Panasonic PV-HS2000 ReplayTV ShowStopper 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder

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Product Details

Product Manual [2.65mb PDF]

• Product Dimensions: 11.4 x 17 x 3.1 inches ; 12.8 pounds
• Shipping Weight: 20 pounds
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B00004TKHX
• Item model number: PVHS2000
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank

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  Electronics > Televisions & Video > Digital Video Recorders

• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes
• Date first available at Amazon.com: September 4, 1973

Product Description

Amazon.com Review
Panasonic's PV-HS2000 ShowStopper allows you to store up to 30 hours of TV programming while eliminating the need for videotapes. The PV-HS2000 incorporates Replay's TV server technology and free onscreen program guide. The ShowStopper offers an assortment of special features, including an advanced programmable remote control with a Replay Zones button that makes it very easy to find the shows you want to record.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of television servers, the ShowStopper records programs digitally and stores the information on a hard disk drive, so you can watch them at your convenience.

Panasonic offers four choices for recording quality, enabling you to manage storage space more efficiently. The lowest setting, extended, rivals VHS in terms of picture resolution, while freeing up the full 30 hours of hard disk space. The medium setting improves picture quality to better-than-VHS quality, but decreases storage space to 15 hours. The high-quality setting approaches 500 lines of resolution (depending on the source), but further reduces storage capacity to 10 hours.

One of the coolest features on the ShowStopper is the ability to pause a live broadcast and resume watching it if you're interrupted. When you utilize this feature the hard drive acts as a buffer by storing the show in memory so you can pick up the program where you left off. A return to live button on the remote allows you to skip forward to real time, which is great if you're watching a sporting event and you wish to catch up to the live action.

There's also an instant replay button on the remote that allows you to review portions of a show or sporting event in seven- second increments, so you're not limited to reviewing only a brief segment. We loved Replay's QuickSkip feature, which allows you to instantly jump ahead 30 seconds, so you can skip through TV commercials on prerecorded programs.

Replay's onscreen guide, which is downloaded nightly while you're asleep, appears with a blue background and white characters that are very readable. We also like the Replay Zones, which make it very easy to find programs that suit your tastes by searching according to genre. Replay separates programming into a wide variety of categories, from action and romance movies to cooking and home improvement shows. Replay also offers a Search Zone that allows you to input keywords and search terms, such as "Mr. Smith," using the remote control and an onscreen keypad.

If you wish to save a particular prerecorded show, you can record it onto a VCR using the back-panel outputs. We were impressed by Panasonic's inclusion of two sets of audio-video inputs and outputs, as well an S-Video input and output. This enables users to hook up a DSS or other direct-broadcast satellite receiver to the ShowStopper, along with a VCR as an output device.

One neat feature we really like is the ability to place the ShowStopper in quiet mode simply by turning it off. This keeps the server from automatically recording shows to the hard drive, conserves power, and keeps the hard disc from spinning, thereby keeping the recorder cool and noise free. If you happen to be recording a show when you turn the PV-HS2000 off, it will continue to record, then shut down once the show is finished and stored in the hard drive.

Connecting the ShowStopper to our home theater system took less than 15 minutes. Panasonic thoughtfully provides a poster-size chart to guide users through setup without opening the manual. If you have an open phone jack, we recommend using it. Otherwise, you can use the supplied splitter to connect the recorder to an existing line. (You do not need a dedicated phone line, since Replay's programming updates take place in the early morning hours, for only a few minutes each night.)

Dialing into Replay to download the free programming guide was much easier than we expected; one major advantage to Replay is that it doesn't charge any monthly service fee for downloading the program guide.

We like the fact that Replay's service is nonintrusive. After all, the whole concept of personal TV servers is intended to liberate viewers so they can watch the programs they prefer, whenever they feel like it. Panasonic's PV-HS2000 ShowStopper is designed to make it as easy as possible for customers to find the programs they like and to record them for future enjoyment. --Eric Gill

Pros:

• 30-hour hard drive capacity
• Easy to navigate onscreen guide
• Intuitive remote control
• Free programming guide

Cons:

• No internal fan to cool unit

Product Description
Panasonic' vision of the digital future is driven by the needs and aspirations of its business customers and millions of consumers around the world who use its products every day. The company shares their dream to live a fuller life by providing ways of working smarter and enjoying the rewards of technological advances.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

98 of 100 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a VCR should have been!, June 9, 2000

By A Customer

After hearing mixed reviews of Tivo and Replay TV, I took the plunge and purchased a Panasonic Showstopper PVHS-2000. (It uses Replay TV's free program service.)

