[pyotr]

We finally did get it all set up and the DVR is actually quite a time saver, potentially a money saver too. Whereas before whenever my son wanted to sit and watch something on TV, it was a PITA to get him off the couch - with the DVR I can now just tell him, I'm recording it - I push the red record button on the remote - and he now has no excuse for sitting on his butt watching TV. Also, we no longer need watch anything in real time - by delaying any viewing til at least 30minutes later, we save time by being able to skip through all commercials. Since I'm such a advertising-to-kids hater - this DVR-delayed viewing system is a godsend.

The main things we watch are sporting events like NFL games or documentaries. My daughter loves Noggin. I've found that whenever they have the gimmes at BJ's or whatever, I can now tell them - we'll record it when it comes on digital cable and they promptly quiet down. I've set our DVR to record all occurrences of Mr.Rogers neighborhood, Blue's Clues, Benny Hill and Twilight Zone - awesome. I can prevent my kids watching commercials, and I can save ~15minutes per hour of typical viewing by fast-forwarding through them. Best of all, with the dual tuner on the provided DVR, whenever my kids are watching something else, I can simply flip through the on-screen menu and find what I wanted to watch and set the DVR to record it to watch later. By being able to fast forward through programs, I find that I don't waste as much time glued to TV like a zombie, rather I use it to gather information quickly by scanning, then stop it when something else comes up. I like the on-screen live programming guide which I can scan through fast and the search function - I could find a movie I wanted to record like Raising Arizona and set the DVR to record it whenever it comes on in the future. I've set my machine to record the upcoming new Amazing Race, the entire series with no repeats, a very convenient DVR feature.

On the digital channel line up, channels that I've become addicted to are: Free On Demand - especially the A&E and Golfchannel stuff, I love CNBC, BloombergTV, TMC and AMC. I predict that I will no longer need to rent movies from netflix or local video stores. I've got probably around 300 real channels plus a bunch of junk channels and music only stuff, about 1000 channels in all. Overall, the $100/month might not be such a bad deal afterall. But if it weren't for a bored grandparent at home, I'd probably live happily without it.