ReplayTV RTV5040 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Early impressions
I went with the ReplayTV 5040 over the Tivo beacuse it seems to have more input/output options and better recording/playback quality.<br />The unit comes with a great setup guide sheet so you can easily figure out what connections are what without crawling behind the unit. To me it's all about the connections. <br />Here's some info for others who have those &quot;illegal&quot; universal decoder boxes (BLACK BOX).  Black boxes DO NOT decode the channels the same way a covertor box does from your cable compay.  Your cable company may decide to put MTV on channel 57 but the BLACK BOX will decode it on say channel 94.  Guess what? When the unit dowloads the CHANNEL GUIDES from your area, it will not sync up correctly.  You will be forced to manually set recording times for the channels and shows you want and bypass what the GUIDE says. Some channels to sync up corectly though, but it is a hassle. If there was ever a reason to go legit and start paying for cable service this is it folks. (Shame on me).<br />To control a regular cable box (analog, digital) you will need to connect a wire called an IR blaster.  The plugs in to the back of the ReplayTV.  The other end is placed over the IR port on your cable box and sends it a signal to change the channel.  <br />THIS IS WHY THERE IS A SIGNIFICANT DELAY ON CHANGING CHANNELS.<br />You can tweak how the unit interacts with your cable box by going to the code selection menu and hitting the ZONES button.  This will let you manipulate delay and response times to help speed up channel surfing and adjust how quickly the REPLAY TV enters each number into the cable box.  So far I have had some difficulty getting certain channels to work perfectly. ReplayTV is unable to control the volume levels also.  I am forced to use the remote for my home theatre.<br />AGAIN, never a better time to go legit and use an approved cable box.  I bet these problems would then be corrected somewhat.<br />I first setup the unit using the composite audio out to my home theater setup.  This sounded OK.  Then for fun a tried the optical digital output. What an improvement.  It is not 5.1 digital dolby.  But the sound quality is exceptionally clear using this method. If you have a cd player with an optical digial output, then this is the same clarity.  You will hear alot more on the broadcasts in my opinion.<br />Initial setup was 45 mins using regular phone line.  Play back quality is great using high quality setting. Better than VHS Tape. If I am not mistaken, using the high qulaity exclusively leaves you with 11 to 13 hours of recording time. So keep in mind that 40 hours of recording time would be using the lower settings.  Anyhow, I think 13 hours is still plenty  of room to catch many shows.  You might run into problems if the lower quality settings bother you and you like to record many shows all week and view them on the weekends.<br />Buy with caution.  I still think cable boxes and DVR need to more compatible and possibly incorporated for better channel surfing.  Things may work better with DirectTV.