ReplayTV 2020 Digital Video Recorder
This is how TV should be...
I decided to wait several months after getting ReplayTV to write a review about it, so I could get some experience with it to share with you.<br />First, Amazon.com gets very high marks for handling a problem with  the first unit, which was defective.  They sent me a replacement right away  via FedEx, and paid for the return of the defective unit.<br />Second,  ReplayTV gets high marks for great customer support and very friendly and  helpful technicians.  They know how to treat their customers.<br />Regarding  the ReplayTV itself, it is one of those little luxuries that you will very  quickly take for granted, kind of like the microwave oven.  It is very nice  to be able to stop live TV so you can take care of something, or click back  a few seconds so you can hear something that you missed the first time.<br />I  use it a lot for the automatic finding and recording of my favorite shows.   I rarely have to channel-surf, because the things I want to watch are  always there waiting for me.  When I see the green &quot;new shows&quot;  light on, I know there is something on that I want to see.  And I can watch  those shows in about half the time because of the skip-forward to avoid  commercials...that alone, to me, makes ReplayTV worth every penny.  To get  the most capacity, I always record on the lowest (standard) quality, which  is more than sufficient for normal viewing.<br />The software interface is  very well designed, and easy to use, and the ReplayTV universal remote also  operates my TV and VCR, so I only need one remote instead of three.<br />The  only &quot;disappointment&quot; I have found is that you can only record  one show at a time (what if there are two shows on that you'd like to  record?) and you cannot watch live (regular) TV while another show is  recording.  However, when you think about it, this makes sense: you only  have one cable coming into your house.  The way around this was to add a  cable splitter, with one line going through the ReplayTV, and one going  directly to the TV.  That way I can switch back and forth between ReplayTV  and just plain TV, effectively watching one live show while recording  another.  It would be nice if in a future unit, ReplayTV adds a few  internal splitters so you can record more than one show at a time.<br />Also,  it would be nice if ReplayTV took better advantage of the &quot;random  access&quot; features of recording to a hard drive.  It would be nice, for  example, to be able to jump directly to a certain place in a TV show  (instead of the pre-set 7 seconds back and 30 seconds forward), and it  would also be nice to be able to set bookmarks in a show so you could jump  back to those spots quickly.  It would also be nicer if the fast forward  and reverse were smooth fast-motion instead of jerky snapshot like  movement.<br />Also, with hard drives getting real big (40+GB) and very cheap  (&lt; $200), I would like to be able to upgrade the hard drive on my own  and increase the recording capacity, but I don't think ReplayTV makes this  possible.  Hopefully in the future, they will allow this, and I sincerely  hope they continue to treat their existing customers right by giving  significant breaks on any upgrades.<br />Finally, there are other devices  similar to ReplayTV that charge a monthly fee for &quot;access&quot;.   ReplayTV doesn't charge a fee, and it is very nice not to have to worry  about Yet Another Expense.<br />In short, ReplayTV is a toy worth having. :)