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Since the arrival of the DVD recorder several years ago, reviewer types have speculated about just what would have to take place for the DVD recorder to gain mass acceptance and replace the VCR in people’s homes. Obviously, price needed to drop way below the original four-figure mark, but what else? Ease of use? Naturally, but how easy is easy? Features? Maybe. VCRs aren’t exactly feature-laden them selves, but that doesn’t stop everyone from owning one.

Humax has wisely decided to hedge their bets and offer all of the above and then some in their first DVD recorder. The DRT800 includes a DVD-R/-RW recorder, a progressive-scan DVD player, and an 80-gigabyte hard drive that uses the TiVo Series2 interface. Not a bad call. People already love DVD and TiVo; rather than buy two separate boxes, why not just spend $499 for this unit and get DVD recording and a media server in the deal?

Slow and Easy
We’ve reviewed quite a few TiVo-based DVR System in the past, so I won’t detail the various steps in the setup process. Suffice it to say, it’s a breeze: Between the included “Start Here” connection pamphlet and the onscreen user interface, everything is clearly detailed.

It’s worth noting that, while setup is straightforward, it’s not quick. It takes about an hour to complete TiVo Guided Setup process. You give the device the necessary info about your system and signal source, and it contacts the mother ship to configure your settings. You can’t use the DRT800 until it’s done not even as a basic DVD player. So, don’t pop the popcorn before you set this thing up.

Component video and optical digital audio are the highest-quality A/V outputs from the DRT800 to your display and/or receiver. But, as is typical with the current crop of recorders (for copy-protection reasons), S-video is the highest-quality input to the DRT800 from your cable or satellite box. As a result, the quality of recorded material will be lower than if it had been input as a component video signal or better, especially on a big-screen HDTV. While this might be a frustration for the enthusiast who has paid more than a grand for a recorder, it’s a bit more forgivable in a $499 device that’s geared more toward the average viewer with an average-sized TV.

Performance Matters
If I were reviewing the DRT800 as a standalone DVD player, it would score high performance marks. Through our Philips PM5662 waveform monitor, using Video Essentials’ frequency sweep test pattern, the DRT800’s resolution was excellent in interlaced mode, showing only a slight rolloff at the highest frequencies. In progressive mode, the resolution was slightly diminished at higher frequencies but still quite good. The Avia Pro test DVD showed that the progressive signal doesn’t drop to the –3-decibel point until about 6 megahertz, although it drops dramatically after that, reaching –6 dB at 6.5 MHz and showing noticeable banding in the 6.75-MHz circle. While the DRT800 may not be able to resolve the finest details, it has plenty of resolution to satisfy a DVD enthusiast.

As for its processing abilities, it picked up the 3:2 film sequence in VE’s Snell & Wilcox Zone Plate test very quickly and had little difficulty with real-world film-based signals, like the complex rooftops in chapter 12 of Gladiator or the ornate buildings in The Bourne Identity.

Unfortunately, the player’s processing of video signals is below average; it created a lot of jaggies and combing artifacts with both test discs and real-world material. Now, in a standalone player, I’d downplay this, stressing that it’s more important for the player to handle film-based signals, as that’s what you’re probably going to watch the most. Unfortunately, this is also a DVR through which we’re expected to watch video-based TV signals on a daily basis. In progressive mode, I noticed way too many artifacts during average TV watching, especially sporting events. Likewise with video-based DVD bonus material and video that I transferred from my digital camcorder to the hard drive via the FireWire connection. The combing was distracting, so I ultimately turned off the progressive scanning.

Is this a fatal flaw? Given the DRT800’s price point, I don’t think so. My screen is more than 55 inches diagonally. When I mated the player with a 32-inch display—perhaps a more-realistic screen size for the DRT800’s target audience the artifacts were still evident but less distracting. The average consumer looking to step up from a VCR probably doesn’t care that much about or even plan to use progressive scanning. If  TiVo’s popularity is any indication, they care about being able to pause live TV, fast-forward through unwanted content, and find and record their favorite shows quickly and easily.

The DRT800 gives them this—for the standard $12.95-per-month fee. Unlike some previous TiVo based DVD recorder, this one doesn’t feature the free TiVo Basic service that offers basic DVR Systems functionality and a three-day program guide. You must subscribe to the standard TiVo package.

Like all TiVos, you have your choice of four quality settings, which affects how much content you can fit on the hard drive or burn to a DVD: best (18 hours on the hard drive/1 hour on DVD), high (27/2), medium (55/4), and basic (82/6). To provide a better-looking picture for daily viewing, the DRT800 shows all live TV at the best setting, even if you’ve selected a lower setting as your default for recording.

