Replay Tv 5040 Black Friday Sales!
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Replay Tv 5040 Black Friday Sales!.
Product: Replay Tv 5040 Amazon Price: Too low to display Availability: In Stock |
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I've been thinking about getting a Tivo or ReplayTV for about a year and finally got a ReplayTV 5040. Here's my opinion:
Price: With two $50 mail-in rebates my final cost was $199. This is a lot of technology for $199!
Quality: The box is well built and solid. There's a mountainous fan to support it frigid. The choices of inputs and outputs is complete. You can fit this map into any home threater system any blueprint you want. I have a 36" HDTV and have this connected using S-video. I tried composite video and it was slightly worse. I didn't try the component video outputs.
Setup: Setup was easy but did catch a while over a cable modem connection. During the setup it seemed to update the operating system which took about 25 minutes. Total setup was about 40 minutes. I don't know how long it would buy over the built-in modem.
Recording: The programming guide is easy to exercise and setting things to report is straight forward. I only relate at high quality so I only net about 10 hours of recording time.
Picture Quality: The record is acceptable but not as safe as the tell feed to the TV. When you inspect a exhibit throught the ReplayTV you are ALWAYS watching the recorded version. There is about a 1 second delay between the "live" report throught the ReplayTV and the "live" feed from the cable company. This is what allows you to quit and rewind a live TV prove. Because you're watching a recorded version of the expose and the recording is digitized and compressed the relate quality is slightly worse than the modern. I come by the colors to be a microscopic washed out.
Customer Support: Suitable! I was fearful about calling tech benefit when the IR Blaster couldn't change the single digit channels on my cable box but was pleasantly surprised when my gain time was less than 2 minutes both times I had to call. The fix was simple but undocumented in the manual or on their web situation. To net to the advanced settings for the IR Blaster you have to press the "Zones" button when the list of codes for your cable box appears on the shroud. This lets you place obvious properties of the IR Blaster like the minimum number of digits to send to the cable box. It was sending a "2" for channel 2 and I needed it to send an "02". Bumping the minimum digits to 2 fixed the quandary. I also got a tip from their tech to set aside all zeros in the delay boxes to urge up channel changing which is fairly tiresome. Changing the delays to "0000" helps slightly.
I like this better than Tivo. This thing is light years ahead of an faded VCR!
Hi everyone. I had hoped that when I bought my ReplayTV 5040 that it would work glowing. BUZZZ-wrong retort. It died on me about 6 weeks after I bought it. (Infinite reboot plight) Alright, no vast deal, I'll honest send it help. On January 27th I called technical abet and after some troubleshooting and it was distinct that I had to send it in. I was told that I would have a novel unit 10 days after they got my unit. I sent it in and UPS delivered it to ReplayTV on January 31st. It was delivered at 10:09 AM and signed for by "Cooper."
Two weeks later I sent an email to technical benefit asking for a situation record. No response. Two more days went by and I sent another email to which they replied with this cryptic quote: "Your RMA is in process and will be fulfilled as soon as possible." Not very salubrious.
After patiently waiting for nearly a month, on or around February 27th I decided that I should try to give someone a call, so I called in and they had no relate of my unit or even me! The guy finally said he would have to set me on possess. I held for over 30 minutes and then got sent into his inform mail. I immediately called benefit and had to express my legend all over again. The unique person I talked to was very polite, found my information and said she would "escalate my case." Tall, I notion, finally! After more discussion she said I should have my unit very soon. I told her that I would like a confirmation email when the unit was shipped.
March 6th rolls around and I quiet have not heard anything from anyone at SonicBlue so I called in again. This time I got a man who was sorry to hear about my case after I told him the chronicle. This time he gave me a case number and told me the he would "escalate" my case to the supervisory level. I told him that I though that had already been done! He told me that it should now come by some high level action. I ask him to send me an email when the unit has been shipped.
Today is March 11th and I since I haven't received an email, I choose to call tech aid and survey if they can give me a position describe. I happen to talk to the same woman that I spoke to on February 27th. She apologizes to me and says that my case has been "escalated to a higher level" and that she will check with her supervisor for the plot. After about 10 minutes she gets help on the phone and tells me that her supervisor told her that the unit should have been shipped, but that they don't know for determined. (At this point I am taking everything they say with a grain of salt!) She suggests that I call succor in two days and they should be able to stutter me for distinct if the unit has shipped.
That is where things stand correct now. I can't say that I can give any advice based on this describe, but I idea people should be aware of the dwelling.
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Epilogue: The day after I posted the above review I had an email exchange with other people at SonicBlue and they sent me a fresh unit 2nd day FedEx. Once I got to the upright people they were very responsive.
It may sound dramatic, but my ReplayTV has changed my relationship with television completely.
First, the ability to halt live TV is extraordinary. When the phone rings, we end the reveal, acknowledge the call, and then resume. Nothing missed! An animated point to discuss with my wife? Quit and talk. You'll wonder how you lived without it.
The ability to schedule automatic recording of all the TV shows I look, and to have them actually recorded reliably (which is more than I can say for my VCR) has given me complete freedom to relish TV on my have terms.
Let me say that my wife and I perceive a lot of TV, we honest lifeless have a lot of shows that we devour watching. And Replay allows me to seek my shows when I want them, how I want them, no matter what the network schedules may throw at me. Like the Simpsons? Schedule your Replay to retain the last five syndicated episodes at the ready whenever you feel like a laugh. Bask In the unhurried night shows but can't end up? Program it to portray the shows while you're asleep and witness them in the morning. You can even status up a manual recording that will unprejudiced characterize the monologues! And of course it will represent all your approved daily and weekly shows, even if they're on a special day or change time slots. Even position up categories in order to maintain your shows organized. Even if you don't consume a lot of time watching TV, wouldn't it be nice to have something recorded that you actually want to peep when you have time? Don't be a slave to the TV Guide again! (BTW- The program guide on the Replay is a substantial improvement if you are primitive to the cable TV box electronic guide) .
One of the best things about the Replay over your VCR is that you can look a demonstrate that's already been recorded while it's recording something else. That means that you're no longer stuck waiting for something to achieve recording in order to see something. You can even search for a present that's recording from the beginning! You can advance home halfway into recording "Friends", and gaze it from the beginning while it records the rest of the prove!
And that's where the ReplayTV excels: When you survey a recorded expose (or even live TV that you've paused for at least 5 minutes), the Replay will automatically skip the commercials! Positive, you can turn off the skip if you want to stare them. But it's unprejudiced a thing of beauty when shroud goes blank going to commercial, and then all of a sudden the program continues where it left off! When someone asks "did you explore the commercial where....", you can smugly say "nope" :*)
If you examine TV in more than one room, you can collect a second unit and connect them together. You can actually gaze a explain on one Replay that was recorded on another. And if your friends or family have a ReplayTV, you can actually send a prove or even your home videos from your unit to theirs over the internet. All you need is their Replay ID and hit "Send" and off it goes. It's not instantaneous though, even a half-hour note can pick hours to transfer. But it's a lot faster and easier than mailing a videotape.
The other choices in this market are obliging don't secure me unfavorable, I acquire a TiVo as well. But like I said: Once you've seen Commercial Skip, In-Home Video Sharing, MyReplayTV.com, and Internet Video Sharing in operation, you'll never go attend. The TiVo is now in the guest bedroom...
And Sonicblue is continuously working on improving the software, adding current features and functions. It objective keeps getting better.
This thing is worth every penny.
