git-annex does not seem to support all kinds of urls that git does.

Specifically, if I have ~/bar set up on host foo:

[remote "foo"]
## this one is not recognized as ssh url at all
#   url = foo:bar
## this one makes git-annex try to access '/~/bar' literally
#   url = ssh://foo/~/bar
## this one works
    url = ssh://foo/home/tv/bar

scp-style is now supported.

~ expansions (for the user's home, or other users) are somewhat tricky to support as they require running code on the remote to lookup homedirs. If git-annex grows a git annex shell that is run on the remote side (something I am considering for other reasons), it could handle the expansions there. --Joey

Update: Now ~ expansions are supported. done