Of course, even that scenario assumes that you don't have yet another show scheduled to be recorded at the same time. For example, if I have a two-tuner PVR and I have one show that I want to record that airs from 8 to 9, one that airs 9 to 10, and another that airs 9 to 10, I can record all of those shows, but if I want to extend the recording of the 8 to 9 show by five minutes, then I have three things that I want to record from 9:00 to 9:05. I think newer TiVos finally added the ability to just start recording one of the 9 to 10 shows five minutes late, but it used to be that one show took priority and the other got cancelled. I don't know what MythTV does, but, at best, you're still missing 5 minutes of your scheduled recordings.

And it's not like I watch all that much TV; it's just that network executives seem to want to beat their opponents by airing shows with similar audiences at the same time rather than maximizing their ratings.