Hybrid DVD/TiVo machines

In the Circuits section of today's Times, David Pogue looks at a new-styled Swiss Army Recorder: TiVo/DVD.

The area around the TV is still a mess. By the time you've installed your cable box, VCR, TiVo and DVD player-recorder, you've built a techno-tower crisscrossed by cables and overrun by remotes. If ever an area cried out for consolidation, the TV room is it.

The industry has taken a few tentative steps in that direction: combo VCR-DVD players fill the shelves at Costco and Circuit City, and Toshiba recently unveiled a $400 TiVo with built-in DVD player. But those early attempts should bow down before the sweet perfection of a new pair of hybrids: Pioneer's new DVR-810H and Elite DVR-57H.

Each of these remarkable machines is a TiVo recorder, DVD player and DVD recorder in a single box, with one remote that also controls your TV.