I've been a happy ReplayTV customer for a few years now - but the Replay box isn't officially supported in Canada.

I've had to program all my recordings as "Manual Records," where I manually set the time, date, and channel I'd like to record.

When I upgraded my TV to an HD compatible set, I decided to get a Rogers Cablevision HD set-top box - and decided to get the PVR model at the same time. I envisioned a beautiful utopia where I could simply click the "Record" button while viewing the guide, and all my shows would be recorded in HD digital splendor, for my viewing enjoyment.

I picked the PVR up at my local Rogers store. Easy. As the transaction completed, the sales lady told me "Remember to power it off every night. You have to turn it off." This is slightly alarming, but, what the heck... and I head for home with my nice new PVR.

Unfortunately, everything was not quite as smooth as I had hoped.

Because...

The Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8000 HD sucks!

The Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD sucks too!

And here's why...

I currently have a Scientific Atlanta Explorer 8300 HD. This is a recent upgrade from the 8000 model which I had for a few months.

My PVR is a Sara model, version #####

I'm Rich Loen, a software engineer (got my degree in 1985) and have worked in many fields in computer science over the past 20 years. I've worked as a firmware programmer, gui designer, I've been CTO of companies providing shrink-wrapped software products, I've worked on low level applications in assembly, C, C++, and high level apps in VB, .Net, C++.

I currently own a consulting company (and have for the past 10 years) that is doing telephony design, and even software for set-top boxes!

I've won awards (Young Entrepreneur of the Year, Best of Show at Internet World, Company of the Year, Fast 50 Companies)

I simply feel that the softare running on the Explorer is very poorly done. No self-respecting engineer should have let this leave the shop. It is clearly the victim of massive compromise, and very bad design. I'm sad and mad to read in the forums about happy newbies heading out to buy their first Explorer - actually paying cash for it!! I'm pissed, but I'm pretty happy I'm renting so I can upgrade when I need to.

Or, is the software being forced to be terrible by cable companies who simply want their customers to view every commercial!