ReplayTV RTV5516 160-Hour Digital Video Recorder
Dreadful Product . . .TIVO rules folks!!!!
I wrote a review about this product about 3 weeks ago, but for some reason it never showed up so I'm writing it again.<br /><br /> I bought this unit about a year ago actually - paid (if I recall) $600.00 for it at the time . . five months after I got it I was carrying it out, and pitching it in, to the garbage can with disgust and regret. WHAT a waste of money. ReplayTV refused to refund our money or make it right. We'd already returned it once and there seemed to be nothing they could or would do.<br /><br /> First of all I had to return the first unit because it had some sort of logic/software problem and we could not get past the first 3 steps of the &quot;set-up&quot; process.<br /><br /> Then, the replacement unit had a similar (but different) problem. Spent seemingly HOURS with ReplayTV's customer service people - super-polite people but very stilted and it was as though they were reading canned scripted replies to my questions and comments. Extremely frustrating. It was sort of like talking to robots. There were two basic problems - one was that it would (nearly daily) freeze up and have to be 'reset' -- lots of programming was lost on a regular basis and when we went on vacation the unit stopped working after 7 days. The customer service rep told me that if &quot;it&quot; senses no activity from the user within a week time period it basically goes off line. . . it is designed that way (so she said) which is.....crazy.<br /><br /> And that wasn't even the worst problem. The worst problem was the dial-in phone number for programming download was &quot;not working&quot; - they verified there was something wrong with it so suggested we use the Dallas or Fort Worth numbers...and yep, you guessed it - those are significant toll calls to us. We live north of Dallas. . . .and there was no ETA for the local number to be fixed. The &quot;fix&quot; turned out to be a suggestion from ReplayTV for us to remember to unplug the phone line and just trigger a call once a week. Which I did. Until I got the phone bill at the end of the month and saw that even 1 time a week was racking up 40-60 minute calls per WEEK.<br /><br /> Then the unit just got to be so much trouble and seemed to have more and more bugs that kept surfacing (and the customer service folks were SO uninformed and &quot;rote&quot; in their responses it got so we didn't even bother calling them anymore)....well - one day I just went to Best Buy and bought a TIVO. It was actually my 2nd TIVO - (the original TIVO that I bought in 2000 is still working in our master bedroom) - only reason I chose the ReplayTV was for the commercial skip feature (which they've now discontinued) . . anyway - save your money - buy a TIVO. They're GREAT. Read my other reviews and you'll see my review from the original TIVO - superb customer service compared to ReplayTV. Now -- I hope now that I've written this review twice now it will show up.ll once a week. Which I did. Until I got the phone bill at the end of the month and saw that even 1 time a week was racking up 40-60 minute calls per WEEK. <br />  <br /> Then the unit just got to be so much trouble and seemed to have more and more bugs that kept surfacing (and the customer service folks were SO uninformed and &quot;rote&quot; in their responses it got so we didn't even bother calling them anymore)....well - one day I just went to Best Buy and bought a TIVO. It was actually my 2nd TIVO - (the original TIVO that I bought in 2000 is still working in our master bedroom) - only reason I chose the ReplayTV was for the commercial skip feature (which they've now discontinued) . . anyway - save your money - buy a TIVO. They're GREAT. Read my other reviews and you'll see my review from the original TIVO - superb customer service compared to ReplayTV. Now -- I hope now that I've written this review twice now it will show up. <br />  <br />