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Don't listen to the xbox fanboys

I own both a gamecube and a PS2. Speaking from experience, they are both excellent systems. Whether you get a gamecube or a PS2 depends on your gaming preferences. Like the RPG, Fighting, Racing, and Action genres go with the PS2. I'f you like the shooting, platforming, adventure, and survival/horror genres go with the gamecube. gamecube does have it's share of RPGs coming out aswell (Final Fantasy: Chrystal Chronical, Phatasy Star online: Episode I&II (true sequal to PSO) and the Zelda series for example) but not near that of the PS2. Square will have Sony's back for the next few years. I can't really speak for sports games as I'm not a fan and thus have no games. Personally I think gamecube has better games linned up for the future seeing as nintendo now has a large amount of support from sega and now square (two of the best third party developers of all time). I can assure you, there's not much there game-wise with the xbox. The best games currently and in the future are Jet Set Radio Future, Shenmue II, Halo, and Halo II. These games are (or have a high probabillity of being) very good games. Everything else you can either find a port on another system or a much better alternative.

On the subject of graphics capability:

It is undeniable that the xbox wins this but mind you, I'm talking 'capability'. Developers have yet to tap into the true power of the xbox and personally, I doubt they ever will. take a look at some screens of the top games on xbox. go to a site like ign.com or gamers.com. Some will disagree, but they aren't all that much better that the other systems maybe even worse. Look at halo or DOA 3 for xbox, then look at Metroid Prime. I rest my case. PS2 looses this battle. The problem lies in the texture compression. xbox and gamecube have 6 to 1 texture compression. that means for every one texture (different pictures used to "paint" on the polygons) you get on the PS2, xbox and gamecube get six. I could go on and on about the graphical limitations of the systems but a true gamer worries about games, not processing power.

dumbed down-

gamecube:
+ crisp, sharp, colorful graphics which are highly detailed. Extremly fast processing- almost no load times!
-not quite as many polygons as xbox

PS2:
+ more customization for developers- unique texture/lighting effects. Good particle effects.
- muddy textures, really bad jaggies (step ladder look around the edges of polygonal models).

xbox:
+ highest polygon count. detailed textures. everything the PS2 has going for it- a step above.
- not very colorful. Nothing really looks that exciting (in my opinion). though some of you may despise colorful, lively games although I can't imagine who....

Read the review before voting 'yes' or 'no' fanboys.

Because I know 3/4 of the people that vote on these reviews already have GameCubes and lurk, making sure their precious system has good reviews.

I've had a GC for a little over a year now, and I've been extremely disappointed. More than I am with my ps2 actually. Since its release, there have been -maybe- 5 "must have" games for it. And by that, I mean exclusive games available only on the GC. Everyone keeps mentioning Sonic, Ikaruga, Skies of Arcadia Legends and a few others, but those have aldready been done on the Dreamcast. It's kind of funny how people completely ignored those games years ago, but now it's fine to play them. But you can ask any GCer what games to get, and they ALWAYS say the same thing: Smash Bros., Metroid Prime, Zelda...my brain just went numb after that. I couldn't think of any others. And it's funny because Zelda and Smash Bros. are the exact same as they were on the 64 only with graphic upgrades.

The system itself looks nice. That's about all I can give it. It's the smallest of the 3 out right now, but has a few weird things going on with it. Like the handle. I've never seen or heard of anyone actually prancing around with their GC. God...can you imagine some 21 year old Nintendo fanboy going down the street at night "HUR HUR HUR IM GOIN 2 PLAY ZELDA CUZ IT R00LZx0rz PMFGLMAO!!1oneshiftone", only to get beat up by a group of angry 10 year olds? Me too. And why did Nintendo decide to put the games on mini-discs? That completely screws over any real credibility, because now people complain that it can't play audio cds. I don't get why you'd want to play music on your game system, but the GC's out of the picture here. It's sad since even the Sega CD back in the early/mid 90's could do that. At least it has 4 controller ports, which Sony chose to ignore on their system. But it's too bad when your controller looks like a robot threw up on a block of plastic. The d-pad is a joke. There's no way you can play 2-D fighters with this thing. It is good for certain games, notably Smash Bros. Melee, since that isn't a very complicated fighter. But what's with the B button being so dinky next to the huge A button? At least the controller's comfortable to hold. Which is more than I could say for the 64.

