Differences between Tivo and ReplayTV?

November 10, 2005 9:23 PM

I'm interested in finally getting a DVR, and I'm trying to decide between Tivo and ReplayTV. Are there any differences I should be aware of?

I'm currently debating between the 40-hour Tivo Series 2 and the 40-hour ReplayTV 5504. If it matters at all, I don't have a landline at all and I intend to have the DVR perform its nightly updates over my the internet connection via ethernet (which both units seem capable of doing). I've heard Tivo has restricted the ability to keep certain shows indefinitely, which isn't a complete dealbreaker, but I'm curious, has ReplayTV imposed any similar restrictions?

I narrowed down my selection to these two units based on price -- I'm not considering any build-it-yourself options such as adding a TV tuner card to my computer.

posted by mattwatson to technology (11 comments total)

The Replay lets you keep all shows indefinitely. Other differences: Replay automatically skips ads when it can, which is fantastic. When it doesn't, there's a 30-second-skip button on the remote, which is almost as good. The remote has a 7-seconds-back button, which I love and I'm not sure Tivo has.
posted by nicwolff at 9:57 PM on November 10, 2005

I love my Tivo, but I don't have any experience with ReplayTV. A cursory search for differences between the two brought out, for me, two noteworthy Tivo features absent from ReplayTV: the Season Pass and Tivo Suggestions. The loss of Tivo Suggestions would not be a dealbreaker for me, though sometimes when I have nothing recorded, it can be fun to see what the Tivo has picked out for me . The Season Pass, though, is in my mind invaluable - it adjusts itself for variations in a show's schedule - including repeats, time changes (including "two hour specials," etc), and interruptions/delays for sports events, speeches, etc.

I found a good site with lots of charts comparing the two here.
posted by roundrock at 9:58 PM on November 10, 2005

At this point, TiVo is offering their unit completely free at charge, so long as you agree to a one-year contract at the service rate of $16.95/month

Or you can do their $50 (after mail-in rebates) for the unit, $12.95/month plan.

ReplayTV offers 40-hour units for as low as $40 after the rebate, with the same monthly service charge.

TiVo has the ease-of-use thing going for it. It's a simple, brilliant interface with a nice remote control. ReplayTV, while not that different, lacks some of the finer attention to detail TiVo manages to pull off.

Replay has some neat features, like pausing on a DVR in one room and resuming at the same place on a different DVR in your other room.

TiVo also offers TiVo To Go, which lets you transfer your shows to your computer. With something like Orb, you can then stream your TiVo recordings to any computer or mobile device with the Internet.

TiVo doesn't have a restriction to keeping shows indefinitely—I think they once restricted keeping some pay-per-view content indefinitely because of a single issue. It's not an active restriction on the machine, though, and it's a fair bet that Replay would be held to the same liabilities if it were to become a bigger issue.

I do believe that the Replay has built-in Ethernet, where in the TiVo, you must purchase a USB ethernet adapter. (Or live with reduced functionality with its phone service offerings.)

TiVo offers Season Passes and online schedule, and Replay TV has similar offerings as well. I'd suggest getting into an electronics store with demos of both models to see which one's interface you enjoy more, or looking at online demos, because it's all going to come down to the interface in the end.

(Disclosure: I own a Series 2 TiVo with a wireless adapter. And am watching something from TiVo To Go on my computer right now. :-)
posted by disillusioned at 9:58 PM on November 10, 2005

I am quite pleased with the ReplayTV, myself.

What really won me over was the ease with which you can use it from the computer. There is a Java application, DVArchive, which lets your computer act just like another networked ReplayTV, making it simple to download/archive the shows you've recorded to disk. You can also reencode any video file you've got on your PC (using TMPGEnc) and stream it to your ReplayTV. I've happily bought a huge amount of hard disk space, and now can browse through a hundreds of gigs of recorded shows, DVD's, and random internet videos from the TV remote.
posted by bemis at 10:15 PM on November 10, 2005

You can have my ReplayTV when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers. I bought it in 2002, I think I have the 4000 series. Honestly one of the best consumer electronics purchases I ever made. My unit has 10mbit ethernet which is too slow to move shows around with any regularity, but apart from that, it's perfect. I also put in a bigger disk, which was a trivial task.
posted by Triode at 10:53 PM on November 10, 2005

If you are a cable user, you may find the best deal from the cable company. Adelphia, Charter, Comcast and Time Warner all have DVRs in many areas. In a few lucky places you can get teh kewl one, Digeo's Moxi, but even the more bleh Motorola 6412 or Scientific Atlanta 8x00 have a couple key advantages over standalone TiVo and Replay units -- two tuners and HDTV recording.

You pay nothing for the box, and the monthly fee is less than TiVo. Your profile has no info so I can't tell ya, but you should check out what is around you.
posted by SpookyFish at 11:56 PM on November 10, 2005

Time-Warner's DVR (Scientific Atlanta I think) is sub-par. I've since moved on to a DirecTivo, which is fantastic. Superb recording quality (same as the satellite feed) and it's not too much hassle to skip commercials. Plus, it grabs the listings from the satellite, so you never need to plug it into the phone line (except to get new recommendations, which I don't really use).

I haven't used a ReplayTV, but I know a guy who's seriously into video who swears by them.
posted by neckro23 at 12:50 AM on November 11, 2005

Tivo To Go, at least for me, is obscenely slow, so I never use it. I hated and turned off Tivo Suggests, and while i did like the season pass, I was never very happy with my Tivo. Bittorrent now serves my television needs.
posted by SAC at 2:08 AM on November 11, 2005

Oh, and if the DVR's not built into your cable or directv box, and you don't have a serial connection, that IR thing for the remote really sucks.
posted by SAC at 2:09 AM on November 11, 2005

My Tivo calls the mothership at 3:35 AM about 4 times a week, a process which involves changing channels to some paid programming channel and then dumping you out on that channel until you get up and change it. This does not matter unless you have lived alone far too long at some point, and now sleep with the TV on all night, in which case you are likely to wake up with nightmares about "Set it and forget it!" I have defeated this by setting the stupid thing to record the Science channel from 3 to 4 on those nights. That dumps you out on the only channel in the middle of the night which does not have paid programming and you get a nice, soothing-voiced guy describing the mating habits of the amoeba or something, which doesn't wake you up. Tivo claims this is for "extra programming goodness" or some nonsense. It's not the same as the phone calls, and mine has been living without it for years just fine.

Here recently, it developed a habit of phoning the mothership at 11:35 PM three times a week, which goes to some paid programming only channel. Cackling fiendishly, I deleted the channel. (I can't delete the first channel because when it isn't paid programming, it's All Law & Order, All The Time, which is actually pretty good to sleep to.) Results of that experiment are still pending.

This may not matter to you in the slightest, or it may. If anyone out there has any idea how to kill it, the e-mail is in the profile.
posted by unrepentanthippie at 8:48 AM on November 11, 2005

roundrock -- that was an awesome site you gave that compared everything, thanks! It had exactly the type of side by side comparisons I was looking for.

Also, thanks to disillusioned -- I didn't realizes that Tivo required a USB adapter for ethernet. That's another $30-40 to consider. And you gave a bunch of other good comparisons.

In case anyone was wondering, my provider (Comcast) offers the ability to rent DVRs for $10 mo., but I don't have digital cable, and it's not cost effective for me to get it just for the DVR.

I'm still not exactly sure which one I'm going with, but I'm leaning toward Tivo, even if it's just because of the same-day online program scheduling. Thanks for all the help!
posted by mattwatson at 5:11 PM on November 11, 2005