ReplayTV® Thoughts

Updated:
3 December, 2000

Things I Really Like

Potential to connect additional storage via the Firewire port. Note: This port is NOT PRESENT on the new Model 2020!
The button that skips 30-seconds instantly.
Hardware - the box is sleek and looks well-designed.
The name is great.
As time has gone by, (it's now October 2000) I have come to like the way that ReplayTV allows you to manage your storage space. For some things, it is better than TiVo's scheme.

ReplayTV Bugs I've Noticed

Really, the functionality that is implemented seems quite solid, especially for a first release of anything these days.
There have been a few odd things I've come across:

June 2000

Sat down to watch a show that should have been recorded and hour ago. Hmm, that's funny, it's not there. Perhaps it wasn't on this week? Jump to the on-screen program guide, which is blank!
Okay, obviously some problem with dialing in to update the guide. Let's see if there are any messages (sort of like email) about it in the message are of the ReplayTV device. Yep, sure enough. A whole stream of them, one for each day saying:

Your ReplayTV was unable to contact the ReplayTV Service because there was not enough memory.

Well, there should be plenty of memory (there were several hours of capacity remaining unused), so the obvious fix was tried - cycle power off and back on! This seemed to resolve the problem, program guide data returned after the next phone call to the ReplayTV Service.

My major complaint about this is that when something goes wrong, putting a message into the "inbox" is not enough - some active notice needs to be given. Most users won't go to the "menu" screen very often.

Oct 1999

Had the unit get into a state where the speech was out of sync with the video. Rewinding and viewing the segment again fixed it. Very odd!

Update, December 1999: I still see this on very rare occasions - not enough to consider it a real problem.
Update, June 2000: Have not see this bug in a very long time...

Oct 1999

While fast-forwarding to "catch up" with a live broadcast, the picture froze when we went "live". The VCR controls (play, FF etc.) had no effect. Changing channels and returning to the one I was watching fixed it.

Update, December 1999: I haven't seen this occur in quite some time.
Update, June 2000: Seems to be fixed

Little Things That I'd Like To See ReplayTV Change

Item What I'd Like Them To Do

When pausing a live show, an opaque banner (1/8th of screen high roughly) appears at the bottom indicating that you are paused.
Sometimes this covers things you want to see, such as sports scores etc.
This feature has been added!

With the 3.0 software, pressing the "Exit" button will remove the banner.

Once a show is set to record regularly, and it has recorded one show, there seems to be no way to change the recording setup (i.e. change from 3 guaranteed slots to 2 etc.).
This feature has been added!

A subsequent release has allowd you to change the number of shows to keep etc. for existing ReplayTV "channels".

New messages from the ReplayTV service or the device itself are only noted on the rarely-visited menu screen.
Most users will rarely go to the "Menu" screen, and therefore a problem (unable to connect to the server for example) may go unnoticed until too late. Have some sort of notification occur when a new message is present in the "email inbox". THis could be a note that pops up when you go to/from the program guide and recorded shows list, or some sort of icon that appears on both of those screens.

Item	What I'd Like Them To Do
When pausing a live show, an opaque banner (1/8th of screen high roughly) appears at the bottom indicating that you are paused. Sometimes this covers things you want to see, such as sports scores etc.	This feature has been added! With the 3.0 software, pressing the "Exit" button will remove the banner.
Once a show is set to record regularly, and it has recorded one show, there seems to be no way to change the recording setup (i.e. change from 3 guaranteed slots to 2 etc.).	This feature has been added! A subsequent release has allowd you to change the number of shows to keep etc. for existing ReplayTV "channels".
New messages from the ReplayTV service or the device itself are only noted on the rarely-visited menu screen. Most users will rarely go to the "Menu" screen, and therefore a problem (unable to connect to the server for example) may go unnoticed until too late.	Have some sort of notification occur when a new message is present in the "email inbox". THis could be a note that pops up when you go to/from the program guide and recorded shows list, or some sort of icon that appears on both of those screens.

Features Wish-list - ReplayTV

Feature ReplayTV TiVo

Scan the program guide by title or category.
This feature has been added! (sort of)

There is a way to search the channel guide for a keyword, which can be in the title.
Pro: You can search the description, director etc. for a give word.
Con: Entering a partial keyword sucg as "Frie" does not work, where "Friends" does.

