Greg,

Sounds like the Tivo has implemented some neat features lately. I own a couple of ReplayTV 5040 units which are similiar to TIVO.

They are both connected to my home network. From one ReplayTV unit, I can browse the other unit's saved directory and watch any saved shows directly from the other unit.

The ReplayTV units also support sharing recorded shows over the internet. I can send a recorded show to any ReplayTV unit worldwide. Tested this out with friends and it works great. Transfer time is slow and usually happens overnight.

Some computer geeks have written a software program that emulates a networked ReplayTV with my computer. My computer can then attach to any of my Replay units and download the MPG movie files down to my pc. Once on my pc, I can then burn them to a DVD.

Lastly is the commercial skip feature of the ReplayTV. It has some smart abilities to detect when the commerical break starts and when the commercials are over. It doesn't work 100% of the time perfectly but does a great job on most shows. It just skips right over the commercial breaks and many times you don't realize that you passed some commericals up.

Also did the Hard drive hack as well. Took my 40 gig hard drive out and installed a 200 gig drive.

Regardless of what unit is being used (TIVO or ReplayTV), my wife and I both agree that it would be hard to watch TV without one now.