Highlights include the following:

• The ability to extend a recording by a few minutes at either the beginning or the end of a show. Now you won't miss the stunning conclusion of a show that runs a few minutes past its on-the-hour end time, or the extra innings or overtime of a game.
  
  
• Replay Zone-like functionality. TiVo users can now instruct the box to record programs based on keywords. For example, you can program the box to record all programs associated with the name of a favorite actor or sports team. TiVo searches the program guide for keyword matches to record. Unfortunately, the program guide can be spotty. We set up a wish list based on the New England Patriots using the keyword "Patriots." Nothing recorded. Changing the keyword to "New England Patriots," however, picked up the "New England Tailgate Report." At least it was about the Patriots. It's not perfect, but it's a nice feature.
  
  
• Better control over what gets recorded. Selecting the Season Pass feature for a particular show now lets users determine whether to record first-run showings only, or both first-runs and repeats. Users also can specify how many episodes of a current show to keep. Again, a useful function in the abstract, but the implementation is imperfect. Many sports and other programs show up as reruns in the programming guide that TiVo uses to decide what to record. Thus, the DSR6000 did not record a number of live games, even though they were obviously first-run broadcasts.
  
  
• The ability to limit the number of episodes recorded. This is very useful, especially if you've used the Season Pass feature to record every episode of a show. However, TiVo doesn't delete older recorded episodes as instructed. Instead, it flags them for delete within 12 to 24 hours. That means the DSR6000 still can get clogged up with old episodes.

In addition to the $199 hardware fee (this can change periodically), users will have to cough up service subscription fee of $12.95 a month or a $249 lifetime fee.