UltimateTV is personal video recorder (PVR), DirecTV satellite tuner, and WebTV (internet access) combination. Two out of three ain't bad.

PVR Comments
First of all, I have no experience with Tivo. I do have a Panasonic Showstopper (Replay TV). The idea of paying Tivo $10 a month for the priviledge of them suggesting what I should watch was a no-go for me.

Two recording heads is a huge plus (one of the only criticisms I have with my 1 year old ReplayTV). This is becoming standard, but make sure whatever you buy it has this feature. One small drawback to this is it requires two cables/separate feeds into the console.

Recording options pretty good:

* Record program once (great when purchasing pay-per-view movies)
* Record program every week (record "The Bernie Mac Show" every Wednesday)
* Record only new programs (no repeats)
* Keep recording for X minutes after scheduled end of programs (a must for football games)
* Store the lastest 1,2,3... programs
* Store program indefinately
* Erase program when newer/different shows are recorded
* Schedule recording two weeks away

The only recording option this doesn't have that my ReplayTV has is recording a show on a particular day of the week (e.g., only want to see Oprah on Tuesdays).

Capacity is stated at 35 hours, and it's really 30+ hours. With my ReplayTV, 30 hours was really 10 hours at high resolution (sports), 15 hours at medium, then 30 hours at low resolution. The low resolution wasn't bad for most programs, but you would notice a difference if there was a lot of movement (e.g., water in the ocean, car explosions). Again, pleasantly surprised that UltimateTV records it all at high resolution.

DirecTV Comments
Satellite TV becoming wide-spread, so I don't have much enlightenment you probably don't already know. On screen programing guide is nice, though it's a little slow with this Sony receiver. PPV movies good to have, though $4 a movie a little on the high side. However, renting a movie from BlockBuster is now, what, $3.70. And the late fees I inevitably pay makes the effective rental price probably $4.50 - $5.00. I wonder how much of Block Buster's net profit can be attributed to late fees? But I digress...

WebTV Comments
I chose UltimateTV over DirecTV w/ Tivo because I reasoned with UltimateTV, my extra $10 a month got me an internet connection. If you have ever been exposed to a large bandwidth connection (e.g., cable modem at home or T1 line at work), you will hate, repeat, hate WebTV (or whatever they call it). Slow connection (56k modem in the satellite receiver) combined with the awkwardness of your TV being a computer monitor combined with no mouse will make you want to pull your hair out. Again, I still don't see where Tivo adds value with the $10 a month they charge, and I would still purchase an UltimateTV receiver, but do not think this will work as your ISP. And if you know what "ISP" means, then WebTV is NOT for you.

Hardware Comments
The remote was designed for channel surfing live TV. The mistake here is with the PVR feature, you will not be channel surfing anymore. Therefore, they should have made the PVR controls larger.

Making the keyboard a standard part of the purchase (for all that web surfing you will be doing) was a good idea. If I would have paid an extra $40 for it like they make you do with RCA's version of UltimateTV, I would have screamed.

Summary
The Personal Video Recorder (PVR) really does change the way you watch TV. It frustrated my wife at the beginning, but now that she understands how it works she loves this product. MicroSoft's entry into this market via UltimateTV is a good one. We have not had one problem in the four weeks we have used it (extensively).

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 150