Customer Reviews

ReplayTV RTV5508 80-Hour Digital Video Recorder

5 star:		(60)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(49)

 

 

First of all, the DVR (digital video recorder) category is amazing. It is not just an incremental step up from a vcr -- these things make TV watching far more convenient. Start a show whenever you want, pause it, rewind live tv, etc etc. There are plenty of reviews on all of that, so just a word on choosing a Tivo or a Replay:

I have 2 Replays and 1 Tivo now. On the whole, both are great and for the most part, they do exactly the same set of things. The only "important" feature that Replay has that Tivo does not is the ability to skip commercials automatically, which works most of the time and is very cool. The only major feature Tivo has that Replay doesn't is that it automatically records "similar" shows to ones you've chosen in the past to fill unused disk space -- also cool. Outside of these two, they are functionally very similar.

The main differentiator I find is power vs. ease of use. Tivo is slightly easier to use -- our 5 year old is a pro at it. Replay requires a couple extra keystrokes, but is a bit more flexible, such as giving you more range on how many of each show to save to use your disk space, etc.

If any of the above are decision makers for you (commercial skip, auto record, or ease of use vs. flexibility), then go with it. If not, the rest really is about the same so just shop on price.

Enjoy -- they're both great.

This replay is good but you can still get the better (previous) version RTV5040 at www.replaytv.com.

Get the "ReplayTV 5040 (Brand New Unit) with Lifetime Service Activation" for $399.50 after rebate and free shipping.

The old RTV5040 version includes the Commercial Advance® and the ability to send program to friends via broadband. Both features have been removed from the newer RTV5504 version due to a lawsuit againt ReplayTV.

Also the newer version has only three years of service included in the price. But if you buy the older RTV5040 version from the replayTV website, they include the Lifetime Service Activatio (a 250 dollar value).

So the RTV5040 version is better and cheaper.

Remember ReplayTV is better than Tivo!

I bought this after much debate between the TiVo and ReplayTV about a year ago, and am very happy with my Replay. Although the TiVo is easier to understand for most people, this doesn't mean the Replay is difficult by any means. While visiting some family friends out of town, I told them about my Replay and how much better it makes TV watching, and I set it up for them the next day. Since then, I haven't heard of any problems figuring it out. I'm also showing some local friends my Replay and encouraging them to get one. Although it sounds like I'm a ReplayTV missionary, I wouldn't convert my friends if it wasn't worth it.

Since getting my Replay 5504 about a year ago, I upgraded it from 40 hours to 120, something that's apparently more difficult to do on the TiVo. Also, although ReplayTV was hit with a lawsuit for the 5000 series because of the ability to automatically skip commercials, the "Show|Nav" feature does the same thing, although they can't advertise it as that and you need to push one (1) button now. The TiVo makes you fast-forward like a VCR.

You know what. I actually had written a nice review about this product... I thought it was decent, not necessarily better than TiVo, but not bad none-the-less. I can't change my "star" rating on my review since it's an edit though, but I really give this unit 2 stars.

Now, 4 months later, I warn you, STAY AWAY from ReplayTV...

My ReplayTV has clunked out, so what do I do? Call for support! Yippy. I visited their website to get the support, and found that they don't even have an 800 number, yay, long distance calls required. Then, I was reading that their average wait time to get to an operator is 2 minutes for 95% of calls... great! So I called them up, thinking, well 2 minutes at long distance is no big deal... hmm... I waited 15 minutes listening to elevator music, then finally hung up, costing money ya know. So I called back the next day, and held up for 20 minutes, then hung up. WHAT IS THIS! It's long distance and I'm paying to sit on hold which I shouldn't have to do anyways. So I finally called back a third time, when the operator answered I checked my phone, 17 minutes, she was VERY friendly though thank god, but not very helpful. And if this didn't solidify my warnings about this product, I said to the support woman "these things probably break all the time," she answered, "god yes"... She spent 10 minutes having me go through simple routines, decided she couldn't help me, then transferred me to "level 2"... well, I then sat on the phone for 20 minutes waiting for level 2, they never showed up, again, I had to hang up the phone, I have now wasted over 1 hour long distance time with ZERO help from this company.
Thats just my customer service experience with them, I'm yet to get resolved, so I still have a broken unit. And now I've finally reached "level 2" and found that since I've had my Replay for over 3 months, they would be happy to fix it, I only have to pay $75 PLUS $20 in shipping just to have it "repaired under warranty", well hell, the new unit is only $4 more with free shipping.... garbage. How is this company in business!
But to get to the units themselves...
Although the ReplayTV works fine most of the time (before it breaks), it often freezes and stutters, or just has little glitches or problems that require a reset. Plus the software is just not that good. If you want to watch a show and not record it, but you know a recording show is coming on that will automatically change the channel, you cannot go and just stop that recording ahead of time, if you do, you'll remove all future recordings too, how stupid... the ReplayTV unit is just loaded with inconveniences like this.

The fact is, the latest TiVo's (SAME PRICE TIVO.com) do EVERYTHING the Replay does and does it better, more reliable, with real customer support. The TiVo for $100 does show sharing, you can connect multiple units and watch shows on each unit, you can even download your shows to your computer with a download manager, you can connect via ethernet, all the things the Replay "had" that the TiVo didn't, well, TiVo has it now.... again, same price. The TiVo unit is just that much better, there is truly ZERO reason to purchase a replay unit.

So please, read my review, and listen, STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY... do NOT buy a Replay.

I've had my ReplayTV for two months. The concept is fantastic, and indeed, my TV experience has improved a lot because I'm watching things when I want to and have discovered a litany of great biographies and discovery channel shows.

There are some neat features and some frustrating aspects (like the remote, the noise). If I were to do this again, I would seriously look at newer the TiVo products.

