Disappointing feature set -- DirecTV Plus HD DVR -- Help?

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I used to have an Ultimate TV DVR from Microsoft, but a) it died, and b) Microsoft abandoned that product line a long time ago. Rather than trying to repair it, I got a new HD DVR from DirecTV. This is their high end model (HR-20,I think) -- it's popular: there's a waiting list to get it. To my surprise, it lacked a lot of the features that the 5 year old, obsolete Ultimate TV had: Picture-In-Picture: The darn thing has two tuners plus the recorded programs -- why doesn't it have a PIP feature?It already knows how to shrink the picture down,because it gives you a small picture while displaying a menu or a guide.It should have PIP. True 30 second skip: Instead of a true 30 second skip, it has a 30 second "advance" -- essentially a fast forward for 30 seconds of recorded programs. I want a real, instantaneous 30 second skip. Is there a hack to get this? AutoTune the DVR: I have a regular DirecTV receiver in the bedroom, and instead of a "record" feature, it has an "autotune" feature, which instructs the receiver to tune to a specified channel at a specified time. Autotune does not exist in the DVR -- your only option is to record.But sometimes, I just want the darn thing to autotune.Is there any way to get that to work on the DVR? Fair-to-Poor Ergonomics: It takes an awful lot of button presses to do basic things, like set up to record a series. No Search By Date: If I want to schedule a program 10 days from now, I have to scroll through 10 days on the program guide -- I can't jump to a specified date & time. Fair-to-Poor Search: A title search for "Red"would not find "Little Red Riding Hood". I'm sure I'll manage, but if anyone has ideas about how to get around these shortcomings, I'd love to hear from you. Thanks in advance.