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A Look At The Panasonic ShowStopper
MuthaPussBucket writes: "Luckily for consumers, prices of hard drives continue to come down and now
more manufacturers such as Sony and Panasonic have licensed the TiVO and
ReplayTV technology to use in their own products. SE takes a look at the Panasonic ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder Model PV-HS2000.
This one looks as though it's one of the pricer ones but it's also one of
the better models."
ReplayTV won't let you watch TV while it makes its call. A bit stupid really.. Tivo can make its call anytime and you can watch TV while it does it. Totally background.
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- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
Kids are going to be exposed to content that a lot of people don't approve of whether or not it is on at (7 or 9)||(8 or 10). Whether they hear about the R-rated movies from their friends at school, or see them on TV it really doesn't matter.
What does matter is the kids understand why the content isn't appropriate for them. Tell them straight up that you don't want them to see that movie because there is too much violence in it, or the language is rude, or whatever. The broad generalizations that programs or movies are naughty doesn't provide the child enough information to understand why.
I'm not directly shooting at your parenting techniques, because I don't know you, don't know your kids, obviously you know what's best. But, don't expect the world to change for you, or even remain in stasis. You have the right to censor anything your children see, but don't even try to censor what my kids see. They can watch anything they understand, and it's my job to make them understand it.
With the TiVo, you are able to watch any of your recorded shows while another is recording. I thought this was also possible on the Replay, not true? If not, that's a major negative for Replay.
2. It appears to me that once you select a show to record every occurence of it only cares about the day and time of that show and ignores the title of that show from that point onward. The downside to this is that if the lineup changes you get some crap recorded that you never intended to. Does the TiVo pay more attention to the actual content of what it's recording?
Tivo has a feature called Season Pass where you can select, for example, Sopranos to record on your HBO channel. Anytime the Sopranos airs on that particular HBO channel, it will be recorded. An added feature will prevent the TiVo from recording the same episode twice (HBO typically repeats their shows many times during the week). To continue with my example, the Sopranos is currently not being aired (it's between seasons), but my Season Pass is still there and TiVo will start recording the Sopranos again once they start showing past seasons this fall.
I've used Tivo since the first version and have to say that after having gotten used to it, I consider it a must-have piece of gear. However something else that I've also found is that it's really only the basic features that you seem to use. The most important factor is the recording capacity. That being said, the real thing that will put one of these boxes in the forefront will be hours per dollar, Ie maxium recording time for minimum price.
The other thing that needs to be addressed is how they fit in with higher-end home theater gear. The problem that ALL units have right now is that they don't have digital audio capapilities, or component outputs. These will become more important as we see more digital cable and DSS HDTV channels, or channels with 5.1 digital sound.
Right now my Tivo is useless when I'm watching a PPV movie on DSS that has digital audio. I can't even stream the video through the Tivo because it has a 3 sec. buffer/delay. So, I have to watch the movie in real-time if I want to enjoy the 5.1 sound.
Other than the lack of hi-def A/V connections the Tivo does everything it needs to do.
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Actually, it calls a local number, or an 800 number if no local number is available. I've never noticed my unit staying on the phone for more than about 30 minutes, unless it's getting a software update, or it hasn't called out in a few days. The first call usually takes about 2 hours, though.
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You might want to do some research into Replay TV's business model then.
They have plans, among other things, to have banner ads when you press the pause button.
It is also quite likely that they will eventually offer a "premium" service that doesn't have ads.
They are totally not enlightened when it comes to hacking the box. TiVo is down with it as long as people don't try to steal the service.
Don't neglect that they (ReplayTV) hid behind the cloak of the SEC "Blackout Period" for a long time before ultimately cancelling their IPO. They wouldn't even talk about what features were going to be in/out upcoming releases. That's pretty weaselly, IMHO.
Lots and lots of people who have bought the Panasonic boxes returned them. Unlike other manufactureres, Panasonic chose to honor/interperet the Macrovision signal. TiVo and other Replay units pass the signal through but do not "honor" it. This means that the other units will be able to record Macrovision-enabled programs but not copy them. The Panasonic units will not even *record* them. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem. However, the Showstopper occasionally misinterperets a weak signal as Macrovision -- efectively stopping the show.
Lastly, don't forget that ReplayTV != TiVo. They have drastically different recording paradigms. Ultimately, you need to make your decision based on operational criteria.
