Awhile back, there were two big DVR/PVR companies – ReplayTV and Tivo. Both offered about the same features – namely the ability to record and pause live TV. Flash forward a number of years and Tivo is actually a verb as well as a product. Where’s ReplayTV? Well, they’ve gone bankrupt and gotten bought out by Sonic Blue. Sonic Blue went bankrupt, and they’ve been bought by Denon. Replay is still around, but it’s nowhere near as popular as Tivo.

That’s too bad too, because ReplayTV is way cool. Right now, I am watching Battlestar Galactica from my roommate’s Replay over our network. That in itself isn’t bad, but it gets better. I have an program running on a system in our loft called DVArchive that will act as a virtual ReplayTV. I can copy recorded shows to the hard drive and serve them to the two ReplayTVs in the condoment (technically, it’s a condo, but I think it’s an apartment). Despite all of this awesome-ness the ReplayTV, like Beta-Max before it, is being beaten by a lesser competitor. Sometimes the free market really blows.

So anyway, I’m getting my geek on right now. My ReplayTV rocks.

Oh… one other thing. This Replay has automatic commercial advance. Most times, I don’t even have to hit a button to skip over commercials. When people at parties talk about funny ads, I just laugh loudly and think, you poor people still living through those 30-second bits of hell. Poor people. Poor, poor people. My ego thus thoroughly inflated, I can enjoy the rest of the night.