It's a great product and changed the way I watch TV.

Pluses: 1) Replay lets you watch a program, while it's recording something else. You can't do this with a VCR. You can even watch the beginning of a program, while still recording it. In the mornings I get up and watch Good Morning America from the start (7am) even though I get up at 8am. I fast forward skipping commercials and the repeating news segments and catch up to it live around 8:45 when I get to work. 2) I've set the box to find the last three Star Trek episodes. So, if nothings on TV I always have a few Star Trek episodes to watch. 3) Recorded programs show up in a menu with a full description of the program. You pick the program to play with a few clicks of the remote. Sure beats finding a program on a VCR tape. 4) 30 hours is a lot better than 6 hours of VHS tape. 5) Showstopper does a great job of controlling my cable box. It changes the channels without a problem, something my VCR had problems doing well. 6) Setup is easy and take about 20 minutes.

Minuses: 1) The unit has locked up twice in a month. Like a PC, you just unplug it or hold the on button down for 10 seconds 2) You can't program in specific times. You must use the times in the online schedule. It would be great if they would add a flexible timing schedule feature. Especially when a late game screws up a networks schedule. 3) The extended record mode shows more MPEG pixelation that I would like. You see blocks when there is rapid movement. This goes away if you use the normal record mode, but then you only get 15 hours of record time.

These however are minor problems. Showstopper is what a VCR always should have been.

60 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great product but has serious limitations, July 30, 2000

By	Thomas Jew (Cupertino, CA United States) - See all my reviews

I am very happy with the Panasonic PVHS2000 but wished I had bought the Replay unit instead. I will not try to describe all of the delights of having a personal digital recorder...

I do want to note that Panasonic's version of the Replay unit is different from the similar unit available from Replay. The Panasonic unit will not let you play copy-protected DVDs and video tapes. It appears that they don't want anyone to copy DVDs and video tapes to the hard drive for later viewing. This restriction was not prominently noted and at first it didn't bother me very much. I didn't intend to copy DVDs and tapes to hard drive anyway. It wasn't until much later that I realized what a real contraint that was.

I have only have ONE S-video connector at the back of the my TV. The Panasonic unit is connected to the TV using the S-video connector. When I went to attach my DVD player, I found I could not connect it to the S-video input of the PVHS2000 as it would not play DVDs. So I had to connect the DVD player to a composite input on the TV. This meant that I could not take full advantage of the enhanced picture quality of the DVD player. I had a similar problem with the VCR. It could not be connected to the PVHS2000 because some tapes are protected.

So, just be aware that the Panasonic version of the Replay system is NOT the same as the original. How many other differences there are I can only guess at.

41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Best thing since microwave!, December 24, 2001

By A Customer

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.

Pros:
*Record around 15 hours of programming
*Free on-screen programming guide (of recorded shows too)
*Watch recorded show while taping another (or same) one
*On-line management of your unit's memory
*Universal remote controls TV/Showstopper/VCR

Cons:
*15 hours of programming not enough (read below to let me explain)
*Cannot record two shows at once
*Volume is too low if not using a S-video input
*Need phone hook-up
*Another electronics lesson to the wife regarding remote
*Set-up took longer than anticipated

30 Hours of Programming (well, not really)
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.

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:

Shows the wife and I like to watch 7 hrs
Last week's shows 7
Movies for us 4
Mindless TV for us (OK, it's all mindless) 3
Shows for the kids 2
Movie for kids 2
Total 24 hrs

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.

On-Screen Programming Guide
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?

"Watch TV when you want to watch TV"
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.

On-line management of your unit's memory
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.

Remote Control
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.

Set-up took longer than I anticipated
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:

Incoming Cable
Split to run to Showstopper and to VCR

Showstopper Output
S-video and RCA's to TV
RCA's to VCR

VCR Output
Coaxial cable to TV

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.

Phone hook-up
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.

ReplayTV vs. Tivo
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.