 Manufacturer : Sezmi Corporation Model : DMR-1000 ASIN : B00400NU5S Price : 149.99$ See Special Offers   Product DescriptionThis personal TV entertainment system gives you access to your favorite local and cable channels, as well as on-demand movies, TV shows and more via its unique over-the-air antenna and broadband Internet connection.  29 of 32 people found the following review helpful: A viable alternative to high-priced cable/satellite This review is from: Sezmi DMR-1000 All-in-One Personal TV Service, Black (Electronics) We took part in the Sezmi Beta testing program earlier this year, trying out the service and box for about 4 months before signing up for it officially. Initially the box performed rather poorly, with the operating system and DVR software obviously still going through revisions and testing, but that was to be expected - we were Beta Testers after all. This improved with software updates, and the latest version performs much better, but not without some bugs still. Tuning took some experimentation and adjustment of the antenna with repeat scans to get a decent signal. Initially we were on the first floor of our apartment building and reception was a little iffy for some stations, but after we moved up to the second floor where there were fewer obstructions the reception improved considerably. I actually found I was able to get further signal improvement by connecting an old passive single pole antenna that came with an Elgato TV unit into the coax socket at the back of the Sezmi antenna converter box. Sezmi do offer a second antenna that uses their proprietary connectors, but the coax connector allows you to use pretty much any third party antenna as well. Most local stations come in at a decent signal level. We have been long-time Tivo subscribers - we bought one of the first generation Tivo units and have pretty much evangelized Tivo ever since. However, Tivo's contractual disputes with DirecTV meant that we could no longer get the combo unit and we were forced to use DirecTV's own HD DVR, which was slow, not to mention the gross expense of the service. We had been keeping an old Tivo unit running just for loyalty, but didn't want to pay the cost of Cable TV to use it, so when we heard about Sezmi it seemed the perfect alternative. There are obvious similarities between Tivo and Sezmi, but where Sezmi primarily differs is in allowing viewers/users to create their own customized 'zones' which learns their own viewing habits and records their own shows independent of other users. A user's own interface is customizable by setting a color scheme to differentiate it from other users, and each is accessed via a color-coded button on the remote, which all works quite well, albeit the switch between users can be rather slow (more on speed issues further on). This is a nice feature as it allows separation of content for families or multi-viewer homes, where peoples viewing tastes may differ (husband: science and sci-fi, wife: reality and home/garden, kids: cartoons and music) etc. The choice of channels for the price is impressive. For the basic $4.99 a month you get all the local networks in HD, but for $19.99 a month you can add a good selection of "cable" networks which would normally only be available through a local Cable or Satellite provider. We found the choices available to be a good cross section of the main channels we used to watch on Satellite, such as Discovery, TLC, Science Channel, SyFy, Planet Green (one of my wife's favorites), VH1, amongst others. All of these additional channels are received via the antenna alongside the regular local networks. They're obviously encrypted so that you can't view them if you only have the basic package. The local networks are all received in HD and are picked up from the regular over the air transmissions that you would get if you just hooked up an antenna direct to your TV - what you're paying the $5 a month for is the DVR, Guide, and on-demand services at that point. The higher priced package allows you to receive the other channels which are decrypted by the DVR. The downside to all the additional channels is that they're not in HD, only SD, and the quality is, at times, barely SD. Getting decent reception for these extra channels is fairly hit or miss and depends a lot on where you live and your proximity to transmitters. We are in the middle of Los Angeles and we had continual problems with picture and sound breaking up and delays in the channel changing while it found and decrypted the transmission. One thing to note about Sezmi is that it really isn't geared towards being a "Live TV" system - something that becomes obvious when you realize that there is actually no "STOP" button on the remote. In order to watch "Live TV" one must go to the Guide and select the channel and show one wants to switch to. Live is not the default state. It is really designed to be a system that is used to pre-record pretty much everything to be watched later. This is one of the reasons behind having the massive storage capability - it allows the system to record a LOT of content! The DVR software, although competent, and providing for a LOT of storage capacity, has a lot of difficulty dealing with poor/broken signals. A lot of the time, if there is any kind of signal degradation during a recording, then that show becomes unwatchable on playback. The image breaks up, the sound stutters, and probably about 75% of the time the DVR functions become unusable because the scrubber cannot determine time codes and gets