Home > Consumer Reviews > ReplayTV RTV5040 40-Hour Digital Video Recorder

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 big fan to keep it cool. The choices of inputs and outputs is complete. You can fit this device into any home threater system any way 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 take 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 take over the built-in modem.

Recording: The programming guide is easy to use and setting things to record is straight forward. I only record at high quality so I only get about 10 hours of recording time.

Picture Quality: The picture is acceptable but not as good as the direct feed to the TV. When you watch a show throught the ReplayTV you are ALWAYS watching the recorded version. There is about a 1 second delay between the "live" picture throught the ReplayTV and the "live" feed from the cable company. This is what allows you to pause and rewind a live TV show. Because you're watching a recorded version of the show and the recording is digitized and compressed the picture quality is slightly worse than the original. I find the colors to be a little washed out.

Customer Support: EXCELLENT! I was worried about calling tech support when the IR Blaster couldn't change the single digit channels on my cable box but was pleasantly surprised when my hold 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 site. To get 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 screen. This lets you set certain 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 problem. I also got a tip from their tech to put all zeros in the delay boxes to speed up channel changing which is fairly slow. Changing the delays to "0000" helps slightly.

I like this better than Tivo. This thing is light years ahead of an old VCR!

Hi everyone. I had hoped that when I bought my ReplayTV 5040 that it would work fine. BUZZZ-wrong answer. It died on me about 6 weeks after I bought it. (Infinite reboot problem) Alright, no big deal, I'll just send it back. On January 27th I called technical support and after some troubleshooting and it was determined that I had to send it in. I was told that I would have a new 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 support asking for a status report. 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 helpful.

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 record of my unit or even me! The guy finally said he would have to put me on hold. I held for over 30 minutes and then got sent into his voice mail. I immediately called back and had to tell my story all over again. The new person I talked to was very polite, found my information and said she would "escalate my case." Great, I thought, 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 still 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 story. 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 get 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 decide to call tech support and see if they can give me a status report. 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 status. After about 10 minutes she gets back 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 sure. (At this point I am taking everything they say with a grain of salt!) She suggests that I call back in two days and they should be able to tell me for sure if the unit has shipped.

That is where things stand right now. I can't say that I can give any advice based on this report, but I thought people should be aware of the situation.
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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 new unit 2nd day FedEx. Once I got to the right people they were very responsive.

It may sound dramatic, but my ReplayTV has changed my relationship with television completely.

First, the ability to pause live TV is amazing. When the phone rings, we pause the show, answer the call, and then resume. Nothing missed! An interesting point to discuss with my wife? Pause and talk. You'll wonder how you lived without it.

The ability to schedule automatic recording of all the TV shows I watch, and to have them actually recorded reliably (which is more than I can say for my VCR) has given me complete freedom to enjoy TV on my own terms.

Let me say that my wife and I watch a lot of TV, we just plain have a lot of shows that we enjoy watching. And Replay allows me to watch 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 keep the last five syndicated episodes at the ready whenever you feel like a laugh. Enjoy the late night shows but can't stay up? Program it to record the shows while you're asleep and watch them in the morning. You can even set up a manual recording that will just record the monologues! And of course it will record all your favorite daily and weekly shows, even if they're on a special day or change time slots. Even set up categories in order to keep your shows organized. Even if you don't spend a lot of time watching TV, wouldn't it be nice to have something recorded that you actually want to watch when you have time? Don't be a slave to the TV Guide again! (BTW- The program guide on the Replay is a huge improvement if you are used to the cable TV box electronic guide).

One of the best things about the Replay over your VCR is that you can watch a show that's already been recorded while it's recording something else. That means that you're no longer stuck waiting for something to finish recording in order to watch something. You can even watch a show that's recording from the beginning! You can come home halfway into recording "Friends", and watch it from the beginning while it records the rest of the show!

And that's where the ReplayTV excels: When you watch a recorded show (or even live TV that you've paused for at least 5 minutes), the Replay will automatically skip the commercials! Sure, you can turn off the skip if you want to see them. But it's just a thing of beauty when screen goes blank going to commercial, and then all of a sudden the program continues where it left off! When someone asks "did you see the commercial where....", you can smugly say "nope" :*)

If you watch TV in more than one room, you can get a second unit and connect them together. You can actually watch a show on one Replay that was recorded on another. And if your friends or family have a ReplayTV, you can actually send a show 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 show can take hours to transfer. But it's a lot faster and easier than mailing a videotape.

The other choices in this market are good don't get me wrong, I own 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 back. The TiVo is now in the guest bedroom...

And Sonicblue is continuously working on improving the software, adding new features and functions. It just keeps getting better.

This thing is worth every penny.

Replay has created a new way to watch TV! Its hard to imagine ever watching a show the old way. I used to have to watch what was on between 9pm and 11pm but not anymore. Now I have lots of show recorded automatically everyday that I want to see, and I can watch them when I have the time!! I even uploaded 1.5 gigs of digital pictures from my pc to the Replay 5000 and I am amazed at the quality when viewed on my 36" Sony XBR. You can even create a folder of pictures to use as the pause screens. I hooked it up via my cable modem to download the updates, and that also allows me to send or receive shows via the internet. The Commercial Skip (CA) works about 97% of the time, which really blew me away. I had figured it wouldn't work very well, so I am very pleasently suprised. I am considering ordering another Replay so I can record two show simultaneously and also take advantage of streaming from one box to the other. Say watch a show in the living room or bedroom thats been recorded in the tv room. The CA feature alone blows the competition away. All the other features are just icing on the cake. I would rate this a 10+ after using it for almost 3 weeks. (I would rate myself as difficult to impress)

I was skeptical when I first heard about ReplayTV but had to give it a shot. Four units later, I'm not sure how I ever watched television before. With ReplayTV you are in complete control of what you watch and when you watch it. In a nutshell:

Phone interruptions: Hit pause and resume when you want.

Missed something: Back up and watch it again - normal speed or slow motion

Hate commercials: They're gone in your recorded shows thanks to Commercial Advance. Is it perfect? No. It misses a few but it catches about 95% or more.

Love commercials: Just turn Commercial Advance off.

Scheduling: Couldn't be easier. Bring up the channel guide, hit record, you're done. You'll never miss a show again.

Share shows between multiple units: Have more than one unit and a home network. Record on one unit and watch on another even while someone is watching something else on the other unit.

Screen Saver and Slide Show: Upload your digital pictures to your ReplayTV to have a personal screen saver or slide show. A great way to organize and view all those pictures.

I've become so addicted to both pause and instant replay that I find myself trying to do the same to the radio in my car.

This just scratches the surface of what you can do. There's a lot more waiting for you.

Is ReplayTV perfect? Not yet but SONICblue appears to be quickly fixing minor glitches.

Is ReplayTV the perfect way to watch TV? Absolutely. It's perfection!

Try it and you'll never go back.