The Other TiVo

The name TiVo, much like Kleenex, iPod and Velcro, has become almost synonymous with its product category. These days, nearly every cable and satellite provider offers a DVR (or PVR), usually not branded by any name other than their own, despite boxes made by Scientific Atlanta, Motorola and others. But in the beginning, during the dark ages of digital TV recording, there was another: ReplayTV.

Announced at the same CES as TiVo, ReplayTV offered the same novel concept to a public that largely still doesn't understand its value: record shows automatically, watch them at your leisure and do so without commercials. It's that latter point that is delicately talked around in TiVo's world (just oblique references to "Fast-Forwarding," not specifically for skipping commercials). Where TiVo smartly avoids discussing this feature, ReplayTV dove in head first, without checking the depth of the water.

The feature was named "Commercial Advance," and as far as the Networks and other content providers were concerned, ReplayTV was trying to kill them—and hard. You see, unlike a simple fast-forward button, Commercial Advance would sense when the commercials started and automatically skip them. For end users, this was every bit as awesome as it seems. Sadly the companies that make their money from those commercials didn't see it that way. It was a direct assault on their only means (at the time) of revenue. Commence lawsuit in 3...2...1...

And if that wasn't enough to be sued out of existence, there was another feature that was way ahead of its time. If a friend also had a ReplayTV box, you could "send" them a show you thought they might like. Pretty cool idea, right? This seemingly innocuous feature got the hackles up of a whole new set of people. When you distill it down, you were technically copying the content from one box to the other, and that is pretty much the definition of copyright infringement.

The company SONICBlue bought ReplayTV in 2001, less than two years after boxes started shipping to consumers. Mired in legal hell, SONICBlue filed for bankruptcy two years later. In hindsight, there was no way the army of content providers was going to let one small company take down their entire business model.

ReplayTV/SONICBlue sold off their assets to D&M Holdings, the Japanese conglomerate of such brands as Denon, Marantz (the D and M), McIntosh and more. D&M was going to have nothing to do with threatening TV networks and immediately tossed out the two main features that separated ReplayTV from TiVo and other competitors. The last models were even "updated" via software update to remove the commercial skip feature.

What was known as ReplayTV bled away through the years, eventually leaving the hardware business. It was later sold to DirectTV, almost certainly for any patents ReplayTV may have held.

Sadly, the effect ReplayTV may have had on the industry is minimal, at least from a feature standpoint. We'll never see automatic commercial skip on a mainstream product, and being able to legally send shows to friends remains doubtful.

Today, owners of ReplayTV boxes still have their channel guides automatically updated, despite the company effectively no longer existing. Even the mighty TiVo represents only a fraction of the category they helped to found with the majority of DVRs being shoddy boxes from cable providers. One feature, though, lives on. ReplayTV boxes with Ethernet could share files across a LAN, allowing you to watch in one room, pause and continue watching in another. Perhaps not as incredible as Commercial Advance, but cool nonetheless.

PRICE: $150-2,000, plus $12.95 per month, though a lifetime subscription was available

LEGACY: Sadly, not much. As cool as the features were, columns like this will be the only remembrance. Except for those of us who remember their time with ReplayTV nostalgically.