Both devices let you fast-forward through commercials (or whatever), but DirecTV adds a 30-second skip button right on the remote control. Tivo also has this feature... sort of. On Tivo the feature is disabled by default and you must activate it by pressing a certain sequences of buttons while a show is playing (it's Select-Play-Select-3-0-Select, if you're curious; Tivo does not promote this feature). If you do it right, you'll hear three dings, which means it's active. After that, Tivo's "jump" button becomes a 30-second skip. If your Tivo reboots for any reason (software update, power outage, crash, etc.) you'll need to re-active this feature. I am so used to this being active it throws me if I'm using someone else's Tivo and they don't have this activated.

Once Tivo's 30-second skip is active, it works great. In fact, it's slightly better than DirecTV's. Well, I suppose it is a matter of preference. Here's the difference: Tivo's skip is instantaneous. You press it and suddenly it's 30 seconds later. Press it four times and it's two minutes later. This means you can skip through commercials really fast.

On the other hand, DirecTV's 30-second skip actually fast-forwards through the time. It does it pretty quickly -- perhaps two seconds -- but you get a series of frames from the commercials you're skipping.

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