RCA DWD490RE DIRECTV/UltimateTV ReceiverSee Restrictions)
Slow user interface is it's biggest problem...
UltimateTVs single biggest problem is a slow and clumsy interface. Tasks that should require one well-designed screen use 2 or 3 clumsier ones.  Response on some button presses and moving from one screen to another can take several seconds making many simple tasks painfully slow. I've come to hate deleting shows after watching them because it take so long, about 15 seconds to Tivos 5 thanks to UltimateTVs slow response and excessive screens (the last one simply has one button and text that tells you to press it).  OTOH other screens are cluttered with buttons, text fields and checkboxes often arranged in a pretty-looking but functionally haphazard order that makes it unclear which combinations of up/down/left/right arrows will take you from point A to point B. Search screens contain text boxes at the bottom that you have to schlep through other widgets to select, then schlep back through to reach the &quot;done&quot; or equivalent button.  By comparison Tivo screens are quick, clean, intuitively laid out, and the &quot;done&quot; action on a screen can be preformed with one or two button presses no matter where on the screen you happen to be.<br />The user interface is UltimateTVs primary failing, and a sufficient reason to avoid it even if it did everything Tivo did. It doesn't though. It only allows category searches or text searches of the title or description (which can find actors but only the handful listed in the description) - no ability to save searches beyond recalling one of the last 6-8 you did, and no ability to automatically record shows that match searches. Tivo can search for actors that aren't listed in show descriptions, directors, finer-grained categories, can filter text/actor/director searches by show category, save as many searches as you want, optionally automatically record shows that match whichever searches you want, and list shows matching all saved searches with one command.<br />UltimateTV does a serviceable job letting you manage upcoming recordings, but it's not as good as Tivo. Both list upcoming recordings, and shows that won't be recorded because of a conflict. But for repeating recordings UltimateTVs list is incomplete, only listing the next episode of each series. Tivos to-do list shows all the episodes in it's guide it will record and it's recording history lists shows what won't be recorded for any reason (someone cancelled it, you changed it's priority, etc).  Tivo also keeps a 2-week history of past shows that weren't recorded or were deleted and why.  UltimateTV only shows upcoming recordings cancelled due to conflicts, and doesn't keep any history of deletions or cancelled past recordings.<br />Tivo will let you cancel an upcoming episode of a series or force a conflict-losing episode to be recorded without changing the priority of the whole series. UltimateTVs &quot;resolve this conflict&quot; can only rearrange the priority of a whole series, not individual showings of a series.<br />In fact UltimateTV gives you little control over priorities at all. Though &quot;resolve this conflict&quot; seems to change the priorities among the three shows involved in the conflict, there is nowhere to see what a shows priority is in relation to all other shows, nor is there any way to specifically change a shows priority.  Tivo allows you to see the priorities of all season passes and automatically recorded searches, and give every show the specific priority you want it to have. Combined with Tivos ability to recognize and not repeatedly record most duplicate shows (something UltimateTV doesn't do) this is a big advantage with shows that are on several times a week. Giving them lower priorities lets Tivo automatically schedule them around other shows they might conflict with.<br />UltimateTVs only unique bragging right, WebTV, isn't worth bragging about. Connecting to the web is slow, the TVs low resolution can't display as much information as even a basic 15 inch monitor, and navigating web pageswith only a short-range infrared keyboard and no mouse is a painful experience. UltimateTV ads mention &quot;hundreds of hours&quot; of interactive shows (though you only get 3 hours/month of internat access to play with unless you pay for more) but I've found only a few shows I watch offer any interactive features and of those none have content worth looking at at all, and certainly not worth suffering through UltimateTVs cumbersome navigation and low resolution web display.  Microsoft has been trying to push internet-on-TV for years with WebTV, and it hasn't caught on. There's a reason for that.<br />UltimateTVs other one-time advantage over Tivo, dual tuners, is gone. Tivos latest software update activates the second tuner so it too can record two shows at once. UltimateTV offers built in PIP, something Tivo doesn't, but that advantage is questionable. Tivo can switch between tuners with one button (UTV requires 2-4), and there's not much need to watch two things at once when you can record them both then watch them sequentially, or pause one show then switch to the other and give it your full attention (and pause, rewind, fastforward, etc as much as you like) without having it obscured by, and trying to keep your eye on, a PIP window. PIP may be invaluable for watching two live shows with regular TV, but on a dual-tuner PVR it's little more than a techno-novelty. I much prefer being able to pause and quickly switch between two shows, full-screen, something Tivo does much better.<br />UltimateTV has a few less significant advantages over Tivo that IMO aren't worth mentioning here as I don't feel they outweigh the downsides (and Tivo has additional advantages over UltimateTV that I haven't mentioned either). There's more detailed information elsewhere on the web. Avsforum.com and pvrcompare.com might be good starting points. <br />UltimateTV is a decent first attempt at a PVR, but shows the flaws you'd expect in a product from a company that's only been at this for less than a year (and often has trouble realizing that not every electronic appliance is well suited to the goals they have and the design approaches they'd prefer to take). Tivo has been doing it since 1999 and is one of the founders of the PVR market. The difference in experience shows.