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| Product: ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder PV-HS2000 |
Company: Panasonic |
| Web: www.panasonic.com |
Phone: 800-843-9788 |
| Platform: Your TV |
SRP: US$700
Street Price: same |
Cred Rating: | Special Award: |
When you first hook up the Panasonic ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder, you view a short video intro where a hyper-peppy host yammers on about how the ShowStopper with ReplayTV Service will "Change forever the way you view television." It sounds like typical advertising hype, but it doesn't take long before you realize this is no hollow conceit. In a matter of hours, I was creating my own recording "channels," searching on keywords, rewinding live TV and well...changing forever the way I view television.
The ShowStopper Hard Disk Recorder PV-HS2000 is Panasonic's ReplayTV with 30 hours of digital recording capability (in the lower-res "Extended" mode). The device hooks up to your TV with typical composite audio/video cables and to your cable (or satellite) service. It also needs a phone jack so that it can log onto the (free) ReplayTV service every night to download the latest 7-day TV schedule.
Set-up is a breeze. After hooking up the cables, you answer some on-screen questions (e.g. area code, local exchange, zipcode) and the ShowStopper finds your local cable service and downloads all the appropriate data. The built-in video introduction tells you most of what you need to get started.
The main interface to the unit is an on-screen guide that looks like the TV Guide Channel (with the addition of show descriptions and the ability to naviagte through seven days of programming). From the guide, you select the shows you wish to record, either single episodes or every time the show plays (in that time slot), and schedule them to record with the touch of a single button (no more date, starting time, ending time, etc.). Another "Replay Zones" interface allows you to select pre-configured recording channels (e.g. sports, fashion, sci-fi). You can also create you own channels. You can create theme channels (e.g. robots, computers) or show channels (e.g. all episodes of La Femme Nikita).
Besides the recording features, the ShowStopper can do just that: stop shows. You can pause a live program when the phone rings or you need a biobreak. You can rewind a show and then fast-forward it. Here's how I now watch the tube: I start a show, mute it, and go do something else. About 20 minutes into the program, I rewind it to the beginning and am able to fast-forward through the commercials or boring parts (like when people aren't actually throwing things on Springer). There are ten fast-forward and re-wind speeds. There is also a instant replay button (offering a 7-second rewind) in case you want to see the chair thrown by the transexual stripper at her mullet-headed boyfriend over and over again. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!
There are a few things I don't like about the ShowStopper. For one, it crashes! The first day we had it, it completely froze. Oh great, I thought, now I have to worry about my freakin' TV crashing too. Holding the On button in for 5 seconds (sound familiar?) made it reboot and everything was fine. I also noticed that in a thunder storm, when the cable signal was lost for a few seconds, it stopped recording the show we had scheduled to record. It's also had moments, while watching live TV on rewind, where it's gone into "Godzilla mode" (the audio and video are not synched up). And there have been times when the video breaks up for a few seconds. Luckily, all of these incidents have been few anhd far between. One feature I thought these HDRs had (maybe the TiVo?) is the ability to be watching a show, and mid-way through, decide to start recording it from the beginnging. Hopefully, future versions will be able to do this.
The television has been around for a long time. Cable, VCRs and satellite TV led to major changes in the way most of us view the Spew. Now "personal video recorders" (or "hard disk recorders," or whatever we're going to end up calling them) are creating another sea change. Sitting there on the couch, searching on key words, creating your own TV channels, pausing live shows, rebooting after a disk crash, you can't help but think that something fundamental has changed. Sure hope those disk crashes aren't part of that fundamental change.
- Gareth Branwyn [8/3/00]
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