*Rebate Dead* RCA Scenium (DVD/PVR) @ Circuit City: $183 ~ $194 AR

[GnatGoSplat]

Thanks Atrac, I might just do that. Surely they won't need the serial # part. Beats being on hold for 15-minutes with customer service anyway.

 

[dr wily]

hey didnt want to start my own thread but buy.com has this pvr, the "newer" one the 7005 for 235 after 15$ coupon and 50$ rebate. I haven't found a lick of info on the new model and if they fixed anything with it but i was intrigued by the price and the progressive dvd along with some simple free tivo-ing..

I almost got a replay 5000 on clearance for 360 a couple weeks ago online with lifetime but you get a dvd and save 125$..

Anyone have info? The RCA site is worse than the description at most etailers.. just pathetic..

 

[thefish]

Buyer beware on this one. I took my two units back because the PVR feature was not desirable to use with a cable box. The DVD player was fine, but the free guide would lose all its info every two days and it seldom taped the right show that I selected from the guide. Also, the PVR would only change channels on my cable box for a few days and then I wouldn't work at all. I had to go thru the setup again to get it working, but then it would stop after a few days again. Even the timer program would not change channels. I had this same experience with both units. Everytime I set it to tape, I programmed the VCR as a backup and ended up watching the VHS half of the time.

If you use regular cable without a converter/digital box, then you should be fine although there still is the problem of data for the guide. The build quality is good and the picture quality was comparable to TIVO an ReplayTV.

I am holding out for something cheap with TIVO Basic in it or for my cable company to get a DVR built-in cable box.

 

[GnatGoSplat]

Only difference I can find is it has a 40GB HD vs. 30GB.
It might be completely different, or maybe just the same thing with newer firmware.
As much as I like my two Sceniums, they really are buggy. I record stuff every night, and in 1-month there have been 2 recordings with no audio. Once it also aborted a recording with a vague message, "An Error Has Occurred". On my other Scenium, I have had it 2-months and it has made 1 silent recording. Luckily it has never had an error occur. Both have the same firmware dating back to 2002.

RCA customer support is terrible (no answers to email). The very least they can give us is a firmware upgrade.

 

[dr wily]

I love your sig, yeah despite all the problems its right in my ballpark for price and I have just standard cable as well. I heard you can still set the timer or do vhs style recording on the digital channels, just you dont get the tivo like interface. I might call a support number and see if they know the difference between the 7000 and 7005, i found 2 different PDF instruction books, on was the old 7000 on rcascenium and one that says 7005 on yahoo when searching for rca drs-7005 in the search. From what i can tell they are the same though.

lol i was checking the pages and one difference was:
7000: Since this product can do alot of neat stuff...
7005: Since this product is multi-functional...

found a real one: page 28 talks about the mp3s, the old one talks about the flash device on the usb to transfer and the new one does not. ok after reading it the main difference is that the 7005 does not have a usb port for using a MMC reader to transfer jpgs or mp3s, you have to do that with a CDR, they also wrote some of the menu system differently and the bottom is C 2003 instead of 2002. Didnt say anything about a firmware update though. If they removed the usb and such from the menu there might be a chance that they fixed some problems.

 

[dr wily]

bump

 

[MOONKEY]

I don't seem to find any hack for this unit, mainly for a larger hard drive. After using Tivo and Replaytv, I really want something which works without the requirement of a phone line -- guess what, someone can program a vcr here.

I know, a $200 video card will do better, but it is a different story.