First of all, I have Direct TV for service. I also have Tivo which I love and bought as lifetime unit. I would like a recorder for another room and don't want to pay more for prescription.

I looked at the manual on line here posted by one of the nice members and it appears the only way you can record to the hard drive in advance is by keying in the beginning times and ending times, which would be a pain in the neck (compared to Tivo) but I know it doesn't cost anything, but in reading these posts it appears you may not be able to copy programs from any of the paid programming that I have subscribed to like HBO. Is that correct?

Is this unit a problem to use with Direct TV if you have their box hooked up to your tv?

As for copying programs that are currently on, I see it has a quick record feature, by pusing the record button multiple times for each 30 minute segment of tv. I currently have a Lite-on LVC 9016G dual dvd/vcr recorder hooked up with my Tivo and it has the same multiple push record button for recording from your tivo to a disk. The only problem is it seldom works and even if you push it 10 times, it will cut off just before the movie ends.

Needless to say this is madning, as how many times must you watch a movie to get it to record over to a disk. How reliable is this feature with the Phillips?

Well, starting with the reliability of Manual Timed Recordings (pressing REC), you're talking about recording to a HDD, which is ultra-reliable. Of course, there's also the timer programs for thing you know you want in advance. As you noted, this is a manual setup, unfortunately... timer to tune the receiver and parallel timer for the 3575 to record.

Since you've got satellite, your receiver or TIVO will have to feed the 3575 thru line input and many people report being able to record HBO and other similar stuff, but maybe not PPV/VOD stuff that costs extra?

Not sure if you've read this or not, but read Note 4 here (http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showpost.php?p=12298409&postcount=10) and the link to someone who uses the 3575 via line input from his STB.