More on the Replay TV 4000

boskone noted that Replay TV's site has updated with a variety of new information that will definitely allow the Tivo/Replay flamewars to escalate. Besides the networking capability we mentioned earlier (send shows to friends, or to other Replay's on your home LAN), and the gigantic 320 hour maximum storage capacity, there are more detailed specicifcations. Also notable is the progressive video output port, and the fact that it actually requires ethernet, but doesn't require a subscription! I'd love to try one of these buggers out when they ship.

Comments

At what price is it worth it?

[Refried Beans]

Take a look at the pre-order form:

RTV4320 ( Approx. 320 hours of recording time) $ 1,999 *
RTV4160 ( Approx. 160 hours of recording time) $ 1,499 *
RTV4080 ( Approx. 80 hours of recording time) $ 999 *
RTV4040 ( Approx. 40 hours of recording time) $ 699 *
* Plus applicable tax & shipping charges.
Estimated shipping costs within Continental US are:
$25 3-5 business days, $35 economy 2 day, $45 next day

TiVo prices:

Philips HDR 212 20 $199
Philips HDR 312 30 $299
Philips HDR 612 60 $599

I love my TiVo, even if I did pay $400 for it a year ago. $10 a month is pretty cheap. $100 a year isn't too bad either. I loved mine so much I paid the lifetime fee.

Rock on, Commander!

[AtariDatacenter]

Thanks for posting the new updates. I'm going to save over them. But if all of this isn't enough to get you going, there is something else for you:

ReplayTV PROMOTIONAL CODES!

Some are geared at existing ReplayTV customers. Others are for 'people in the industry'. But they were freely given over the phone. I worked with this guy and got some codes corrected, so they now work properly.

I took the $100 off and no payments. (That'll make it easily financable over a few months.) Note! Most of these promo codes are for all but the most basic model.

Re:subscription

[Zaknafein500]

Also, FWIW, the 2.5 version of the TiVo software includes a backdoor to enable 30 second skip. Check out the AVS Forum and I'm sure you'll be able to find it. Almost all DirecTiVos have been updated to 2.5, so they have this feature right now. Stand alone TiVos won't see 2.5 until about January ufortunately due to some delays with VBR encoding.

Also, what about dual tuners? Having a second tuner is invaluable, as it allows you to record two shows at once. So far, I haven't seen any mention of dual tuners on the RP4000. DirecTiVos have this ability right now.

I'm not even convinced that Sonicblue can pull off the features they are promising. The "Send Show to Other RPTV User" has so many copyright issues I won't even get into it. Plus, who really wants to spend at minimum $700 on a RPTV when you can find DirecTiVos for as little at $129 with new DirecTV service. Add in the $250 TiVo lifetime sub, and you're still about $300 ahead. Hack your box, and you can have over 120 hours of recording time, and still be underneath the cost for the base RPTV 4000 model.

I'll stick with my TiVo. UTV came along with big promises, and has largely failed. Replay won't have me convinced until they actually get the thing working with all the features functional.

Taco learns English...

[Anonymous Coward]

plural of "Replay" is "Replays"

• ex: There were two Replays in my house
• sugg: There were two Replay boxen in my house.

possesive of Replay is Replay's

• ex: I love the Replay's feature set.

When you use a language incorrectly, you break it. Please don't break English. Please don't tell me "it's language evolution" becuase it's not.

More:
wrong...i was born in the 70's
right...i was born in the '70s (since it's 1970s shortened)

its vs. it's

• its is to his as he's is to it's
  (or funnier)
• its is to his as he is is to it's

mod me down if you will, but it's a lesson that everyone needs to learn.

For Those Comparing To Tivo

[macsforever2001]

For those of you comparing prices with Tivo. Here's a comparable hacked Tivo unit with 250 hours of (lowest quality) recording time for $925.

Re:subscription

[stripes]

I don't understand that, with Tivo, when you fast forward you just go thru the commercials, as soon as you see the show, you hit play, it jumps back a few seconds and BAM, you don't miss any of the show. I think that's far better then 30sec skip, because with that you could accidently skip into the show..

They are around the same. The people that have both TiVo and replay tend to like the 30sec skip a little better, but not all of them do. After you skip the right number of times you normally have to back up a little bit, so it is about as much fiddling with buttons as TiVo, and just slightly less time.

The upside is on the TiVo if you see a commercial you think is interesting you can watch it (at 60x FF the commercial is half a second to a second long, so don't blink!)

Replay's skips are more useful to move around in a TV show, like if you watched about half of it, and then your wife watched the rest, you have to FF for 30 seconds on the TiVo, the reply you can hit a few buttons. Apparently TiVo's 2.5 software will let you skip to the 15min tick marks, so that is less of an issue.

FYI, there is a backdoor code on TiVo's with pre-2.0.1 software, and I've been told 2.5 software to change the "skip to end" button into a 30 second skip.

The only compelling Replay feature (to me) is moving shows from unit to unit. Everything else you can either do (frequently with hacking!) to a TiVo, or just isn't that interesting to me. To be honest you can even currently move shows from one TiVo to another after you hack it, but I'm not expecting that to last :-(

However other people have other priorities, and may be better suited with a Replay. One thing's for sure though, if you watch TV, you really ought to own one of these things. Like now. I'm sorry I waited so long to buy mine (even with the price drop, and larger drives)!

Re:VGA output = no macrovision

[Anonymous Coward]

A box that receives VGA and sends composite or s-video is called a "scan converter". They aren't even that hard to find--in the US, CompUSA carries a few models.