Yes. You can look up shows by catagory & title.

There is no way to search for a actor, director or by description.

Ability to get the digitized data out in a digital format.

Once you buy one of these devices, you obviously have a good video digitizer and MPEG-2 compressor.
No, although they do have a data port that would allow this in theory.

(Note: this port was removed in the Model 2020)
No, and no high-speed data port. Their website indicates that they may add this to future versions of the hardware.

Ability to use as a VCR for timed recordings.
Sometimes, you might want or need to just tell the unit to record channel 37 between 7:00PM and 10:00PM on Friday night, regardless of what the program grid thinks is on at that moment.
Oct 2000 - This has been added to the software.
Yes.
You can tell it to record channel X from a start time until an end time on a specific date at a specific quality. Very flexible.

Control over what is deleted and when it is deleted. This is fairly complicated. A simple explanation from ReplayTV:

ReplayTV deletes shows in the following order: Guaranteed Records: These will never be deleted by Replay TV unless you:
(A) delete it yourself, or (B), a new episode comes on, then it will delete the oldest to add in the new ones. For non-guaranteed it's a little tricker. If a guaranteed record needs to delete some non-guaranteed shows in order to record, it looks for the oldest non-guaranteed show, then deletes it. Can viewers change this? Other than making space before hand by manually deleting shows, no. According to TiVo:

Control over what is deleted, and when: by default, programs you've specified for recording (specifically or via a season pass) are retained for two days. You can extend the lifetime of any program once recorded (via a one-day "keep longer" or via a "keep until I delete"). You can specifically delete a recorded program from its screen in the "Now Showing" area. When you finish viewing a recorded program, the receiver will ask you if you want to delete it or keep it.

Control of the order in which channels appear in the program guide.

The numerical order is NOT how I want to see the guide. The old VideoGuide system used to "learn" what channels you watched and move those up to the top.
I just want to be able to specify the order manually. This really should not be tough to implement... No. No. You can set up a "favorite channels" group, as well as turn off ones you don't recieve.

Indication of current delay

When pausing live TV, it would be nice to have some sort of display available to show how far behind "live" you are.
Yes, added in a recent software release.

According to TiVo:
"The mode-and-position bar at the bottom of the screen shows you the range of time covered by the 30-minute cache, and an arrow showing your current viewing position."

This works pretty well, although there is no exact number shown, you can estimate closely enough to satisfy my needs.

Indication of how much of the capacity is currently used. Shows a time available value that appears to be only valid in relation to "guaranteed" shows. No

List of the upcoming recording plan.

A list of what shows will be recorded (at least as far out as the program guide allows the system to "see") is important.
Sort of.

You can see a list of "upcoming episodes" of specific shows, with an indiction if any of them will be recorded.

Still would like to see a list of all shows to be recorded in one list, similar to TiVo's scheme.

Yes. A nice list of what will be recorded in the future is available.

According to TiVo:
Every show scheduled to be recorded is displayed. From the main screen, go to
"Pick programs to record" and then "Tivo's To-Do List". You can pick an individual program from this list, view the details
(date, time, duration, channel, recording quality), and (if you wish) cancel the recording.

On-Screen Time Display (elapsed, not clock)

Just like a VCR, I'd like to be able to display the current time into the show, i.e. 0:34, 1:12 etc. while in Play, Fast-Forward or Rewind. This would allow rapid access to a segment of a recorded show based on time. This should also work when watching a delayed but non-recorded show as well. Yes - added in a recent release.
No

Ability to save a fragment of a show

Once you have video captured, it seems like a logical extension to be able to perform some very simple editing on it. Either deleting commercials, or saving snippets of video for later viewing. For example, we were watching one of the hockey playoff games when a great goal was scored. I really wanted to be able to save the clip to show my son, who had gone to bed.
A simple "from here" followed by a "to here" mark, and the video in between saved as something like "Clip 1" would have been great. It was quite frustrating to be unable to save that to show the next morning. No No

