Philips HDR312 TiVo 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Tivo vs. ReplayTV
I have spent the past 30 days evaluating both a ReplayTV and a Tivo personal digital recorder and this is a brief review of my experience.<br />If Tivo did not exist, I would probably tell you that ReplayTV was the coolest gadget that I have ever used. However, Tivo has done such a superior job  designing their user interface and their remote control that there is no  comparison between the two, Tivo is the hands down winner.<br />ReplayTV's  major problem is that they have no sorting system to help you pick the  shows that you might want to record. To find the shows that you want to  record you must painfully sift through an on screen channel guide one time  slot at a time. Tivo in comparison gives you numerous ways to choose shows  that you might want to record. You can view the upcomming two weeks of  programming in catagories such as Movies, Sports, by channel, or by show  name. Tivo will even automatically record shows that it thinks you might  like based on shows that you have rated with their thumbs up or thumbs down  rating system. At first I was skeptical that I would like this feature, but  after a week I found that I loved it. I would get home from work and get a  whole list of programs that Tivo went out and recored by itself while I was  sleeping and while I was at work.<br />With Tivo I can scan through hundreds  of Movies on my premium channels and in minutes tell it to record all the  ones that I want to record for the next two weeks. With ReplayTV it took me  so long to do this that after the first few days I found myself only  recording shows that were on a regular schedule, like Seinfeld or the  X-Files.<br />ReplayTV basically has a frustrating user interface that forces  you to constantly look at the remote control to do every simple task. With  Tivo almost all of your options are on screen, so if your sitting in the  dark while you are watching TV you don't have to strain your eyes on what  button you need to push.<br />My ReplayTV seemed to often (at least once a  day) have a playback glitch. The fast forward or rewind would get stuck and  I would have to power the unit on and off to get it to stop.<br />One last  thing, a major one for me, ReplayTV gives you no indication of where you  are when you are watching a show. You can't tell if there is 10 minutes or  an hour left. I was watching Shindler's List a few days ago and I found  this extremely frustrating. With Tivo you get a very helpfull progress bar  that appears on the bottom of the screen whenever you fast forward, rewind  or press slow motion. (ReplayTV has no slow motion or single frame  advance.)<br />I just returned my ReplayTV and Tivo 14 hour unit, I ordered a  TIVO 30 hour unit. My advise is to buy a 30 hour unit, you will probably  record everything in a higher quality setting, resulting in about half the  recording time of either units advertised recording capacity.