For (a lot) more information, check out the TiVo and Replay TV forums at AVS Forum
--john
I only see a few features this has over the TiVo, and several the TiVo has over this. While this can pause for up to 10 hours, how often does anyone do that? Just record the show. You can adjust the TiVo pause time (requires a little hacking) if you want to.
You don't get the great suggestions list that the TiVo builds up over time for you. This sounds like a gimmick but after a while it really does start to work well.
The initial cost of this unit is higher..but you don't have a monthly fee, assuming you're in an area with a local number.
The TiVo is hackable. You can do some really neat stuff with it beyond adding a lot more space since it runs Linux. Adding space is a big deal. People are easily making 140hour TiVos right now. Mine was upgraded to 87.5 hours with a 45GB drive.
There are some good side by side comparisons of the TiVo and the RePlay units on the net. Check http://www.avsforum.com for some info, I don't have the URLs handy. But the bottom line is that the TiVo always wins. I looked at those pretty heavily before I bought mine, and also compared them at the store.
TiVo also just released the 60 hour and DirecTivo units. The next major release of their software is due out at the end of the year as well.
Oooh.. it runs Linux! It has a harddrive!.. these companies are just taking the techie market for a ride and getting rich off of it, much like Digital Convergence. By creating so much controversy about the CueCat, everyone in the tech community is going out to get their barcode scanner to hack and "keep the man down", but they continue to use the original software, giving DC lots of business.
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I am the dot in slashdot.org
The Panasonic ShowStopper is exactly the same as the current ReplayTV models (the 3020 and the 3030), though they've announce a 60-hour unit that isn't shipping yet (using the Maxtor 60G drive; why don't they use the new 80G?).
I have the ReplayTV 2020, which is almost exactly the same as the 3020. The difference is that the newer units will save closed captioning, and the newer units will send out Macrovision signals when the source signal had Macrovision (the 2020 simply strips it out--too bad Amazon finally ran out of them).
Anyway, I can't tell you how wonderful this unit is. As you know, it dials in every night (for maybe 10 minuts) to a local number (you have to pay long distance if there's no local number), and it downloads the TV listings. You then tell it to record specific shows, or you tell it to search, based on title, description, actors, or director. For example, I can tell it to record anything with John Cleese in it. You can also tell it to watch for shows you want to see, even if they aren't currently airing (I've got mine set to record Doctor Who).
So when I go to watch TV, I don't have to channel surf to find something I want--I just watch something it has recorded.
Oh, and it has the 30-second skip button for commercials that TiVo lacks. While this may seem like a minor detail, I've become addicted to it. I essentially don't watch commercials anymore. Sure, I over-skip, but then I use the 8-second instant replay button to go back.
If you watch enough TV to make paying for cable worthwhile, then buying one of these is definitely worthwhile.
30 hours at *lowest quality* just isn't enough space for someone that wants to use their PTV device to its fullest capabilities. I typically record at Medium quality from my DSS feed, which on a TiVo takes about 33% more space than Basic quality and would take about 50% more space than Basic on ReplayTV. With a 30 hour unit, once you get a few movies saved that you'd like to view down the road and the normal weekly shows saved on the drive, you don't have much space for much else. I purchased a TiVo a little over a month ago mainly because I could easily add a hard drive and get 108 hours of basic quality recording space and over 66 hours at my preferred "Medium" level. I did a lot of research on the differences between TiVo and ReplayTV and found that each has its positives and negatives, and the main difference was that the TiVo is more of an "open source" solution. I'm not a huge TV watcher, normally a few hours in the evening, but I'm very happy with my TiVo. It's allowed me to catch shows (Oz, Sopranos repeats) that I normally can't catch when they air later at night, and its also allowed me to rearrange my TV viewing to fit my schedule. I was also pleasantly surprised that the TiVo Suggestions has caught a few shows and movies that I would've never thought to look for (it automatically recorded Platoon and Apocalypse Now one night). I still haven't gotten into major time-shifting, I still watch most shows the night they first air, but overall I'm very pleased.
From the photos it looks like the ReplayTV does not have a fan, and hence the heat problem. My TiVo has a fan that runs at a silent "waft" speed, and the software tells me it is 97F inside the box in a 74F room. The device is in a stack of AV equipment.
As I see it, TiVo has three great features:
- It pauses live TV
- It time-shifts shows
- It gets to know you and chooses shows for you
ReplayTV currently only has the first two features. I have not direcly compared but all reports say TiVo's software is easier to use too.