Okay, I decided to take the plunge....I really hope its worth it! My ReplayTV should be getting here by the end of the week.

I decided to get a PVR, and originally was going to get a TiVO, but after a little bit of research they seemed to offer an incredibly similar product...Replay had the one feature that ultimately made my decision. The ability to connect it to my PC and backup my recorded show (ultimately backing them up to DVD).

Now...can some one who has actually done this give me a hand on how to set this up. I'm not a computer newb, but I live in a one computer house, so I've never had the need to set up a network. What do I need (a router or some kind?) and what kind of changes will I need to make on my PC? (I'm running Windows 98). Any info/links that will be of use?

Please help me get the most out of my new purchase. I could see how this might be more Tech Talk, but seeing as this does pertain to Replay, maybe someone in here could help me out.

Congrats on your new purchase!

All you need is a router. It's pretty simple. I'm not sure if there will be any conflict with Windows '98.

Here are some links to help you get started:

• ReplayTV FAQ
• Adding a 2nd Hard Drive

OK, I'm finally getting on board. It took a lot of coaxing the mrs (plus I must be one of the only people left on earth proficiant in operating a vcr).
Maybe I missed something, but I see no mention of the dvr feature with digital cable. It costs only $10 a month, nothing else to buy or rent. It can record two channels while watching a third. Maybe it doesn't have as many nice features as Tivo, but it should work pretty well, right? Besides, if I can finally watch 24 and tape scrubs or watch Survivor and tape Friends for the mrs, I'll be pretty happy overall.

Okay, guess I'm a tread killer, sorry.
But still, does anyone else have this system that comes with the digital cable? It seems nice to be able to record right off the guide, but it does have a lot of sorta stupid features. For example, you can't (apparently) record the same program once a week. It's either Sopranos once, or every occurance of the Sopranos (which is like 17 times a week). Also it seems you can't punch in the name of the program you want to find, only can search on a given day.
Does anyone else have this system? (Explorer 8000 DVR)? Any thoughts?

Here's a blog entry detailing one user's experience with the Explorer 8000 DVR.

Also, PVRCompare.com provides a very good information comparing different PVRs. As luck would have it, PVRCompare also provided a review (both long and short) of the Explorer 8000 DVR (listed under Comcast DVR). There's even a excellent feature chart that provides a quick rundown of the features available among the different DVRs, including the Explorer 8000 DVR.

I actually wish my cable offered a DVR because I would go with it. From what I understand many are comparable to TIVO and Replay (but a little inferior), which is cool. As long as a can do the equivalent to a season pass, I'd be happy.

My wife's cousin has it and it seems to work fine.

I can't get satelite, so I'd rather not have to buy a box and spend $13/month on top of it. With the cable company DVR you generally just pay $10/mo.

Thanks for the info, toq. I agree with most of the things in the PVRCompare review, but they seem especially critical of it. I think it's a real bargain and I can live with the cumbersome interface (though I don't like it much at all; how hard would it have been to upgrade that to make it searchable by title, for god's sake?). The dual tuner is a real plus for me, both for scheduling conflicts and for PIP as well.

The best thing is if I get sick of this, I could always switch to tivo without any problem since there is no upfront costs or rental or subscription fees for this service; just the $10/mo user fee.

I just got the Explorer 8000 last night. While it is not as good as the Tivo/Replay, it is nice to have a DVR w/ no up front cost. I have been draggin my feet on a DVR because I wanted 2 tuner and was not wanting to go to Sat, and Cox finally released these in my area. Now they just need to set up season passes, I opted to record the Simpsons, chose all, and it is recording the syndicated shows as well.

Yeah. I get that it's not smart like a tivo, but why the heck can't I set it to record the same time every week or every day like my 10 year old VCR can?

I thought you could manually set it to record the same time on the same day every week.

I do not know why there is no season pass option. I am at a loss as to what the monthly fee is for since it appears not to have a simple season pass, or at least not for shows that have repeats and syndication.
How can you tell what software it is running? Apparently the Pioneer software is better than the SARA.

I have a quick question on replay conflict resolution. Say I have a show set to record on Sunday at 9 every week. I also have a theme channel that happens to have to record a show at the same time. The theme channel was setup after the show recording. Which will it record?

Show-based recordings (Sunday at 9) will always take precedence over theme-based recordings.

To add my question to the thread...

I'm thinking of getting a Tivo (basic one for old fashioned analog cable), but I'm confused about the monthly fee. Is it true that you only have to pay the fee if you take advantage of the season pass feature, or do you have to pay it regardless?

On all new TiVos you have to get a subscription for it to work at all. On older, Series 1, TiVos if you don't a subscription you won't have access to guide data but can program it like you would a VCR.