I honestly can't reccomend this system to many people unless you've never had a game system before, or are looking for something for someone 14 and under. While people try to defend the GC with "IT'S NOT A KIDDY SYSTEM", yes it is. Oh wow, it has Resident Evil (most of which have been done on the PSone and DC, and are still available for much cheaper than on the GC) and Eternal Darkness. That's it. I don't care for "more mature" games, but Nintendo needs to get with the times. They need to realize that the gamers that've been with them since the beginning have grown up. How many Mario Karts and Zeldas do we need? Every few years they put out the same game with a face-lift and label it as "innovative". But if you insist, get the system with the usual Nintendo line-up of Zelda, Metroid and Smash Bros. It's just too bad that Mario isn't having much luck on the system on his own. Moonshine wasn't exactly on the same level as Mario 64 was...

Get your act together Nintendo. You're trying way to hard. When Sony announced their PSP handheld system, you magically announced the DS handheld shortly after. It's like any time a new system comes out, they have a panic attack and go nuts. The Game.com came out, so they worked on the GBC and GBA. When Sega was doing their thing, the Virtual Boy came out [and failed miserably]. But I'll see their next real system to see how that goes. If it's like the GC, then Nintendo's downfall is coming up soon. Nintendo desperately needs a big-time game. They could've bought Sega, but they didn't. That might've gave them a decent boost. But sadly, Sony's dominating the market right now, and Nintendo's left to release a decent game every 5-8 months.

I love Nintendo GameCube!!!

I love Nintendo GameCube!!! Its the best! You can play with 1,2,3,or 4 players. You also have 2 memory card slots. There are also cool games! The controllers are cool too! There are buttons that say Z,Y,B,A,L,R,C, a control stick, and lots more!
I give this item 5 stars because it is so fun to play with. Its also easy to set it up. If you own a GameCube, take EXTREMELY
GOOD CARE OF IT and read the manual FIRST! You can also connect GameBoy Advance to it! You can also play GameBoy Advance games on it ( If you have a GameBoy Advance and Connector) I love Nintendo GameCube! ITS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Great unit . . Lousy Tech Support/Service

I have had a philips hdr312 TIVO unit for about 18 months. I LOVE TIVO. It is amazing and my family are all TIVO lovers. Even my wife, who hates all my electronics, loves tivo. The pause, rewind and Fast forward are awesome. We never start to watch our show until 20 minutes into it so we can zoom through comercials and still end at normal time.

Now the negative . . my units modem went bad, I sent it to Philips, cost $99 + 25 for shipping. Recieved it back 2 weeks later saying "no repair made, no problem found". Unit was still broken, called service and they agreed I should ship it back (another $25). Again, 2 weeks later returned "no repair made, no problem found". Agian I called philips, they agreed and said they would swap unit with a refurbished unit. I asked that they pay for shipping, they agreed and told me I would recieve a UPS call tag via email with 3-5 days. 3 weeks later and a dozen phone calls, still no call tag and each time I called I was promised by a supervisor I would get it the next day. One Tech support guy told me he's seen this take up to 30 days to get a UPS call tag and suggested I just pay for shipping myself if I do not want to wait. I asked them how is it that if I wanted to return something to L.L. BEAM, UPS would be at my house the next day, yet philips can't seem to get one to me for 3 weeks now. His response "were not L.L.BEAM"

At that point, I finally researched the company and contacted the President of the US division. He was wonderful. He was appauled at my story and within 1 hour of talking to him, (still amazed I got him on the phone)I had someone call me to inform me they were shipping overnight a brand new HDR612(The next model up). The unit arrived Friday, but I was not home, so I am waiting for redelivery tommorow.

I was happy to see management was very upset with the service I recieved and how quickly they reacted to my situation. Hopefully, this might shake up the service department and no one else will go through what I went through.

To the President of Philips . . Thank You!

For once, a product that lives up to its ad slogans

TiVo's claim that they'll change the way you watch TV is completely true. Being able to pause or replay whatever you're currently watching to grab a snack, answer a call, etc. is great. You can't imagine how helpful it is to have almost two weeks of programming information available to pick and chose what to record for the next few days.

I'd recommend the 30hr unit over the 14hr if you can afford it. After you start searching the two week guide by program name, channel name, favorite channels, or by time of day you'll quickly find plenty of things you want to record.

DirecTV viewers will especially find this useful...it makes all those channels much more manageable, and I prefer the TiVo on-screen guide to the one my DSS box provided.

