ReplayTV 3060 Digital Video Recorder
Frustrating close to being great addition to a home theater
I've had this Replay unit for about a month now, and right now I'm trying to decide whether or not to keep it plugged in my home theater. There are lots of reasons I love the device, but there are enough little bugs that I'm thinking of unplugging it and waiting until a later generation of these TV recorders fixes these issues. To put this in context, I'm an early adopter, a gadget freak, so I generally have a high tolerance for the nagging quirks of new technologies. But I'm also a home theater nut, so I have a higher than normal bar for what equipment can be added to my system.<br />I have a DirecTV satellite dish in my system, and beyond that your basic home theater setup: bigscreen TV, DVD Player, Receiver, Amp, Speakers, S-VHS VCR. Setup was fairly easy using the diagram included. I just installed the Replay device between my DirecTV box and my receiver. I plugged it into a phone jack and walked through the setup menu which was straightforward. You have to let the device use your phone line for a while to download all the necessary initial setup info, like local channel listings and Replay Zone info.<br />After using the gizmo for a while, I can confirm that these things deserve a lot of the good press they deserve.  (1) The device tapes shows when you're not around, so if you're a fan of a TV show you can set the device up once and you should never miss another episode of the show again. (2) I like being able to quickly rewind a show I'm watching, especially sports. <br />(3) If you tell it you have a DirecTV, it will download all the channel listings and allow you to just use the ReplayTV remote to change the channels on your satellite dish. <br />Now for the ugly: (1) The record quality at the low setting looks really lousy on a big TV. I think the Medium setting is as low as I'd ever set it. My S-VHS VCR record quality is somewhere between the Medium and High settings. (2) These devices are still way costly. I wouldn't recommend getting anything less than a60 hour unit, and you're looking at a big chunk of change for those right now. At Medium and High quality settings, you'll fill the hard drive in no time if you watch just a few shows regularly. (3) The audio and video keep going out of sync for me. That drives me nuts. I don't know how to fix it when it happens, and I don't know why it goes away, but the only time I can guarantee it won't happen is when I'm watching taped shows. This even happens when I'm watching live programming. (4) You can't watch one show and tape another. Not a huge deal, because it's the same with my DirecTV, but something I think they could fix someday. (5) There's about a 3 second delay when you change channels before the next channel's video/audio comes in. It's hard to channel surf patiently that way. (6) I now can't use the digital audio output on satellite dish since the ReplayTV doesn't accept that input. If I plug it directly into my receiver, then the audio won't sync with the video from the DirecTV unless I use just the composite video output. I like having the digital audio output because the sound quality is much better through that, and it's the only way to receive Dolby Digital broadcasts, which some DirecTV channels broadcast in. They should think about incorporating component video inputs into the Replay device as well. (7) I prefer the channel browsing menu on the DirecTV, because it shows you a thumbnail of the channel in the corner as you browse. My Replay doesn't have that.  (8) There's no locking mechanism so that the satellite receiver and the Replay are frozen when taping. One of my roommates turned off the satellite dish while the Replay was taping a show for me and I lost it. My DirecTV receiver didn't have that problem.<br />These are all solvable issues, and I expect we're about one to two generations away from a great product. I know Tivo just issued an integrated DirecTV/Tivo device, but I don't like how Tivo charges a monthly fee. You may not find the problemsabove to be an issue for you depending on your setup and TV viewing patterns. I can't wait to buy one of these once the problems are solved. By then the hard drives should be monstrous, satellite and personal recording devices should be integrated, and life will be merry. But until then, I feel like this is a device that is probably too difficult to set up and use for those who can't set the clocks on their VCRs, and just buggy enough to annoy high end home theater users. For some folks in between, it will be life-changing.