Customer Reviews

Panasonic PV-HS1000 ShowStopper Digital Video Recorder

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was paying $... a month for my cable connection, but I never knew when things were on and I had an appalling habit of flipping endlessly around the channels. Every time I happened upon the shows I liked, nauseating waves of commercials would intrude. I had Bravo which showed great films, but the commercials ruined them. Now, with Showstopper, I can watch TV competently. I turn on the TV and can immediately get to a nice list of shows that I've preselected, including the late night comedy things that came on after I fell asleep. I can select from the list, even pause partway through, watch something else, then come back to the very point where I left off. With one button, I can leap over the commercials. What a relief this thing is! I love it! If I miss a what it was that made the audience suddenly laugh, I can hit the replay button and get it, even when I'm watching a show live. If someone needs to talk to me, even in the middle of a live show, I can pause, talk and go right back. We used to say, save you're comments till the commercial, now we can talk whenever we want and then go back to the show. You can control your own time, which is a really enjoyable power that TV normally deprives you of. This is a great improvement over making VCR recordings: you don't have to find a tape to put in, you don't have to worry that you run out of tape (though you might run out of space on the hard drive, you have much more room), all your recorded shows appear on a nice list displayed on screen so you can scroll and click your choices, programming is easy and intuitive, it finds all the shows in the schedule for you. The downloaded schedule comes in every night ("while you sleep" they say, not accounting for nightowls and insomniacs!) and lets you search more than a week ahead. It has a function that lets you search the schedule for all shows in particular categories (e.g., classic comedy movies, letterboxed movies, shows about animals) and you can use the cursor to spell out categories that you want to find (e.g., everything with Claude Rains). It comes with a 15-minute instruction video featuring the most normal man in the man in the world sitting in the most normal living room in the world with the most normal wife in the world calling to him from off-camera--I found rather touching that Panasonic put so much thought into trying to create a feeling of peace and reassurance and quite funny that they choose exactly this guy to create that feeling. At the same time, I learned a lot. My TV competence level has skyrocketed with Showstopper. This is probably the coolest electronic device I've ever bought. Am I sorry I didn't pay another $... and gotten the one with more memory? Maybe. I figured these things will get cheaper and with more and more memory. The more expensive one will seem small by future standards, so why not save $...? But if this one isn't available, go for the better one. I do think this is better than Tivo, because of the monthly fee. I haven't compared all the features of the two machines, but mine has just great features and has been a great pleasure to use.

After using both products I have to call the Replay the winner. Both products are great but I feel the Replay wins overall. First the Replay's manual is much better then the Tivo's. It is easy to follow and the large pictures include many different setup options to choose from. The record options in the OS are perfect. Add the fact that Tivo charges a monthly fee and it is no contest. Finally I had to call Panasonic due to a very old Cable Box. They answered the phone with a human in less then two minutes (I called three times over two days to test) and knew exactly how to control the old cable hardware. Both Replay and Tivo are good but if you are on the fence I would suggest the Replay.

I just love my Replay! No monthly service fee, but the coolest feature is the truly remote control -- myreplaytv.com. You can program your recorder from any computer with an internet connection!!! Plus Replay integrates programing from satellite sources with ant/cable sources. That means just one remote lets you choose all your channels without turning off the satellite and tuning the tv. I have a Tivo too. It's ok, but it doesn't record network (at least my model wouldn't). For me, it's REPLAY ALL THE WAY!

This product is certainly well put together. The box contains easy to read instructions and has all the necessary accesories needed to get up and running. Now in previous versions you could hook up a DVD player through the server. However now they discourage that and for a very important reason. Many of the new DVD's have copyright protection. If you try to play it through the server, it will stop you. Also the manual notes that this same copyright protection might eventually be used for broadcasts and provides a solution to the problem (using a spliter). On most newer televisions (within the past five years or so) there are two video imputs. The server will take one of them leaving the second for your DVD or VCR to play through.

After researching this item and TiVo, I purchased Showstopper for two primary reasons: no monthly subscription fees and quicker, easier set-up than TiVo. It's given trouble-free, superb performance for 11 months (no more blown tapings, as was formerly the case with my VCR). But I'm disturbed on two accounts: 1. For some reason, Showstopper appears to be losing market share to TiVo and inviting its own demise; 2. After 11 months, numerous phone calls, and several faxes of duplicate copies of my original receipts and proofs of purchase, I have yet to receive the (...) rebate I was promised. For that matter, I haven't even received an explanation from the Replay TV people. The amount of time I saved in setting up the product has been given back many times over in trying to track down the parties responsible for making good on the rebate.

This is a great deal for what you get. TIVO isn't any better (i know someone who has 1) With my Showstopper there is no monthly fee. It is a great product and i suggest buying one.

I originally bought this about six years ago, and it worked well. Then I moved and didn't set it up again until a few months ago. I was surprised to see how future-proof the system was. It was able to recognize my new digital cable service and download the appropriate channel guide. The remote is difficult to use at first, but with a little practice it can be mastered.

I do have some complaints, though. For one, there's the small amount of disk space (not their fault, when they made it that was a pretty big hdd). Also, when left on for a while it seems to start getting minor hiccups where it fails to detect the video signal and cuts out for half a second. Restarting the device seems to correct it. Also, when the device is recording a show and I fast forward through a previously recorded show at high speeds like 16x or 20x the currently recording show will skip a little bit in some parts. Both of these problems are fairly insignificant, and are probably the result of the hard disk just getting old, as these things never happened when I first got it. Overall, the product is very nice and I've gotten a lot of use out of it.

This is machine is a winner. I returned my TIVO and bought this maching instead. There are no monthly fees like TIVO. ITs a winner.

The replay unit is Wonderful! However, I would never buy it again and will avoid all Panasonic products in the future. If the romote dies, you can no longer use the unit. There are no replacement remotes available and the company does not repair them. This ranks right up there with buying a new car because of a flat tire. JUST DON'T BUY THIS!

I have both units and the TIVO is much better. The TIVO remote is so much easier to use as well as the screens and navigation. I find the REPLAY remote far more complicated than necessary. Both units have the same record time but I tend to use the TIVO more often. Luckily I paid very little for the REPLAY so it's a good value for what I paid ($200 new). Even though I pay 9.95 a month for TIVO, I feel it's a better product.