Rating: 
Summary: Should've gone Tivo
Review: ...the first time. Very, very happy with my Tivo. The Tivo functionality, ease of use & tech support have all been great.
Rating:
Summary: Should've gone Tivo
Review: ...the first time. Very, very happy with my Tivo. The Tivo functionality, ease of use & tech support have all been great.
Rating: 
Summary: You will change the way you watch broadcast entertainment
Review: After owning ReplayTV 3020 and Showstopper 2020, I finally upgraded to the 5000 series from ReplayTV. For the newbies:
1) great to record broadcast shows; don't have to watch it live which does not make a difference due to work and personal schedules.
2) easy to set up and it automatically keep up with the TV shows with a nightly download of "TV guide" or "Channel guide"
3) a bit noisy because of the fan; may be an issue in the bedroom.
4) 40 hour unit is only for standard recording which is degraded. However, for TV shows this is fine for most.
5) record 2 or 3 episodes easily.
6) commercial skip is bad for advertisers, but heavenly for couch potatoes.
7) very slow channel surfing probably due to buffering so that one can do "replay!" For the more experienced:
1) great inputs (2X analog)
2) outputs to preamp/processor (audio digital out)
3) Progressive output (1X)
4) Ethernet connection is so much better than modem
5) buy a wireless bridge if you have a wireless setup
recommendation: Linksys WET11
6) normal wired eithernet is fine too
7) still hate the connection fee, but it is better than ReplayTV going out of business.
8) sharing shows between the 5000 series is the way to keep the disk space somewhat under controlled.
9) have not tried the photos function Good luck and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Poor product
Review: All good points were mentioned by the previous reviews. now bad points. -This product is not for anyone without some knowledge of computer. Forget about it if you don't have a broadband. -support from the maker is always substandard. For example, the maker's website was in worse design. I was unable to locate the image transfer program needed by 5040. Why not include a CD with the program in the package(my point of not user friendly)!!!! -while the unit is recording, the tv screen just blank out. How about displaying RECORDING is in progress.. -two-four seconds delay while switching channel:) -output from the first video degrade the image. I thought the unit screw up. and indeed something WRONG with the first vidoe output. Quality control!!! Overall impressional is a low quality product with lot of NEAT features but leave most people having NO IDEA what and how to make use the features. After using the 5040 for one week, dispite many shortcomings of the unit, I keep the 5040 because it changes my tv waching habit. I don't waste time on TV commercial. The best advice for shoppers is to try it out, return it for full refund if it doesn't work in your situation. This is the second weeks using the 5040. I DOWNGRADE the unit rating from 3 stars to 1 star. THe build-in TV turner failed to tune to 7% of the cable tv channels from my cable tv provider. Problems began with the unit. First the unit reboots during recording or playback if overloaded by repeating remote control commands. THe unit failed to record schedule shows. 5040 fails to performs it job! Good advice is try it for 30 days to make sure it work for you.
Rating:
Summary: Great PVR!!! Beats TIVO hands down!
Review: Best unit in this market. Internet connection and show sharing between units can't be beat!
Rating:
Summary: Walk, Don't Run AWAY!
