I have no axe to grind tivo vs Sky+......

Differences appeared to be

Tivo record 1 Sky channel, Sky+ record 1 watch another (1 for Sky+)

Sky+ straight digital to digital Tivo is Digital to Anaolg to Digital (plus Analog to Digital again if want to archive to DVD Recorder) (2 for Sky+)

If no sub for Tivo = slightly hoopy VCR, No sub for Sky+ = standard single channel decoder with no recording (1 for Tivo)

Do not know about DRM restrictions

Sky when I left the Uk in Decemebr was offering free sub if took movie or sports channels.

Sky+ hacking upgrades poor (1 for Tivo)

So Sky+ good if you had anything other than the basic Sky package and let us not forget with the raft of channels available in the UK there was often cursing time when you might want to record one Sky channel and record another....

I think here there might be an issue for Sky as the stand alone HDD/DVD combos are getting better. Panasonic has released in the UK a 400GB HDD DVD combo which will get here (eventually ) and if it has Gemstar (or some other) guide data (do you have to pay for that here or does it comes free with the HDD/DVD boxes ) Sky may have to consider a cheap low sub box to get market share.

Lets face it if a HDD/DVD box could have free guide data for a month in advance, record to hard disk, edit the content to trim adverts, archive to DVD with menus and chapters all without any digital/analog/digital conversion and all for under $800 I would be tempted to ditch my UK Tivo with all the attendant time spend farking around under the bonnet to get it to work with FTA etc.. so bring it on panasonic etc and let us see some real competition!!!!

In reality the biggest piss off is NZ TV stations cannot seem to start and stop programs within the hour or even within 10 minutes of their scheduled times... bring back decent TV controllers and slap channels for not running to time - come back Mussolini all is forgiven!