Philips DSR6000R DIRECTV Receiver with TiVo Service
revolutionary hardware, so-so software
This is one of those purchases that will change your (tv viewing) life.  This package arrived very quickly and was easy to set-up .... about 30 minutes including the call to start the service.  Basic service started immediately, but some features began the next day because they needed the daily TiVo dial-update (which takes place at 4:22 am or some such thing).<br /><br />The hardware is incredible.  We will never watch television the same way!  We are constantly getting up to retrieve our two-year old from climbing furniture or rescuing cat from same.  That used to mean one or both of us missed a lot of the shows we were purportedly watching.  Also, we would have several VHS tapes we'd be trying to keep track of -- one with kids' shows, one halfway through with shows we'd recorded while on vacation, a couple with shows we'd recorded but weren't sure if we'd watched them already or not.  Nothing labelled because all of it was temporary.<br /><br />That is over.  With the 30-minute buffer, if we need to do something fast we just get up and go (most useful for the toddler climbing furniture scenario) and when we come back we press the Reverse button and catch up with what we've missed.  Or, if the cat is being chased, we can take the time to Pause the show before we jump up.  And the instant replay feature has already gotten a lot of use at our house now that the NCAA basketball season has begun.  IT'S AWESOME.  We've also set up the system to record our favorite shows during the week, so now we don't even worry about what day or time it is.  Setting up to record a single show is fairly standard; setting the system up to record a show whenever it's on is *very* easy -- no plugging in days and dates and times -- just find the show alphabetically, highlight it, and press the Select button (though this has been problematic with some cable shows, which replay shows multiple times).  Then we sit down when we are ready, check the Now Playing list (which shows what has already been recorded for you), and watch whatever we want to watch.  And we skip right past all the commercials.  It's very liberating.<br /><br />The TiVo layout of the simulated keyboard (for entering keywords) is better than on DirecTV.<br />On the down side,  we'd had an RCA DirecTV receiver before this and preferred their online software and the remote.  Well, *I* preferred that remote.  My husband likes the Philips remote because it is smaller.  I contend that this remote is more confusing -- with fewer buttons to work with, sometimes you have to go through a series of menus to find a feature instead of just pushing one button.  As with other software differences between the two systems, sometimes it is just a matter of taste.  But sometimes they are easily quantifiable; for example, with DirecTV we could define 5 user lists and could access these lists with one button -- when I was looking for kids' shows I pressed a couple of buttons and then kids shows I had selected were the only ones that showed up on the grid.  My personal list had movie channels and news shows, my husband's had a lot of sports and travel shows, etc.  TiVo gives you ONE list to customize.  Yikes.  Also, menus are not wrap-around.  And sometimes buttons are context-dependent, so they do one thing in one type of menu but something else if you're watching live tv, for example.  In addition, it would be nice to have some tally of what amount of time is already stored.  In other words, the software needs work.  This is one of those times when you wish a focus group *had* been brought in.<br />We tried having the system record things based on what it thought we would like, but found some truly odd shows using up our 35-hour drive, and so have turned that feature off for now.  Overall, the system is very powerful but the user interface is clunky.  That isn't a dealbreaker, but it *is* curious.<br /><br />I give this receiver 4 stars: 5 for the TiVo service, 3 for the TiVo 2.0 software.  The monthly(or, if you choose, one-time) fee for TiVo service is quite reasonable.  We have been using this component for about a month and, with some slight reservations about software, think it's fantastic.<br /><br />Highly recommended.e is quite reasonable.  We have been using this component for about a month and, with some slight reservations about software, think it's fantastic.  Highly recommended.