Panasonic PV-HS2000 ShowStopper 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Best thing since microwave!
Truly will change the way you watch TV.  Think of this as what you wished your VCR would grow up to be.  We have just regular cable, so these comments geared towards that setup.<br />Pros:<BR>*Record around 15 hours of programming<BR>*Free on-screen programming guide (of recorded shows too)<BR>*Watch recorded show while taping another (or same) one<BR>*On-line management of your unit's memory<BR>*Universal remote controls TV/Showstopper/VCR<br />Cons:<BR>*15 hours of programming not enough (read below to let me explain)<BR>*Cannot record two shows at once<BR>*Volume is too low if not using a S-video input<BR>*Need phone hook-up<BR>*Another electronics lesson to the wife regarding remote<BR>*Set-up took longer than anticipated<br />30 Hours of Programming (well, not really)<BR>Three speeds/levels of recording - low, medium, and high quality pictures which reduce your recording capacity to 30, 15, and 7.5, respectively.  The medium recording yields what I was use to seeing on the VCR, maybe even a little better.<br />It's only been a week, but I wish I had a \\"60 hour\\" unit (in my mind, really 30).  We don't watch that much TV, we really don't.  Our son is limited to about 1.5 hours every other day, and we watch about 1.5 hours every night after the kids go to bed.  If you think about it, below is how much capacity I would like based on weekly consumption:<br />Shows the wife and I like to watch  7 hrs<BR>Last week's shows     7 <BR>Movies for us     4<BR>Mindless TV for us (OK, it's all mindless) 3<BR>Shows for the kids     2<BR>Movie for kids     2<BR>   Total              24 hrs<br />That would leave 6 hours of impromptu recording (or 3 hours of high grade recording for the football game).  Only drawback - and it hasn't proven to be that big of one - is the inability to record two shows at the same time.  Perfect example is \\"Survivor\\" vs. \\"Friends\\".  You can work around this using the VCR, but in a perfect world I wouldn't have a VCR.<br />On-Screen Programming Guide<BR>It's pretty handy to press a button to see what show are playing and details about those shows (e.g., new/rerun, plot, actor names).  It's even more handy to see on-screen what I've recorded.  Have you ever hunted on 2 or 3 VCR tapes for the second half of \\"Jack and the Beanstalk\\" with your 5 year old waiting impatiently?<br />\\"Watch TV when you want to watch TV\\"<BR>The commercial where the family is eating franticly to catch the beginning of their favorite show has a ring a truth to it.  However, in your Showstopper household you eat at a civil pace, load up the dishwasher, THEN sit down to watch TV.  Since you can skip commercials, you end up \\"catching up\\" to live TV before the end of the hour - with a clean kitchen.<br />On-line management of your unit's memory<BR>Since I only have 15 hours of memory, I have to be a little more active in managing the hard drive.  Sort of neat to be able to go on the internet to my account at ReplayTV.com and delete shows.  Also easier to scan for various shows with their on-line programming schedule and ask to have it recorded.  My on-line database syncs up with the database on my hard drive every morning (2 a.m. - 5 a.m.), so the only limitation there is you can't go into the office and ask for something to be recorded tonight.<br />Remote Control<BR>It's another universal remote control.  This one does a good job of controlling our TV, VCR, and of course the Showstopper.  Only cumbersome thing is to you have to remember to press the \\"TV\\" button before pressing \\"power\\" to turn the TV on.  Same thing in controlling the Showstopper - press \\"showstopper\\" button then \\"power\\" to turn on Showstopper.  Cumbersome to learn at first, rote after a little while.<br />Set-up took longer than I anticipated<BR>What I though would take me 15 minutes took about an hour the first time, then 15 minutes to change some things the next day.  With regular cable, here's how I have everything configured:<br />Incoming Cable<BR>Split to run to Showstopper and to VCR<br />Showstopper Output<BR>S-video and RCA's to TV<BR>RCA's to VCR<br />VCR Output<BR>Coaxial cable to TV<br />With this configuration, I turn TV to channel \\"00\\" for Showstopper, channel 3 for VCR, and when the VCR is off then you can still go up and down the TV channel if desired.  This also allows me to dump shows on the Showstopper to the VCR.  Finally, originally was not using the S-video input from the Showstopper to the TV (using the yellow plug instead), and the cut the TV volume in half.  Don't know why.  Using the S-video input solved this problem.<br />Phone hook-up<BR>The dreaded phone hook-up!  We have one by the TV (actually spliced the line running to our alarm system, not that big of a deal) so this isn't an issue with us.  The unit does \\"phone home\\" every night in order to give you a week's worth of programing, so you're going to need this.  I've seen - but not used - the phone connections utilizing your house's wiring.  I guess that would work.  Had some initial problems with the unit doing it's initial dial-up to the ReplayTV servers, however, I just picked another number for my area (we had three number from which to choose) and it worked fine.  I've seen complaints about this though.<br />ReplayTV vs. Tivo<BR>Thought long and hard on this one.  If I had a satellite dish I probably would have gone for Tivo since they are offering the all-in-one packages.  However, since I'm on regular cable Tivo's ...didn't look that appealing for the marginal service of catching the special time a show appeared (i.e., Tivo would record the full 2 hours of a season-ending show, while Replay will record on the first hour).  I'm glad I went the ReplayTV route.