Review: Briefly, we were very dissapppointed. Attempted both Broadband and Direct connection on phone line and both failed. We consider oursleves technical people too. That being said, we would have continued to try but NO TECH SUPPORT! On hold for 2 hours once, 1 1/2 hours the next, and an hour the next.....and never did get through. Same with another Sonic Blue product, which was mechanically defective, but due to lack of support we took both products back and are now enjoying the competition's products.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: Even after reading through all the bad reviews here, I still opted to buy this unit. After a week, we've had no technical problems with it at all. There was some trouble with the activation of the unit; for some reason it didn't couldn't figure out that the activation fee had been paid. I called Technical support, and got to talk to somebody immediately (no hold time). I spent 20 minutes on the phone with Tech Support going back and forth trying to figure out what was going on. They updated something in their database, and shortly after, my grace period was extended (so I could keep using the unit), and then few hours later, the issue was resolved. Although it did take some time (and the unit didn't record "The Daily Show" that morning), I'd still say that's pretty good. If you have cable-TV and a cablebox, I recommend that you don't connect the unit to the cablebox, but rather get a splitter, and have one cable go to the cablebox and one to the RTV unit. That way, the RTV doesn't have to change the channel on the cablebox, and you can record something while watching something else. You can't record premium content though... Works good with my broadband connection as well; it gets all the networking info from my firewall, and goes out on the internet to download the program guide and updates. However, sending shows to other users on the internet might not be a feature that'll be used a lot, and here's why: This unit records up to 40 hours on a 40GB drive. That means that a 1 hour show is about 1GB. That is a huge file to transmit over the internet, even if you do have broadband. My connection is capped at 300kbsp outbound, meaning it would take over 9 hours to transmit this file! And that's at "standard" recording quality. File size increases fast if you record at a higher recording quality. Recording at standard quality is ok for most shows, but it can get a bit pixelated in high-speed scenes. For sport events, you should definately record at a higher quality setting, or that tennis ball will be one big square blur flying across the screen. Commercial skip works fairly well, but it's not perfect. It misses some commercials, and sometimes it skips a little too far, so you may have to rewind a few seconds of the show to catch the beginning of the section. Overall, a very good experience for us. The ability to search for shows, and easily record every episode without having to look for VCR+ codes and swapping out worn-out video tapes certainly makes it more enjoyable to watch TV.
Rating:
Summary: ReplayTV RTV5040 - easy & fun to use - a must
Review: For anyone that watches TV and either can't find anything to watch when they want, or hates commericals, this is a must have item. VCRs, they are just a thing of the past now. It really changes the way you watch TV. You just tell the ReplayTV unit to record what you want, then watch it when you want. It takes a couple minutes to setup, and it works with either a phone connection or an ethernet (for those with broadband access). It is loaded with other features, like commercial skip, photo viewer, and the like, and once you have one, you won't want to live without it.
Rating:
Summary: basically good product, but horrible customer service
Review: For the first few days the product worked fine, but after four days I was required to activate and pay the monthly fee. You would think that a rational corporation would make activation as easy as possible in order to get their money. Their website sent me in circles, so I phoned. After a half hour of recorded announcements, the phone disconnected, although I hadn't touched the speakerphone. After several similar problems, I finally got through on the last day. After arranging my payments, they told me that it would take 24 hours to activate and that I would not be able to use ReplayTv or record in that time. But it did not activate in 24 hours.After 2 hours of attempts I finally got through to them. I was told to press various buttons and that it would definitely activate in 4 to 8 hours. It didn't. So I called again and spoke to the supervisor, Jenny Johnson. I spoke to the supervisor three times, each time going through the usual aggravation. The third time she said I would be contacted the next day by a technician. I waited three days and then decided to return the set. I have seen terrible support and customer service before, but this was definitely the worst. I doubt that this company will last very long, and I think that all the users will be out a lot of money.
Rating: 
Summary: I'll stick with my older ReplayTV and ShowStopper
Review: Frankly this is a lousy upgrade to what could be a great machine. I have a couple of the older Replays, a ReplayTV 3000 and a ShowStopper. It was because of these machines that I took the plunge to upgrade to a pair of 5060's. Boy was I shocked by their performance. Granted they have amazing features like commercial advance, home networking, and the ability to share shows with your friends, they are lacking in the most important feature... the picture quality.
In a side by side comparison, my old replay/showstopper's are superior in color quality, contrast, and clarity, and for the life of me I didn't know why. I would have figured that the same or better components would have been used for the tuner, but alas no. Maybe it's because I'm trying to watch on a 64" television that I can see more imperfection, but I simply cannot complain with my old machines. And 480p output, my backside... the progressive out flickered like you wouldn't believe - completely unwatchable. Anyhow, rather than send them back I sold them to a couple of people who were new to Replay's, and who were just happy to get a chance to have one. They were happy to have the machines and I was happy to be rid of them. I may sound like a Replay hater, but I'm really not. I surely hope DNNA (the new owners of Replay) gets it together and improves the hardware in these little beauties, otherwise I'll have to keep buying old Replays. This unit does get three stars for it's original features that Tivo wished it had, and for the amazing Replay community that has sprouted up.
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