Rating: 
Summary: Great product, but very unreliable
Review: This is one of the best products to ever hit the market functionality wise. HOWEVER, the workmanship of this Panasonic is unbelievably bad. It will break within a year, most likely within a few months. At the time I bought this unit, about 10 of my friends did as well most all from different sources. 7 out of the 10 have broken in 4 months. (Mine hasn't yet.) The warranty is only 3 months long. Beware. Great product, but it breaks quickly from overheating. Make your own decision, but do yourself a favor and get a different brand. (Tivo, UltimateTV, or other.) I have heard of NO problems with other brands.
Rating: 
Summary: You must buy one of these!
Review: After you buy one of these, you will wonder how anybody could enjoy television without one. Showstopper will completely revolutionize the way you watch TV. It is so cool to be able to skip through commercials. I would have given this product five stars, but I have just one problem with it. The unit is somewhat sensitive to overheating, so you have to place it where it will have good air circulation. Do not attempt to place it in an enclosed stereo cabinet. When the unit overheats it will "lock-up" and then you have to turn it off and let it cool down for about a half an hour before attempting to use it again. I found this out by trial and error. My unit was locking up frequently and I was beginning to believe that I had a defective unit. I decided to remove the glass doors from my stereo cabinet so that it could get more air. I also mounted a small Radio Shack cooling fan so that it would blow across the unit to remove heat and now it works perfectly. I can understand that the manufacturer wanted to keep the unit small and streamlined in appearance, which negated the placement of an internal cooling fan. Once you find a way to keep your Showstopper cool you will have a great new toy. I can't stop raving about this to my friends. You gotta get one of these!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Thing
Review: Buy this thing as soon as you have enough money. I can't see owning a TV without this feature. This item works as advertised but makes me feel gypped, knowing I didnt have this in my digital toolbox years ago! There are loads of cool features you'll find that aren't in the sales dox...and with very little new learning needed, unlike with most new electonic doodads I've bought. Best of all, the remote control didn't tick me off. I've had no actual trouble with it, though I can think of a couple of things that would make it better (although possibly more expensive): 1) I want to configure when the daily download occurs - it's my phone line and I want it available when I say. on the positive side, the download gets interrupted if anyone calls me (circa 3am), so it wont do you any harm. 2) multiple streams - would be nice to watch live/delayed tv and have replay going on another stream all while recording another channel in the background. it may be that they are working on this, since it's such a powerful and obvious idea. 3) the myReplayTV website is too dependent on fancy html or java or fancy graphics - i'm for a simpler and FASTER layout. I find it faster to use the remote. 4) the written instructions are easy to follow and show a bunch of alternative configurations, but didnt get exotic enough for me...and that info was not available on their site (i dont use a regular tv, but instead use the s-video in on my computer monitor; also wanted the vcr to be input and output for the replayTV box, etc) 5) make the sound output for the ReplayTV box adjustable via the remote.
Rating:
Summary: Replay redefines TV (and it's better than TiVo).
Review: The Showstopper is not JUST a digital VCR. It redefines what TV and puts you in CONTROL. It on longer matters when shows are on, you watch them when you want, you pause them, you skip the commercials.
We never recorded shows with tape -it was too cumbersome. Now, with a simple on-screen menu we've set it to record every episode of "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" and told it to keep the last 2 (or 3, or 4 -your choice) episodes. Plus, with the 30 second skip button (TiVo uses the much inferior Fast Forward button)you can now watch WWTBAM in 40 minutes instead of an hour. I love it because the kids don't get inundated with commercials anymore. The kids love it because it painlessly records every episode of "Boy Meets World" (including that which is on during dinner, piano lessons, etc). My wife (who generally hates TV) loves it because now she has control over when and what to watch. Our second ShowStopper (the modems do not conflict with one another) was just con!nected to the TV in front of the treadmill which now gets used regularly. TiVO is inferior for 2 main reasons; it has a monthly fee (something like $20) which the ShowStopper does not and TiVo does not have the 30 second skip function.
Caveats: Both Showstopper and TiVo require connection to a phone line so they can download the next weeks's worth of cable programming. For parents- before you bring it home, clarify with the kids the Showstopper is for watching better, not more TV. Finally, the hard drives do make a little humming type noise. We solved that by putting the unit in our glass enclosed TV stand. The treadmill setup includes wireless headphones so noise is not an issue there.
In summary, the Showpstopper is the single best 'gadget' we've bought in years. Get with the program and take over your TV.
