Installation guide

Although the 50XX series line included a USB 1.1 port and the 55XX series line included a USB 2.0 port, the port was never

activated in the software. While the firewire port in the early 20XX line was likely for storage expansion, the USB port was

probably added to allow for USB to Ethernet connectivity, or possibly storage expansion.

(The above dates were obtained from researching the ReplayTV web site via the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)

The current owner of ReplayTV is Digital Networks North America, whose parent company is D&M Holding, which is also parent

to the Denon and Marantz brands as well Escient and Rio. In 2005 the company decided to focus on software and software

licensing, abandoning DVR hardware production entirely. (For ReplayTV company history click here.)

• ReplayTV 5XXX Series Motherboard Revisions

There are at least two versions of motherboards used in 50XX and 55XX series ReplayTVs. Early 50XX models use a version 5

motherboard and the fan is not controlled by the motherboard. Later 50XX models use a version 7 motherboard and the fan is

controlled by the motherboard (so it's quieter). 55XX ReplayTVs use either version 5 or 7 and the fan is controlled by the

motherboard in either version. Note: even though the fan is controlled by the motherboard and runs at a lower speed than

earlier models, it generally runs at one constant speed and is either on or off. As stated above, when the fan is controlled by

the motherboard, it cannot be replaced by anything other than an identical model to the OEM fan. Any other fan will result in

a "fan lock detected" error message. Here are some pictures of the different motherboard versions. For all intents

and purposes they look the same.

• ReplayTV PC Edition

ReplayTV (DNNA) stopped producing new ReplayTV hardware a year or two after the introduction of the 55XX series ReplayTV

in 2003. In 2006 DNNA announced ReplayTV PC Edition for the computer. Many observers called the ReplayTV PC Edition

"too little, too late" as it does not have support for high definition television, supports only a few TV tuners from Hauppauge

and is designed to be viewed on a computer, not a television. There is plenty of mature DVR software for the computer that

offers much more than ReplayTV PC Edition, including Beyond TV, SageTV, MythTV, Freevo and Windows Media

Center among others.

• ReplayTV rebooted and Replay Guide is blank (shows disappeared)

There is also a fairly rare problem where the Replay Guide may be blank after a reboot and all recorded shows are gone. If the

OS detects a problem with the file system or the drive, it may decide to reset things and that means clearing the Replay

Guide. The shows may still be on the drive, but since the Replay Guide now has no record of them, the only way to retrieve

them is with extract_rtv5. The recovered shows can then be imported into DVArchive or burned to DVD. It would be a good

idea to run the manufacturer's diagnostics on the drive to make sure there is not some problem developing that would lead to