Not hackable at all so far and quite possibly will never be hackable. Unlike the TiVo it doesn't run Linux and all the content remains encrypted on the hard disk. So it is a fairly hard cookie to crack.

You can upgrade the hard drive yourself pretty easily, but that is about it. So far I have resisted upgrading, the 40GB drive it comes with is just about big enough for us.

It is very good though, I really couldn't watch TV without it now. It works well, not often missing the beginning or end of shows and not crashing any more frequently than any other Sky box I have used (in fact probably less frequently).

All the recording selection works using the existing EPG, if you have used reminders on an normal Sky box you pretty much know how Sky+ works already.

Being able to record two channels while watching a recording is cool. That is something that a UK TiVo can't do.

You must be aware though that it isn't as clever as TiVo. The EPG data is covers seven days and all it has in the way of intelligence is:

- it knows when programmes change time at the last moment (assuming the broadcaster sends the right data)
- it has series links, so that you can record a whole series (again this relies on the broadcaster sending the series data, some like Paramount and all the Discovery channels still don't do series links)

So no clever TiVo stuff, which is a shame. I happily trade broadcast quality recordings and dual record for the TiVo stuff. If there was a TiVo with two Sky tuners I imagine I would have the TiVo, but that doesn't look likely to ever happen.