All of the TiVo menus are well thought out, attractive, and *very* easy to use. They include lots of cables - including S-Video, a phone jack splitter (nice touch), and other goodies so almost anyone will find everything they need to hook TiVo up right out of the box. The User's Guide is helpful too, for people who are a little less sure of themselves around stuff like this.

I picked TiVo over ReplayTV because of their close alliance with DirecTV (DirecTV has invested in them), and from reading other people's comments in newsgroups and other forums. After I spent about half an hour going through the program guide and giving various programs 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' ratings (one of the cooler features of TiVo), it came up with a whole bunch of other programs it suggested I might like.

I'm probably sounding like a company spokesperson, but I'm not, I'm just a *very* happy new user of TiVo!

Great product, new low price, Amazon was helpful

Just to begin by replying to a previous review... The fact that TiVo is on all the time is good! This prevents wear on the system and the hard drive. Think about your computer, all the experts advise leaving it on instead constantly turning it on and off... I bought my TiVo recently and Amazon just credited me with the price difference since the TiVo just dropped in price dramatically. The TiVo set-up was long, but simple. The 800 number was assuring since I don't live in a major metropolitan area. I got the lifetime subscription and the $100 Direct TV rebate, so I wound up paying a lot less for my unit overall than for the competition which I checked out. There are no long distance calls with TiVo! I don't save anytime during the day, I still watch 5 hours of TV every night, but now it's quality TV, not just channel surfing. I can also watch more good tv in less time, you can quickly scan through commercials, like a VCR, but you can do it while recording the item. If you start watching a show about 6 to 7 minutes in, while recording it on your TiVo, you can skip the commercials while watching and catch up to live TV without missing anything! It's really easy too! And now the same price as a good VCR, but it's much better. I'm the envy of all my techie-friend! END

Waste of money~~~~Waste of time

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

A TiVo Fan

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

TiVo rocks.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

Waste of money~~~~Waste of time

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

A TiVo Fan

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

TiVo rocks.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

Waste of money~~~~Waste of time

Seriously folks, who wants to spend this much money on a device that turns you into a couch potato, doesn't work right, has a horrible guarantee and reduces your income and mental stability by watching crap like soap operas and other junk

Tivo should rename this product and call it The Automatic Income Reducer.

WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY.

A TiVo Fan

When I first got my TiVo I didn't know what to expect from it, I've read many review stating that it has changed that persons life. I though that those people were just TiVo sales people hyping up what looked to be just a VCR on steroids. But when I started up my TiVo and got the 299.99 service lifetime fee I notice right away that TiVo would make a major difference in my life. Instead of rushing home to watch a show I could take my time knowing that TiVo had everything covered. Plus the feature that allows you to pause rewind and fast forward is worth the fee itself, imagine skipping through any irritating TV commercials or the boring parts of baseball and basketball games, or how about rewinding and using slow motion to watch that NASCAR crash again and again, or that dunk over and over. Imagine never missing your favorite shows and having quality entertainment in your TiVo 24 hours a day. All you have to do is watch it before it gets deleted for space. (Space is the one drawback, if I knew how many shows I would want to record I would have gotten the 80 hour TiVo)It is the greatest thing out there and is so simplistic anyone could use it.

The thing that separates this DVR from all the others are the Season Pass Manager(It records an entire season of episodes such as all of Friends, Survivor, or The Daily Show), The constant service updates that makes sure the show gets recorded even if the TV schedule changes, The View by Actor/ or Actress Feature, and once again the simplicity of the TiVo separates all the poorly made dvr's out there. If you are thinking of buying a dvr don't make a mistake and buy something other than TiVo.

The only bad thing about the box is that there is a small delay when you change channels, and the 299.99 lifetime service fee or 12.95 monthly service fee may seem way too much but after you start using it you'll see that it is worth it.

PS. The remote control in my opinion is like the frosting on the cake. It is very easy to use after the small learning curve.

TiVo rocks.

