass and WishList included
Format: CD-ROM
Label: Nero Inc.
Manufacturer: Nero Inc.
Model: 8027586
Platform: Windows XP
Publisher: Nero Inc.
Release Date: 2008-10-27
Studio: Nero Inc.
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Features
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Enjoy the unique and easy-to-use TiVo interface; all the great TiVo features like Season Pass and WishList included
Watch and record shows in HD and Standard formats on your TV or on your PC
Export your favorite programs to portable media players; burn shows to DVD or save them to your hard drive
Schedule TV recordings online (US and Canada only); Pause Live TV on your PC
Includes a 12-month subscription to the TiVo service
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Editorial Reviews:
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Nero LiquidTV offers the unique ease-of-use, personalized features, and flexibility that other digital video recorders (DVRs) don't. That's because at the core of Nero LiquidTV is the Emmy award-winning TiVo service, which is always working to automatically find and digitally record the entertainment you want to watch, and to suggest related programming you might like to see.
Watch and pause live TV on your PC - Just press Pause and come back to it when you're ready The TiVo experience is now on your PC - Nero LiquidTV does everything a set-top-box DVR does, as well as everything else you wish it would do. Now you can transfer shows between computers or TVs throughout your home network Export shows to digital media players - Nero LiquidTV makes it simple to export TV shows to an iPod, PSP, or other mobile device Burn to DVD - Build an archive of your favorite TV shows Connect to a TV - Connect your computer to an external TV set and enjoy your content on the largest screen in the house Supports 4 tuners - Record two shows at once with support for up to 4 analog, satellite, and cable (ATSC and NTSC) tuners. Only supports one set-top-box among themMinimum System Requirements Windows XP or Vista x86/x64 20 GB available hard disk space for TV recordings BDA-compatible TV tuner or video capture card for analog and digital recording (included in the retail box - USB port required)
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Good Basic Tivo Solution for Computer Power Users
Comment: I have always wanted to use Tivo on my computer so this product is ideal for me. Before, I had my Tivo box sitting on the desk behind my computer monitor and I had the box connected to my Hauppauge TV card.
I was very disappointed with the Tivo Desktop software as a solution for saving my recorded shows to my computer. Most of the time it would take as long as it takes to watch a show or longer to copy it to my computer, so if I wanted to take a 2 hour movie with me on my iPod Touch I'd have to wait over two hours for it to copy to my computer and then fifteen minutes to convert it for my iPod, which made the process prohibitively time consuming.
The Liquid TV product not only allows me to eliminate the Tivo box it has an easy to use menu for converting stuff to put on my iPod. It's also a lot faster.
Navigating the menus can be done with the included Tivo remote, an existing Tivo remote, the mouse and/or the keyboard. I was pleased to find my old Tivo remote works with Liquid TV so I can use it if I lose the included remote, or just buy a regular Tivo remote on eBay if I happen to lose both. Using the keyboard to input data is a huge step up from using the remote and makes the Tivo experience much more convenient and less time consuming.
The only thing that annoyed me about this product is that I had to re-install it three times because you can't re-do the TV tuner setup. The TV tuner setup is confusing. Instead of just checking each of the tuner inputs to see which of them has working channels it makes you pick between "Hauppauge Analog" and "Haupage digital" devices. I would have thought since the device came in the box the software would already know how to configure itself for it.
Pros:
* Menus seem much faster than Tivo Series 2 box.
* Tivo window can be re-sized and has an "always on top" option.
* Live TV Window lets you keep watching your show while you're setting up season passes, browsing the Guide and most other functions.
* Software is much more stable and useful than Tivo Desktop (Tivo Desktop is just awful).
* Much better than any other software DVR I've tried (they're mostly garbage).
Cons:
* You can't use the Tivo remote unless the Liquid TV window has the focus so if you are browsing the web and want to change channels you have to switch windows.
* TV tuner setup is confusing even with the included tuner.
* Only the basic Tivo features are supported. There's no Amazon Unbox, photos, application support, video downloads or any of the other neat stuff you get with a Tivo box.
* Some settings can only be accessed during Initial Setup so, for example, if you want to change TV tuners you have to run setup again which blows away all of your settings.
* There's no guidance or logical process for moving your existing Tivo service to the Liquid TV product. If you try to change your Tivo Service Number to the one that comes with Liquid TV on Tivo's website, you get an error message that you're not allowed to change your account to a Liquid TV product, so you have to setup another Tivo account and cancel the old one manually.
* Technical support is not 24 hours and is closed on weekends.
* There's no option to buy just the software if you already have a Tivo remote and TV tuner. It seems like it would cost a lot less if you could buy just the software.
To summarize:
If you use your computer and your Tivo a lot this is an excellent product to switch to.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Horrible tech support
Comment: I'm a long-time fan of TiVo and have owned many TiVo standalone units over the past 5 years. I've been using Microsoft Vista Ultimate's Media Center for the past year, and was looking forward to "upgrading" to a true TiVo experience.
I'm pretty good with computers, but even I was confused by the setup process. There's no step-by-step setup instructions, and it feels like someone took three completely separate products and stuffed them in a brown box and shipped it to you; you have no way of knowing what to hook-up first. The hardware drivers for the USB tuner (which comes in a separate box and has no instructions for using it with Nero's Liquid TV at all), don't get installed when you click "Install Drivers" on the CD-ROM, and for some strange reason are installed during the TiVo software install.
