MediaSat Max or Dual-S dual-tuner set-top box users can get SD recording for 7 Euros/month, or HD recording for 10 Euros/month (which includes the 9-Euro HD pack, so it's really 1 extra Euro). Two drives (LaCie Desktop Hard Disk 500Go and Western Digital Mybook II Essential 500Go) are guaranteed compatible by Canal+, but at least 15 more are unofficially compatible. Canal+ offers a 50-Euro rebate on the purchase of USB drives.

DVR functions are there (control live TV with 1-hour buffer, one-touch recording, guide-based programming) but none of the extras PVR owners are used to -- for example, no way to transfer recordings to an external device. And the Dual-S only offers HDMI output; no component output.

Longer versions of the article state that "TiVo offers a similar feature, TiVo Suggestions, but users must tell the system explicitly whether they like a program, and it learns and makes guesses about what else they could like based on that."

This is false. Any show you record automatically gets one thumbs-up, without user intervention. You can optionally improve TiVo's suggestions by manually rating shows from 1-3 thumbs up/down, but that's not required.

#12: KD, the 1G memory stick hasn't been at $100 CDN for ages! The first site I visited, CanadaComputers, had it for $69.99.

http://www.canadacomputers.com/index.php?do=ShowProduct&cmd=pd&pid=007355&cid=990.190