It has changed my leisure time. The only "live" TV I watch anymore is Fox & Friends and the Weather Channel. The way it fast-forwards through the commercials then knows where to start again when I hit the play button is fantastic. I save several segments of favorite programs then watch them in succession during one evening like a couple of movies. I think that a better set up than this, however, would be to get it integrated with your satellite box so that you could watch one program while recording another. (You can do it with cable and non-premium channels but not with satellite.) Set it up to find your favorite actors or actresses and you'll see them in lots of stuff "before they were famous." Jack Nicholson on Andy Griffith? (Played the role of a 19 year old on trial, Aunt Bea was on the jury.) Wow, what a hoot. I find the quality to be more than adequate but I might not feel that way when the plasma screen gets installed. On my current old 23" I can't tell the difference between recorded and live - picture or sound.

Unit dead after 6 months

After 6 months of using this unit it went completely dead. I took it to an authorized Panasonic repair service center several weeks ago. The service center told me that the needed part, a circuit board, was backordered from Panasonic. The service center also told me that 3 different promise shipment dates for the needed part were not met by Panasonic and there was little they could do. So today, I am still without any idea when the unit will be repaired. I would avoid this unit.

why 5 stars?

We bought the Panasonic DVD recorder three months ago; we still haven't pressed all of the buttons on the remote. And it still functions beyond our expectations. We wanted to save old VHS programs and we wanted to time-shift television programs to watch later (a VCR). Perhaps very little to expect from a device that costs $500 but over twenty years ago we paid $1000 for a Mitsubishi top-loading, two-head VCR. Enough history.

It took almost three hours to hook up to a VCR, a Sony receiver, another DVD player, two TVs and the digital cable box. But when it was turned on, it was fantastic. We used the hard disc drive immediately. Playback was broadcast quality. We dubbed from the VHS to DVD-R; the quality actually improved. We recorded a test DVD-R disc from a commercial DVD and VHS and those both played back flawlessly. The big test came when we recorded a TV program onto DVD-R for a friend who didn't have the cable channel. Her old Sony player played it.

The instruction book is intimidating; read what you need and just keep the book handy. The prompt screens are somewhat intuitive. The most important buttons (after three months of use) are the 'Functions,' the 'Enter,' the four arrow buttons and the stop-pause-play buttons. We expect to learn more the longer we use the recorder.

The Panasonic recorder (with Hard Drive) is an excellent piece of electronic equipment. Well worth the price and deserving 5-stars.

The Future is Brilliant!

This DVD Recorder is exactly as it should be. It's better to record to the HARD DRIVE, the acceptable quality of LP speed is about 70 hours - enough for most people. You do have to use the remote but you can trim off the beginning and middle of shows (commercials). After editing, you can the transfer to a blank DVD-R (you can fit 2-4 hours on 1 disc). Other thanthat, it works exactly like a VCR but there are some additional great differences. For instance, with this Panasonic, you can be recording something on the air now and start to watch something you recorded last night or you can even switch and watch a DVD and it does NOT affect the recording going on (be careful - some recorders do NOT have this feature!). It has a great 100x forward and back so you can skim through a movie in a 5 minutes in perfect clarity. If you want a more indepth review, click on the info about us - metroxing and there's an url with a more indepth review (I'm guessing Amazon doesn't like outside urls in the middle of reviews).

But now, to answer some of the questions for people unclear on what they're getting.

If you have premium/digital channels - yes, this unit cannot change channels on your cable/satellite box - not Panasonic's fault - it's the cable/satellite company!

Picture quality - just because it's a DVD recorder does NOT mean you will achieve the quality of a retail DVD movie. You will essentially get a reasonable facsimilie recording of the exact reception you are getting now - which is actually pretty good. Yes, your cable/satellite reception is compressed - most channels are 5 to 8:1 - most premium movie channels (HBO/Showtime are only compressed 3:1 so they always look better). And yes this DVD/HDD recorder compresses a little bit more - store bought DVD's are also compressed from the original film - on the major releases, they go through frame by frame to adjust it - buy a cheap DVD disc and you can see where they save money. As with compression, you will not get perfect blacks - in a perverted twist, it's because the quality is better, you can see it, VHS tapes with their much lower quality obscures this.

So, yes, it's not as good as a major studio DVD but on the other hand, with blank DVD-R's costing about $1.00 each, that's about $.25 per hour for a pretty nice quality disc with all the functionality of a DVD (fast searches, etc ...). I'm not sure why some people believe they would get a better recording that what they're watching - it's just NOT possible with any machine! But keep in mind you are either taping something because it's cheaper than buying retail or because it's not available, what better way that a tiny disc that holds 4 hours of footage?!

It also has lots of plugs - a set on the front is perfect for hooking up your camcorder and transfering to disc.

