Grant Laird, Jr. Blog

I don’t recall exactly when I purchased Panasonic ReplayTV – 60 hours unit (That’s how much it can hold in hard drive) – probably during 1998 which means we had this unit for more than five years. It’s running very well with no problem so far. Everyone in my family used it almost daily – my children even tape some of their favorite TV shows such as “Charmed”. It even comes with different mode like best quality, normal and low quality. We set default to “normal” mode so we can record a lot more shows this way.

Back then, we purchased it for $600 something which is quite expensive but I was so interested in it because of no monthly payment and internet online access to this unit.

Over years, I’ve watched Digital Video Recorder (DVR) has gone popular such as TiVo and cable & dish vendors are offering all kind of DVR including PC-based program these days. It is very exciting. Sometime it’s called PVR which stand for Personal Video Recorder.

Of course, you still can get it today but it is pretty cheap unlike before but you have to think about monthly fee. Right now, ReplayTV or TiVo charged about $10-12 a month for service fee or pay $200 lifetime fee.

The unit depends on phone line for updating TV guide and another upgrade every night. You also can look up http://www.myreplaytv.com and get idea what it is like. You can set up any shows over Internet anytime as long as it is over 24 hour’s period. In fact, I don’t use it as much as I would like to but it is still useful.

Right now, DVR has gotten a lot better, they now support such as wireless, LAN, USB-based outlet, and more features to offer inside program, bigger hard drive. I think these features are cool because you are allowed to share it with another TV or PC unlike my old unit. I am not complaining – can wait till it’s broken down

Some people wondered about closed captioning – it works like charm. I’ve seen that it caused minor problem with CC occasionally. You will have to reset the unit or close/open the recorded show and it usually resolve itself.

You can learn all about DVR including tricks, hacks, announcements and share knowledge with everyone else at PVRblog website at http://www.pvrblog.com/

DVR Rocks!!

ReplayTV: http://www.replaytv.com

TiVo: http://www.tivo.com

Grant W Laird Jr.
http://blog.grantlairdjr.com

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite