Panasonic PV-HS2000 ShowStopper 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Good - but not great
This product is an excellent example of a product that was made 90% of the way, and the remainder of the details were ignored.  In general, the product works well, but with some very significant quirks.  (This review  assumes you already know of all the benefits of the machine, and you are  looking for the problem areas NOT on Panasonic or ReplayTV's web  sites.)<br />The first, and most significant, is that it is incapable of  controlling cable boxes via a serial port, even though the serial port is  on both the Showstopper and the cable box!  It can control satellite dishes  via a serial line, but not a cable box.  The ramifications of this are  huge; the first being that if your TV does not have two tuners, then you  can never watch something else while recording another program.  The second  is that the IR blaster, by ReplayTV's own admission, is quirky, at best.   The product makes the claim that multiple antenna sources can be hooked up  to the machine, and it will create one consolidated channel guide.  What  they don't tell you is that the channel guide is not capable of  differentiating inputs.  So, let's say that you have a cable line going  into the unit, and then another line in from the cable box.  (Remember that  Showstopper has it's own tuner, so it can tune the coax line in, but it  uses RCA plugs and an IR blaster for the cable box.)  When you setup the  unit, and it downloads the programming directory from all your inputs, and  creates a channel guide.  Unfortunately, the system only uses the cable box  to tune your channels.  This means that if you want to watch something  else, while recording something on the Showstopper, you cannot do that.   If, on the other hand, the system recorded off its own tuner, and didn't  use the cable box, you would be okay, because you could split the line out  of the cable box, and have it go into your TV.  I have called the folks at  ReplayTV, and while only a few of them actually understand the problem,  even fewer actually care.  In point of fact, when you call technical  support, they don't even know how the system chooses which antenna it will  use to record!  The worst part of this is that their IR blaster codes are  poorly programmed.  For example, it currently takes about 4 seconds for me  to get to the next channel when I hit channel up!  Why?  Because the  programming of the blaster codes was done at a very rudimentary level.   Specifically, when you go to change the channel, it first goes to its own  channel guide, which creates a &quot;blue screen&quot; for about a second  or two.  Then, when it completes that search, it sends a code to the cable  box, but it only sends half the necessary code.  If you had entered  &quot;201&quot; and then hit the enter key, it would send the code  &quot;201&quot; to the cable box, but it wouldn't hit enter.  So, if you  are lucky and you have a cable box that goes to a channel after a lengthy  pause, then you will see about 1 second of programming from the prior  channel, and then another second of blue screen, and then the new channel,  if the IR blaster worked correctly.  If not, you may have a problem.  This  makes channel surfing an absolute nightmare.  Unfortunately, the folks at  ReplayTV and Panasonic have no fix for this problem.<br />Which brings me to  another serious concern, which is technical support.  The folks at both  Panasonic and ReplayTV either have not been trained well on this product,  or are just not very interested in our problems.  In addition to the  problem above, they also have a difficult time understanding concepts, such  as wanting to watch one program, while recording another.  It took me 15  minutes to explain to one lady that if I wanted to record a movie from  Showtime 2 (a cable box channel), while watching 60 minutes (a channel  using the unit's tuner), I would not be able to do it.  Her solution after  research: I should record 60 minutes, and watch Showtime 2.  (If my sarcasm  isn't gettingthrough properly, it was an unacceptable answer)<br />I would  warn you that if you are planning on having anything other than a very  simple, plain &quot;vanilla&quot; set-up, then this product may cause you  more pain then you might think.  The product is not very flexible in  dealing with other components, and I have mine working in a way that is  sub-optimum.  I have spent over an hour talking to both Panasonic and  ReplayTV about these problems.  Their message back is that they acknowledge  these problems, but since Tivo has the same problems, they are not in a  hurry to address them.<br />I could go on about some of the other issues, but  this is limited to less then 1,000 words.<br />Overall, I've gotten used to  having it, and while I still miss a few shows because IR blaster technology  is unreliable, but it is nice to be able to watch what I like, instead of  whatever may be on. My recommendation to anyone who is considering buying  this is that you shouldn't think you are buying a high-tech cutting edge  product.  This is not cutting edge; it uses old technology with a new name;  at best it's late '80s technology combined with newer MPEG-II technology.   You might want to wait for Replay and Tivo to get their acts together, and  create more reliable systems before buying.