ReplayTV RTV4516 Digital Video Recorder
Great for a moderate TV watcher, with cutting edge wants
First off, I was going to go with TIVO until I found this unit.  Open box with rebate along with it made it too irresistabel to pass up.  Plus the subcription fee is only 9.99, much cheaper then TIVO when you think about having for a year.  I was also drawn to this model becuase of the ethernet port and digital out.  THe only ones to have this when I purchased it.  Let me tell you, setting it up was a bit of a hastle, First I plugged it my ethernet cable in and couldn't get it to recognize, after about 30 minutes i tried it with the phone line, here it dialed out and finally I was able to set it use the ethernet port.  I think mine had this becuase it used phone jack before when it was a display model.  Ohh well, my only other gripe is that I use this DirecTv and well it does not get any of the pay-per-view listings or sport listings, this is more on part of ReplayTv service offering then with the actual player, still a major gripe on my part.  But the listings are easy to navigate, to find movies it's great, everything is so simple to understand that my GF could use it with out my instructions.  I've seen tivo and really like ReplayTv's setup.  Also the best feature is really the commerical advance, you would think it wouldn't make a big deal if you just had to fast forward it manually, but with just a quick skip of a second and your back to watching the show that just left for commerical break, no work from you.  Obviously this feature is only avaiable on a recorded show. But now when I watch a tv program, commericals do bother me now.  It really spoils you.  Why it's not a 5 is becuase of the listing problem wtih direcTv.  Also, the Digital out will not get you a 5.1 sound output.  Beucase there is no digital in, and you can't receive a digital sound over coaxial cable w/o inputting it first to into a digital receiver, you can't get a true digital signal.  I'm really not sure why they even put this option in.  Good for the price and the menu is really slick!