The concept here is absolutely brilliant. Once you get a ReplayTV box you change your whole approach to TV. Got a chance at a hot date that overlaps the season premier of your favorite show? Not to worry, it will be recorded when you get home. Annoyed when someone calls during the game? Pause the live feed and catch up during commercials and halftime.

Speaking of commercials, you don't watch them. At least not if you are at least a few minutes behind live. The skip 30 seconds button is really nifty and Tivo doesn't have it. Fast forward just isn't the same...

I'm a techie by nature. I tend to bring home a lot of stuff my wife (an artist) can't stand. Not this. I'll have to pry it from her cold dead fingers. When she falls in love with a technical gizmo I consider that a real endorsement for the design.

Using it is a snap. You just point to guide to a show you want to record and hit the select button. It records when the show is on. You never have to watch live TV again.

Another nice feature is that it will build it's channel guide from several input sources, i.e. a broadcast feed and a satellite dish. You pick the show, it figures out what to tune.

It really does work like that, it really does change your TV viewing life. You really need it. Honest.

So, what are the flaws? Well, this is a first generation device and it shows. It seems to get confused every now and then. The show is in the list to be recorded but just doesn't. Impossible to tell why...

I've also had it get into a weird state where it doesn't get any video from the input. This is apparently a known problem because when I called it in the tech support person immediately gave me an involved, 3 minute reset sequence to go through that fixed the problem. It has popped up twice now, probably due to power failures.

And there is a philosophical problem. Used to be, when I missed a show, it was gone. Off my plate until the rerun. I have an active life and I tended to miss about 50% of what I would watch if it were available when I was. Now I watch about twice as much TV. I have a backlog of shows that I need to watch on my Replay box. Is that healthy?

But really, you need one of these...



Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 799