I received my Panasonic Show Stopper a year ago as a Christmas present from my wife. Over the past year I have had an opportunity to thoroughly review the product. I truly believe that digital video records (DVRs) are a revolution for enhancing television-viewing habits.

DVRs are a revolution for the television. With DVRs people can take control of the television schedule. No longer do you have to be available to see your favorite show when it is broadcasted. With a DVR you can record the show for latter viewing. In addition, DVRs are not just fancy VCRs that can record a show. The functions, channel guide, and ease of use make DVRs a much more powerful and in a completely separate category than VCRs.

As this revolution evolves more DVRs will be more prominent. I believe that DVRs will be as essential as VCRs. Currently TiVO has the lion’s share of the customers for DVRs at 280,000 subscribers. Last year they made less than $50 million in sales. Over this decade DVRs should grow into a multi-billion dollar business. This market boom will bring more innovation to the DVR technology.

Sonic Blue will be one of the companies to bring that innovation to the market. Last year Sonic Blue bought Replay TV. Sonic Blue will be selling their latest version of the DVR called ReplayTV 4000 in the first quarter of 2002. Replay TV 4000 will have advance features like video sharing, Ethernet support, and commercial advance. (Too see the complete feature list and their descriptions go to http://replaytv.com/partners_products/features.html) But the ReplayTV 4000 is not the product I am reviewing, so let’s take a look at last years’ model.

There are two main components to the Show Stopper, the recording device and the channel guide. The recording device captures, in real time, TV shows and stores them on a hard drive. My hard drive can record 30 hours in low resolution and 9 hours in high resolution. As your program is being watched the Show Stopper is automatically storing a copy of the program on the hard drive.

As the hard drive is storing a copy of the recorded show in real time, the user can use a number of functions like pause, fast forward, and skip. For example, while I am watching football the doorbell rings. I can put the program on pause while I answer the door. While the image is paused the Show Stopper is still recording the program. When I return to the TV I can press the play button to continue watching the show. Of course now I have a buffer of programming stored on the hard drive. When I get to a commercial break I can fast forward through the advertisements until the buffer is used up and I have returned to live TV.

These features are great for sports watching. If you missed a play you can skip back to catch it again. Also the skip forward feature, skips forward about 20 seconds into the program, is great for quickly getting through a foot ball game. As long as the offense does not use a quick or no huddle, you can skip right to the next play once the play has stopped. There are also a number of other features along the same lines that help you control the viewing of the program that I will not cover in this review.

The other major component to the Show Stopper is the channel guide. Show Stopper has a phone jack so it can dial in nightly to down load the latest channel information. This channel information is available through an interface on the TV screen. Users can scroll through programs by time, type of programming, or through a manual search. Once programs are located users have the option to view, if currently showing, or record.

This is a great feature for all of the programs you want to watch at odd hours. For example, I like to record old Mickey Mouse cartoons at 3:00 am. My daughter can then watch that show any time she likes. We can even move the program to a VHS tape if you have a VCR.

From what I understand, the channel guide is the big difference between TiVO and Replay TV. For TiVO the channel guide information is a subscription service at $10 a month. For Reply TV the channel guide information is included with the purchase. Replay TV typically sells for about $100 more than TiVO to compensate for the difference. Also Reply TV has a web interface where you can choose the programs you want to record. This was one of the major reasons why I love Replay TV over TiVO.

I am a big fan of Replay TV. I just love it. But there are some things they could do better.

The things I hate.
· There is no recording conflict resolution feature. If you program the Replay TV to record two shows at the same time the device does not tell you there is a conflict.
· There is no screen saver. If you stop the recording a big banner pops up in white on the TV screen. If you forget about this the letters will burn into your TV.
· Cable jacks and phone jacks are usually not placed on the same wall. It is difficult to wire this system up. I have to run a phone cord across my living room to the jack on the other side once a week to manually record.
· Sports programming does not record well. Football programs, because they usually last longer than the programmed time, are not recorded in entirety. You have to be sure to record the post game report to get the full game recorded.
· The IR blaster does not work well. If you have a cable box that does not support a serial connection then you will need to use the IR blaster to change the channels on the cable box. For some reason mine stopped working after less than a year. I returned the cables box to AT&T; I like the Replay TV more.

Even though there are a number of short falls on the Show Stopper, this is a great unit. Considering the price increase for the ReplayTV 4000, I will be keeping the older unit for a while. I highly recommend the Show Stopper to anyone who watches TV regularly.


Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 400