Philips HDR112 Tivo Digital Video Recorder
The most useful device I've bought in years
I bought mine about three and a half months ago.  Even my fiance, who groaned when I brought it home and told me she wanted no part of having more technology in the house, uses it regularly to record her favorite  shows like Ally McBeal and ER.  The following is my own Top 10 (in no  particular order) favorite features:<br />1. Pause Live TV: That's it.  Just  push pause and it'll pause up to a half-hour's worth of live TV.  Great for  answering the phone!  And when you take it off pause, you can fast forward  through the commercials until you catch up to the live broadcast!<br />2.  Point and Click Recording: See a show you want to record?  Just click on it  and tell TiVo to record it once or every time it comes on.  If the time  it's supposed to come on changes, TiVo will automatically correct for it  and record it at the new time!<br />3. Live Rewind and Instant Replay:  Miss  something?  Just hit instant replay for a quick jump back 8 seconds or hit  rewind and go back up to a half-hour!<br />4. the &quot;Live TV Guide&quot;: a  transparent screen that you can bring up while your watching TV to see what  else is on the channels you receive for up to two weeks from then.  Get  names of the shows and descriptions of the episodes!<br />5. TiVo's  Suggestions: Give shows up to three &quot;Thumbs Up&quot; or &quot;Thumbs  Down&quot; to tell it how much you like or don't like it.  TiVo will record  shows that it thinks you might like when it doesn't have anything else to  do.  (you can turn this feature on or off as you prefer!)<br />6. Software  Updates: During the time I've owned it, TiVo has updated the software  during one of the nightly calls to add a bunch of new features and plans to  continue to provide this service so that your TiVo never becomes  obsolete.<br />7. Price: The cost for the service is about $10 a month, $100 a  year and $199 for a lifetime subscription.  The price of TiVo with lifetime  subscription comes out to the same $699 that ReplayTV is asking for their  box and it's &quot;Free&quot; service.<br />8. TiVolution Magazine: There's  even an area in the menu where they put together different themes of shows  coming up so you can see things you might not have known where going to be  broadcast.  Some recent themes included &quot;Spotlight on Michael J.  Fox&quot; and &quot;Just for Kids!&quot;<br />9. Different Recording Levels:  you have four recording levels to choose from (I think ReplayTV has three).   Basic gives you 14 or so hours of recording and Best gives you a couple  hours of recording.  Medium (just above basic) is great for most everything  and will give you about 9 hours of recording time.  You might want to use  the next one up (about 6 hrs. recording time) for action shows like  sporting events.<br />10. Great Customer Service: The staff at Tivo has always  been extremely pleasant and helpful with any questions I had.  I've talked  to them by phone (they have an 800 number) and by e-mail.  They also  encourage customers to send them suggestions for future software updates!   What features would you like to see added?  Send them an e-mail and let  them know!  Isn't that nice?<br />Anyhow - I'm not saying that ReplayTV is  bad.  I haven't even tried one personally, although I've read a number of  reviews from people who said the TV listings weren't always up to date or  that the remote was a little hard to use (TiVo's remote is great!).  My  experience with TiVo has been top notch - I strongly recommend this as a  purchase to anyone who is interested.  Be warned: Now that I know TiVo will  have things I want to watch ready for me when I want to watch them, I do  find myself watching more TV!  But at least I don't have to set up my  schedule around my favorite programs - they'll be there when I can fit some  TV time into my schedule!