completely confused as to where it is supposed to jump to. Fast forward and Rewind functions lock up, skipping ahead sometimes works, and sometimes the show will just restart right back at the beginning, but when you reach the troubled area again it just goes haywire. This is something that really needs to be fixed - some kind of check in the playback functions that looks for loss of integrity in the signal and unmatched time codes and attempts to jump over the problem area rather than try and play it. The system has some other anomalies that should be dealt with sooner rather than later - it has a tendency to be somewhat overzealous when deleting shows by itself. On several occasions I went to watch one of about two dozen saved episodes of a show only to find that about half of them had been deleted by the system, but they did not then appear in the Deleted Items folder for me to recover. Shows that are manually deleted by the user go there, but shows deleted by the system (I assume to free up space or because it felt they had expired) do not. There have been a few other niggles with the system that should be noted, and while not deal-breakers, they do cause some usability issues that can make the system less than ideal. When using the Guide, it is dreadfully slow - taking between 5 and 20 seconds to refresh the current channel listing EVERY time you move the channel selector up and down, which can be painfully tedious - how on earth this couldn't be cached is beyond me. This is an often repeated function and the user should not have to wait repeatedly every time for the guide to refresh. It becomes incredibly annoying and makes the system cumbersome to use. Even DirecTV's dreadful on-screen Guide works faster than this. Additionally, popup message windows, show info, confirmations etc take rather too long to disappear. Another annoyance is a bug that causes paused shows to automatically start playing again when you switch back and forth between users, meaning you have to remember to hit Pause again as soon as the switch is complete. Speed of the system overall is definitely a major issue - the response of the device to button presses on the remote is probably only at about 85%, seemingly a result of the system being busy doing something else to react immediately to the remote, so responses are cached, however the lack of feedback means that one tends to try pressing the same or other buttons several times and when all those cached responses are then suddenly executed you end up with undesirable results. Speed of the system appears to be related to the number of saved recordings - the more shows you have saved, the slower the system gets. When you compare the speed of Sezmi to a TiVo, it's like comparing night and day. If you have used TiVo and you know how fast the on-screen guide responds to navigation and how quick it is to set up Season Passes and delete content, you will be extremely frustrated by the sluggishness of Sezmi. Sezmi is certainly new, and it is certainly innovative - it has a LOT of potential, but it also still needs a LOT of work to make it truly usable on a day to day basis without being frustrating. The DVR software, Guide and Navigation overall need to be optimized to speed them up and make the user experience less cumbersome. If you're willing to put up with some bugs and work around some of the issues, then Sezmi is a great alternative to the much higher priced cable and satellite services. It's not a full-on replacement for those... yet, but it could be. If the additional non-local "cable" channels delivered were in HD and there was a wider selection, then even an extra tier at, say, $30/month, would be cheaper than basic cable or satellite. Combine that with a better UI and DVR software that works more effectively, and Sezmi will certainly give the big names a run for their money. This review is from: Sezmi DMR-1000 All-in-One Personal TV Service, Black (Electronics) I've had Sezmi since they rolled out in Southern California in 2009. I had Verizon FIOs for few years and was so tired of paying $100 per month for TV service. Once I got Sezmi and started paying $20.00 per month for HDTV and SD cable channels, I was hooked. The customization features are great and the cable channels are all you need. The equipment was a snap to set up and the Sezmi customer service people are the best I've seen. The DVR is awesome and you can program shows months in advance. Everyone in the house can have their own set-up and record all of their favorite shows using their own home screen. The pay-per-view movies are exactly what Verizon and Amazon offer with the convenience of not having to switch boxes. The only negative is the mostly slow response of the remote control. Also, sometimes the PPV movies take a long time before you can play the movie you order. 5 stars when those issues are fixed. Not a big deal to me, but it would be nice if the cable channels were in HD as well. Overall, I am extremely pleased with the service and price. I won't ever go back to overpriced cable again. ______________________________________________________________ UPDATE: March 27, 2011 Unfortunately, we ended up cancelling our Sezmi service for the following reasons: 1. The company did away with the SD cable channels. Although SD looks bad on an HDTV, it was nice to be able to watch shows we would not have otherwise been able to view. They lowered the price from $20.00 per month to $5.00, but we were left with channels that we could grab over the air with our rooftop antenna. 