Pause your TV, not your Life!
Written: Nov 19 '00 (Updated Dec 04 '00)
|
Product Rating:
|
|
|
Pros: Read the review... too many to mention here!
Cons: Only 1 Week of future programming available
|
|
|
| JNGowan's Full Review: Panasonic PV-HS1000 (20.4 GB) 20-Hours Video Recor... |
The Showstopper has changed my life!
I recently purchased Panasonic's 30 hour Showstopper, featuring ReplayTV. I had hesitated for about six months because of the price. The unit was $599 + tax ($45) - $100 rebate, ultimately leaving me with $550 to justify to myself. Was this purchase too extravagant? Too gimmicky for its own good? Would I get $550 worth of enjoyment from the purchase? After having the unit for about 2 months, I can honestly say that I am extremely glad that I made the decision. Watching television has never been cooler, convenient or more fun.
What does it do? Question should be, "What doesn't it do?" And with the ability to download new operating software, extremely cool new features are coming all the time. When I bought the unit, it was running on version 2.0 software. 3.0 just came down the pipe and has made the unit just that much better. This happens automatically and I was so surprised and thrilled to come home a week ago only to find that ReplayTV had a new, even-classier look and many new features that I was hoping would come.
Sure, neat features include the ability to Pause, Rewind and Fast Forward digitally around Live TV. One advantage ReplayTV has over TiVo, in this respect, is that TiVo will only Pause for 30 minutes, but ReplayTV will Pause for literally hours (depending on how much space one has on their unit available to spare.) I can Pause TV and go out to dinner or a movie (or both) and come back and simply hit PLAY and not miss a beat, the unit playing back TV that was broadcast hours before! Too cool, very cool!
Ultimately, I got the unit to be able to RECORD all of my favorites, new and old. And all WITHOUT videotape! I simply set it & forget it! It is constantly working for me to record shows that I want to see: many I would never get a chance to see due to Sleeping, Working or Life-living. There are so many shows that have been long-cancelled and only run on syndication on obscure channels late at night or during work hours. Now I get 'em! It would be next-to-impossible to be able to record all the shows I currently do with a conventional VCR. I would constantly be buying videotape and hunched over a TV Guide. I used to try to do this, but EVERY week I was spending tons of time resetting the machine to record the same channels I set the week before. Now, I can simply press a button a couple of times and my favorites will always be recorded, week after week!
I NEVER come home and wonder what to watch or "what's on?" ... with ReplayTV, I have lots of programs that have been recorded for me all night and all day long. In fact (and this sounds a little weird), I have too many shows to watch. I don't have enough time to watch all of the shows I want to watch. That's incredible selection power. I don't have to wade through a lot of bad shows & commercials to get to a select few good ones. All of my TV-watching time is devoted to ONLY shows that I really want to watch. Amazing! With the 30-second quick-skip button, I can jump over all of the commercials and get back to the show I am watching. I love it!
How's the quality of the video & audio? Well, I think it's great! I record just about everything on EXTENDED LEVEL (the lowest quality setting) in order to maximize my recording time and it's perfectly fine! Because of this quality even at the lowest quality level, my 30 hours of space is 30 hours of space. I don't hear the same about TiVo. Although, I haven't actually experienced TiVo, I've read that THEIR lowest quality setting is practically UNWATCHABLE. So in order to get a decent recording, one has set the quality level HIGHER which leaves less space on the machine to RECORD other shows. Their 30 hours of space is not 30 hours, but considerably less! This is unacceptable. For this reason, I'm super glad I didn't go with TiVo.
The onscreen guide gives tons of information about all of the shows and is quite easy to navigate quickly. The ReplayZones, the unit's preset section of great programming, divides tons of programming and puts them in logical and easy-to-find categories -- making finding shows I want to see so easy. The only drawback to the onscreen guide is that Replay only downloads 7 days worth of future programming to my unit. It would be great to have the ability to see at least two weeks out. Maybe 4.0 will have a more extended guide. Something to look forward to! However, with a feature newly added with the 3.0 software, I can now record just like a VCR: setting a record for a specific date, time & channel. If I know the specifics of a show coming in a month, I can set the show manually to record. This was a playing-catch-up feature that TiVo has and it was great to see it happen.
Another catch-up feature implemented is the ability to set a Record up with additional time on either the beginning and/or the end of a show. This is perfect for sports where games go into overtime. There was nothing more frustrating than getting only part of game. Now I don't miss the final buzzer! I set up sports to extend with additional time and get the whole game, if and when it goes past its allotted time on the onscreen guide. This has been KEY for me, being a big sports hound! Thanks, ReplayTV!
Bottom line, if you are seriously considering a unit, get it! You will love it! Do your homework and continue reading what people have to say about their experiences. Look at ReplayTV and TiVo feature comparisons. Ultimately, I think you'll make the choice to go with a unit featuring the Replay service. It's the Bomb!
=======================================================================
For an in-depth look, head over to http://www.replaytv.com and click "OVERVIEW".
=======================================================================
Recommended:
Yes
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
JNGowan
|
|
Member: James Gowan
Location: Dallas TX
Reviews written: 2
Trusted by: 2 members
About Me:
Born and raised in the Good ol' US of A.
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.