Support for AC-3 audio No No

Feature	ReplayTV	TiVo
Scan the program guide by title or category.	This feature has been added! (sort of) There is a way to search the channel guide for a keyword, which can be in the title. Pro: You can search the description, director etc. for a give word. Con: Entering a partial keyword sucg as "Frie" does not work, where "Friends" does.	Yes. You can look up shows by catagory & title. There is no way to search for a actor, director or by description.
Ability to get the digitized data out in a digital format. Once you buy one of these devices, you obviously have a good video digitizer and MPEG-2 compressor.	No, although they do have a data port that would allow this in theory. (Note: this port was removed in the Model 2020)	No, and no high-speed data port. Their website indicates that they may add this to future versions of the hardware.
Ability to use as a VCR for timed recordings. Sometimes, you might want or need to just tell the unit to record channel 37 between 7:00PM and 10:00PM on Friday night, regardless of what the program grid thinks is on at that moment.	Oct 2000 - This has been added to the software.	Yes. You can tell it to record channel X from a start time until an end time on a specific date at a specific quality. Very flexible.
Control over what is deleted and when it is deleted.	This is fairly complicated. A simple explanation from ReplayTV: ReplayTV deletes shows in the following order: Guaranteed Records: These will never be deleted by Replay TV unless you: (A) delete it yourself, or (B), a new episode comes on, then it will delete the oldest to add in the new ones. For non-guaranteed it's a little tricker. If a guaranteed record needs to delete some non-guaranteed shows in order to record, it looks for the oldest non-guaranteed show, then deletes it. Can viewers change this? Other than making space before hand by manually deleting shows, no.	According to TiVo: Control over what is deleted, and when: by default, programs you've specified for recording (specifically or via a season pass) are retained for two days. You can extend the lifetime of any program once recorded (via a one-day "keep longer" or via a "keep until I delete"). You can specifically delete a recorded program from its screen in the "Now Showing" area. When you finish viewing a recorded program, the receiver will ask you if you want to delete it or keep it.
Control of the order in which channels appear in the program guide. The numerical order is NOT how I want to see the guide. The old VideoGuide system used to "learn" what channels you watched and move those up to the top. I just want to be able to specify the order manually. This really should not be tough to implement...	No.	No. You can set up a "favorite channels" group, as well as turn off ones you don't recieve.
Indication of current delay When pausing live TV, it would be nice to have some sort of display available to show how far behind "live" you are.	Yes, added in a recent software release.	According to TiVo: "The mode-and-position bar at the bottom of the screen shows you the range of time covered by the 30-minute cache, and an arrow showing your current viewing position." This works pretty well, although there is no exact number shown, you can estimate closely enough to satisfy my needs.
Indication of how much of the capacity is currently used.	Shows a time available value that appears to be only valid in relation to "guaranteed" shows.	No
List of the upcoming recording plan. A list of what shows will be recorded (at least as far out as the program guide allows the system to "see") is important.	Sort of. You can see a list of "upcoming episodes" of specific shows, with an indiction if any of them will be recorded. Still would like to see a list of all shows to be recorded in one list, similar to TiVo's scheme.	Yes. A nice list of what will be recorded in the future is available. According to TiVo: Every show scheduled to be recorded is displayed. From the main screen, go to "Pick programs to record" and then "Tivo's To-Do List". You can pick an individual program from this list, view the details (date, time, duration, channel, recording quality), and (if you wish) cancel the recording.
On-Screen Time Display (elapsed, not clock) Just like a VCR, I'd like to be able to display the current time into the show, i.e. 0:34, 1:12 etc. while in Play, Fast-Forward or Rewind. This would allow rapid access to a segment of a recorded show based on time. This should also work when watching a delayed but non-recorded show as well.	Yes - added in a recent release.	No
Ability to save a fragment of a show Once you have video captured, it seems like a logical extension to be able to perform some very simple editing on it. Either deleting commercials, or saving snippets of video for later viewing. For example, we were watching one of the hockey playoff games when a great goal was scored. I really wanted to be able to save the clip to show my son, who had gone to bed. A simple "from here" followed by a "to here" mark, and the video in between saved as something like "Clip 1" would have been great. It was quite frustrating to be unable to save that to show the next morning.	No	No
Support for AC-3 audio	No	No

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Please address any comments or questions to donm@sgsw.com Copyright © 1999, 2000 by Don Meyer

ReplayTV® Thoughts

Contents:

Things I Really Like

ReplayTV Bugs I've Noticed

Little Things That I'd Like To See ReplayTV Change

Features Wish-list - ReplayTV