Record Time
OK, so the big moment has arrived. You’ve recorded something to the hard drive that you want to keep permanently or perhaps loan to a friend. The DRT800’s DVD-burning function is as straightforward as it gets. When you select “Save to DVD,” your hard drive’s content appears on the screen, with a percentage beside each program that tells you how much space it will use on DVD-R/-RW. You can select multiple programs to burn on the disc; as you add them, the DRT800 tells you how much room is left on the DVD and puts an X beside any program that won’t fit. Then you enter a name for the disc and hit “Begin saving to DVD.” That’s it. The recorder burns and finalizes the disc, so you can’t add more content later. (Even with a DVD-RW, you can’t add content to an already-used disc; you can only erase the disc and start over.)

While the disc is burning, you can still record to the hard drive and watch live TV or any previously recorded hard-drive content. The front-panel display keeps you informed of the recording’s progress. It really couldn’t be easier or less intrusive.

Of course, in exchange for that simplicity, you lose some advanced functionality. You can’t edit the content, insert your own chapter breaks (they’re automatically inserted every five minutes), or combine multiple programs into one title before burning it to a disc. The recorder burns exactly what the TiVo recorded (commercials and all), be it from your cable or satellite box, external VCR, or camcorders.

Now Serving
The icing on the cake is the Home Media feature, which is now free with all TiVo Series2 DVRs (it used to be a $99 option). Using a USB port on the DRT800’s back panel and a USB-to-network adapter, the Home Media feature lets you download the daily TiVo program-guide updates via your broadband Internet connection, transfer a show from one TiVo Series2 box in your house to another one on your network, and access your computer’s MP3, WMA, and JPEG files, all through a wired or wireless network. You’ll need to download software from TiVo.com to every computer (either Mac or Windows) that you want to access through your DRT800.

My home network consists of a cable modem and a Belkin router with Ethernet ports, so I needed to purchase a USB to Ethernet adapters (about $40). When I plugged the adapter into the DRT800 and ran an Ethernet cable to the router, the DRT800 immediately noticed that I had added the adapter and asked me if I wanted to change my settings. As it does with everything else, TiVo walks you through the process of setting up the network; what you don’t get from the onscreen menu, chapter 7 of the owner’s manual clearly explains. I was enjoying content from the iTunes and iPhoto folders on the Mac in my office in about 10 minutes.

Also through TiVo.com, you can remotely schedule recordings for your DVR, should you realize when you’re away that you’ve forgotten to set the device to record something. You can do this even if your DRT800 is set up to receive its updates through your phone line, but it can take up to 36 hours to register the request; through a broadband connection, my request appeared within an hour.

With the DRT800, Humax might just have found the perfect blend of price, performance, features, and usability to usher in the DVD-recording era. I’d like to see improved progressive-scan performance and advanced editing features; however, as a value enthusiast, I can’t deny how many worthy features the DRT800 offers for such a reasonable price. I can in good conscience recommend this recorder to anyone who’s looking to finally put their VCR out of its (and everyone else’s) misery.

While the wife and I haven’t quite reached a peace accord on the matter of our abundant remote controls, one source of marital friction has recently been downgraded to a non-issue: When once we clashed over dwindling recording space on our HD DVR, Humax has now given us 250 gigabytes, the most in any TiVo, which is frankly more capacity than we know what to do with. The T2500 TiVo Series2 digital video recorder is the Korean company’s first consumer electronics product marketed in the United States, under their Humax USA brand.Although Humax is a major global manufacturer of satellite set-top boxes,this single-tuner recorder is not a DirecTV receiver, so you must provide it with a signal from either cable or a satellite box.

Blasting the Dish
Unless you’re lucky enough to have a cable or satellite set-top box with an RS-232 serial connection, you’ll need to use the included IR blaster to link the signal source and recorder. After connecting the T2500 to AC power and a phone line, followed by S-video and analog stereo inputs from my standalone Samsung DirecTV receiver and S-video and analog stereo outputs to my TV, I plugged the included blaster cable into the back of the unit, stringing both IR heads over and under my satellite receiver, straddling the point where it receives infrared remote commands.

Next, I followed the onscreen prompts to set up the IR blaster, trying each of the 10 preprogrammed codes for my Samsung box in turn, only one of which worked. One small issue that shouldn’t have been a surprise: The lag time of changing channels through the TiVo was added to the lag time of the DirecTV receiver, which meant that even a simple channel-up or -down took as long as eight seconds.

From there, it was a matter of manually checking off which of the hundreds of available channels I actually received—a tedious, time-consuming process that requires a handy printout of DirecTV channels or a Rain Man–like knowledge of the same. DirecTV makes no secret of their lineups, so why doesn’t TiVo just offer a Total Choice Premiere option for one-click setup? Rather than go through and mark every last one, I eventually took a leap of faith and just accepted all of the channels.

