Panasonic PV-HS2000 ShowStopper 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
This is how TV should be!
This is the best gizmo I've ever bought in my life... of all the fancy bells-n-whistles types of toys I buy, this one has proven to be the most useful and enjoyable. After you have ReplayTV, you can't believe other people aren't using it... it's the way TV should be... for everyone.<br />I had originally intended on getting TiVo because the box and the remote looked cooler and the set was just a pinch cheaper... but you have to pay $9.95 a month for TiVo service... all the while they're getting valuable demographic data from you for free.<br />ReplayTV does not require any monthly payment and they offer essentially the same service, just different names for different screens, etc.<br />What you have is a pseudo VCR that uses a high-speed hard disk to record your shows digitally... but it's much better than just that.<br />Let's say you're watching your favorite show and the phone rings... just hit the \\"pause\\" button and pick up the phone. Sounds like a VCR... anyone can pause a tape, right? Well how about pausing live TV?  That's right... you can be watching the freakin' SuperBowl and not miss a thing... you go to the bathroom when you have to go instead of holding it in while waiting on a commercial... and who wants to miss the commercials on the SuperBowl?<br />Let's say you've got some buddies over at your  house and you're watching the Olympics. You get up to get everyone some colas during a time in the show where not much is happening and you don't feel like hitting the pause button and make everyone else wait on you. While in the kitchen, you hear everyone bust out laughing uncontrollably. You come back in the room and they're holding their sides and crying from laughing so hard. You ask them what they're all laughing about. One of them is able to catch his breath and tell you it was something, \\"you had to see it, man!\\"  No problem... just hit the \\"Instant Replay\\" to catch the last 10 seconds... if the commercial was 30 seconds long, just hit it 3 times. Even though you weren't recording the show, ReplayTV was buffering it for you just in case you might want to replay a portion. Neat, huh?<br />Let's say you are recording \\"Stephen King's The Stand\\" from cable and it's recording when you come home w/ your kids. You really don't want your little ones to watch this movie, but you can pop in a DVD using an A/B switch and it keeps recording for you... very unlike a VCR... you don't lose the TV show you're recording... or let's say you also recorded a cartoon for the kids a couple of days ago... you can watch a previously recorded show on your ReplayTV while it is simultaneously recording a live show.<br />A favorite TV show of mine from childhood was \\"The Banana Splits.\\" It finished airing on TV the year I was born, but I used to watch it in re-runs when I was about 5 or so. I haven't seen it in nearly 30 years, so I went to my ReplayTV menu and did a \\"find shows\\" and using the remote, typed in the name of the show. It searched the schedule for the next week or so and couldn't find anything showing regularly, so I created a \\"Banana Splits\\" theme channel so that if ReplayTV finds a show with that title on any channel at any time EVER, it will record it. I had forgotten about my special channel a couple of months after I had set it, but ReplayTV did not forget and faithfully looked everyday until one day I came home and saw the green light on my ReplayTV, telling me that there were new shows for me to see. I looked on the menu and there were 2 episodes of my childhood favorite recorded for me! That was such a treat... and you can do the same for any show you are missing from the past. I could tell by looking at the details on the menu that both shows had been recorded after 2am on Nick at Night... a channel I don't watch too much and at a time when I'm always sleeping.  God bless ReplayTV.<br />When I come home, I don't sit through shows I don't like, waiting for my favorite show to come on... I sit down when I want to watch something and I select from the many pre-recorded shows waiting for me.<br />I can decide to preserve an episode so I can dub it to a VHS tape later, or delete it immediately. When I want to record \\"60 Minutes\\" on a Sunday, I know that the football games will make the show run late, so I can tell ReplayTV to record an extra 22 minutes (or you pick the figure up to 99 minutes) after it normally ends, so that I don't miss anything.<br />While I'm watching a pre-recorded TV commercial, I can hit the \\"quick skip\\" button which jumps 30 seconds forward... all commercials are 30 seconds, 1 minute or up to 2 minutes long. I can quick skip a couple of times to pass those commercials without missing a single minute of my show... this means that I can watch an episode of \\"Star Trek the Next Generation,\\" which normally lasts one hour, in just 42 minutes, since I'm skipping all the commercials. ReplayTV is a time saver!<br />I can not tell you how much I adore this appliance. I've had it for over a year now and it is fantastic.<br />Each night it uses a built-in modem to dial a toll free number to get the latest updates to TV schedules to better enable you to find the shows you want. Don't have a phone jack near your TV? No problem... just get an RCA RC930 Wireless Modem Jack right here on Amazon.com when you order your ReplayTV...  If you can afford one, it will be the best TV component you will ever buy.omething and I select from the many pre-recorded shows waiting for me.<br />I can decide to preserve an episode so I can dub it to a VHS tape later, or delete it immediately. When I want to record \\"60 Minutes\\" on a Sunday, I know that the football games will make the show run late, so I can tell ReplayTV to record an extra 22 minutes (or you pick the figure up to 99 minutes) after it normally ends, so that I don't miss anything.<br />While I'm watching a pre-recorded TV commercial, I can hit the \\"quick skip\\" button which jumps 30 seconds forward... all commercials are 30 seconds, 1 minute or up to 2 minutes long. I can quick skip a couple of times to pass those commercials without missing a single minute of my show... this means that I can watch an episode of \\"Star Trek the Next Generation,\\" which normally lasts one hour, in just 42 minutes, since I'm skipping all the commercials. ReplayTV is a time saver!<br />I can not tell you how much I adore this appliance. I've had it for over a year now and it is fantastic.<br />Each night it uses a built-in modem to dial a toll free number to get the latest updates to TV schedules to better enable you to find the shows you want. Don't have a phone jack near your TV? No problem... just get an RCA RC930 Wireless Modem Jack right here on Amazon.com when you order your ReplayTV...  If you can afford one, it will be the best TV component you will ever buy.