It's OK, you can slag off Tivo as much as you like!

Man, I love that phrase - "Slag off". Could I become an honorary Brit 3 or 4 weeks a year so I can turn phrases like that?? (Hmmm. What do I have up my sleeve that would get me a Gong?)

It was bit of a coin toss for me when I got a Tivo SA (over a Replay). I certainly would have liked the commercial skip feature of the Replay. I will honestly say, though, that the drawn-out, sordid spectacle of the U.S. (Digital River) eStore made me wonder whether SonicBLUE was up to the task of managing their business and delivering products to customers on a continuing basis (No reflection on Youse Guys in Cambridge). That was one factor. Another, more important factor that tilted me to Tivo, though, was the "installed base" of Tivo hacks, engendered in part by the more accessible Linux underpinnings (much as you see with 3rd-party activity here).

I wonder. What do you see as the opportunities for third-party hack activity in the Replay world given the current (less familiar) OS underpinnings? Or is this question a dead-end? Have you perhaps been tasked to completely rewrite Replay???

To the original point (the sickbed grouse!) I'll say that I saw the promotion (and got my Tivo sticker in the mail) and that I have no interest in upgrading (my tivonet is on the way!). OTOH, I'm not going to give Tivo grief for adding improvements to the product and promoting it. I would recommend (and already have recommended) Tivo to some friends, especially a few friends who also travel for work and have a hard time connecting with the small amount of TV that they'd like to watch.