Service Charges Irk ReplayTV Customers

Stamford Advocate ^ | 12/31/03 | May Wong (A.P.)

[Holly_P]

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- People who gleefully treated themselves or others to a shiny new ReplayTV digital video recorder this Christmas may not be as happy anymore.

DVRs are the latest alternative to VCRs, and an untold number of customers recently took advantage of ReplayTV's dramatic price drop to $149 for its lowest-end 40-hour model, thinking the deal included three years of service, which is needed for the devices to work.

Now, some are furious, after their service was disconnected and they were told they must pay additional fees to reactivate it.

"It's almost like buying a car and having the car later stop working, saying you can't drive it anymore unless you give us more money," said Eric Maur, 26, of Kaneohe, Hawaii.

Officials with Santa Clara, Calif.-based ReplayTV could not be reached for comment late Wednesday. But in a statement about the consumer complaints, the company said it is assessing the situation "to find the best possible solution."

DVRs, pioneered by TiVo and ReplayTV, allow users to automatically record television programming onto a hard disk instead of videotape. Users can also pause live TV, watch instant replays or skip commercials.

Maur was among those whose eyes popped on Dec. 17 when several retailers, including Amazon.com and Circuit City, began advertising the reduced price, saying it included three years of free service. That's how it was labeled on the product itself, inside and outside, Maur said.

Before the price change, the 40-hour ReplayTV models cost $499 including the three years of service. The required service handles the television programming information that's needed to make the recording features work.

Angry postings started to emerge on

[RichardW]

I just got one this last week through Dish. Now THIS is the way to watch TV. Fantastic.

[Monty22]

There's a Tivo that has a built in DVD recorder now.

More are coming.

There are people here that are anti-Tivo, and OBVIOUSLY never used one. Once you have one, you have pro-tivo posts.

It's just how it is. The ignorant simply can't comprehend it. It's like explaining freerepublic or entire internet to a cave man. They won't even understand the fundamentals.

They'll say 'oh, it's just like scratching stuff on the walls and someone else reads it'. That's how all these VCR comparisons come across. There's no comprehension.

[pointsal]

Better schedule hearings with Ms. Boxer....this sounds like a national emergency

[Monty22]

"ReplayTV has a 30 sec advance button in addition to the fast forward controls."

With a tivo do this and you got the same thing:

Type in select-play-select-3-0-select to turn on the 30 second skip mode. You should hear a "ding-ding-ding" sound. That means you've made change.

[gcruse]

Okay, I know what you mean about commercial skipping.
A couple of years ago, there was a TV show about the best
commercials of the year. I wouldn't have recorded it but
the TIVO did. If you've never sampled (you don't really fast forward in the sense of a VCR) through commercials, you don't know what a touch it takes to do it just right. And you can't imagine the confusion I had trying to sample through the commercials of a show about commercials. LOL

[gcruse]

Bingo. It's like trying to explain sex to a virgin.

[oceanview]

is that some kind of hidden sequence, or is it documented?

also, did Replay ever implement that feature where you could send a friend with another Replay a recorded show over an ethernet/cable modem? I know they were being sued for that also, the MPAA and RIAA own the courts.

[Monty22]

As far as I know, you can't do that on replay.

And also, that's an 'undocumented' crack on the tivo. But very simple. It resets whenever you power the unit off/on, but fast to put back in.

Also, there is now a Tivo with DVD-R recording. I'm waiting for one with Directv/Tivo/DVD-R. Right now I have the Directv/Tivo one, and I tell you. It's the best consumer electronics device ever, in history.

$50 a month would be a bargain for it, and I do not work for anyone involved in this stuff. It's just that good. With a DVD-r, it'll be the ultimate.

Of course, with HDTV too, that'll be even better someday :)

[NYCVirago]

Get DVR service from your local cable company. Time-Warner has this for $8.95 a month, it works great, and you don't need to pay for the equipment.

[snarkpup]

Did I miss something?...Did your Tivo do what a $60.00 VCR can't?...

I used to do exactly what you described, only on a VCR 20 yrs ago.

I programmed a couple dozen "wish lists" into my Tivo to hunt for any program involving selected topics, actors, titles, etc. Whenever I hit the search button, it checks every upcoming program in the next two weeks (on all my selected channels) to see if any of the wishlists apply. (Its program guide has almost two orders of magnitude more detail than, say, TV Guide.) If you multiply the number of wish lists by the number of programs per day, times the number of channels, times 14 days, you come out with something like 2/3 of a million comparisons. My VCR couldn't do that.

[Howlin]

Articles from the Stamford Advocate must be excerpted is why I didn't post the entire article.

Why?

[lewislynn]

That's all very interesting, and I would find it interesting if I could find ONE thing on TV worth the effort of recording with any kind of contraption.

[Holly_P]

Because:


The Advocate articles must be excerpted.

You may choose to Auto-Excerpt, which will attempt to excerpt the first paragraphs upto about 100 words. Or, you may choose to return to Edit the article yourself. Be sure to check "This is an excerpt." on the edit form to confirm your article is excerpted and to prevent this message from showing again.

[Holly_P]

That doesn't answer your question though does it? I don't know why articles from the Advocate must be excerpted. I just follow the rules.