1. Doesn't have a display to quickly show what's currently recording. (Hack: exit all programs and use Channel Up or Down, and it switches to the currently recording channel.)

Simpler hack: press Channel Guide button, and the currently-tuned program will be highlighted. (this is one of the things the Replay gets better than the Tivo, IMHO)

I mean, it's got an 80 Gb drive: can't it remember what I've seen before? that might take a megabyte or two over the course of a year of viewing. Even if it took 50 Mb, it would still be worth storing and cross-comparing.

The Tivo (mine with a 30GB drive) says it disregards multiple airings of the same description when they occur within 28 days of each other. Seems like an able compromise.

Maybe that's the problem. I mean, it's got an 80 Gb drive: can't it remember what I've seen before? that might take a megabyte or two over the course of a year of viewing. Even if it took 50 Mb, it would still be worth storing and cross-comparing.

I'm not sure exactly how you have the offending program set up, but we have Good Eats set as a theme-based channel, non-guaranteed. We've got it set to record 1 hour's worth (i.e., two episodes). We'll always have the two latest shown eps recorded, and they will always be different eps. They will never be two copies of the same ep. If we watch one ep and delete it, the next time it shows the Replay will record it again, because it doesn't have a memory of what we've seen.

Thanks for the tips, Tom! I've had the Mayo problem as Nat talks about it. If the same program is shown several times even with a description, it will sometimes record it multiple times!

Which software update are you talking about? I noticed the ADVERTISING but nothing else.

3. Doesn't have a simple, record this program once option.

Bzzzzt. Bring up the Program Guide, then simply press the Record button to make a guaranteed one-time recording. Press it twice to make it a guaranteed every-time recording. Press it three times to toggle recording off.

4. Doesn't merge multiple programs with the same description.

Not sure what you mean by this, but it doesn't sound like a desirable feature, especially for users that get a lot of channels. For example, I have local cable and Dish Network both running through the Replay box; I also get East Coast network feeds from the satellite. Replay nicely creates a unified program guide for the different input sources. If, say, the same episode of Buffy was playing on the local Fox station, and on the UPN stations in New York and Boston, I want to know about it, so that I can choose to record Buffy off the satellite (because it records 3 hours earlier, but mostly because the picture quality is far better off the satellite channels).

Nat said:

So if you tell it to record Good Eats, it'll grab the Mayonnaise episode four times?

No, it won't do that. It will only record the Mayo episode once. If the show has no description, like the Daily Show, it will record multiple eps.

6. Can't review a list of upcoming scheduled recording.

This is clearly the biggest ReplayTV problem compared to Tivo. It's a long-standing request, one that will hopefully be covered in a future software update.

7. It lacks a preference observation algorithm so it doesn't record on its own.

Bug or feature? I personally don't want my Replay recording stuff on its own. But I know many Tivo users that love this feature. Personal preference, I guess. By the way, the lack of this feature is one reason why the Replay has a far larger pause buffer than the Tivo.

9. No button to move a day ahead in the program schedule, which can span two weeks.

True, but you can jump ahead or back in 12-hour increments, which is OK. Just press FF or Rew in the Program Guide.

10. The low-res mode which gives you 80 hours needs to be improved. I hope they develop better algorithms (or 200 Gb hard drives become cheap).

This should have gotten better for you in the past week or so, with the recent software update. One thing the update did do is enable 160 Gb drives, so you could hack your box now.

Tivo addresses some of these (2,3,4,6,7, and 9), to varying degrees.

2. Doesn't offer an extended list of conflict resolution when you have many programs that want to be recorded at once.

Not even a simple hierarchy of show preference? What does it do when a conflict arises in the latest schedule data?

4. Doesn't merge multiple programs with the same description.

So if you tell it to record Good Eats, it'll grab the Mayonnaise episode four times? Yikes. Comedy Central doesn't provide listing information for The Daily Show, so the Tivo records that whenever it sees it, but that show is the only such offender. I tell it to keep a limit of two episodes on hand so they don't stack up.

6. Can't review a list of upcoming scheduled recording.

That's astonishing. The Tivo To-do list is my main UI anchor. There's even a mnemonic shortcut for it on the remote.

9. No button to move a day ahead in the program schedule, which can span two weeks.

I thought this about the Tivo for a while, but there are what they call "filter" options for the program schedule, which include picking a date. Awkward, but not as awkward as pounding the buttons for five minutes.

My peeves about the Tivo are things like an inability to jump back to the beginning of the live TV buffer, the fact that the live TV buffer gets cleared when you change the channel, the lack of any space-remaining estimate, the lack of on-unit controls (apparently corrected with the Series2), inability to queue up a bunch of programs for sequential playback (such as to a VCR), modem dependence, and envy over the newer Replays' ability to share programs with other people.

Incidentally, I noticed that Tivo and Sonicblue are playing the reciprocal litigation game again.