<< Well you should have been more specific than "Since panasonic has dropped development of these units, they will not be updated to the latest version of the Replay Software"
So standalone unit are getting updated, combos are not?
Not like I would buy a combo >>
Since the thread concerns the combo units, I had thought everyone would have known that "these units" refered to the combo units. But that is sematics, as long as it is clear now.
Re: Hackability
If you now how to change a harddrive in a computer you will be able to upgrade the harddrive in the standalone Replays (note that you should always try to get 5400rpm drives to upgrade with due to heat). I paid for 3 30 hour units, but upgraded them to 80, 60 and 60 very easily.
If you have a win2k box there is a nice gui program you can use to configure a new harddrive (I am pretty sure it works in XP also, not confident, follow the link posted above by Z80 I am sure it will go into it). I am not sure if anyone has successfully upgraded a combo unit yet. The programs should work the same, but it is probably alot harder to open the machine up to get to the drives. Also there may not be room to mount a 2nd drive. Go to avsforum.com and post a message and there will be plenty of people to help you out. Technically, the boxes can support up to 2 120gb drives (for a total of 240gb), but some users have reported problems when you go over 150gb total. It has to do with the ram in the machine so if you have over 150gb and alot programs scheduled to record, you may encounter problems.
I plan on eventually upgrading all of my machines to 140gb (one 80 gb drive and one 60gb drive). That will give me over 40 hours at high quality per machine which is more than enough for me
Scyber