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I have owned a ReplayTV 5040 in the past, so I am familiar with the product. However, I was never a heavy user of it because it doesn't make much sense (to me) to use that over a DirecTiVo with dual tuners.


Ah, see! Dual tuners. That's a substantive thing that I wasn't even thinking about where the HR20 clearly wins over my solution, which involves two separate ReplayTVs (and thus two separate DirecTV receivers.)

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I have used a ReplayTV 2000-series more extensively and the UI between that and the 5000-series seemed very similar to me. My opinion of it that it's pretty awful compared to a TiVo. I'm sure it's something that you can get used to, but I never caught on.


That's fair, and the ReplayTV UI does look a bit dated, but in terms of the "I" part (the interface itself, not the aesthetics) I think it works great. Scheduling programs, editing record options, etc. couldn't be any easier.

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Aside from a better UI, the HR20 would gain you access to video on demand similar to what cable offers. Most basic cable channels have their own VOD content/channel and the vast majority of the content is free. Available content can be snippets of shows, entire episodes, or full moves in the case of Starz On Demand.



Yeah, my girlfriend has Comcast VOD. The whole VOD concept fails for me because the amount of available content is usually very limited. It gets better with HBO on demand etc. but the amount of standard freebie content would have me using VOD maybe once a month.

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Where the HR20 falls flat is dual live buffer. It will only buffer one buffer for up to 90 minutes. A DirecTiVo will buffer both tuners for up to 30 minutes each. I'd rather have the Tivo way.



There's another thing I hadn't considered. ReplayTV lets you live buffer up to the amount of disk space you have. Many hours if you like. I never understood why any of the newer DVRs imposed these small limits on how much live content you can buffer. I'm sure it's a technical limitation, but it's one I don't like.


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There was a service fee at some point. It just happened to be at a higher price and only occurred once.


Yeah, but remember, my question was why *I* should go to HR20 when I have ReplayTV's I've already paid the lifetime fee for. I can't un-pay for them, so any decision to go to the HR20 has to take into account the fact that I already have DVRs with free (paid for) service.

On another note, I was curious about the Dish Network side of things, so I looked into the Dish DVRs, particularly the 722 model. It seems like a nice unit, with real 30 second skip and so forth. Reviews on the DBStalk forums seem pretty positive.

I'd lose some HD channels going from DirecTV to Dish, and most of all the NFL package, but that might be something I could possibly live with. I know DirecTV has a much larger HD rollout plan than does Dish, but I don't know if any of the channels they have exclusively matter to me. If they don't, I think I'd seriously consider Dish for the DVR alone.

Also, it appears Dish only charges you an extra DVR fee when your # of DVRs is greater than 2. I'd only need 2, so it'd be a flat $5.99 fee.
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- Tony C
my empeg stuff