ReplayTV 2020 Digital Video Recorder
don't hesitate to buy it
I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it. <br />I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and  I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable  box, and I didn't want to take the risk.<br />Amazon gives you a 30 day return  policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay.  The price was essentially the same.<br />I can watch a lot of TV now in much  less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts  of the show I am not interested in. <br />It is not perfect - there are  clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the  software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is:  the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become  available in the near future!<br />Things I like: - live pause<br />- easy to set  shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof<br />- watching  shows from the beginning, even while they're recording<br />- watching any  show already recorded, while  you're recording another<br />- the fast forward  and skip capabilities<br />- the theme channels<br />- the standard recording  quality is plenty good enough for me<br />Things that need improvement:<br />-  disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so  sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be  nice if they gave you more control over this)<br />- channel guide could be  more clever (some errors in it)<br />- doesn't have slow motion and frame  advance capability<br />- no way to advance to a particular point in a show  (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)<br />-  can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you  really want, say<br />- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for  15 minutes starting at8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel  guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if  you toggle it over to the RF input...)<br />- would be nice to have a search  capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with  the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows  like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand  in the channel guide