If your expectations are in line, this is a great machine and really well designed in setting up recording and using ... it's not a miracle machine, it's just a great DVD/HDD recorder!

don't hesitate to buy it

I have had my Replay for about two months now, and I don't remember how I was able to survive without it.

I almost bought a TiVo, but didn't, because Best Buy had a 15% restocking fee policy on any returned unit, and I thought it was quite possible that the unit wouldn't work with my cable box, and I didn't want to take the risk.

Amazon gives you a 30 day return policy, no restocking fee, so that was enough for me to choose the Replay. The price was essentially the same.

I can watch a lot of TV now in much less time - because I can fast forward or skip through commercials or parts of the show I am not interested in.

It is not perfect - there are clearly some potential improvements to be made in the remote and the software, and I would like to get some extra storage, but the good news is: the unit is upgradable, and surely the changes we want will become available in the near future!

Things I like: - live pause

- easy to set shows to record using the channel guide, nearly idiotproof

- watching shows from the beginning, even while they're recording

- watching any show already recorded, while you're recording another

- the fast forward and skip capabilities

- the theme channels

- the standard recording quality is plenty good enough for me

Things that need improvement:

- disk space management (they don't tell you what their algorithm is, so sometimes you will find a show deleted that you didn't intend; would be nice if they gave you more control over this)

- channel guide could be more clever (some errors in it)

- doesn't have slow motion and frame advance capability

- no way to advance to a particular point in a show (say, 45 minutes in) - you just have to FF to the point (which is fast)

- can't trim shows - to keep the 10 minutes of a two hour show that you really want, say

- can't set it like a VCR to, say, record channel 15 for 15 minutes starting at 8pm - you have to go by the shows in the channel guide (although you CAN set it to record any length of time starting now if you toggle it over to the RF input...)

- would be nice to have a search capability for the channel guide - find the next occurence of a show with the the string 'lincoln' in the title - you can tell it to record shows like that but it doesn't give you any help actually finding them beforehand in the channel guide

life changing

This little recorder make the top 3 list in my house.
I cant imagine doing with out it.. I wish I had the 60 hour
unit now. It don't miss a beat.

regads,
Kelvin

Replay TV - the BEST way to watch TV

I don't know how better to describe this device than to quote my (non-techie wife), who exclaimed that "It's the best way to TV." I've had mine since December, and now have the upgraded 2.0 software (a download which occurred overnight in the routine dialup).

The good: 1. A great program guide that lets you see about 8 days of programming. To record, you simply highlight a show and hit the record button and then you decide if your recording is a one-time event, an "always record" event, and how many episodes of the show you'll keep.

2. Pausing live programming or rewinding a live show. This is great - you get a phone call, hit the pause button and go back to the show. The nice thing is you can catch up to live by fast forwarding the commercials.

3. The quick skip button - lets you jump 30 seconds forward (through commercials). This is a huge time saver and a 30 minute show can be watched in 22 minutes or so (skipping intros and commercials). Seriously, I feel like I'm getting away with something here and HATE watching live TV now as I must sit through the commercials.

4. Search options. As part of the 2.0 upgrade, you can search by show title, actor, dirctor, etc., and pick and choose what you want to record.

5. You can watch one recorded show while it is recording another, or walk in during the recording of a show and start watching it from the start.

The Bad - or, wouldn't it be nice if they included that. 1. It is not clear what show will be deleted if your drive is full - they should advise you at a menu or with a different color on the listing of recorded shows that "This goes next".

2. When you switch channels during live programming, the buffer (for you to rewind to catch dialogue you might have missed) is erased. I've found that if you use your cable box remote rather than controlling the channels from Replay, this gets around this problem.

3. No way to control the dialing in. It is set to dial in every day. I pay for every call, so it would be nice to have it call every other day.

4. Record options don't make perfect sense. You can do a single record or a "record all", the latter of which looks for the same show EVERY DAY at or around the same time. If, for example, you record an HBO show, which they show reruns of on other nights, it'll record the new episode Sunday and the replays during the week. You should have the option of saying record ONCE, DAILY, or WEEKLY rather than once or every time it is on.

5. Channel guides should be translucen (like TIVO) so that you can watch the show as you are programming other shows.

6. It would be nice to see a "task list" where you could see a list of shows that will be recorded today. As it is now, you just see a long list and don't know when the show will be recorded. . .