Comment Point-by-point response to Gary (Score 2, Interesting) 726
> VOD servers cost much less
Perhaps to the VOD provider, but to the end user? Everywhere I've lived there's one and only one cable provider. Monopoly prices won't be as competitive as Replay/TiVo/UltimateTV in competition.
Plus, with ReplayTV I can queue up a pile of movies from HBO, and bring it to the Tahoe cabin for the weekend.
> Disk noise wakes my wife
That's not an intractable problem. In a few years you'll just keep the main ReplayTV in the family room and stream the movie to ultra-quiet and cheaper player units in the other rooms.
> Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
This matters absolutely zero to me, and probably to most people. I want my laptop cooler, not my ReplayTV.
> Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
Disk size limitations? Disk sizes grow exponentially. By the time HDTV is provided to my apartment complex (it's a new and nice apartment but they don't see HDTV on the near horizon), I'm sure 1 Tb disks will be commonplace. 2 Tb maybe.
> Records multiple concurrent shows
TiVo's 2 tuners already do that. Rarely are there more than 2 good shows on. Rarely is there one good show on, which is why I need the ReplayTV to time shift. :-)
> Moving parts break more often
This feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Besides, I'd be more worried about my cable company's VOD going down and them not caring. I only have the one provider, remember. What am I gonna do, antenna? Besides, I bought one of the first dozen ReplayTV units and never had a single problem.
There were a few more points. I'll leave those to someone else. I've got TV to watch.
-jh-
P.S. If I must pay 1c for each skipped commercial, do I then get 1c for each commercial I watch twice? It seems only fair, and with some of those Victoria Secret commercials...
Perhaps to the VOD provider, but to the end user? Everywhere I've lived there's one and only one cable provider. Monopoly prices won't be as competitive as Replay/TiVo/UltimateTV in competition.
Plus, with ReplayTV I can queue up a pile of movies from HBO, and bring it to the Tahoe cabin for the weekend.
> Disk noise wakes my wife
That's not an intractable problem. In a few years you'll just keep the main ReplayTV in the family room and stream the movie to ultra-quiet and cheaper player units in the other rooms.
> Replay box hot enough to fry an egg -- Is that a feature?
This matters absolutely zero to me, and probably to most people. I want my laptop cooler, not my ReplayTV.
> Disk size limitations mean obsolescence, esp. with HDTV
Disk size limitations? Disk sizes grow exponentially. By the time HDTV is provided to my apartment complex (it's a new and nice apartment but they don't see HDTV on the near horizon), I'm sure 1 Tb disks will be commonplace. 2 Tb maybe.
> Records multiple concurrent shows
TiVo's 2 tuners already do that. Rarely are there more than 2 good shows on. Rarely is there one good show on, which is why I need the ReplayTV to time shift.
> Moving parts break more often
This feels like scraping the bottom of the barrel. Besides, I'd be more worried about my cable company's VOD going down and them not caring. I only have the one provider, remember. What am I gonna do, antenna? Besides, I bought one of the first dozen ReplayTV units and never had a single problem.
There were a few more points. I'll leave those to someone else. I've got TV to watch.
-jh-
P.S. If I must pay 1c for each skipped commercial, do I then get 1c for each commercial I watch twice? It seems only fair, and with some of those Victoria Secret commercials...
