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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."
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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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.