Having grown tired of the tedium and pain of programming, usually unsuccessfully, our VCR I finally decided that it was time to try a "hard disk recorder". A friend of mine had owned a TiVo for a few weeks and was quite happy with it, so I went to my local "Good Guys" electronics store to get a TiVo of my very own. Good Guys was selling both TiVo and Replay TV so they were pretty agnostic about which one was best, but in my admittedly un-scientific opinion, the picture quality was noticeably better in the "extended" video playback mode of the Replay TV unit than that of TiVo. Since that was the mode I presumed I would be using most frequently, I ended up getting the Replay TV (Panasonic PV-HS2000). I'm not sure which model this corresponds on the Replay TV model chart, but this one stores up to 30 Hours of video in the extended mode. I believe we paid $599 which includes lifetime access to the program guide information. I think the price is basically the same for both units, though TiVo will let you subscribe to their program information for a monthly fee.

One of the other reasons for getting the Replay TV unit was that they had recently updated their menus and interface and at least for the moment, seems to have more features than TiVo. (Though I'm sure that will change with the next TiVo update.)

Assuming you can figure out how to hook the cables up properly to your Replay TV unit, the rest of the installation was pretty straightforward. (Incidentally, they do provide good documentation for figuring out how to hook-up the cables). In essence configuration amounts to picking the appropriate local phone number (just like AOL) and which cable or satellite system you are on. In my case we have Time Warner's digital cable service that is relatively new to our area. So new, in fact, that I was not able to find an exact match for our channel content amongst the defined Replay TV choices. As a result we can only record the first 74 channels from our cable system when in reality we have 50 more channels to choose from. In their documentation they say that if your cable system isn't already on line it can be added in a few days, however when I called Panasonic's tech support they didn't seem to comprehend my problem and suggested that I try dialing the other access numbers to see if the proper selection would show up. It didn't, but so far I've been too lazy to bug them about this. I keep thinking someone else in our vicinity will buy one and do the dirty work for me.

So now I've been using it for a month and here are my list of pro's and con's:

For ease of use it is terrific. Once it's configured recording programs is very quick and easy. A training video is even included as pre-recorded content on the Replay TV unit which is informative and gives you a good overview.

As noted in other reviews, you are given three choices for recording resolution. "High", "Medium" and "Extended". What this really means is the lower the quality the more compression the unit is doing. How this effects your playback has a lot to do with what you are recording. For standard television series, the extended mode works pretty well. That's because in most series television the camera doesn't move quickly and the colors don't change radically so the high compression does a good job of "keeping up" with the action. However, if you watch a lot of sports, the extended mode isn't nearly as effective. Particularly for something like Basketball where the cameras are whipping back and forth and the action moves rapidly. For sports events I would recommend using "high".

Which brings me to one pitfall of Replay (and TiVo for that matter). Let's say you don't want to miss an NBA final game. And let's say it was game 4 of the NBA Finals. The problem is when you pick the game from the Replay schedule and tag it for recording, according to the TV schedule; the game should last 2 1/2 hours. Guess what? That's how long it will record the show. The problem of course is that game 4 went into overtime, so we missed a good bit of the game. (Only the best part!) So, my advice is to always pick the next show after the sporting event to record, just to cover yourself. (If you’re a hockey fan, better pick the next 4 or 5 shows.)

Another disappointment was that I had programmed Replay to record "Ally McBeal" every week. The final episode of the season was a two-hour episode but Replay did not figure it out. It would be nice if it had. On the other hand when "Law & Order" was preempted due to the NBA playoffs, it was smart enough not to record it.

As for suggested improvements, it would be nice if I could hook-up the Replay via the Internet instead of a dial-up connection. It would be really great if I could program the unit via the Internet so that if I was out of town I could change the programming. Presumably they are working on these features for the future.

That all said, I would give the Replay TV an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. The bottom line is it’s purpose is to make recording television easy, it certainly does it better than any device to date. It will only get better as time goes by.

*** UPDATE 12/29/200 ***

A couple new items since my original review. First, as you may have read Replay TV has elected to get out of the home consumer market meaning they will no longer sell a Replay TV branded unit directly to the public. They have chosen, wisely in my judgement, to focus on licensing their technology to cable set-top box makers and consumer electronics companies such as Panasonic. Panasonic, and presumably others eventually, will continue to sell Replay TV units to consumers. So I would not rule out buying the ReplayTV unit because of this news.

New and Improved Features:
- The latest and greatest Replay units will record up to 60 Hours. (I haven't checked but I assume TIVO must be doing the same.)
- Replay now supports the ability to program your unit via the Internet so if you are away from the house you can record a show. To be honest I have not really explored this feature yet, but it is there.

Otherwise I still have very few complaints. I do think the natural progression for this technology is to integrate it into the cable and satellite boxes as Sony is now doing with TIVO for their Direct TV box. It would be nice to consolidate the two devices and would make changing channels more reliable.




Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 599