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SONICblue's Replay TV is giving TiVO a run for it's money.

SONICblue Replay TV's determination to steal market share from that TiVO icon in the DVR arena is good news for us videophiles. The people over at SONICblue have been earnestly trying (and succeeding) at turning Replay TV into a serious DVR contender.

As stated before DVRs record broadcast signals onto a computer hard disk. The famous "pause live TV" feature you've all heard about is not proprietary to TiVO. You're not really pausing live TV but what it does do is allow simultaneous recording and playback of the same program at the same time essentially letting you watch the beginning of a show (time shifted of course) while the end is being recorded. No more waiting for the recording to finish before you can start to view it.

SONICblue Replay TV's newest models are opting out for simplicity. Their previous incarnations were somewhat intimidating and complicated looking. The newer models have two indicator lights on the front panel. A blue power indicator light and a red recording indicator light. The remote is laid out nicely and the onscreen interface is intuitive.

They're offering two valuable features that TiVO lacks: file sharing (ala Napster) and progressive scan video output. Now I don't know about you but file swapping is an irresistable temptation to this videojunkie. I love this feature but the downside (for now anyway) is that you can only file share with other Replay TV owners and it is slow.

Obviously if you own two of these DVRs you can network them in your home. The progressive scan output I'll take anytime!

This DVR has another innovation dear to my heart. It stores video in a format I'm real familiar with: computer operating system file folders! (It even has a screen saver so images won't be burned into your screen!) The SONICblue Replay TV also has a nice feature called Commercial Advance. In the automatic mode it's supposed to skip through commercials.

Sadly this feature prooves to be somewhat erratic sometimes skipping through only a part of the commercial. You can however opt out for the manual mode whereby you jump ahead thirty seconds at a time. You can fly through a one minute commercial in two seconds.

SONICblue Replay TV offer different models that have different storage capacities. For example, the SONICblue's Replay TV RTV5160's capacity is 160 hours. This is 2.5 times more storage ability then any other DVR. The SONICblue Replay TV 5040's capacity is 40 hours so check to see what the capacity is before you buy.

sonic replay


For the techies: Replay TV controls cable and satellite signals via an IR blaster or serial cable. On the back panel you'll find ab RF input, two A/V inputs (One of which has an S-Video), two A/V outputs (One of which has an S-Video) and an RF output. The Replay 5040 model supports progressive scan component video output, optical digital audio output (You won't find these on TiVO) and a USB port.

Replay updates its program guide by using your phone (or a ethernet connection) to dial a server in the middle of the night. The program guide is filled up with the broadcast data and your clock is reset. You're good to go the next day. If an incoming call comes in the data transmission is interrupted and the call comes through.

When Replay TV use an ethernet connection (faster connection speeds) Hollywood gets really nervous. You've now gone into Napster territory by file sharing with other broadband enabled Replay TV owners. Additionally, the broadband connection allows you to program your Replay TV from any web browser in the world.

Major Quirks: The Replay TV unit costs more than other DVRs. The is a one time service fee of $250 upon activation or you can choose the $9.95 per month plan. The lifetime service plan and the monthly plan are only good for the life of the machine. Buy a new machine, buy a new service plan. The media and the recorder are one and the same so its greatest strength can also be its weakness. For example the DVR lacks the mobility of videotapes. The Commercial Advance feature doesn't work as advertised. TiVO is somewhat more well known and user friendly. If you use the file sharing feature the video stream download is extremely slow.

Conclusion: The Commercial Advance feature still shines because of the thirty second skip. The video image is excellent. It may not be as easy to use as TiVO but for me once I learn a new system I'm happy with it. The ability to share files is soooo tempting. The 320 hours of recording time---hey what can I say?