COMMENTARY--Well, it sure seems like a cool idea.
That was our first reaction when we heard about the new ReplayTV 4000 series, the first broadband-enabled digital video recorders. And considering the amount of press they received--nearly all of it positive--it seems like we weren't alone.
AFTER WEEKS of trying, we were at long last able to get our new devices up and running. Unfortunately, once the novelty had worn off, we soon realized that the features offered by the first "networkable" DVR weren't as awe-inspiring as we had led ourselves to believe.
SonicBlue (the maker of ReplayTV) had made no secret of the fact that the new players were geared toward high-end enthusiasts, but even that is something of an understatement.
Obviously, you need cable or DSL Internet access because of the bandwidth requirements. But that's just the beginning. You'll also need an Ethernet hub to connect the ReplayTV to your PC. You can get a decent Ethernet hub for about $40, but we opted for gateways that include a few extra features, such as a wireless access point and firewall. John tried the $184 D-Link DI-713p; Josh opted for the Linksys BEFW11S4 EtherFast, which is available for around $170.
THEN WE RAN INTO a real problem. Like a lot of folks, we have our homes set up so that our PCs aren't anywhere near our TVs, which means we'd have to drill lots of holes and run Ethernet cable all over our homes to get the two hooked up. The obvious solution (for SonicBlue) would be to put a slot in the ReplayTV device so you could insert an 802.11b wireless PC card, but don't hold your breath waiting for this feature. Instead, we found an Ethernet to HPNA 2.0 bridge from NetGear that lets you use your existing phone lines to connect the two devices. Of course, we each needed two of these $129.99 bridges--one on each end--or four altogether, at a total price of $519.96.
Fortunately, getting all of this equipment set up was actually pretty easy, which is a tribute to the current state of home networking. (Though Josh did run into one problem where an old DSL filter interfered with his HPNA bridge, but simply removing the filter did the trick.) Even getting the ReplayTV onto the network was basically plug and play--at least when it came to going through the initial setup and downloading the program guide.
If you plan on sharing video files, you'll then need to take the extra step of opening a port on your gateway or router, as well as assigning the ReplayTV an IP address, which is certainly beyond many casual users.
FINALLY, THERE'S THE COST of the ReplayTV itself. Josh had a 40-hour model (RTV4040) that sells for $699, but isn't currently available, according to SonicBlue's Web site. The 80-hour model that John tested is available, but it costs $999. (If money--or a social life--is no object, there's also a 320-hour model for $1,999.)
All told, the grand total for our setup, including the DVRs, gateways, and bridges, was a whopping $2,571.96. (We'll give you a moment to get up off the floor.) To put this in perspective, assuming a two-hour blank VHS cassette costs about $2, we figured we could record at least 113 TV shows send them to each other via FedEx Priority Overnight (door-to-door from New York to San Francisco) for the same amount. Trust us, we've done the math. Here's another way to look at it: You could buy a DVD burner and an ATI All-in-Wonder or Nvidia Personal Cinema PCI card--both of which include DVR features--and still have loads of money left over for blank discs and shipping.
And not only would it be cheaper to overnight ship your favorite programs, it could end up being faster as well. Sunday's episode of "Alias," recorded at standard (i.e., lowest) quality, took more than eight hours to send, which has less to do with ReplayTV than it does with the fact that many upstream Internet connections are capped at 128Kbps. If the one-hour program had been taped at high quality, it would have taken around 24 hours to send.
IN ADDITION TO the technological hurdles, the video-sharing user interface really leaves something to be desired. First, in order to send a file, you'll need to enter a pretty clunky device number for your friend's ReplayTV. Then, when you do receive a show, you don't receive any kind of alert. Instead you need to scroll over to a list of received shows, and then manually accept the ones you wish to receive. Only then does the actual download begin.
Initially we thought it would be great to be able to, say, ask a friend to send last week's "West Wing" if you happened to miss it. But that ignores one basic fact: The whole point of having a DVR in the first place is that you'll never miss "West Wing," or any other show you like, making this feature largely unnecessary. Unless, that is, you're interested in swapping movies and pay-per-view events, which is why SonicBlue is in court right now over its video-sharing functionality.
Ironically, the one place where we do see file sharing as useful--between two different televisions in the same house--is still prohibitively expensive with ReplayTV 4000, since you'll need full-blown DVRs in each room. It can't be long before someone comes along with a solution that will require a single server--either a DVR or a PC--that works in conjunction with "thin clients" on additional television sets. In fact, this is exactly the concept that start-up Moxi showed off at January's Consumer Electronics Show, though the company's technology--along with its business model--has been called into question in recent months.
Despite the fact that the ReplayTV 4000 falls short of what it's trying to accomplish, we continue to be fans of Replay's software, and the company's willingness to put its customers ahead of the networks. The much-hyped "Commercial Advance" feature, which is meant to automatically skip all commercials during playback, worked more often that not, though it's far from perfect. ReplayTV, like UltimateTV, continues to offer a 30-second skip feature, which continues to work just fine.
WE DO WISH that SonicBlue used some of its forward thinking to introduce features that would benefit users today. We're still stunned that despite the always-connected nature of the 4000 series, ReplayTV hasn't managed to make its MyReplayTV.com service, which allows users to program their devices over the Web, real-time. Instead, users' programming changes only get made nightly, which renders it impossible to remotely program your device for a program airing the same day.
We hate to knock innovative products, but it seems to us that SonicBlue was perhaps more interested in making a PR splash than in delivering a truly viable product in the ReplayTV 4000. If we were really cynical (who, us?), we might even suggest that they knew the file-sharing features would incite a lawsuit generating even more publicity. Bottom line? The ReplayTV 4000 is still an excellent DVR, but the network connectivity features are just not there yet.
John and Josh being too harsh? Have you networked your DVR? How did it go? TalkBack to us below.