I also switched from dialup to a wireless broadband Internet connection the principal benefit of TiVo Series2 complaint boxes such as this for the necessary TiVo software updates. This not only freed up the phone line, but, more importantly, I noticed that related operations were much quicker this way, often completed in seconds instead of minutes. The Wi-Fi hardware I used the tiny Linksys WUSB12 Wireless-B compact USB adapter, which is included in the short list of supported broadband adapters was also quite stylish. After I quickly configured it on my PC so that my home network would recognize it, I plugged it neatly into the T2500 with the help of the included extension cable, due to the crowded rear-panel real estate.

The T2500 promptly informed me that I needed a system firmware upgrade as a final preparatory step, guiding me through the process onscreen while I did my part with just a few touches of the remote. I successfully made the always-on connection in a couple of minutes.

Dream A Little Stream
One extremely welcome bonus that has precisely nothing to do with traditional DVR operation is the Home Media feature set, which let me stream not transfer, despite the T2500’s awesome storage my computer’s MP3/WMA music and digital photos to this TiVo. I needed to download and install the free TiVo Publisher software on my PC. While locating and importing tracks and particularly images was somewhat inelegant in this new application, once properly loaded, it performed quite enjoyably.

I named my music and photo collections, and I could easily select individual files via onscreen menus. I could play photos as a slideshow, and all pertinent song info is presented as a screensaver, since all of the ID tags are carried over from the PC. In addition, TiVo proactively downloaded an assortment of recent pop-music tracks to my hard drive for free from TiVo partner BestBuy.com, and I was treated to a private exhibition of professional photographs courtesy of Nikon.

To the Net!
Users can schedule recordings online, as the TiVo Website offers the freedom to search TV listings (by title, description, or actor/director, plus an advanced search by category and genre), browse by channel, and set up a Season Pass, specifying recording quality and priority all with the ease of your computer’s mouse and keyboard interface. This is a good idea, since the process mostly involves clicking and dragging. You just need to set up a password-protected account at TiVo.com, and you can even request a confirmation e-mail of successful scheduling, including notification of potential conflicts. If you opt out of the e-mail, such messages still appear on the T2500.

It’s certainly not necessary to connect the T2500 to the Internet to take advantage of TiVo’s Online Scheduling, but it does improve the experience by providing much faster access to your changes as little as one hour before airtime, versus a 36-hour safety buffer if your TiVo still uses dialup. Scheduling directly via the unit itself is still considered the most reliable method. For example, TiVo Online Central sometimes listed programs not available as part of my selected channel lineup, which can lead to potential disappointment.

I poked around the online offerings, saw some new shows I liked, and grabbed them all, even setting up a Season Pass for another series while I was there. Sure enough, scant minutes later, I saw that my To Do List had been properly updated, with specific summaries in my Messages area; later, the T2500 recorded the programs without a hitch. One other major feature of TiVo Series2 is Multi-Room Viewing, the ability to watch content from one TiVo box on another box in a different room, if you have multiple TiVos connected to a wired or wireless home network. Alas, my insistent requests for a dozen T2500s, to properly test the networking, were met with polite stares.

Humaxed Out?
After days of recording around the clock, which led to some embarrassed explanations to my wife as to a couple of my hasty whatever’s on late-night selections (ah, Cinemax) and with TiVo Suggestions left on, I still felt as though I hadn’t made so much as a dent in the 250 GB at my disposal. I was most assuredly never asked to delete anything for the sake of space.

I captured the majority of my recordings at the Best quality setting, although I can’t say that I’m impressed with the image delivered by the T2500: Perhaps owing to the re-encoding of the previously digital satellite picture, compression artifacting was blatant on many soft textures, while blacks, in particular, revealed harsh geometric activity introduced by the encode/decode process. Bright scenes with little movement fared better, even at medium quality often displaying the subtle film like traits of the original program—so the T2500’s performance seems unfortunately tied to the characteristics of the content it records.

The Humax T2500’s true strength surely resides in its roomy hard drive, coupled with its support of the latest TiVo networking features, although a sharper picture would be nice, and component video/digital audio outputs might be worthwhile additions. Perhaps the ideal consumer here might be someone looking to finally take the TiVo plunge for an affordable $699, with up to 302 recordable hours to help him or her celebrate their new found TV independence. Hopefully, that consumer buys popcorn wholesale.

Highlights
• A nigh-incredible 250-gigabyte hard drive inside • TiVo Series2 hardware runs the latest software for advanced networking features

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