Take the endless debates among Mac and Windows and Unix patriots, not to mention the ongoing discourse between AMD and Intel aficionados. Consider the passion the DSL-vs.-cable dialectic inspires among serious Web surfers.
And this week, check out the enthusiastic responses to "Do you TiVo?", columnist Alice Hill's ode to her personal television recorder of choice.
The response was tremendous, both from users who share her love of TiVo and those who felt the piece gave short shrift to ReplayTV, the other votive love object in the digital-recorder space.
(Alice herself has already submitted a TalkBack promising equal time for the other guys: "ReplayTV is sending me a unit so I can do a real side by side. Looks like there will be no rest until we get to the bottom of the which is better, TiVo or ReplayTV debate. Stay tuned for Part Two in my upcoming ZDNet column.")
"I do not TiVo, I RePlay," wrote Al Brown, a "semi-retired TV camera person" in Kingston, N.Y. "It has better quality and no $9.95 dial up charge; it is also more user-friendly to use and set up."
"I ReplayTV instead of TiVo for two reasons: the commercial skip button and free TV listing service," wrote Salt Lake City engineer John Snow. "Add to that, ReplayTV's upcoming ability to view the listings and program your ReplayTV unit via the Web at myReplayTV.com, and there is no way I'd give up my ReplayTV for a TiVo."
"I don't TiVo, I ReplayTV, and have for over a year!" boasted Christopher John Gores, a senior application developer in Minneapolis. "Just the 10-hour model at first, but they let us upgrade to 30 hours for cheap.
"I still find 30 hours can be limiting, so I think TiVo's 'I'll record what I think you'll like' is too wasteful of space for me. I can't believe how much I'm addicted to the 30-second skip forward and the 10-second rewind! I'll never go back!
"The best feature is the ability to watch one record show while it's recording a second show in the background. We never watch anything live anymore... we'll even wait 15 minutes before watching the news so we can skip the commercials!"
Just as long as you don't block banner ads, Christopher. ...
Other readers lined up behind TiVo, many of them for the same reasons the ReplayTV camp offered. " I chose TiVo because it looked easier to use," wrote "messina," a Silicon Valley technology designer. "I am a techie guy but believe that an interface that is simple but achieves the most is the only way to expect others (and myself these days) to use something.
"TiVo is not flawless, but neither is ReplayTV. Basically speaking, it achieves everything it's meant to do very easily, with only a few quirks -- many of which would most likely be addressed in future updates to its operating software that it automatically downloads."
However, not every user found TiVo an unmitigated delight. "Unfortunately, I've had six TiVo machines go bad on me for a variety of hardware-related reasons," wrote Michael Avella of Bethpage, N.Y. "These machines are not yet reliable. I liked the product when it worked, but after six attempts I have given up. (For the record, five were Philips units and one was Sony.)"
I'll leave this personal TV tête-à-tête with a final, conciliatory word from D.C. Crane of Houston: "TiVo versus ReplayTV is Microsoft versus Apple all over again. Please knock off the stuff about 'my decision was better than your decision.' Be grateful there is a choice and that competition exists. Rest assured that one is not perfect while the other is useless; if that were the case, one would die a sudden death.
"Hooray for the PTV concept. We are no longer at the mercy of the cable and network program schedulers. PTV is not just a better VCR. PTV is what VCRs should have been."