2. So, we now had a DVR and PPV services with the Sezmi box for $5 per month. Here's what lead us to finally cancel: The Sezmi DVR is painstakingly slow. The response from the remote took many, many pushes on the buttons and sometimes the DVR responded and sometimes not. We waited and waited for Sezmi to correct the problems and after many, many months...nothing. They knew their DVR's were an issue but did not fix the problem. The recordings of the shows we wanted to watch were plagued by studders in the video and sound drops every few seconds. Sometimes the video would speed up for no reason and resume playing at normal speeds. It was terrible to have a favorite program have so many interruptions. The PPV movies took up to 15-20 minutes to download and play. I have Verizon FIOS internet so my connection is blazing fast. We had high hopes for Sezmi and ended up being very disappointed. I can't recommend the service. I ended up buying a Tivo DVR and using my Roku box for Hulu Plus, Amazon On Demand, and Netflix streaming. My Bluray player has Vudu for instant watching of movies. So sad because Sezmi weaned me off of cable and their game plan was awesome. Their engineering and product just fell way short of the mark. 14 of 18 people found the following review helpful: Sezmi is NO LONGER. Don't buy! This review is from: Sezmi DMR-1000 All-in-One Personal TV Service, Black (Electronics) UPDATE: 9/23/11 Sezmi emails customers at 6pm Friday saying the service will not be available come Monday. Poor customer service that didn't allow their loyal customers any time to find a tv alternative. What a cluster.Sezmi is fantastic, HD + DVR of over-the-air network channels for $4.99/month. I opted in for the cable channels ($20/month) and most of them show up in HD-like quality. However I am considering dropping to the $4.99 plan due to my TV habits. Pros: -- HD-DVR for over-the-air channels for $4.99/month! You pay DirecTv $7/month for the DVR, $10/month for HD plus the programming package. Cable companies, you pay $17/month for HD DVR capabilities, plus the programming rates. -- DVR acts as a media player so you get YouTube, etc. on your TV. -- Weeds was an on-demand programming option. Wasn't expecting to see a Showtime show available. Note: it is the only cable-type show available. Sezmi if you are reading this, would love to see more Showtime shows. -- HD quality is better than satellite and cable -- "Cable" channels are better quality than expected. Some come in HD-like quality, others are standard. -- Very simple on-screen menu -- Fast-forwarding of recorded shows works so much better than DTV or the cable company DVRs. -- Customer service has been fantastic when I have called and they are located in the US. No struggle to understand the technicians. Cons: -- Remote is a little tricky at first, but as with any remote you get used to it. -- A lot of Sezmi branding on the on-screen menus. -- There is a slight delay when changing channels. Not terribly annoying. -- Setup takes about 45 minutes, so don't expect to plug it in and watch immediately as they download the latest updates the minute you plug into the Internet. I am in love with the value of Sezmi. I was so frustrated paying DTV or the cable companies $50+/month for the lowest programming package when all I really wanted was the DVR for the network channels. Now I have it for $4.99/month. When I look at how much I was paying the other companies, it paid for itself in 3 months. Sezmi Rocks!  Product is End of Life I'm surprised to still see this listed, given that it no longer functions. Directly from their website: [... by David Service ended as of Monday 9/26/11 I was with the service from the time of the pilot. When it started it offered a selection of cable channels over the air through the Sezmi Plus service, and even promised that... by Steven L. Kusnitz Nice concept, but I don't have faith that the company will last. I bought a Sezmi in early January, after they had announced that the Sezmi Plus package would be eliminated. by John Stagaman So far, doing great We've been trying to figure out a way to "cut the cable" for a couple of months. Most of what we watch is network tv anyway, so it wasn't a huge leap, except for a few live... by stonehenge03 Product is good no customer service Pros: Great picture, play back good, has two tuners, allows external antenna, lots of storage, good selection of on-demand. by viper222a Better Alternatives I haven't tried this unit so this is not really a review but i wanted to give you people a viable alternative. by TimTime I am returning it. Never got it to work! No stars I know about ethernet cables. The instructions were extremely easy to follow, online and with the quick start guide included in the box. by William J Lyons Best things in the life are almost free lol I cant believe how amazing this product is, i can record as many things as i want surf web, take advantage of ondemand, I look forward to see the cable channel in this product. by Carmen Choppy picture, clunky interface, poor implementation I love the idea of the Sezmi, their customer support was great - but the implementation is having major growing pains. by Average Joe Good Product I recieved my Sezmi Last week. I bought it because I wanted to see if it would actually work where I am currently living, even though my location is not on their list... by Mary Cappello |
Friday, February 10, 2012
Sezmi DMR-1000 All-in-One Personal TV Service, Black
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