Rating: 
Summary: Still Waiting for the International version
Review: A really great idea, unfortunately taken only part way. The machine can only work in the USA. This is really frustrating for potential customers elsewhere in the world. Worse yet, an international version for a world market would only take some simple software changes. A simple user programmable function, much like that in existing video recorders, would allow anyone to set up a schedule of favorite TV/cable channels that could be recorded automatically. The stored shows could then digitally managed so that only the last say 10 shows of a program would be kept and new recordings would constantly overwrite older shows. This simple ability alone would make the ReplayTV unit usable anywhere in the world. Of course to take advantage of the present max 60-hour capacity the unit would need to be able to handle at least 60 to 120 program events. A lot to set up to be sure but this would be a one-time effort and based on the user interests. Just imagine when 100 - 1000GB hard drives become available. It may be posible to keep every episode of a favorite TV series online and immediately accessible. If the ReplayTV schedule was desired as well, a few simple changes could take of that too. 1. Allow the unit to be able to dial up the data via the Internet or allow for international long distance dialing with support for 24-30 digit dialing. 2. Allow for a simple channel re-mapping function so that CNN on channel 25 on the ReplayTV schedule could be re-assigned to channel 33 for the users local TV/cable source. I am very keen to have a unit.. once they become global-ready products. Maybe one day someone will build the Super DVR that would be just like a VCR but without the hassle of tape and with the plus of easy digital control of watching time-shifted shows... and work anywhere in the world.
Rating:
Summary: Wow!
Review: When I first bought this product, I felt a little silly spending so much money. But after enjoying it for six months, I think it was money very well spent. With my VCR, I was always messing up setting the timer, forgetting to rewind the tape, or suffering through poor-quality recordings because the tape had been used too many times. The Replay solves all these problems and more. Setting it to record is effortless, and it's very easy to get it to record the same show every week or every day. There's no rewinding, and the quality is great, even on the extended setting. My favorite feature has got to be the Quickskip, which fast forwards 30 seconds at a time so you can move through commercials at lightning speed (TiVo doesn't have this feature). My only complaint is that the infrared blaster that changes the channels on my digital cable box isn't always reliable, so the wrong channel gets recorded on occasion (although less frequently than I used to screw up the VCR!) All in all, this product is amazing - I ask myself every day how I ever lived without it!
Rating:
Summary: Perfect for anyone!!!
Review: I wanted a Tivo cause of the features it had, but I settled for a Replay when I got it for my birthday and I have never been happier! I recommend this product to my friends and they also love it! I gotta say I wanted a Tivo, but with no suncribtion fee this Replay RULEZ! I want to get the 60 hour one to put in my living room infront of my big screen TV!!!
Rating:
Summary: Big Girl!
Review: This thing weighs a ton! I bought this on the intent to return it after awhile, I just wanted to see if it was any good. We'll it is. A couple things though.... Make sure you buy the extended warranty, since the harddrive runs all day and all night basically...i can see have some problems in a year or so. The program guide sucks, I have direct tv, and the menu is all different, channels are all mixed up, not a big problem, but a whole new channel order to learn. Get it now, stay away from Tivo, why pay [the monthly fee] if their is no need to????
Rating:
Summary: A good product with some very minor issues
Review: The Panasonic PV-HS2000 unit works very well and lives up to the hype. The user interface is well thought out, and a pleasure to use. Installation is quite straightforward. Just make sure you have a local access telephone number first - not a problem in more densely populated areas. Be willing to try more than one number if several choices are available - my first choice didn't work for some reason. Some very minor issues: 1. The unit dissipates 19 Watts when "off", so its a little wasteful of electricity. 2. When on, the unit makes a high-pitched hard-disk "whine" which may be audible if you listen to TV at low volume levels. 3. The unit takes 15 seconds to turn on. As most people have a VCR already, then item 3 is not a problem in general, and it also makes it simple to watch one program and record another. You probably need a VCR for long term storage anyway, rather than keep favourite material on the recorder indefinately. The unit certainly changes ones TV viewing experience - it's almost a strange feeling to "pause" live TV, but it certainly helps when my wife asks me to do the garbage in the middle of a favourite program! I actually bought a demo model. To get out of the demo mode, I had to enter the rather obscure sequence: 7 7 7 Zones (4 key strokes on the remote). This is not in the manual!
Rating:
Summary: The Jury Is Still Out...
Review: DirecTV box...VCR...DVD player...TV. Too many sources, too few inputs. However, it's an incredible box. One star: if you're playing back a "stored" program and hit stop, the next time you come back to it, you're given the choice of starting where you left off, or start from the beginning. One star: no monthly fee. You pay more for the box, but the trade off is no monthly fee. One star: Zones. They search for the types of programs you want to record. The downsides: minus one star for the remote...it's a little much for the novice. Minus one star: controlling the satellite box. There's something to be said for an all-in-one box. It's more reliable than the DirecTV on-board scheduled recording program, but there's some features missing, like Favorites. Also, you have to manually de-select the channels you don't subscribe to. And with the channels labeled differently from the way the SAT box labels them, it will take some getting used to. Over all, I'd say it is a marvel of modern invention. Three levels of record quality, 30 hours of storage (at lowest level), and it can combine three remotes into one. If you're a TV-addict but can't see all the shows all the time, it's worth the money.
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