If we were reviewing the TiVo when it was launched 10 years ago in the US, we might agree with Seven’s PR hype that “it’s the biggest revolution since the invention of television” but eight years after the launch of digital television the TiVo is hardly cutting edge technology let alone revolutionary.

Unlike its US counterpart, the Aussie TiVo is a crippled box. Shipping with (what we understand to be) a 160GB HD, the TiVo allows you to record up to a pathetic 32 hours of HD or 62 of SD television. If you like a show forget about copying it to DVD or your hard disk; there is no DVD burner and the Ethernet port is strictly for downloading the EPG from TiVo. No problem you might think, simply open the box (having acquired a set of security screwdrivers) and pop the hard disk into your computer. Don’t bother, as Channel Seven representatives assured us the TiVo is designed to respect Australian copyright laws and all data on the hard disk is encrypted (hence the acknowledgement of Turing encryption in the credits).

So why would you shell out nearly $700 on a TiVo?

To be fair the TiVo is probably one of the easiest PVRs to use. Although it initially failed to properly negotiate the HDMI display resolution once we manually selected a compatible format we were up and running. We hope that this was due to receiving a pre-release unit but if not, there will be a few people wondering why their TiVo isn’t working.

Assuming you have an internet connection in your lounge room (or a home wireless network and have purchased the optional wireless network dongle), set up is a no brainer. After agreeing to the licence, and entering our postcode, the TiVo connected to our internet and downloaded channel information, tuned the channels and loaded initial EPG. On our broadband connection the entire process took around 20 minutes but we understand it can take around 30 minutes over a standard 256 or 512Kbit/s internet service.

A lot of effort has gone into making the TiVo interface as idiot proof as possible. Remember it has been designed for the ultimate couch potato! The remote control is colour coded so you only need to press one button to do most things. Want to pause TV, just press the yellow button, want to access the menu, press the TiVo button. Can’t read? No problem because if you like a program you just press the green thumbs up button and if you don’t, press the red thumbs down button. Ahh, democracy in action.

The whole aim of the TiVo is that it will hopefully try to determine what type of shows you like (by monitoring what you record and give the “thumbs up” to) and offer recommendations. In the US where TiVos work with free to air, cable and satellite and you have hundreds of channels to choose from, this could be a useful function. Here in Oz where the TiVo only works with the 5 free to air channels, what’s the point?

At the launch, Channel Seven were at pains to point out that the TiVo gives you more content. We cannot understand where this content comes from given that an Aussie TiVo cannot download movies from the internet, play videos from YouTube or even stream from your computer network.

The answer given was that it will help you find what you like from the free to air offerings. Hello? With only a maximum of 10 free to air channels (even assuming you like overseas news, ABC2 reruns and the little known Parliament House digital TV channel) it’s not that hard to find things from a TV guide particularly if you know how to use Google, or hook up another PVR with the existing IceTV third-party guide.

Another claimed benefit is that the TiVo can automatically program shows using the EPG. This would be great if the TV stations ran to schedule and shows actually aired when they were meant to. In our tests we missed the first and last parts of programs because the TiVo guide does not account for the fact that our television stations cannot start and end programs on time! Although the TiVo does allow for some scheduling slip, in our tests it was not always enough particularly when the guide says Greek News is showing but they’re still speaking Russian because SBS is running very very late!

Thankfully you can manually set record times (usually 5 minutes before and 15 minutes after tends to work) but what is the point of TiVo if you have to program the timeslots in yourself anyway?

When the TiVo officially launches we understand you will be able to remotely program it to record via the web but this functionality was not enabled in our review unit. Let’s hope the web interface lets you start recordings earlier and finish them later otherwise you will still need to find the program from other sources.

So what do you get for your money?

If you presently use your Foxtel IQ to record free to air, you can get the same functionality with the TiVo for a one off payment and not have to pay for Foxtel subscription. Of course you can also buy a digital PVR with a larger hard disk and DVD burning.

Hype aside, the TiVo is basically a locked down PVR which requires an internet connection to work properly. If you are technical enough to have internet in the lounge room you probably already have a PVR and if you are not that savvy you probably don’t have that level of internet connectivity available anyway.

The TiVo hopefully learns the type of shows that you like, makes recommendations and allows you to find programs with your favourite actors, genres or subjects.

Perhaps when the free to air stations embrace multi-channelling and there is a large variety of programming to chose from, the TiVo will offer a really easy way to find what you want to watch. But for now, if it’s not showing on the limited free to air offerings, the TiVo just tells you there’s nothing on, and you don’t need a $699 box to work that out!