Poor documentation is the least of the problem; I've been using a DirecTV with Microsoft Media Center for years without a problem. With the IR Blaster positioned in EXACTLY the same place, Nero's LiquidTV cannot change the channels.
Calling Nero's customer support reveals that you have to pay $150 PER MINUTE to speak with anyone. An email to their support team went unanswered for three days, when they finally responded with a generic form letter asking for more details on my PC's specs. Useless.
A call to TiVo, which has fantastic customer support, revealed that the IR blaster hardware is made by Nero, and you have to call Nero for support.
I've ordered a serial-to-usb cable to try and circumvent the IR blaster altogether, but I'm very dissatisfied with Nero's lack of support. All-in-all, it's probably not worth all this effort, and I should just stick with a dedicated standalone TiVo.
For now, I'm back using Media Center and hoping I'll get this thing working eventually. Either that, or it was $160 down the drain.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Horrible and Horrible tech support
Comment: First off, I am pretty good with computers. We have a whole network and serve set up in our house. I love my regular TIVO and I have been waiting for this product to come out for some time. Bottom line, it doesn't work.
Beware, you have to pay for phone tech support if you want it, even to deal with setup issues. The e-mail tech support is horrible. It has been over a week and I still don't have a resolution. It takes about 48 hour turnaround time between e-mails, and all they do is say they need more information each time. For any product there should be free tech support, or at least for the first 30 days. Especially when the product is brand new and obviously full of issues. Also forget on-line help. You can download the same manual that comes in the box. The manual is useless for troubleshooting.
The computer we are using the program on is a brand new acer, that has a dual core 2.5 ghz process and 4 GB of memory, and is running vista. There shouldn't be any issues regarding the system's ability to handle anything we throw at it. All other programs, video, etc work great. Even the TIVO desktop program and streaming HD quality movies don't have a problem. The LiquidTV on the other hand is worthless.
So I went through the whole set up process. The adapter can't seem to pick up our Verizon Fios TV service, nor can the program connect to our TIVO HD box to even transfer TV shows. As far as live or recorded TV, we just get freeze frame static. As far as transfers, the program keeps saying that the connection with the TIVO box was terminated. The Media Access Key is certainly set correctly, so there shouldn't be an issue. Our network connection is fine, and our other computers with the TIVO desktop software connect and download from the TIVO HD box just fine.
So I can't transfer TV shows, record or watch live TV with the Nero LIQUIDTV. The product is useless. I have given Tech Support over a week to figure out the problem. I have received slow responses, and ultimately Tech Support has been no help whatsoever. I am going to return the product. It is such a shame because I really wanted this product to work, and it is a great idea. THAT BEING SAID, DON'T WASTE YOUR MONEY!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Decent product but needs improvements
Comment: I installed it on my primary PC in my computer room with the following spec. Asus P5B deluxe mobo, Q9550, 4GB DDR2-800, nVidia GTX 260. Recording on a Seagate 7200.10 500GB SATA2 HD and watching on a Dell 2709W.
Setup. Fairly straight forward. Insert CD, Plug in USB tuner, decline window driver search and click tuner driver on the CD. Once that is done. Install the Liquid TV software and you are almost ready to go.
Launch the application and you are greeted with a first time setup menu much like any other Tivo product. Setup the remote, enter zip code, your Tivo subscription code, select the tuner you want to use and go thru channel scan and you are good to go. (I'm using the same OTA antenna that I use for my HD Tivo)
Operations. The Tivo remote work pretty good and make it seems like operating any other Tivo product. Live broadcast look decent but not as good as the HD Tivo or the built-in tuner on my Sharp 46" LCD. I would say it's better than DVD but nowhere near that of the other units. I have a 1.2GB 720p mkv file for the Terminator Sarah Conner Chronicles season opener that have more picture detail but maybe slightly less frame rate.
I did a recording of the 10PM Law and Order and the result is about the same compared to watching live. I check the recording file and the 1 hour show took up slightly over 6GB. that is pretty close to what a standalone unit will take. With that much data, the picture should be very close to that of a SA unit but it's not.
I also have some minor tearing on full screen live and playback. That issue seems to be software related as the recorded file plays just fine using media player. Hopefully this will improve with future updates.
The only thing that I think could cause the lower quality is the USB tuner. I have the older ATI HD tuner card in the same PC although I have not used it since I went to a nVidia video card. I can see if it still works and if it gives a better picture. (it's been a while but I think I have seen better picture from the ATI when I had it running). Maybe some of you with a better PCI tuner card can give the trail version a try and see.
I also tried multitasking with it running in a window box. At one time, I have Eve Online (MMO game), Googletalk, Firefox and a download ongoing at the same time. There were some minor pauses and out of sync when I'm switching between apps and such but it's ok in general. I did have one CTD while setting up a season pass though. I have not have a chance to watch the complete 1 hour recording so I don't know if the pause and out of sync was carried over to the recorded file.
In conclusion. I'm a bit disappointed as the picture quality is nowhere near that of a SA HD Tivo box or the built-in tuner on a HDTV. However, The Tivo software and remote make operation just like a SA Tivo which is so much better than any other HTPC solution I have tried. I'll probably keep it as it's relatively cheap and hopefully the software will improve over time. I'll even be willing to invest in an better PCI tuner card if it turns out that they can improve the picture quality.
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