Philips HDR312 TiVo 30-Hour Digital Video Recorder
For once, a product that lives up to its ad slogans
TiVo's claim that they'll change the way you watch TV is completely true.  Being able to pause or replay whatever you're currently watching to grab a snack, answer a call, etc. is great.  You can't imagine how helpful it is  to have almost two weeks of programming information available to pick and  chose what to record for the next few days.<br />I'd recommend the 30hr unit  over the 14hr if you can afford it.  After you start searching the two week  guide by program name, channel name, favorite channels, or by time of day  you'll quickly find plenty of things you want to record.<br />DirecTV viewers  will especially find this useful...it makes all those channels much more  manageable, and I prefer the TiVo on-screen guide to the one my DSS box  provided.<br />All of the TiVo menus are well thought out, attractive, and  *very* easy to use.  They include lots of cables - including S-Video, a  phone jack splitter (nice touch), and other goodies so almost anyone will  find everything they need to hook TiVo up right out of the box.  The User's  Guide is helpful too, for people who are a little less sure of themselves  around stuff like this.<br />I picked TiVo over ReplayTV because of their  close alliance with DirecTV (DirecTV has invested in them), and from  reading other people's comments in newsgroups and other forums.  After I  spent about half an hour going through the program guide and giving various  programs 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down' ratings (one of the cooler features  of TiVo), it came up with a whole bunch of other programs it suggested I  might like.<br />I'm probably sounding like a company spokesperson, but I'm  not, I'm just a *very* happy new user of TiVo!