My boss bought one from the states in 2006. He's been going on and on about it ever since... I finally broke down and bought one when it came to Future Shop in November... I love this thing!
I literally spent about 15-20 minutes setting it up the first day (2 months ago), and I haven't missed a Suns' game or Flames or Packers since. It just automatically records them all for me - even new episodes of House and 24 etc...
It knows to only grab new episodes too, so no reruns! I can use it to pause/rewind live TV (which makes watching a hockey game in the evening even more manageable when the phone rings).
The best part is I don't have to babysit the thing. I have not touched one setting since I bought it in November. I don't have to go and set up new record times and channels etc - it downloads a new guide every 2 nights from Star Choice (my service provider) and then records everything based on what i told it to two months ago.
My boss' neighbour bought one of the Shaw PVRs and said he hasn't even touched it. He can't be bothered having to go in and record everything all the time - he replaced it with a
tivo.
(the
tivo service is about 10 bucks a month, btw - but well worth it for me)