Unfortunately Cory missed the mark. This isn't something TiVo did, this is something MacroVision did. It is part of MacroVision's license, which all the major recorder makers have. ReplayTV supported this before TiVo. The cable company DVRs also support it. It is pretty much impossible to find a VCR, DVR, DVD Recorder, etc, that *doesn't* support MacroVision. Which features they're required to support varies based on the type of system, but if it is a DVR being produced today you can be fairly certain it honors the same flags as TiVo.

TiVo doesn't have a practical choice. The choice is not to license MacroVision at all, or to license it and honor the licnese requirements. Not licensing it is business suicide. You *must* license it to legally support DVDs. And the only reason they didn't get into legal trouble over TiVoToGo, etc, is because they agreed to the license. MacroVision is basically a protection racket - if you buy the license the entertainment industry doesn't send the lawyers after you, at least not as readily.

So this isn't going away, and buying something else instead of TiVo isn't going to help. You're basically stuck building your own MythTV or FreeVo box if you want to avoid it.