ReplayTV 5160 Digital Video Recorder
So much potential, but did not deliver
The concept is awesome. Digital recorders will change your TV experience forever. They remove the notions of time and channel from your TV. Your kids will get an endless supply of free on-demand good programs. You will gain 30% of time watching shows without commercials.<br />But we regret buying the ReplayTV; if we had to do this again we would pick an integrated digital recorder / satellite receiver based on TiVo.<br />I am disappointed by:<br />You can NOT watch one show while recording another one. Now how ridiculous is that ! Even my VCR does it.<br />Commercial skip: very cool ... when it works. On slow paced shows (think Little House in the Prairie) it works well. But it is completely freaked by shows like \\"24\\", where the fast paced sequences are mis-identified as commercials. <br />Channel surf: it takes a good 5 seconds (yes, 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, etc ...) between the push of the remote button, and the appearance of the new channel you selected on the screen. This makes channel surfing IMPOSSIBLE - now that should be illegal !<br />Computer crash: about 3 mornings per week, we have to reboot the unit because it froze during the software update during the night. So if you don't remember to check the unit in the morning before you leave the house, it will not record the evening shows until you reboot it.<br />Recording priorities: that needs serious work. When you start having several profiles / channels (or whatever stupid names their marketing people made up) recording things for you, you run into recording conflicts ... and that is OK, as long as you are given a chance to know about it and manage the conflict. We find out after the fact, when Saturday Night Live did not get recorded because some obscure 1930s movie rated 3.5 stars happened to start 30 minutes before ... <br />The navigation: probably my biggest beef, because this would be easy to fix if they spent the time. The escape button for example: in most menus, it takes you back up one level. But not always ... there are some menus (end of viewing recorded show, want to go back to live TV?) where escape just does not work; you then have to learn the funky workarounds.