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Originally posted by Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Any thoughts vs. Replay TV?
Also, are there no longer different brands of TiVo units? IIRC, Sony and Panasonic (maybe), and perhaps others) also made Tivo units. Is that no longer the case? And does it matter? Should one just get the Tivo-branded unit listed on the website?
Also, get the "lifetime" plan or the monthly? In other words, should I expect the unit to last longer than 24 mos.?
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I got my Tivo the same week that my dad got his Replay TV. I set up my Tivo in about an hour or so, and I think he had the same set up time, though his system is much more complicated than mine. I've never had to call customer service. Within a week, he was calling customer service almost daily. Without prior programming, the Replay TV would change the channel at 11:00 every night without fail. That went on for a few weeks. Then, the Replay TV wouldn't even let him turn on the TV to watch programming. It would have this message saying that it was loading new information and please wait. Customer service was not particularly helpful. They'd tell him that he needed a software upgrade, and then he'd be ok. He'd try to download the software, but it never helped the problem. Eventually, he took back the Replay TV reciever to Circuit City, and used the credit to buy a Tivo. Replay TV did credit him the $300 lifetime fee. He had bought the Replay TV initially because it got slightly better reivews in Sound and Vision, and he liked the "fast forward through commercials" feature. That feature is no long available.
As for the unit, mine is a Tivo Brand unit, and again, no problems. I have a serial port that goes from my Tivo to my digital cable box, so the remote control is fairly instantaneous. (I had had a little bit of problem with the infrared remote controlling, when I first set up the system.) I use a telephone line to connect to the Tivo service, but I just bought a wireless router. I'm hopeful that the USB wireless connection will be doable, though I haven't tried to set that up. My only problems have been dialing up to the mothership, and that was solved when I disconnected the DSL line from the same jack that I was using to dial up.
