The fact is that the RTV works and it's already activated (lifetime.) There's just that one annoyance. If I end up having to live with it I guess I will (I'll just keep trying to make it better till one of us dies )

I don't suffer from this particular annoynace, then again I have basic cable and not DirecTV. The thing is, *automatic* commercial skip (found on the RTV 5000 series) is, to me, the absolute killer app. And since it's been proven in court to be legal (or maybe it was not proven to be illegal, I forget) I don't think it's going to ever disappear from the RTV software (if it does, I'll be pissed.)

It's not like hitting a few 30-second skip buttons is hard (and using the Replay "ShowNav" is even easier) but for someone like me who's often just got TV on in the background, it's really great to be able to catch the daily sports talk show while I'm in my kitchen making dinner and not have to worry about pressing any remote buttons. The commercial skip is truly automatic and virtually bulletproof as long as the show is at least 10-15 minutes delayed (so it can reliably detect the commercial breaks.) I'm not sure there's another feature anyone could add to a PVR to make me want it over my RTV 5000, and it seems to me this will be the last PVR series ever to have commercial advance. So, just like my empeg, I'm gonna hope and pray this one lasts me forever.

Hmm, maybe I should have bought a "backup" RTV...