Blurb said:
I've had ReplayTV since they first came out, and have bought upgraded models since. I disagree with the above post stating that ReplayTV's guide and conflict mgmt is far inferior to Tivo's. First, that is just a matter of opinion, so there is NO right or wrong answer to who's best.
Not true. I wouldn't call it a matter of opinion.
Does Replay have a to do list? Is there one location where you can definitively see thing that will record? Is there a place you can look to see what won't record or didn't record any why (conflict, power failure, show no longer in guide)? Have you seen Tivo's season pass manager where you can set the priority of all your season passes and auto-record wish lists (and then see the effect in the to do list and view recording history)? You can't do that on Replay.
Here's an excerpt from the review I pointed out [regarding Replay's 5K series units]:
"Show channels (repeating recordings) and single record channels, both of which have equal recording priorities, and themes (keyword recordings). ReplayTV only checks for conflicts between show and single record channels, and only at the time you set up the conflicting show. Themes are not conflict checked, and are assigned lower priority than other recordings...
ReplayTV has no accessible priority list, so you can't see or adjust show priorities directly."
Here's another long excerpt:
"ReplayTV resolves schedule conflicts between series as they appear in the guide just as Tivo does, according to the choices you made when you originally scheduled the conflicting series. I can't say what it does if a schedule change creates a conflict between two shows that didn't previously conflict because I haven't yet nabbed one, but ReplayTV seems to behave as though it has an internal priority list created by the conflict choices you make. If there is such a list and it uses it to resolve conflicts there is probably a good chance conflicts will be resolved the way you want. However it's not as graceful when they aren't. Finding conflicts requires scanning the channel guide for grey dots, which is much more time consuming and error prone than Tivos to-do list or recording history. ReplayTV is also less flexible about letting you change the outcome of conflicts in advance. Unlike Tivo there's no way to simply force a losing episode of a series to record or suppress recording of a winning episode without altering settings for the whole series. Selecting "record this show only" on a losing episode of a series can either bump up the priority of all episodes, or it may turn off recording of the whole series leaving only the episode you selected marked, and that still with a grey "will not record" dot (I've seen it do both; I haven't figured out why it does one or the other). Using "turn off record" on an episode of a series disables recording of the whole series. The simplist trick is to disable recording of one of the shows for the specific day of the week, then remember to set it back after the show is recorded.
ReplayTV also suffers from the lack of a tool to examine and alter the priority list, if there is one. The only way to affect series recording priorities seems to be to disable and re-enable series recordings. Finally, ReplayTV offers no control over or information about what theme channels will record what shows. Making themes consistently lower priority than other recordings eliminates some of the uncertaintly that their prior software created, but it would be nice if themes were at least as controllable as other recordings types, as they are on Tivo."
That's inferior in my book.