What's cool:
The ReplayTV unit has built in USB and Ethernet ports. I just connected it to my home LAN and it worked from the onset.
Lots of space inside for a second drive, and it's pretty easy to swap the 40Gb with a 200Gb, thus increasing programming time by 4x. I'll deny any knowledge of having 67 high quality proogramming hours until my warranty expires. :0)
"Zones" guide separates programs up into 12 major categories, over 100 sub-genres. You can set up recording of "zones" (e.g., twisted cynical comedies) or programs. There's basic queue management to ensure your child's animated cartoons don't bump all of the Simpsons episodes (and vice versa).
ReplayTV unit supports multiple inputs, including recording of DVD and VCR content. One side effect is all programming is buffered, thus playing your DVD through the ReplayTV (which I do only because my TV is limited on its inputs) is buffered. On the other hand, this allows me to quickly jog back for a scene.

What's disappointing:
The remote has a small cone of reception. What this means is you have to be directly in front of the ReplayTV unit, aiming the remote at the center, for it to register. This makes the remote frustrating.
The commercial skip option is no longer available. ReplayTV caved into pressure. Quick skip works fine for the first two tries, but if you have a block of 3 minutes, it can get confused, especially with the finicky remote (see above).
It's noisy. The hard drive runs *all the time*, even when the unit isn't being used. Since it's in a TV cabinet, I can close the door to filter out the sound. Ideally, it should spin down when not being used.
Support has been frustrating -- I'm able to get a human relatively easily, but each time I have to re-explain my problem with the unit not downloading its software update. The analyst gets stumped, says I should get a call back. This has repeated a few times. Twice, I've been instructed to factory reset the device, losing all of my settings.

Features I haven't used:
Multi-unit -- the ReplayTV supports sharing programs among networked units. This sounds pretty cool, though I only have one TV set.
Photographs -- Some of the original disk partition can be allocated to storing digital photos. This isn't particularly useful to me since I have my own website, but maybe for a quick TV-based display, this would be fun.

I have 2 Replaytv's, one 5504 and one 5040. I also have a Tivo. I can do much more with Replay than Tivo. Tivo is a closed system, Replay allows you to do more with the unit if you happen to technically inclined. With that said my 5 year old can work the Tivo, but has problems with Replay. You get alot more for your money with Replay. Also the picture quality is much better with the Replaytv.

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.

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.

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 "set-up" process.

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 "it" 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.

And that wasn't even the worst problem. The worst problem was the dial-in phone number for programming download was "not working" - 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 "fix" 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.

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 "rote" 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.

I first bought my ReplayTV around Christmas of 2002 and right off the bat the unit was broken. I had to drive back 2 hours to get a replacement or would have to pay around 30 dollars through ReplayTV. The second unit was gold though. It worked and I loved the service... until I moved. With no way to connect for a a few months, I decided to cancel my subscription and pick it back up when I got back to the city.

Here is where the fun begins. A true hassle it is to cancel ReplayTV due to no online ability to cancel it and you have to use the long distance phone number to cancel. Despite their recording saying that waits are only around 2 minutes, I have spent near as much as an hour on the phone trying to do something as simple as cancel the subscription.

My first time cancelling went fine, but when I got back and hooked it back up, I couldn't connect to the servers. Now with the DVR service, they are useless without connecting to the server due to the unit locking up. After spending a few hours trying to get it connected, I gave up. I would just get rid of it and cancel it again. So in January of 2004, I cancelled my account again. Several months passed and I noticed that a recurring draft on my credit card kept occurring and found out that it was still the ReplayTV service drafting from my card.

So I got on the phone and called them again, they assured me that they had cancelled the account this time. I am not usually one to make waves and I didn't ask for a refund, an honest mistake happens. Now here it is 18 months later and I notice that I have been billed for the service again. September 2005, I got billed for it again. I went back and somehow I had missed the billings but apparantly the service had never been cancelled again. I call them yesterday and talk to them for about an hour and they again assure me that it is cancelled. And the rep even said that he would work to get me a refund without my asking about it. I take his word for it and call back today to found out the answer about the refund and get another rep. There was no record of me even calling yesterday in their systems and now i have to go through the whole thing again. This time the rep assures me there is no chance of getting a full refund for their mistakes. And once again, I am told that my account has been cancelled. I have to wait and see if it is.

The summary, the service is great while working, but try cancelling and their customer service is horrid. I have never had a worse experience while trying to deal with any company. They seem to not want to keep my business and honestly seem to not care if a customer is very unhappy about it.

STEER CLEAR OF REPLAYTV if you enjoy friendly, useful customer service.

I love my almost 1 year old Replay TV 5040. It has freed me from the constraints of TV schedules. I love replaying live TV and skipping commercials. Never had a major problem or missed a recording. I use DVArchive and stream my archived shows from my PC back to the Replay over 802.11b wireless. I can also watch my recorded shows on my laptop when on long trips. I would give it 5 stars if my unit had a digital audio input. Not completely bug free, but neither is the competition.

I have never been more unhappy with an electronics purchase. I have just about every type of electronic component offerred. Anyway, the first Replay unit took countless hours to get going. My software level that came with the unit was an older version and did not allow me to connect in order to download the update. That is about as dumb as dirt on Replays part. Suffered through that until I wrote the CEO of Sonic Blue. His techies could not help before the contact with the top man, but he sure did solve the problem. Problem was fixed in short order.

The unit operated for about one year flawlessly until the hard drive failed. They wanted $149 to replace until I reminded them of the history and got a refurb at no cost. They were real troopers. Speaking to the right people with the right behaviors made all the difference. I also purchased a TIVO unit which has proven to be the far superior unit. Easier to use and it actually worked right out of the box, unlike Replay. TIVO is extremely user friendly and is much preferred.